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What's the Latest Development?
While the U.S. sorely lacks a national space agenda, China has recognized the development of space-based solar energy as essential to the betterment of its place in the world. According to the China Academy of Space Technology (C.A.S.T.), "the state has decided that power from outside the earth, such as solar power and the development of other space energy resources is to be China's future direction." In space-based solar power, China sees a sustainable energy source capable of supplying its blossoming economic industries.
What's the Big Idea?
Beyond feeding its economy, China sees the development of space-based energy technologies as important for "social development, disaster prevention and mitigation, and cultivating innovative talents through an increased space effort the likes of which haven't been seen since the Apollo program." In the list of technologies C.A.S.T. plans to develop, many can be used to benefit other kinds of space ambitions, suggesting that energy is but one of China's missions for the development of space.
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Over range of ADHD behavior, genes major force on reading achievement, environment on math
First study of its kind reveals complex interaction
Humans are not born as blank slates for nature to write on. Neither are they behaving on genes alone.
Research by Lee A. Thompson, chair of Case Western Reserve University’s Psychological Sciences Department, and colleagues found that the link between Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and academic performance involves a complex interaction of genes and environment.
Genetic influence was found to be greater on reading than for math, while shared environment (e.g., the home and/or school environment the twins shared) influenced math more so than reading. The researchers don’t know why.
Their study of twins, published in Psychological Science, Vol. 21, was the first to look simultaneously at the genetic and environmental influences on reading ability, mathematics ability, and the continuum of ADHD behavior.
“The majority of the twins used in the study don’t have ADHD,” Thompson said. “We are looking at the continuum of the behavioral symptoms of ADHD - looking at individual differences - not a disorder with an arbitrary cutoff.”
This type of continuum is a normal distribution or bell curve, with scores symmetrically distributed about the average and getting much less frequent the farther away a score is from the average. Disability is usually classified as the lower extreme on the normal distribution.
The symptoms of ADHD, according to Thompson, can be described with such a continuum, as can reading and mathematics ability. Only a small percent of individuals fall below the common medical cutoff between ability and disability.
For what we refer to as gifted or disabled, Thompson points out, “There is no difference in cause, just different expression of achievement.”
Thompson collaborated with Sara Hart, a graduate student at the Florida Center for Reading Research, and Stephen Petrill, a professor at the Ohio State University, in analyzing 271 pairs of ten-year-old identical and fraternal twins.
The twins were selected from the Western Reserve Reading and Mathematics Project, a study that began in 2002 with kindergarten and first grade-age twins and has collected data yearly about their math and reading ability.
The study focused on two ADHD symptoms: inattention and hyperactivity, which are viewed as extremes of their respective attention and activity continuums.
As part of the study, the mother of the twins rated each child on 18 items such as the child’s ability to listen when spoken to, play quietly, and sit still, to assess attention and activity levels. A researcher testing each twins’ mathematics and reading ability also rated the twins each year on their attention to tasks and level of hyperactivity.
The researchers assessed reading ability by evaluating the twins’ recognition and pronunciation of words and passage comprehension.
They measured the twins’ capacity for mathematics by focusing on the twin’s ability to solve problems, understanding of concepts, computational skills, and the number of computations completed in 3 minutes.
Researchers analyzed the data from three perspectives: one looked at the overall ADHD behavior, one at the level of attention, and at the activity level.
They then determined the similarities in genetic and environmental influence between ADHD symptoms and reading and between the symptoms and mathematics.
To do so, researchers looked at the variance and covariance of ADHD symptoms and academic ability. Variance measures the individual differences on a given trait within a population and covariance is a measure of how much two traits are related. These measures were broken down into identified components: additive genetic effects, shared environment and non-shared environment.
Using quantitative analysis of the components, the researchers found that there are some general genes that influence the symptoms of ADHD simultaneously with reading and mathematics ability and some genes that influence each specifically.
This study also found that both inattention and hyperactivity were related to academics.
“If we have this much overlap between genes that affect behaviors of ADHD and academic achievement,” Thompson said, “it gives validity to the relation of ADHD behaviors and poor academics.”
But genes are not everything, Thompson adds.
There are different approaches for interventions that can be taken based on the extent of environmental influence on ADHD behavior, reading ability, and mathematics ability across the entire continuum of expression.
Future research, the study notes, should focus on the underlying connection between ADHD symptoms and poor academic achievement in order to identify the influences that may alter these often co-occurring outcomes.
Additional authors include Erik Willcutt from the University of Colorado, Boulder; Christopher Schatschneider from Florida Center for Reading Research, Florida State University; Kirby Deater-Deckard from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; and Laurie E. Cutting from Vanderbilt University.
Funding for the study was provided by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and by the Department of Education. Sara Hart was additionally supported by the Lucile and Roland Kennedy Scholarship Fund in Human Ecology from the Ohio State University and the P.E.O. Scholar Award.
Reference: S Hart et al. Exploring How Symptoms of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Are Related to Reading and Mathematics Performance: General Genes, General Environments. Psychological Science. DIO:10.1177/0956797610386617 (2010).
Contact: Lee A. Thompson, Case Western Reserve University, [email protected]
Release prepared by Sarah Gavac, Case Western Reserve University
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How Much Does the Ocean Weigh?
Water does weigh something; about 8.3 pounds per gallon. In research published this week, scientists from the National Oceanography Center and Newcastle University have proposed an idea that will assess the mass of the world ocean by weighing it at a single point. But there is a catch. Global sea level is currently rising at about 3 mm per year, but predictions of rise over the century vary from 30 cm to over a meter. There are two ways global sea level can increase. The water in the oceans can warm and expand, leading to the same weight of water taking up more space. In other words water density can vary which must be taken into account. Alternatively, more water added to the ocean from melting of land ice will increase the ocean’s weight.
The National Oceanography Centre’s Prof Christopher Hughes said: “We have shown that making accurate measurements of the changing pressure at a single point in the Pacific Ocean will indicate the mass of the world ocean. And we know where to place such an instrument — the central tropical Pacific where the deep ocean is at its quietest. This pressure gauge needs to be located away from land and oceanic variability. The principle is rather like watching your bath fill: you don’t look near the taps, where all you can see is splashing and swirling, you look at the other end where the rise is slow and steady.”
By a lucky chance, pressure measurements have been made in the Pacific Ocean since 2001, as part of the U.S. National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program, which focuses on detecting the small pressure fluctuations produced by the deep ocean waves that become tsunamis at the coast.
From these measurements, the team including Dr Rory Bingham, based in the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at Newcastle University, have been able to show that a net 6 trillion tonnes of water enters the ocean between late March and late September each year, enough to raise sea level by 1.7 cm, and leaves the ocean in the following six months.
Prof Hughes: “Of course, what we are most interested in is how much water accumulates in the ocean each year, and this is where we currently have a problem. While present instruments are able to measure pressure variations very accurately, they have a problem with long term trends, producing false outcomes.”
By knowing the weight an estimate of how much the ocean in increasing would be known which would be related to how much global warming is occurring.
“This is a challenging goal. The pressure changes are smaller than the background pressure by a factor of about 10 million, and the deep ocean is a hostile environment for mechanical components with erosion and high pressures. However, there are many other measurement systems with this kind of accuracy and there is no reason, in principle, why someone with a new idea and a fresh approach could not achieve this.
Article appearing courtesy Environmental News Network.
|Tags: oceanic variability oceanography pacific ocean pressure fluctuations sea level water density||[ Permalink ]|
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Throughout the history of the United States, equality for all people has been fought for and won time and time again. Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence ”that all men are created equal,” and over time equal rights have been gradually extended to different groups of people. However, equality has never been achieved without heated debate, despite our country’s founding principle that all people are created equal in the first place.
The language used to seek equality has remained familiar over time. Posters demanding equal rights (pictured) contain messages we have all seen or heard. One of my theories is that since the human life span is finite, the message of equality has to be relearned by each generation as it comes to realize that more work needs to be done.
If humans lived longer, would full equality across racial and gender lines have been acquired by now? Ask yourself: Would women suffragists from the 1920s, who so vehemently demanded the right to vote, think it was fine for African Americans to be denied this same right? It depends. My theory also includes the caveat that empathy for others does not always translate into citizens banding together for the greater good. Then again, the social evolution of the United States is progressing. This progression is the reason the language and message of equality remains relevant.
Equality is a shared goal that not everyone enjoys. Racial intolerance for one group is no different than bigotry for another. Denying equality for a particular group plays into the kind of discriminatory trap that makes no sense if one applies the very same principles of equality indiscriminately. All people are created equal, period.
The Declaration of Independence was written with the hope of possibility. Think about it—the signers of this document were declaring a new and independent country! Jefferson’s words made a statement about human rights that became the foundation for a country unlike any other in the world. The signers never anticipated that their vision would eventually embrace so many different kinds of people, but that is the beauty of it. The Declaration was groundbreaking because it provided a foundation of principles and moral standards that have endured to modern times and that accommodate human evolution and its capacity for acceptance.
Stepping back and viewing all these posters as a whole, one could come to two conclusions. First: the human race does not learn from history. Second: humans repeat the same mistakes over and over. However, I believe that the preservation and repurposing of the messages of protest in all their different forms are evidence that we do learn from history, and that we apply these tactics when the moment calls for them.
Similar to my previous posts on Race-Based Comedy and Race in Advertising, this post is a small glimpse into a bigger topic that welcomes further discussion. These subjects would be commonplace in a college syllabus, but is there any reason why we shouldn’t introduce dialogue about such issues into our daily lives? At the dinner table, instead of asking your kids how their day was at school and receiving a one-word answer, try bringing up issues that are important to you. If you care about some form of injustice and you voice your opinion honestly, your kids may sense the gravity of the conversation and weigh in with something just as meaningful.
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The Facts About the Proposed ODEC Power Plant
Old Dominion Electric Cooperative (ODEC) has proposed building a 1,500 megawatt, coal-fired power plant—the Cypress Creek Power Station—in Dendron in Surry County, Va., or on an alternative site in neighboring Sussex County, Virginia. If built, the plant would be the largest coal-fired power plant in the Commonwealth. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) is very concerned that the plant will add significant additional pollution to an already polluted Chesapeake Bay, threaten human health, and exacerbate climate change and sea level rise in the Chesapeake Bay region.
Nitrogen Pollution—More Will Hurt the Bay
A primary goal of the federal-state Chesapeake Bay cleanup is reducing nitrogen pollution. The Dendron plant would add 1.9 million more pounds of nitrogen pollution* to the air above the Chesapeake Bay and surrounding lands. Air modeling predicts that 118 tons of this nitrogen—the equivalent of an additional major sewage treatment plant—will be deposited directly onto the Chesapeake Bay watershed, a system already so plagued by excess nitrogen pollution that the Bay is on the Environmental Protection Agency's official "dirty waters list." Nitrogen pollution promotes excess algae growth in the Bay that clouds the water, stunts underwater grasses, and robs the water of oxygen vital to fish, crabs, and oysters. Nitrogen pollution is a chief cause of the massive "dead zones" that appear annually in the Bay.
Mercury—A Toxic Threat to People and Wildlife
A primary goal of the federal-state Chesapeake Bay cleanup is a Bay free of toxic chemicals. The Dendron plant would release 44 pounds of mercury* into the air. Already, approximately 1,300 miles of Virginia rivers and nearly 40,000 acres of Virginia lakes are contaminated by mercury, including the Meherrin River, parts of the Nottoway, Blackwater, Mattaponi, and Pamunkey rivers, Dragon Run, Lake Drummond, Lake Whitehurst, Lake Trashmore, Chickahominy Lake, and Harrison Lake. All are within a 60-mile radius of the proposed Dendron site, the area of greatest mercury fallout. Mercury is toxic to humans, especially fetuses, infants, children, and pregnant women. Mercury affects learning ability, language, motor skills and, at high levels, causes permanent brain damage.
Nitrogen Oxides—More Smog, More Health Problems
Ozone smog and soot released by coal-fired power plants are associated with increased risk of asthma, heart and respiratory problems, increased absences from school and work, increased hospitalizations, increased medication, and increased risk of premature death. The Dendron plant would release 6.2 million pounds of nitrogen dioxide* (NOx); this is 8.5 times more NOx pollution than now produced by the entire County of Surry.
NOx is a major component of ground level ozone (smog). NOx pollution from the power plant would threaten air quality in Surry County and worsen existing smog problems in Hampton Roads and Richmond, two regions soon to be designated by EPA as unhealthy for smog. According to EPA, power plants are the second-largest source of NOx in the atmosphere; in Virginia, power plants produce 18 percent of the annual airborne NOx pollution. Air modeling predicts the Dendron plant will cause more than 264 tons of sulfur and 286 tons of soot to settle onto the Chesapeake Bay watershed, contributing to hazy air, health concerns, and acid rain.
Greenhouse Gases—Worsening Climate Change, Sea Level Rise
Climate change caused by excess greenhouse gases will worsen sea-level rise in the Chesapeake Bay region, the second-most vulnerable area in the United States to sea level rise. This poses significant threats to the region's environment, economy, and military. The Dendron plant would release 11.7 million tons of carbon dioxide* into the air each year, adding more greenhouse gases to the earth's atmosphere and exacerbating climate change problems. Recent scientific studies suggest that increased carbon dioxide levels in the Chesapeake Bay may increase the acidity of Bay waters and seriously threaten restoration of the native oyster. Coal-fired power plants are among the worst greenhouse gas polluters. To date, no technology exists to feasibly capture and contain carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants (carbon sequestration).
Alternatives to a New Coal-Fired Power Plant Are Available
Energy Efficiency and Conservation—A 10 percent reduction in energy through efficiency and conservation will reduce Virginia's 2016 estimated power shortfall by 97 percent; a 14 percent reduction in energy through efficiency and conservation will eliminate all shortfalls and produce an excess 1,055 megawatts of electricity.** Renewable Energy—Virginia has enough untapped renewable energy resources, including wind, tidal, solar, biomass, municipal solid waste, and others, to develop nearly 44,000 megawatts of electricity.**
* ODEC-provided estimates as of February, 2010
** 2007 Virginia Energy Plan
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6A LITERATURE INFORMATION
SSR Book: Students are required to have an SSR (Sustained Silent Reading) book with them at all times in every class. This book can be any book chosen by the student, and does not have to be from the 6th grade book list. Students need to have this book with then at all times in case students have any free time after a test or at the end of a lesson. Students who do not have an SSR book are considered unprepared for class.
Students are expected to read independently and complete mini-projects on the books that they read throughout the school year. Sixth grade students are required to read at least 18 books in the 2011-2012 school year. An explanation of the 18 Book Standard will occur in the first week of school in the reading class of all students.
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|Bangladesh Table of Contents
Christianity's first contact with the Indian subcontinent is attributed to the Apostle Thomas, who is said to have preached in southern India. Although Jesuit priests were active at the Mughal courts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the first Roman Catholic settlements in what became Bangladesh appear to have been established by the Portuguese, coming from their center in Goa on the west coast of India. During the sixteenth century the Portuguese settled in the vicinity of Chittagong, where they were active in piracy and slave trading. In the seventeenth century some Portuguese moved to Dhaka.
Serious Protestant missionary efforts began only in the first half of the nineteenth century. Baptist missionary activities beginning in 1816, the Anglican Oxford Mission, and others worked mainly among the tribal peoples of the Low Hills in the northern part of Mymensingh and Sylhet regions. Many of the Christian churches, schools, and hospitals were initially set up to serve the European community. They subsequently became centers of conversion activities, particularly among the lower caste Hindus.
The Ministry of Religious Affairs provided assistance and support to the Christian institutions in the country. In the late 1980s, the government was not imposing any restrictions on the legitimate religious activities of the missions and the communities. Mission schools and hospitals were well attended and were used by members of all religions. The Christian community usually enjoyed better opportunities for education and a better standard of living. In the late 1980s, Christianity had about 600,000 adherents, mainly Roman Catholic, and their numbers were growing rapidly.
Source: U.S. Library of Congress
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by Dr. Ellen R. Jordan
Texas A&M Extension
COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The use of waste milk to feed calves is a common practice on many dairy farms, but it comes with risk. Along with the milk, calves may ingest pathogens that cause disease (mycoplasma, salmonella and Johne’s Disease, etc.).
To minimize the risk, pasteurize the waste milk. Mycobacterium paratuberculosis, the pathogen caused Johne’s Disease, is not easily destroyed. However, researchers at the National Animal Disease Center in Ames, Iowa and at other locations have shown that pasteurization can destroy it and other pathogens provided the milk is heated to the correct temperature and held for a specified time.
There are two general types of on-farm pasteurizers available. The first type is frequently referred to as a batch pasteurizer. Milk is put into this pasteurizer, heated to 150° F (65.5° C) and held for 30 minutes.
The second type is a commercial high-temperature, short-time pasteurizer or a HTST pasteurizer. When using a HTST pasteurizer, heat milk to 161° F (71.7° C) and hold for 15 seconds.
Since both types of pasteurizers have been shown to effectively destroy pathogens, either can be used. The critical point is to use the correct temperature and time for the type of pasteurizer chosen.
Because some of these same pathogens can be transferred in colostrum, there is interest in what happens to immunoglobulins if colostrum is pasteurized. In a recent study using the HTST pasteurizer, there was a 25% reduction in immunoglobulins, thus consider alternative methods to protect calves from disease found in colostrum.
If you pasteurize colostrum, use the batch pasteurizer as the HTST tends to clog with colostrum.
For example, to control Johne’s Disease use only colostrum from cows that have recently been tested negative for Johne’s.
Commercial colostrum supplements or replacements can also be fed if insufficient colostrum is available.
Waste milk can be used for feeding calves, however pasteurize it first to reduce the risk associated with this cost-saving practice.
■ To contact Dr. Ellen R. Jordan at Texas A&M Extensiion, call 972-952-9212 or e-mail her at [email protected]
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Word Origin & History
O.E. cocc, O.Fr. coq, O.N. kokkr, all of echoic origin. O.E. cocc was a nickname for "one who strutted like a cock," thus a common term in the Middle Ages for a pert boy, used of scullions, apprentices, servants, etc. A common personal name till c.1500, it was affixed to Christian names as a pet diminutive,
cf. Wilcox, Hitchcock, etc. Slang sense of "penis" is attested since 1618 (but cf. pillicock "penis," from c.1300); cock-teaser is from 1891. A cocker spaniel (1823) was trained to start woodcocks. Cock-and-bull is first recorded 1621, perhaps an allusion to Aesop's fables, with their incredible talking animals, or to a particular story, now forgotten. French has parallel expression coq-à-l'âne.
in various mechanical senses, such as cock of a faucet (late 15c.) is of uncertain connection with cock
(n.1), but Ger. has hahn "hen" in many of the same senses. The cock of an old matchlock firearm is 1560s, hence half-cocked "with the cock lifted to the first catch, at which
position the trigger does not act."
seeming contradictory senses of "to stand up" (as in cock one's ear), c.1600, and "to bend" (1898) are from the two cock nouns. The first is probably in reference to the posture of the bird's head or tail, the second to the firearm position. To cock ones hat carries the notion of "defiant boastfulness"
also in M.E. cocken (c.1150) "to fight."
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adjective, un·ru·li·er, un·ru·li·est.
not submissive or conforming to rule; ungovernable; turbulent; intractable; refractory; lawless: an unruly class; an unruly wilderness.
Origin: 1350–1400; Middle English unruely, Related forms
equivalent to un- un-1
+ ruly, ruely
governable, controllable; see rule
disobedient, unmanageable, uncontrollable, stubborn, disorderly, riotous. Unruly, intractable, recalcitrant, refractory describe persons or things that resist management or control. Unruly suggests persistently disorderly behavior or character in persons or things: an unruly child, peevish and willful; wild, unruly hair. Intractable suggests in persons a determined resistance to all attempts to guide or direct them, in things a refusal to respond to attempts to shape, improve, or modify them: an intractable social rebel; a seemingly intractable problem in logistics. recalcitrant and refractory imply not only a lack of submissiveness but also an open, often violent, rebellion against authority or direction. Recalcitrant the stronger of the two terms, suggests a stubborn and absolute noncompliance: a recalcitrant person, openly contemptuous of all authority. Refractory implies active, mulish disobedience, but leaves open the possibility of eventual compliance: refractory students, resisting efforts to interest them in their studies.
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Date: August 2007
Creator: Sarasti, Israel A.
Description: Reciprocal teaching comprehension-monitoring is a reading comprehension instructional procedure that combines four instructional strategies: predicting, summarizing, questioning, and clarifying to enhance students' comprehension of text. The procedure is a dialogue between the teacher and the students. During reciprocal teaching instruction, the teacher and students take turns leading the dialogue in order to enhance the students' comprehension-monitoring skills. The research on reciprocal teaching has included meta-analyses, group designs, qualitative designs, and single-subject research designs. These studies have identified gaps in the literature to include the measurement of treatment fidelity and treatment acceptability, as well as the psychometric properties of the instruments used to measure daily reading comprehension growth. These gaps were investigated in this study. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of reciprocal teaching comprehension-monitoring with a group of fifteen 3rd grade students reading at grade level. Specifically, this study investigated the use of curriculum-based measurement maze probes (CBM-maze probes) to formatively assess the reading comprehension growth of the students. Additionally, this study implemented treatment integrity procedures and investigated the acceptability of reciprocal teaching and the CBM-maze probes through a treatment acceptability rating scale. A multiple baseline across groups with three phases (baseline, intervention, follow-up) was employed. ...
Contributing Partner: UNT Libraries
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Dragons are creatures with nearly unlimited life spans. They can survive for long periods of time, and no one has found a dragon that has died of old age. Adolescence is usually marked by the growth of a hatchling’s wings, although not all breeds of dragons grow wings and some breeds have other traits that indicate the beginning of maturation. Once they hit adolescence, hatchlings change quickly, maturing to their full forms in only 2 years.
Dragons don’t communicate with each other verbally, but they will growl to scare off predators and frighten prey. Young dragons will emit an extremely high-pitched squeal when they are frightened. To communicate, they use telepathy with each other and to speak to other creatures.
Stone dragons have a tough outer covering made of a stone-like material. They eat rocks, using the minerals they contain for nourishment and to keep up their stone outer shell. They rarely move, and are the heaviest of all types of dragons. Although they have wings, indicating flight ability, no one has ever seen a stone dragon flying.
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Do Schools Begin Too Early?
The effect of start times on student achievement
What time should the school day begin? School start times vary considerably, both across the nation and within individual communities, with some schools beginning earlier than 7:30 a.m. and others after 9:00 a.m. Districts often stagger the start times of different schools in order to reduce transportation costs by using fewer buses. But if beginning the school day early in the morning has a negative impact on academic performance, staggering start times may not be worth the cost savings.
Proponents of later start times, who have received considerable media attention in recent years, argue that many students who have to wake up early for school do not get enough sleep and that beginning the school day at a later time would boost their achievement. A number of school districts have responded by delaying the start of their school day, and a 2005 congressional resolution introduced by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) recommended that secondary schools nationwide start at 9:00 or later. Despite this attention, there is little rigorous evidence directly linking school start times and academic performance.
In this study, I use data from Wake County, North Carolina, to examine how start times affect the performance of middle school students on standardized tests. I find that delaying school start times by one hour, from roughly 7:30 to 8:30, increases standardized test scores by at least 2 percentile points in math and 1 percentile point in reading. The effect is largest for students with below-average test scores, suggesting that later start times would narrow gaps in student achievement.
The primary rationale given for start times affecting academic performance is biological. Numerous studies, including those published by Elizabeth Baroni and her colleagues in 2004 and by Fred Danner and Barbara Phillips in 2008, have found that earlier start times may result in fewer hours of sleep, as students may not fully compensate for earlier rising times with earlier bedtimes. Activities such as sports and work, along with family and social schedules, may make it difficult for students to adjust the time they go to bed. In addition, the onset of puberty brings two factors that can make this adjustment particularly difficult for adolescents: an increase in the amount of sleep needed and a change in the natural timing of the sleep cycle. Hormonal changes, in particular, the secretion of melatonin, shift the natural circadian rhythm of adolescents, making it increasingly difficult for them to fall asleep early in the evening. Lack of sleep, in turn, can interfere with learning. A 1996 survey of research studies found substantial evidence that less sleep is associated with a decrease in cognitive performance, both in laboratory settings and through self-reported sleep habits. Researchers have likewise reported a negative correlation between self-reported hours of sleep and school grades among both middle- and high-school students.
I find evidence consistent with this explanation: among middle school students, the impact of start times is greater for older students (who are more likely to have entered adolescence). However, I also find evidence of other potential mechanisms; later start times are associated with reduced television viewing, increased time spent on homework, and fewer absences. Regardless of the precise mechanism at work, my results from Wake County suggest that later start times have the potential to be a more cost-effective method of increasing student achievement than other common educational interventions such as reducing class size.
The Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) is the 16th-largest district in the United States, with 146,687 students in all grades for the 2011–12 school year. It encompasses all public schools in Wake County, a mostly urban and suburban county that includes the cities of Raleigh and Wake Forest. Start times for schools in the district are proposed by the transportation department (which also determines bus schedules) and approved by the school board.
Wake County is uniquely suited for this study because there are considerable differences in start times both across schools and for the same schools at different points in time. Since 1995, WCPSS has operated under a three-tiered system. While there are some minor differences in the exact start times, most Tier I schools begin at 7:30, Tier II schools at 8:15, and Tier III at 9:15. Tiers I and II are composed primarily of middle and high schools, and Tier III is composed entirely of elementary schools. Just over half of middle schools begin at 7:30, with substantial numbers of schools beginning at 8:00 and 8:15 as well. The school day at all schools is the same length. But as the student population has grown, the school district has changed the start times for many individual schools in order to maintain a balanced bus schedule, generating differences in start times for the same school in different years.
The only nationally representative dataset that records school start times indicates that, as of 2001, the median middle-school student in the U.S. began school at 8:00. More than one-quarter of students begin school at 8:30 or later, while more than 20 percent begin at 7:45 or earlier. In other words, middle school start times are somewhat earlier in Wake County than in most districts nationwide. The typical Wake County student begins school earlier than more than 90 percent of American middle-school students.
Data and Methods
The data used in this study come from two sources. First, administrative data for every student in North Carolina between 2000 and 2006 were provided by the North Carolina Education Research Data Center. The data contain detailed demographic variables for each student as well as end-of-grade test scores in reading and math. I standardize the raw test scores by assigning each student a percentile score, which indicates performance relative to all North Carolina students who took the test in the same grade and year. The second source of data is the start times for each Wake County public school, which are recorded annually and were provided by the WCPSS transportation department.
About 39 percent of WCPSS students attended magnet schools between 2000 and 2006. Since buses serving magnet schools must cover a larger geographic area, ride times tend to be longer for magnet school students. As a result, almost all magnet schools during the study period began at the earliest start time. Because magnet schools start earlier and enroll students who tend to have higher test scores, I exclude magnet schools from my main analysis. My results are very similar if magnet school students are included.
The data allow me to use several different methods to analyze the effect of start times on student achievement. First, I compare the reading and math scores of students in schools that start earlier to the scores of similar students at later-starting schools. Specifically, I control for the student’s race, limited English status, free or reduced-price lunch eligibility, years of parents’ education, and whether the student is academically gifted or has a learning disability. I also control for the characteristics of the school, including total enrollment, pupil-to-teacher ratio, racial composition, percentage of students eligible for free lunch, and percentage of returning students. This approach compares students with similar characteristics who attend schools that are similar, except for the fact that some schools start earlier and others start later.
The results produced by this first approach could be misleading, however, if middle schools with later start times differ from other schools in unmeasured ways. For example, it could be the case that more-motivated principals lobby the district to receive a later start time and also employ other strategies that boost student achievement. If that were the case, then I might find that schools with later start times have higher test scores, even if start times themselves had no causal effect.
To deal with this potential problem, my second approach focuses on schools that changed their start times during the study period. Fourteen of the district’s middle schools changed their start times, including seven schools that changed their start times by 30 minutes or more. This enables me to compare the test scores of students who attended a particular school to the test scores of students who attended the same school in a different year, when it had an earlier or later start time. For example, this method would compare the test scores of students at a middle school that had a 7:30 start time from 1999 to 2003 to the scores of students at the same school when it had an 8:00 start time from 2004 to 2006. I still control for all of the student and school characteristics mentioned earlier.
As a final check on the accuracy of my results, I perform analyses that compare the achievement of individual students to their own achievement in a different year in which the middle school they attended started at a different time. For example, this method would compare the scores of 7th graders at a school with a 7:30 start time in 2003 to the scores of the same students as 8th graders in 2004, when the school had a start time of 8:00. As this suggests, this method can only be used for the roughly 28 percent of students in my sample whose middle school changed its start time while they were enrolled.
My first method compares students with similar characteristics who attend schools that are similar except for having different start times. The results indicate that a one-hour delay in start time increases standardized test scores on both math and reading tests by roughly 3 percentile points. As noted above, however, these results could be biased by unmeasured differences between early- and late-starting schools (or the students who attend them).
Using my second method, which mitigates this bias by following the same schools over time as they change their start times, I find a 2.2-percentile-point improvement in math scores and a 1.5-point improvement in reading scores associated with a one-hour change in start time.
My second method controls for all school-level characteristics that do not change over time. However, a remaining concern is that the student composition of schools may change. For example, high-achieving students in a school that changed to an earlier start time might transfer to private schools. To address this issue, I estimate the impact of later start times using only data from students who experience a change in start time while remaining in the same school. Among these students, the effect of a one-hour later start time is 1.8 percentile points in math and 1.0 point in reading (see Figure 1).
These estimated effects of changes in start times are large enough to be substantively important. For example, the effect of a one-hour later start time on math scores is roughly 14 percent of the black-white test-score gap, 40 percent of the gap between those eligible and those not eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, and 85 percent of the gain associated with an additional year of parents’ education.
The benefits of a later start time in middle school appear to persist through at least the 10th grade. All students in North Carolina are required to take the High School Comprehensive Test at the end of 10th grade. The comprehensive exam measures growth in reading and math since the end of grade 8 and is similar in format to the end-of-grade tests taken in grades 3–8. Controlling for the start time of their high school, I find that students whose middle school started one hour later when they were in 8th grade continue to score 2 percentile points higher in both math and reading when tested in grade 10.
I also looked separately at the effect of later start times for lower-scoring and higher-scoring students. The results indicate that the effect of a later start time in both math and reading is more than twice as large for students in the bottom third of the test-score distribution than for students in the top third. The larger effect of start times on low-scoring students suggests that delaying school start times may be an especially relevant policy change for school districts trying to meet minimum competency requirements (such as those mandated in the No Child Left Behind Act).
Why Do Start Times Matter?
The typical explanation for why later start times might increase academic achievement is that by starting school later, students will get more sleep. As students enter adolescence, hormonal changes make it difficult for them to compensate for early school start times by going to bed earlier. Because students enter adolescence during their middle-school years, examining the effect of start times as students age allows me to test this theory. If the adolescent hormone explanation is true, the effect of school start times should be larger for older students, who are more likely to have begun puberty.
I therefore separate the students in my sample by years of age and estimate the effect of start time on test scores separately for each group. In both math and reading, the start-time effect is roughly the same for students age 11 and 12, but increases for those age 13 and is largest for students age 14 (see Figure 2). This pattern is consistent with the adolescent hormone theory.
To further investigate how the effect of later start times varies with age, I estimate the effect of start times on upper elementary students (grades 3–5). If adolescent hormones are the mechanism through which start times affect academic performance, preadolescent elementary students should not be affected by early start times. I find that start times in fact had no effect on elementary students. However, elementary schools start much later than middle schools (more than half of elementary schools begin at 9:15, and almost all of the rest begin at 8:15). As a result, it is not clear if there is no effect because start times are not a factor in the academic performance of prepubescent students, or because the schools start much later and only very early start times affect performance.
Of course, increased sleep is not the only possible reason later-starting middle-school students have higher test scores. Students in early-starting schools could be more likely to skip breakfast. Because they also get out of school earlier, they could spend more (or less) time playing sports, watching television, or doing homework. They could be more likely to be absent, tardy, or have behavioral problems in school. Other explanations are possible as well. While my data do not allow me to explore all possible mechanisms, I am able to test several of them.
I find that students who start school one hour later watch 12 fewer minutes of television per day and spend 9 minutes more on homework per week, perhaps because students who start school later spend less time at home alone. Students who start school earlier come home from school earlier and may, as a result, spend more time at home alone and less time at home with their parents. If students watch television when they are home alone and do their homework when their parents are home, this behavior could explain why students who start school later have higher test scores. In other words, it may be that it is not so much early start times that matter but rather early end times.
Previous research tends to find that students in early-starting schools are more likely to be tardy to school and to be absent. In Wake County, students who start school one hour later have 1.3 fewer absences than the typical student—a reduction of about 25 percent. Fewer absences therefore may also explain why later-starting students have higher test scores: students who have an early start time miss more school and could perform worse on standardized tests as a result.
Later school start times have been touted as a way to increase student performance. There has not, however, been much empirical evidence supporting this claim or calculating how large an effect later start times might have. My results indicate that delaying the start times of middle schools that currently open at 7:30 by one hour would increase math and reading scores by 2 to 3 percentile points, an impact that persists into at least the 10th grade.
These results suggest that delaying start times may be a cost-effective method of increasing student performance. Since the effect of later start times is stronger for the lower end of the distribution of test scores, later start times may be particularly effective in meeting accountability standards that require a minimum level of competency.
If elementary students are not affected by later start times, as my data suggest (albeit not definitively), it may be possible to increase test scores for middle school students at no cost by having elementary schools start first. Alternatively, the entire schedule could be shifted later into the day. However, these changes may pose other difficulties due to child-care constraints for younger students and jobs and afterschool activities for older students.
Another option would be to eliminate tiered busing schedules and have all schools begin at the same time. A reasonable estimate of the cost of moving start times later is the additional cost of running a single-tier bus system. The WCPSS Transportation Department estimates that over the 10-year period from 1993 to 2003, using a three-tiered bus system saved roughly $100 million in transportation costs. With approximately 100,000 students per year divided into three tiers, it would cost roughly $150 per student each year to move each student in the two earliest start-time tiers to the latest start time. In comparison, an experimental study of class sizes in Tennessee finds that reducing class size by one-third increases test scores by 4 percentile points in the first year at a cost of $2,151 per student per year (in 1996 dollars). These calculations, while very rough, suggest that delaying the beginning of the school day may produce a comparable improvement in test scores at a fraction of the cost.
Finley Edwards is visiting assistant professor of economics at Colby College.
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Set aside what may have been portrayed about bullying on family-hour television. Data being collected about the longstanding behavior indicates it is not a conflict. It’s victimization.
“Make no mistake. Bullying is out there (in Surry County),” said Kimberly Spencer, a behavioral health counselor for Northern Pediatrics with more than 15 years experience working with families and individuals in outpatient, inpatient and community mental health treatment facilities.
She explained the unwanted, aggressive behavior among school-aged children is repeated or has the potential to be repeated over time.
“At its core, the definition of bullying is an imbalance of power either real or perceived,” said Spencer. “Kids who bully use their strength, for instance, to physically control someone’s behavior or use access to embarrassing information to control someone and it’s not just one person, it is a pattern.”
Spencer said the topic of bullying is an umbrella subject with other issues including date violence and cyber bullying falling interconnected with it. She explained that cyber bullying is where a person uses social media on the Internet such as Facebook and My Space and controls someone by posting pictures and status information to control another.
She said social media users need to be aware how information they post about themselves could be used against them later on. Some information also can be obtained by pedophiles resulting in physical harm to children.
“Parents should be aware of all social media used by their children,” said Spencer. “They should have access to all their children’s social accounts and use the parental controls on their computers.” She said one important source of information about bullying is the website www.stopbullying.gov.
Spencer said times also have changed regarding date violence. Now this violence can affect boys as well as girls.
“Girls can be abusers as well as boys,” said Spencer, who added data indicates this behavior is remaining prevalent just like other forms of bullying. Spencer said one helpful website to gain more information on date violence is www.loveisrespect.com. She said often victims of date violence don’t have to have physical marks like bruises.
She said issues concerning her are school systems using only zero tolerance policies and conflict resolution and peer mediation as a means to stop bullying. Zero tolerance policies suspend or expel children who bully others. Spencer said this may be necessary but only in a small number of cases and should not be a standard prevention policy.
Spencer cited recent surveys of elementary and middle school students that show about one in five students admit to occasionally bullying their peers. She said the threat of expulsion or suspension may discourage children and adults from reporting bullying. Often bullying is an indicator of poor role models in the home and suspension just sends bullies back into an environment encouraging bad behavior.
She indicated conflict resolution and peer mediation, common strategies for dealing with issues between students, are misdirected because it sends the wrong message to students that both parties are partly right or wrong.
“The message should be that no one deserves to be bullied,” said Spencer. “The message for children who bully should be their behavior is inappropriate and must stop.”
Spencer also said mediation may upset victims because facing the child who bullied them may make them feel worse. She said group treatment for children who bully also can have the opposite effect because group members tend to serve as role models and reinforce bullying behavior as the group becomes like a gang.
She said she favors using comprehensive plans where school staff model correct behavior and are trained on spotting, reporting and preventing bullying.
“My concern is that school systems educate their staff about preventing bullying and how to report it so victims don’t get victimized again,” said Spencer. “It’s important that parents show in a healthy way they value their children’s opinions. Not allowing children to run the house but making sure they have a say in age appropriate activities.” She also favors assertiveness training for victims.
“This cuts down on victimization when children feel good about themselves,” continued Spencer. “Another powerful thing is bystanders to bullying not just walk away. There is power in numbers in defense of a person being bullied. Don’t give a bully an audience. Be a part of helping the victim get away and reporting it to responsible adults and not just watching.”
Spencer said teachers, who typically rush in and separate the children to keep them from harm, must be aware of modeling correct behaviors. She said an example of this is not yelling at someone to stop yelling.
Surry County Schools Director of Elementary Curriculum and Instruction Jennifer Scott and Mount Airy City Schools Assistant Superintendent Bryan Taylor confirm both systems use positive behavior support to change the culture in schools with the goal to prevent bullying.
“Bullying in the Mount Airy School system is taken very seriously,” commented Taylor. “We are working to eradicate it in our schools. It is going to take time and a lot of work, but we are working towards that goal.” The positive behavior support program includes components training staff in identification and reporting of bullying and positive role modeling.
Scott said the county system’s program of Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS) has resulted in a 40-percent drop in office referrals over the last three years. Components of this program include the identification and teaching expected behavior in different social situations as well as standardization of behavior expectations in classrooms.
This system also includes positive re-enforcement for students who follow expectations and consequences for rules infractions. She said county schools also track data about infractions and each school’s positive behavior coach meets with his or her PBIS team to spot problems and address them before they become worse.
Reach David Broyles at [email protected] or 719-1952.
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Constitution of Malta
|This article is part of the series:
Politics and government of
The current Constitution of Malta was adopted as a legal order on September 21, 1964, and is the self-declared supreme law of the land. Therefore, any law or action in violation of the Constitution is null and void. Being a rigid constitution, it has a three-tier entrenchment basis in order for any amendments to take place.
Constitutional Development since Independence
The Constitution has been amended twenty-four times, most recently in 2007 with the entrenchment of the office of the Ombudsman. The constitution is typically called the Constitution of Malta and replaced the 1961 Constitution, dating from October 24, 1961. George Borg Olivier was its main instigator and negotiator.
Under its 1964 constitution, Malta became a parliamentary democracy within the British Commonwealth. Queen Elizabeth II was sovereign of Malta, and a governor general exercised executive authority on her behalf, while the actual direction and control of the government and the nation's affairs were in the hands of the cabinet under the leadership of a Maltese prime minister.
On December 13, 1974, the constitution was revised, and Malta became a republic within the Commonwealth, with executive authority vested in a Maltese president. The president is appointed by parliament. In turn, the president appoints as prime minister the leader of the party that wins a majority of parliamentary seats in a general election for the unicameral House of Representatives.
The president also nominally appoints, upon recommendation of the prime minister, the individual ministers to head each of the government departments. The cabinet is selected from among the members of the House of Representatives. The Constitution provides for general elections to be held at least every five years. Candidates are elected by the Single Transferable Vote system. The entire territory is divided into thirteen electoral districts each returning five MPs to a total of 65. Since 1987, in case a Party obtains an absolute majority of votes without achieving a Parliamentary majority a mechanism in the Constitution provides for additional seats to that Party to achieve a Parliamentary majority (Act IV of 1987). To date this mechanism, intended to counteract gerrymandering, came into effect twice: for the Sixth and the Eight Parliaments. A similar mechanism was introduced in 1996 so that additional seats would be given to that Party obtaining a relative majority of votes but not a parliamentary majority with only two parties achieving Parliamentary representation. This mechanism was first applied in the 2008 general election.
The Nature of the Constitution
The Independence Constitution of Malta of 1964 established Malta as a liberal parliamentary democracy. It safeguarded the fundamental human rights of citizens, and forced a separation between the executive, judicial and legislative powers, with regular elections based on universal suffrage.
This constitution was developed through constitutional history and its evolution. The constitutions of Malta fell under three main categories. These were:
- Those over which the British possessed total power;
- The intermediate genres of constitutions (1921-1947), where Malta had self government (the 1961 constitution was very similar to these constitutions);
- the Independence Constitution of 1964.
On July 27, 1960, the Secretary of State for the Colonies declared to the British House of Commons the wish of Her Majesty’s Government to reinstate representative government in Malta and declare that it was now time to work out a new constitution where elections could be held as soon as it was established. The Secretary, Iain Macleod, also notified the House of the appointment of a Constitutional Commission, under the chairmanship of Sir Hilary Blood, to devise thorough constitutional schemes after consultation with representatives of the Maltese people and local interests.
The Commissioners presented their report on December 5, 1960. The report was published on March 8, 1961. That same day, the Secretary of State declared to the House of Commons that Her Majesty’s Government had taken a decision. The Commissioner’s constitutional recommendations to be the basis for the subsequent Malta constitution were to be granted. The 1961 Constitution was also known as the Blood Constitution. It was enclosed in the Malta Constitution Order in Council 1961 and it was completed on 24 October of that same year. The statement that the Order makes provision for a new constitution where Malta is given self-government is found on the final page of the Order in Council.
The 1961 Constitution provided the backbone for the Independence Constitution. A date was provided to guarantee this legal continuity. An indispensable characteristic of this constitution is the substitution of the diarchic system, which was no longer practicable, by system of only one Government, the Government of Malta, with full legislative and executive powers. At that time Malta was still a colony and responsibility for defence and external affairs were referred to Her Majesty’s Government. There was a clear indication that the road towards independence continued and now was at a highly developed stage. It is imperative to recognise that the 1961 Constitution established most of the features of the 1964 Constitution. The British recognised Malta as a State. Another important characteristic of this constitution was an innovative introduction of a chapter covering the safeguarding of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of the Individual. This is fairly significant because Fundamental Human Rights are a protection for the individual by the State. In the 1961 Constitution, Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms are found in Chapter IV. The protection of freedom of movement was introduced only in the 1964 Constitution.
The declaration of rights of the inhabitants of the islands of Malta and Gozo dated June 15, 1802, gives a collective declaration of rights. The 1961 Constitution gave birth to what was recognised as a Parliament in the 1964 Independence Constitution. The Cabinet had the general direction and management of the Government of Malta. It consisted of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister alone might summon it and it was this office which presided over it. Not more than seven other ministers were members of the Legislative Assembly, and they were collectively responsible to it. This was one of the first attempts to restate some of the more important British Constitutional Conventions in the constitution. In the exercise of his powers, the Governor was to act on the advice of the Cabinet, except where he was directed to act in his discretion or on the recommendation or advice of a person other than the Cabinet.
Three elections of the promulgation of the 1961 Constitution existed. This constitution included the presence of a Cabinet for the first time in Malta. The legislature was unicameral. The Legislative Assembly’s normal life span was of four years. It consisted of fifty members and they were elected by universal suffrage from ten electoral divisions on the system of proportional representation by the single transferable vote. The 1961 Constitution constructed a firm foundation for a future achievement of Independence. When in 1964 Malta did in fact become independent, because the Government chose to avoid breaking all ties with the United Kingdom, there was legal continuity of the legislation, as a result of which Parliament remained functional. To a certain extent the same situation existed as regards to the legislation by the British Parliament for Malta. The Malta Independence Order itself developed into the subject of an entrenchment, since here it is declared that this evolved into an extension to the 1961 Constitution even in the sense of an amendment.
Even though Malta acquired independence, there was an ongoing presence of continuity. One of them is the monarchy pre-1964 and prior 1964. The Malta Independence Order 1964 was subject to the Malta Independence Act of that same year and it is a document that holds the chief regulations that govern the constitution of a state. This document is supreme over each and every other document and all legislation is subject to it. Throughout Malta's constitutional history, the nation acquired its own constitution, and to a certain extent, the Independence Constitution is made up of certain principles that arose for the first time in previous constitutions. It can be said that the Independence Constitution has evolved from the constitution which preceded it. But one must not ignore the fact that changes have taken place in this process of evolution. The statement that the 1964 constitution is in fact a replica of the 1961 constitution with sovereignty added might be criticised by saying that some factors differ between the two constitutions. The 1964 constitution is not merely what can be defined as an improvement. It is more like another stepping-stone in constitutional history being the final step in a long series of constitutions. In fact, even though it may seem that some provisions were altered from the 1961 constitution to the 1964 constitution, some of those provisions remained unchanged until the amendments of the 1964 constitution were made.
The Malta Independence Order, 1964, as amended by Acts:
- XLI of 1965, XXXVII of 1966
- IX of 1967
- XXVI of 1970
- XLVII of 1972
- LVII, LVIII of 1974
- XXXVIII of 1976
- X of 1977
- XXIX of 1979
- IV of 1987
- XXIII of 1989
- Proclamations Nos. II and VI of 1990
- Acts XIX of 1991
- IX of 1994
- Proclamations IV of 1995 and III of 1996
- Acts: XI of 1996, XVI of 1997
- Acts: III of 2000 and XIII of 2001
Past constitutions
Malta has had numerous past constitutions.
- The 1813 Constitution
- The 1835 Constitution
- The 1849 Constitution
- The 1887 Constitution
- The 1903 Constitution
- The 1921 Constitution
- The 1936 Constitution
- The 1939 Constitution
- The 1947 Constitution
- The 1959 Constitution
- The 1961 Constitution
Further reading
- Frendo, Henry, The Origins of Maltese Statehood - A Case Study of Decolonization in the Mediterranean - Malta: PEG Publications, ISBN 99932-0-015-8.
See also
- Supplement of the Malta Government Gazette, No. 11688 of September 18, 1964
- Supplement of the Government Gazette 31 October 1961 No. 11,346
- Section 2: 1961 Constitution – “The State of Malta”
- Articles 5-17: 1961 Constitution
- Article 45: 1961 Constitution
- Article 50: Malta Independence Order
- J.J. Cremona - THE MALTESE CONSTITUTION AND CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY SINCE 1813 (Publishers Enterprises Group Ltd (PEG) – 1994) ISBN 99909-0-086-8
- Royal Instructions of July 16, 1813, (C.O. 159/4) as supplemented by despatch at pp 124-125, infra
- Cremona, J.J, The Malta Constitution of 1835 and its Historical Background (Malta, 1959), (Appendix)
- Ordinances and other Official Acts published by the Government of Malta and its Dependencies, Malta, 1853, Vol X, pp70-77
- Law, Letters Patent and other Papers in relation to the Constitution of the Council of Fovernment of Malta, Malta, G.P.O., 1889, pp 113-132
- Malta Government Gazette No. 4603, June 22, 1903, pp 614-621
- Malta Government Gazette No. 6389, May 4, 1921, pp 326-366
- Malta Government Gazette No. 8206, September 2, 1936, pp 804-812
- Malta Government Gazette No. 8534, February 25, 1939, pp 244-257
- The Malta Constitution 1947, Malta, G.P.O. 1947
- The Malta (Constitution) Order in Council 1959, Malta, Department of Information, 1959
- The Malta Constitution 1961, Malta, Department of Information, 1961
|Wikisource has original text related to this article:|
- Il-Kostituzzjoni tar-Repubblika Maltija Ministeru tal-Ġustizzja u l-Intern. (Maltese)
- The Constitution of the Republic of Malta Ministry for Justice and Home Affairs. (English)
- The Constitution of the Republic of Malta Ministry for Justice and Home Affairs. (English)
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Nahum (pron.: // or //; Hebrew: נַחוּם Naḥūm) was a minor prophet whose prophecy is recorded in the Hebrew Bible. His book comes in chronological order between Micah and Habakkuk in the Bible. He wrote about the end of the Assyrian Empire, and its capital city, Nineveh, in a vivid poetic style.
Little is known about Nahum’s personal history. His name means "comforter," and he was from the town of Alqosh, (Nah 1:1) which scholars have attempted to identify with several cities, including the modern `Alqush of Assyria and Capharnaum of northern Galilee. He was a very nationalistic Hebrew however and lived amongst the Elkoshites in peace.
Nahum's writings could be taken as prophecy or as history. One account suggests that his writings are a prophecy written in about 615 BC, just before the downfall of Assyria, while another account suggests that he wrote this passage as liturgy just after its downfall in 612 BC.
The book was introduced in Calvin's Commentary as a complete and finished poem:
No one of the minor Prophets seems to equal the sublimity, the vehemence and the boldness of Nahum: besides, his Prophecy is a complete and finished poem; his exordium is magnificent, and indeed majestic; the preparation for the destruction of Nineveh, and the description of its ruin, and its greatness, are expressed in most vivid colors, and possess admirable perspicuity and fulness.—Rev. John Owen, translator, Calvin's Commentary on Jonah, Micah, Nahum
Nahum, taking words from Moses himself, have shown in a general way what sort of "Being God is". The Reformation theologian Calvin argued, Nahum painted God by which his nature must be seen, and "it is from that most memorable vision, when God appeared to Moses after the breaking of the tables."
The tomb of Nahum is supposedly inside the synagogue at Alqosh, although there are other places outside Iraq that lay claim also to being the original “Elkosh” from which Nahum hailed. Alquosh was abandoned by its Jewish population in 1948, when they were expelled, and the synagogue that purportedly houses the tomb is in a poor structural state, to the extent that the tomb itself is in danger of destruction. The tomb underwent basic repairs in 1796. When all Jews were compelled to flee Alqosh in 1948, the iron keys to the tomb were handed to a Chaldean man by the name of Sami Jajouhana. Few Jews visit the historic site, yet Jajouhana continues to keep the promise he made with his Jewish friends, and looks after the tomb. A team of US/UK construction engineers, led by Huw Thomas, is currently planning ways to save the building and the tomb. Money has been allocated for proposed renovation in 2008.
Liturgical commemoration
The Prophet Nahum is venerated as a saint in Eastern Christianity. On the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar, his feast day is December 1(for those churches which follow the traditional Julian Calendar, December 1 currently falls on December 14 of the modern Gregorian Calendar). He is commemorated with the other minor prophets in the Calendar of saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church on July 31.
- "The Chronology of Biblical Prophets", Adapted from Hauer, C.E. & Young, W. A., An Introduction to the Bible: A Journey into Three Worlds, p.123, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1994
- Introduction to Nahum at the International Bible Society website
- Nahum at The Catholic Encyclopedia
- Heaton, E. W., A Short Introduction To The Old Testament Prophets, p. 35, Oneworld Publications, P.O. Box 830, 21 Broadway, Rockport, NA 01966, ISBN 1-85168-114-0
- Nahum at aboutbibleprophecy.com
- "Commentaries on Twelve Minor Prophets".
- Calvin; Commentary on Jonah, Micah, Nahum http://onetenthblog.wordpress.com/readings/780-2/
- Chaldean Man Keeps Promise With Jewish Friends
- RENOVATION - AL QUSH SYNAGOGUE AND THE TOMB OF NAHUM at tombofnahum.com
- Great Synaxaristes: (Greek) Ὁ Προφήτης Ναούμ. 1 Δεκεμβρίου. ΜΕΓΑΣ ΣΥΝΑΞΑΡΙΣΤΗΣ.
- Prophet Nahum. OCA - Feasts and Saints.
- December 1. The Roman Martyrology.
|Wikisource has original text related to this article:|
- Nahum article from The Catholic Encyclopedia
- Renovation - Al Qush Synagogue and the Tomb of Nahum
- Prophet Nahum Orthodox icon and synaxarion
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Nahum". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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The Westerlies, anti-trades, or Prevailing Westerlies, are prevailing winds in the middle latitudes between 30 and 60 degrees latitude, blowing from the high pressure area in the horse latitudes towards the poles. These prevailing winds blow from the west to the east and steer extratropical cyclones in this general manner. Tropical cyclones which cross the subtropical ridge axis into the Westerlies recurve due to the increased westerly flow. The winds are predominantly from the southwest in the Northern Hemisphere and from the northwest in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Westerlies are strongest in the winter hemisphere and times when the pressure is lower over the poles, while they are weakest in the summer hemisphere and when pressures are higher over the poles. The Westerlies are particularly strong, especially in the southern hemisphere, where there is less land in the middle latitudes to cause the flow pattern to amplify, or become more north-south oriented, which slows the Westerlies down. The strongest westerly winds in the middle latitudes can come in the Roaring Forties, between 40 and 50 degrees latitude. The Westerlies play an important role in carrying the warm, equatorial waters and winds to the western coasts of continents, especially in the southern hemisphere because of its vast oceanic expanse.
If the Earth were a non-rotating planet, solar heating would cause winds across the mid-latitudes to blow in a poleward direction, away from the subtropical ridge. However, the Coriolis effect caused by the rotation of Earth causes winds to steer to the right of what would otherwise be expected across the Northern Hemisphere, and left of what would be expected in the Southern Hemisphere. This is why winds across the Northern Hemisphere tend to blow from the southwest, but they tend to be from the northwest in the Southern Hemisphere. When pressures are lower over the poles, the strength of the Westerlies increases, which has the effect of warming the mid-latitudes. This occurs when the Arctic oscillation is positive, and during winter low pressure near the poles is stronger than it would be during the summer. When it is negative and pressures are higher over the poles, the flow is more meridional, blowing from the direction of the pole towards the equator, which brings cold air into the mid-latitudes.
Throughout the year, the Westerlies vary in strength with the polar cyclone. As the cyclone reaches its maximum intensity in winter, the Westerlies increase in strength. As the cyclone reaches its weakest intensity in summer, the Westerlies weaken. An example of the impact of the Westerlies is when dust plumes, originating in the Gobi desert combine with pollutants and spread large distances downwind, or eastward, into North America. The Westerlies can be particularly strong, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, where there is less land in the middle latitudes to cause the progression of west to east winds to slow down. In the Southern hemisphere, because of the stormy and cloudy conditions, it is usual to refer to the Westerlies as the Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties and Shrieking Sixties according to the varying degrees of latitude.
Impact on ocean currents
Due to persistent winds from west to east on the poleward sides of the subtropical ridges located in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, ocean currents are driven in a similar manner in both hemispheres. The currents in the Northern Hemisphere are weaker than those in the Southern Hemisphere due to the differences in strength between the Westerlies of each hemisphere. The process of western intensification causes currents on the western boundary of an ocean basin to be stronger than those on the eastern boundary of an ocean. These western ocean currents transport warm, tropical water polewards toward the polar regions. Ships crossing both oceans have taken advantage of the ocean currents for centuries.
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), or the West Wind Drift, is an ocean current that flows from west to east around Antarctica. The ACC is the dominant circulation feature of the Southern Ocean and, at approximately 125 Sverdrups, the largest ocean current. In the northern hemisphere, the Gulf Stream, part of the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre, has led to the development of strong cyclones of all types at the base of the Westerlies, both within the atmosphere and within the ocean. The Kuroshio (Japanese for "Black Tide") is a strong western boundary current in the western north Pacific Ocean, similar to the Gulf Stream, which has also contributed to the depth of ocean storms in that region.
Extratropical cyclones
An extratropical cyclone is a synoptic scale low pressure weather system that has neither tropical nor polar characteristics, being connected with fronts and horizontal gradients in temperature and dew point otherwise known as "baroclinic zones".
The descriptor "extratropical" refers to the fact that this type of cyclone generally occurs outside of the tropics, in the middle latitudes of the planet, where the Westerlies steer the system generally from west to east. These systems may also be described as "mid-latitude cyclones" due to their area of formation, or "post-tropical cyclones" where extratropical transition has occurred, and are often described as "depressions" or "lows" by weather forecasters and the general public. These are the everyday phenomena which along with anti-cyclones, drive the weather over much of the Earth.
Although extratropical cyclones are almost always classified as baroclinic since they form along zones of temperature and dewpoint gradient, they can sometimes become barotropic late in their life cycle when the temperature distribution around the cyclone becomes fairly uniform along the radius from the center of low pressure. An extratropical cyclone can transform into a subtropical storm, and from there into a tropical cyclone, if it dwells over warm waters and develops central convection, which warms its core and causes temperature and dewpoint gradients near their centers to fade.
Interaction with tropical cyclones
When a tropical cyclone crosses the subtropical ridge axis, normally through a break in the high-pressure area caused by a system traversing the Westerlies, its general track around the high-pressure area is deflected significantly by winds moving towards the general low-pressure area to its north. When the cyclone track becomes strongly poleward with an easterly component, the cyclone has begun recurvature, entering the Westerlies. A typhoon moving through the Pacific Ocean towards Asia, for example, will recurve offshore of Japan to the north, and then to the northeast, if the typhoon encounters southwesterly winds (blowing northeastward) around a low-pressure system passing over China or Siberia. Many tropical cyclones are eventually forced toward the northeast by extratropical cyclones in this manner, which move from west to east to the north of the subtropical ridge. An example of a tropical cyclone in recurvature was Typhoon Ioke in 2006, which took a similar trajectory.
- Robert Fitzroy (1863). The weather book: a manual of practical meteorology. Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green. p. 63.
- Glossary of Meteorology (2009). Westerlies. American Meteorological Society. Retrieved on 2009-04-15.
- Nathan Gasser (2000-08-10). Solar Heating and Coriolis Forces. University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Retrieved on 2009-05-31.
- Ralph Stockman Tarr and Frank Morton McMurry (1909).Advanced geography. W.W. Shannon, State Printing, pp. 246. Retrieved on 2009-04-15.
- National Snow and Ice Data Center (2009). The Arctic Oscillation. Arctic Climatology and Meteorology. Retrieved on 2009-04-11.
- Halldór Björnsson (2005). Global circulation. Veðurstofu Íslands. Retrieved on 2008-06-15.
- James K. B. Bishop, Russ E. Davis, and Jeffrey T. Sherman (2002). "Robotic Observations of Dust Storm Enhancement of Carbon Biomass in the North Pacific". Science 298. pp. 817–821. Retrieved 2009-06-20.
- Walker, Stuart (1998). The sailor's wind. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 91. ISBN 0-393-04555-2, 9780393045550 Check
- Wunsch, Carl (November 8, 2002). "What Is the Thermohaline Circulation?". Science 298 (5596): 1179–1181. doi:10.1126/science.1079329. PMID 12424356. (see also Rahmstorf.)
- National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (2009). Investigating the Gulf Stream. North Carolina State University. Retrieved on 2009-05-06.
- Ryan Smith, Melicie Desflots, Sean White, Arthur J. Mariano, Edward H. Ryan (2005). The Antarctic CP Current. The Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies. Retrieved on 2009-04-11.
- S. Businger, T. M. Graziano, M. L. Kaplan, and R. A. Rozumalski (2004). Cold-air cyclogenesis along the Gulf-Stream front: investigation of diabatic impacts on cyclone development, frontal structure, and track. Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics, pp. 65-90. Retrieved on 2008-09-21.
- David M. Roth (2000). P 1.43 A FIFTY YEAR HISTORY OF SUBTROPICAL CYCLONES. American Meteorological Society. Retrieved on 2008-09-21.
- D. K. Savidge and J. M. Bane (1999). Cyclogenesis in the deep ocean beneath the Gulf Stream. 1. Description. Journal of geophysical research, pp. 18111-18126. Retrieved on 2008-09-21.
- Dr. DeCaria (2007-05-29). "ESCI 241 – Meteorology; Lesson 16 – Extratropical Cyclones". Department of Earth Sciences, Millersville University, Millersville, Pennsylvania. Archived from the original on 2007-05-29. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
- Robert Hart and Jenni Evans (2003). "Synoptic Composites of the Extratropical Transition Lifecycle of North Atlantic TCs as Defined Within Cyclone Phase Space" (PDF). American Meteorological Society. Retrieved 2006-10-03.
- Ryan N. Maue (2009). CHAPTER 3: CYCLONE PARADIGMS AND EXTRATROPICAL TRANSITION CONCEPTUALIZATIONS. Florida State University. Retrieved on 2008-06-15.
- Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, Hurricane Research Division (2004). "Frequently Asked Questions: What is an extra-tropical cyclone?". NOAA. Retrieved 2006-07-25.
- Joint Typhoon Warning Center (2009). Section 2: Tropical Cyclone Motion Terminology. United States Navy. Retrieved on 2007-04-10.
- Powell, Jeff, et al. (May 2007). "Hurricane Ioke: 20–27 August 2006". 2006 Tropical Cyclones Central North Pacific. Central Pacific Hurricane Center. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
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Despite the development of the formidable T-34, the idea of a new mass-produced tank emerged inside the Soviet military circles. So two Soviet factories in Leningrad (Kirovsky factory and Voroshilovsky factory No.174) were ordered to develop a new 14-ton tank armed with 45 mm gun and protected by medium armor, similar to T-34.
In 1939, the Kirovsky factory was ordered to develop a light CS tank (close support tank). In 1940 the first prototype, named "Object 126" or T-126SP, was developed, manufactured and tested. Its protection was equal to the T-34's: its welded hull was assembled from 37 mm homogeneous armor plates; its roof was composed of 20 mm plates. Frontal, upper side and rear armor plates were sloped 40-57 degrees.
The new tank did have the 45mm Tank Gun Model 1932/38 supplied with 150 rounds plus a coaxial 7.62 mm DT machine-gun. Additionally, it was armed with the 7.62 mm DS bow machine-gun. The tank was powered by a 250 hp V-4 diesel engine, which provided the 17-ton vehicle with a maximum speed of 35 km/h.
The tank had torsion bar suspension. Its chassis consisted of six steel road wheels (each with internal shock absorber), idler, rear driver wheel with removable cogged rim, and three support wheels. The transmission consisted of the two-disk main friction clutch, the 4-speed gearbox, multiple-disk side clutches and side gears.
Measured by aggregate armament and protection, "Object 126" was superior to most of the Soviet light and medium tanks of that time. In fact, the German Pz-III played a notable role in development of the "Object 126". Having many advantages, the Soviet tank had some disadvantages as well. First of all, it had limited range and little room for crew. On the second prototype the internal room was increased by removing the DS machine-gun.
The second prototype received new lighter road wheels with rubber tires. Simultaneously, at LKZ factory (Kirovsky factory) engineer L.S.Troyanov developed another variant, named "Object 211". Both tanks were sent to comparison trials which the first tank ("Object 126") won. On February 12, 1941,"Object 126" was accepted for servise and named T-50. T-50 was intended to be the most mass-produced Soviet tank. It was the very first Soviet tank successfully passed all steps of Govermental Trials without any fails.
In their construction the T-50 and the "Object 126" were quite similar. Like its prototype, the T-50 had well-sloped welded armor. The driver's hatch was located in the upper frontal armor plate. Bow machine-gun was absent. T-50's design was hi-tech and weighed only 13.5 tons, with 37-mm frontal armor on hull and turret. The three-man conical turret had a commander's cupola with six vision slits. The turret was welded, of conic form, with flat rear armor hatch. The T-50 was still armed with the 45-mm gun model 1932/38 and one coaxial 7.62 mm DT TMG.
The T-50 had the torsion bar suspension with road wheels with internal shock absorbers. The tank was powered by 300 hp V-4 diesel engine (specific power - 21 hp/ton). Average ground pressure - 0.57 kg/cm2, top speed - 60 km/h. All tanks were equipped with radio.
On those times point of view, the T-50 was intended to be a kind of "universal" tank and should replace T-26 and BT light tanks.
Here I would like to notice, the T-50 wasn't light tank, also it wasn't intended to be light. According to the nomenclature of that time, the T-50 was rather a support tank for motorised and mechanised troops of the Red Army.
At that time, an artillery testings congucted at NII-48 Research Lab. These tests proved the T-50 couldn't be penetrated by the Soviet 76 mm Gun Model 1939 at 400 metres at any angle. Moreover, during these tests, the T-50 wasn't penetrated by the ex-German PaK 40 antitank gun, while the T-34 was penetrated three times.
In April 1941, the T-50 was accepted for service. Until the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, factory No.174 produced not a single T-50, however. The most serious problem was with V-4 engine that was in fact very unreliable and expensive. Till the end of war, Soviet industry was unable to build an efficient and reliable V-4. Through extreme efforts Soviet industry was able to produce 50 tanks during the second half of 1941. An attempt to set up mass production of T-50 at Factory No.37 in Moscow failed.
In August 1941, the Factory No.174 was evacuated: mostly in Omsk, but several parts in Nizhnij Tagil and Barnaul. On October 13, 1941, the GOKO issued an order to build two new factories in Barnaul: the first to manufacture T-50s and the second to manufacture diesel engines for the T-50. However, in January 1942, the manufacture of the T-50 and its engines was cancelled and never resumed. Factory No.174 in Omsk manufactured 15 T-50s, but then was switched to building T-34s.
History has left few combat records of this very interesting tank. I know only that T-50 tanks manufactured in Leningrad served in one of the Soviet tank brigades on the Karelian Isthmus. Some were captured by Finns and used till the end of war (1944).
The T-50 was adequately protected, its armor protection was almost equal to T-34. Tank was intended to rearm with 57mm ZIS-4 Tank Gun. Its speed and maneuverability was much better then T-34. Also, the commander's cupola and restricted duties of the tank commander were also important improvement (comparing to the T-34). The steel intensity of the T-34 was twice as much then T-50. So why the production of such advanced tank was ceased? In fact, there were three reasons. At first, the mass production was tried to set up after the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. At second, from autumn 1941, the Red Army began to receive British and Canadian "Valentine" tanks, which were quite close to the T-50 (with exception to maneuverability). At third, there were no available factory ready to produce V-4 engines.
That's why the fate of the T-50 was so short. Only 69 T-50 tanks were manufactured; after that it was finally removed from production.
Important to mention there were two types of T-50 distinguished by different armor thickness: the first one was 37-41 mm, the second one was 55-57 mm.
It's important to mention another variant of T-50: the "Object 211", which was developed by LKZ's Design Bureau headed by A. S. Ermolaev. It had a welded hull and conical turret. The armament and engine were the same as the production T-50, though "Object 211" was lighter. Anyway, it didn't have any superiority over production T-50. Only one vehicle was manufactured and that was before the war.
After the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, all further works on this project were cancelled. The single "Object 211" was used in defense of Leningrad and its further fate is unknown - list it as "missing in action".
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First, we should clarify what "evolution
" means. Like so many other words, it has more than one meaning
. Its strict biological definition
is "a change in allele frequencies over time." By that definition, evolution is an indisputable fact. Most people seem to associate the word "evolution" mainly with common descent, the theory that all life arose from one common ancestor. Many people believe that there is enough evidence to call this a fact, too. However, common descent is still not the theory of evolution, but just a fraction of it (and a part of several quite different theories as well). The theory of evolution not only says that life evolved, it also includes mechanisms, like mutations
, natural selection
, and genetic drift
, which go a long way towards explaining how life evolved.
Calling the theory of evolution "only a theory" is, strictly speaking, true, but the idea it tries to convey is completely wrong. The argument rests on a confusion between what "theory" means in informal usage and in a scientific context. A theory, in the scientific sense, is "a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena" Random House American College Dictionary. The term does not imply tentativeness or lack of certainty. Generally speaking, scientific theories differ from scientific laws only in that laws can be expressed more tersely. Being a theory implies self-consistency, agreement with observations, and usefulness. (Creationism fails to be a theory mainly because of the last point; it makes few or no specific claims about what we would expect to find, so it can't be used for anything. When it does make falsifiable predictions, they prove to be false.)
Lack of proof isn't a weakness, either. On the contrary, claiming infallibility for one's conclusions is a sign of hubris. Nothing in the real world has ever been rigorously proved, or ever will be. Proof, in the mathematical sense, is possible only if you have the luxury of defining the universe you're operating in. In the real world, we must deal with levels of certainty based on observed evidence. The more and better evidence we have for something, the more certainty we assign to it; when there is enough evidence, we label the something a fact, even though it still isn't 100% certain.
What evolution has is what any good scientific claim has--evidence, and lots of it. Evolution is supported by a wide range of observations throughout the fields of genetics, anatomy, ecology, animal behavior, paleontology, and others. If you wish to challenge the theory of evolution, you must address that evidence. You must show that the evidence is either wrong or irrelevant or that it fits another theory better. Of course, to do this, you must know both the theory and the evidence.
Taken from the Talk.Origins: Five Major Misconceptions about Evolution FAQ
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Constructive Learning | Adaptation Level | Language Arts
Students will work in groups to create videos on the book Tom Sawyer using elements of visualization and characterization.
- Students will read Tom Sawyer.
- Students will write a script including dialogue and action cues based on their understanding of the characters in the book Tom Sawyer.
- Students will use their visualizations from reading to design costums and choose locations.
- Students will discuss how their interpretations of the same scene may have differed from other people's interpretations.
- Tom Sawyer
- Computers with video editing software
- Video cameras
- Props and costums
Grade Level: 6-8
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News & Policies >
Policies in Focus
President Bush's Initiative Against Illegal Logging
"... I've also ordered the Secretary of State to develop a new initiative to help developing
countries stop illegal logging, a practice that destroys biodiversity and releases millions
of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere."
What is Illegal Logging?
Illegal logging is generally understood to mean timber that is harvested, transported, processed or sold in contravention of a country's laws. Illegal logging destroys forest ecosystems, robs national governments and local communities of needed revenues, undercuts prices of legally harvested forest products on the world market, finances regional conflict and acts as a disincentive to sustainable forest management.
International trade in illegally harvested timber and timber traded in violation of Parties' obligations under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) exacerbates the problem. Illegal logging is also a primary factor in the escalating African bush meat crisis, opening up vast areas to illicit hunting to feed loggers and for commercial sale in urban centers.
Underlying causes of illegal logging and related corruption are rooted in a lack of strong institutions based on democratic principles: rule of law, participatory and transparent decision-making, public accountability, clear land tenure and property rights and due process for dispute settlement.
The World Bank estimates that illegal logging results in annual
losses in developing countries of $10-15 billion worldwide.
The United States has been a leader in raising international awareness of the devastating global problem of illegal logging and identifying actions to address it, notably through the G-8, regional initiatives such as the South Asia and Africa Ministerial Conferences on Forest Law Enforcement and Governance, and bilateral development assistance activities. Developed at the direction of President Bush, this Initiative builds on those efforts.
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METHODISM IN THE UNITED STATES There are in the United States sixteen distinct Methodist denominations, all agreeing essentially in doctrine. John Wesley had been conducting his United Societies for more than twenty years before the movement took root in North America.
The first American Conference was held in 1773, and consisted of ten preachers, all of whom were born in England or Ireland. Asbury came to America to remain permanently; but Rankin, unable to identify himself with its people, to take the test oaths required in the Revolution, or to sympathize with the colonies, returned to England, as did all the English preachers except As bury. By May 1776 there were 24 preachers and 4,921 members; but in the first year of the Revolution there was a loss of 7 preachers and nearly i,000 members.
The preachers in the South determined upon administration of the sacraments, and a committee was chosen whose members ordained themselves and others. The Northern preachers opposed this step and for several years the Connexion was on the verge of disruption. An agreement was finally made to suspend the
administration until Wesley's desires and judgment should be ascertained. He perceived that the society would disintegrate unless effective measures were speedily taken, and early in 1784 he ordained Thomas Coke (1747-1814), already in orders of the Church of England, as superintendent. Wesley sent Coke to America as his commissioner to establish, for the Methodist Soci ety, a system of Church government, which should include the administration of Baptism and of the Lord's Supper. Wesley also appointed Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury "to be joint super intendents over our brethren in North America." Soon after Coke and his companions arrived they met Asbury and fifteen preachers, and a special conference was called, which opened on the 24th of December, 1784, in the suburbs of Baltimore, Mary land. This convention organized itself into a Methodist Episcopal Church, in which the liturgy sent by Wesley should be read, and the sacraments should be administered and deacons to be ordained by a presbytery using the episcopal form. Coke and Asbury were unanimously elected superintendents, Coke, aided by his clerical companions from England, ordaining Asbury as deacon and elder and formally consecrating him a general superintendent. This con vention adopted the first Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It adopted the existing doctrinal standards, consisting chiefly of Wesley's Sermons and his Notes on the New Testament; also twenty-five of the Articles of Religion of the Church of Eng land, modified so as to eradicate all trace of High Church ritual ism, Anglican or Roman, and the distinctive doctrines of Calvin ism. The Church thus established began its ecclesiastical career with 18,000 members, 104 travelling preachers, about the same number of local preachers, and more than 200 licensed exhorters. There were 6o chapels and Boo regular preaching places. Within five years the number of preachers swelled to 227, and the mem bers to 45,949 (white) and 11,682 (coloured).
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There are many file types used in graphic design. These file types include image file formats such as JPG, GIF and TIFF.
GIF files are a format commonly used for graphics presented on websites. GIFs can contain a maximum of 256 colors, and are therefore best for images that contain simple shapes, a limited color palette, text and other elements as opposed to photos.
JPG files, also known as JPEG files, are a common file format for digital photos and other digital graphics. When JPG files are saved, they use "lossy" compression, meaning image quality is lost as file size decreases. JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, the committee that created the file type.
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The rare greenback cutthroat trout, Colorado’s state fish, is even more imperiled than scientists thought, a new study suggests. By analyzing DNA sampled from cutthroat trout specimens pickled in ethanol for 150 years, comparing it with the genes of today’s cutthroat populations, and cross-referencing more than 40,000 historic stocking records, researchers in Colorado and Australia have revealed that the fish survives not in five wild populations, but just one.
Stocking records and the tangled genetic patchwork of trout in the southern Rocky Mountain region suggest that efforts to replenish populations were far more extensive and began earlier than previously recognized. Between 1885 and 1953, state and federal agencies stocked more than 750 million brook trout, rainbow trout and cutthroat trout from hatcheries into streams and lakes in Colorado, the researchers found.
The study, published on Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Molecular Ecology as a follow-up to a 2007 study led by the same biologist, Jessica Metcalf, yielded some findings that “may be uncomfortable,” Kevin Rogers, a researcher for Colorado’s state parks authority, said in a call with reporters.
Doug Krieger, senior aquatic biologist for the same agency, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, predicted that the study would shift the direction of conservation efforts.
A shift in the scientific landscape is not an entirely new experience for fish managers working with the cutthroat trout in the region. The 2007 study shook the very foundations of cutthroat trout recovery efforts, showing that managers had accidentally mixed a different subspecies of cutthroat trout, the Colorado cutthroat, with the rare greenback, and then stocked these hybrid strains into otherwise pure greenback streams.
The latest study, whose co-authors also include the biologist Chris Kennedy of the Fish and Wildlife Service and scientists with the University of Adelaide’s Australian Center for Ancient DNA and the University of Colorado, Boulder, shows that the last surviving greenback population lies within a four-mile stretch of a small alpine stream known as Bear Creek. The stream is about five miles southwest of Colorado Springs, on the eastern slope of Pikes Peak.
Located outside the greenback’s native range, this holdout population is probably descended from fish stocked at the Bear Creek headwaters in the 1880’s by a hotelier seeking to promote a tourist route up Pikes Peak, the researchers say.
To map out the historic distribution and range of a species whose taxonomic record is, to quote the latest study, “rife with errors,” Dr. Metcalf sampled skin, gill, muscle and bone from trout specimens collected in Colorado and New Mexico from 1857 to 1889, before the state and federal efforts to propagate and stock native trout were ramped up.
Now housed in museums including the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and the California Academy of Sciences, the specimens were preserved in ethanol. “The DNA was very degraded, and there wasn’t very much of it,” Dr. Metcalf said. “So this took a lot of effort and repeated sequencing for each specimen.”
Still, ethanol preservation opened a window to the past. “After the 1900’s, a lot of things were fixed in formalin, which keeps them looking the way they were when they were collected,” Dr. Metcalf said. “Before that, things were just straight up pickled” in ethanol.”
The problem for latter-day genetic sleuths is that formalin actually binds with DNA, making the latter impossible to recover. It’s not always obvious what chemicals were used for a given specimen, but the fact that some fish appeared partially decayed was a good sign these trout were preserved the old-fashioned way (in ethanol only), leaving fragments of DNA intact.
“The DNA I get out of 15,000-year-old, extremely degraded animals from Patagonia is in better shape than these ethanol-preserved fish,” she said.
Aside from presenting an approach for using pre-1900 museum specimens to provide a baseline for historic diversity, the study effectively yanks the rug out from under cutthroat trout restoration efforts and raises the stakes in a lawsuit filed last week by the Center for Biological Diversity against federal land managers.
The center claims that “rampant motorcycle use” permitted on trails running along and across Bear Creek is destroying precious habitat. “We’ve asked the forest service to close that trail to motorcycle use and move it,” the director of the organization’s endangered species program, Noah Greenwald, said in an interview.
Even after the construction of bridges and other projects designed to minimize erosion, Mr. Greenwald said, heavy trafficking of erosive soil around Bear Creek causes sediments to fill pools that are vital to cutthroat trout survival.
“It’s a really small stream,” he said. “So the pools are super-important during drought, when the stream freezes in the wintertime, and to hide from predators.”
The Fish and Wildlife Service does not plan to take immediate action around Bear Creek in response to the Metcalf research, which the agency helped finance as a member of the Greenback Cutthroat Trout Recovery Team. Other funds flowed from the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service and Trout Unlimited.
A Fish and Wildlife Service representative told reporters on Monday that the greenback’s status would not be changed from threatened to endangered until a thorough scientific review was carried out and the public had a chance to weigh in. Separate research that the agency will use to crosscheck Dr. Metcalf’s genetic results is to be completed this fall.
Historic records indicate that Bear Creek, like many high-alpine streams made inaccessible by waterfalls and other natural barriers, once had no fish at all. When frontiersmen arrived in the area, they typically would settle near a creek, Dr. Metcalf said., “The first thing you’re going to do is stock it, so you have a good food resource right by your house all year round,” she said,
The revelation that Bear Creek is home to the last remaining greenback cutthroats underscores the importance of protecting the population, said Mr. Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity.
“If we can’t protect it, if we don’t do what’s necessary to protect it, “we’re at risk of losing another one of these cutthroat trout subspecies, and that would be a real tragedy,” he said.
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Children's Fiction TWAIN
Summary: Introduction by George Saunders Commentary by Thomas Perry Sergeant, Bernard DeVoto, Clifton Fadiman, T. S. Eliot, and Leo Marx "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn ," Ernest Hemingway wrote. "It's the best book we've had." A complex masterpiece that spawned controversy right from the start (it was banished from the Concord library shelves in 1885), it is at heart a compelling adventure story. Huck, in flight from his murderous father, and Jim, in flight from slavery, pilot their raft through treacherous waters, surviving a crash with a steamboat and betrayal by rogues. As Norman Mailer has said, "The mark of how good Huckleberry Finn has to be is that one can compare it to a number of our best modern American novels and it stands up page for page."
Question about returns, requests or other account details?
Add a Comment
| 3.243701 |
Score an A+ with Your Child’s Asthma Action Plan
When the school bell rings with the start of school, you’ll want the peace of mind that comes from knowing that your child’s asthma is well-managed. The best way to prepare the school staff to meet your child’s needs is to develop an asthma action plan.
What’s an action plan?
This plan describes how to manage your child’s asthma. It gives the school staff clear information—in writing—about what your child’s triggers and symptoms are, what medications he or she uses, how to make sure your child exercises safely, how to handle a flare-up, and when to call the health care provider.
You’ll need to work with your child’s provider to complete the plan. An asthma action plan generally covers these topics:
Medications. This refers to the medication your child uses daily to manage asthma, including the dosage and time of day, and the quick-relief medication to use when your child experiences changes in peak flow or has asthma symptoms.
Asthma symptoms and triggers. Those things that make your child’s asthma worse, such as pollen, chalk dust, smoke, mold, pet dander, cleaning products, exercise and certain foods, and symptoms of an asthma flare-up. You should list what steps to take when symptoms appear.
Exercise and recess. The medication and dose your child needs to take before recess, or exercise and activities your child needs to avoid, or special precautions to take, such as wearing a scarf or ski mask on cold days, or not exercising outdoors when pollen counts are high.
Problems and emergencies. The name and phone number of your child’s health care provider. You should include emergency phone numbers and when to call the provider or emergency medical services.
Putting it all together
It’s a good idea to meet with the school nurse, teachers, and coaches early in the school year. Your child can be there, too. Review the plan and discuss any school policies that affect your child’s asthma management. For instance, some schools allow kids to keep their quick-relief medicine with them in their bag or locker, but other schools keep medications in the school nurse’s office. Some schools allow children to self-administer an inhaler, but if your child doesn’t like to use an inhaler in front of the other kids, ask if he or she can be allowed to go to the restroom for privacy.
You’ll also want to know if the school nurse has a peak-flow meter and nebulizer available. If pet dander is a trigger for your child’s asthma, find out if animals, such as gerbils or hamsters, are kept in the classroom. Don't forget to discuss how medication will be handled during school field trips.
If the school doesn’t have a full-time nurse, you’ll want to provide the teacher with information on how to use an inhaler with a spacer, as well as how to use a peak-flow meter and what the zones mean. For example, many asthma action plans use the traffic light system. In this system, green means safe and corresponds to a peak-flow reading of 80 to 100 percent of your child’s best reading. Yellow means caution and indicates readings of 50 to 80 percent of his or her best reading. Red is 50 percent or less of your child’s best reading. Measurements in this zone mean he or she needs immediate medical help.
As the school year goes on, check in with the staff to review your child’s needs and discuss any concerns. The school nurse or your child’s health care provider may have forms you can use for your child’s action plan, or you can find one that can be personalized on the American Lung Association's website at http://www.lung.org/lung-disease/asthma/taking-control-of-asthma/AsthmaActionPlan-JUL2008-high-res.pdf. With a good plan in place, both you and your child will be breathing easier.
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Teachers love to assign book reports. Did you ever wonder why? Sure, you could think of it as a cruel attempt to force you to read. But it might be a little more than that!
Your teacher's goal is to broaden your understanding of the world and society. That is what good books do!
What Is Included in a Book Report?
Book report content will vary according to grade level. Middle grade-level book reports will provide the basic details about a book, a summary of the plot, and some comments regarding the student's opinions and impressions.
As students mature and advance, the book reports should include a little more.
As students enter high school and higher grades, they will start to explain and explore the messages that are contained in books--messages about life and its important experiences. Students will begin to share their own opinions about these messages (themes) contained in books.
Your Book Report Introduction
The introduction segment of your book report provides an opportunity to make a good first impression!
You should try to write a strong introductory sentence that grabs your reader's attention. Somewhere in your first paragraph, you should also state the book's title (italicized), the topic, and the author's name.
High school-level papers should include publication information as well as brief statements about the book's angle, the genre, the theme, and a hint about the writer's feelings in the introduction.
First Paragraph Example: Middle School Level:The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane, is a book about a young man growing up during the Civil War. Henry Fleming is the main character of the book. As Henry watches and experiences the tragic events of the war, he grows up and changes his attitudes about life.
First Paragraph Example: High School Level:
Can you identify one experience that changed your entire view of the world around you? Henry Fleming, the main character in The Red Badge of Courage, begins his life-changing adventure as a naive young man, eager to experience the glory of war. He soon faces the truth about life, war, and his own self-identity on the battlefield, however. The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane, is a coming of age novel, published by D. Appleton and Company in 1895, about thirty years after the Civil War ended. In this book, the author reveals the ugliness of war, and examines its relationship to the pain of growing up.
Before you get started on the body of the report, take a few minutes to jot down some helpful information by considering the following points.
- Did you enjoy the book?
- Was it well written?
- What was the genre?
- (fiction) Which characters play important roles that relate to the overall theme?
- Did you notice reoccurring symbols?
- Is this book a part of a series?
- (nonfiction) Can you identify the writer's thesis?
- What is the writing style?
- Did you notice a tone?
- Was there an obvious slant or bias?
ConclusionAs you lead to your final paragraph, consider some additional impressions and opinions:
- Was the ending satisfactory (for fiction)?
- Was the thesis supported by strong evidence (for non-ficton)?
- What interesting or notable facts do you know about the author?
- Would you recommend this book?
Conclude your report with a paragraph or two that covers these additional points. Some teachers prefer that you re-state the name and author of the book in the concluding paragraph. As always, consult your specific assignment guide.
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hyperbole examples for kids: story
A hyperbole is simply a phrase with an exaggeration that is meant to have impact. Hyperboles are not literal. They're meant to paint a funny picture or make a point. Here are some examples of hyperboles to illustrate the point and to help you identify them when they come up in speech or writing.
* I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse!
* You snore louder than a freight train.
* He sleeps like a log.
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The Library of Congress
Manuscript Division, Library of Congress
Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
Search by Keyword | Browse by
The online presentation of The Wilbur and Orville Wright Papers at the
Library of Congress, comprising about 10,121 library items or approximately
49,084 digital images, documents the lives of Wilbur and Orville Wright and highlights
their pioneering work which led to the world's first powered, controlled and sustained flight.
Included in the collection are correspondence, diaries and notebooks, scrapbooks, drawings, printed
matter, and other documents, as well as the Wrights' collection of glass-plate photographic negatives.
The Wright brothers' letters to aviation pioneer and mentor Octave Chanute, from the Octave Chanute Papers,
were also selected for this online collection. The Wright Papers span the years 1881 to 1952 but largely cover
1900 to 1940. This online presentation includes the famous glass-plate negative of the "First Flight" at Kitty Hawk
on December 17, 1903, as well as diaries and letters in which Wilbur and Orville Wright recount their work that led to
The mission of the Library of Congress is to make its
resources available and useful to Congress and the American people and
to sustain and
preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future
generations. The goal of the Library's National Digital Library Program
to offer broad public access to a wide range of historical and cultural
documents as a contribution to education and lifelong learning.
The Library of Congress presents these
documents as part of the record of the past. These primary historical
documents reflect the attitudes,
perspectives, and beliefs of different times. The Library of Congress
does not endorse the views expressed in these collections, which may
contain materials offensive to some readers.
American Memory | Search All Collections | Collection Finder | Teachers
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Thu September 20, 2012
Why Pictures Can Sway Your Moral Judgment
Originally published on Thu September 20, 2012 8:41 am
When we think about morality, many of us think about religion or what our parents taught us when we were young. Those influences are powerful, but many scientists now think of the brain as a more basic source for our moral instincts.
The tools scientists use to study how the brain makes moral decisions are often stories, said Joshua Greene, a Harvard psychologist, citing one well-known example: "A trolley is headed toward five people, and the only way you can save them is to hit a switch that will turn the trolley away from the five and onto a side track, but if you turn it onto the side track, it will run over one person."
It's a moral dilemma. Greene and other researchers have presented this dilemma to research volunteers.
Most people say they would flip the switch and divert the trolley. They say they don't want to kill someone, but one innocent person dead is better than five innocent people dead.
What this shows is that people resolve the moral dilemma by doing a cost-benefit analysis. Greene says they look at the consequences of each choice, and pick the choice that does the least harm.
In other words, people are what philosophers would call utilitarians. Except, Greene tells me, sometimes they aren't.
He asked me to visualize another well-known dilemma:
"This time, you're on a footbridge, in between the oncoming trolley and the five people. And next to you is a big person wearing a big backpack. And the only way you can save those five people is to push this big guy off of the footbridge so that he lands on the tracks. And he'll get squashed by the train; you sort of use him as a trolley stopper. But you can save the five people."
Would you push the big guy to his death? More important, do you feel this moral dilemma is identical to the earlier one?
"In a certain sense, they're identical," Greene said. "Trade one life to save five. But psychologically, they're very different."
Pushing someone to their death feels very different from pushing a switch. When Greene gives people this dilemma, most people don't choose to push the big guy to his death.
In other words, people use utilitarian, cost-benefit calculations — sometimes. But other times, they make an emotional decision.
"There are certain lines that are drawn in the moral sand," Green said. "Some things are inherently wrong, or some things inherently must be done."
There's another dimension here that's interesting: If you watched yourself during the first dilemma, you may have noticed you had to think about whether you'd push that switch. In the footbridge dilemma, you probably didn't have to think — you just knew that pushing someone to his death is wrong.
Greene says we really have two completely different moral circuits in our brain.
When you listen to a dilemma, the two circuits literally have a fight inside your brain. Part of your brain says, slow down, think rationally — make a cost-benefit analysis. Another says, no, don't think about it. This is just wrong!
"These responses compete in a part of the brain called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which is a kind of place where different types of values can be weighed against each other to produce an all-things-considered decision," Greene said.
So what makes the ventromedial prefrontal cortex go with the rational mode sometimes, and the emotional mode other times?
Greene and a colleague, Elinor Amit, thought closely about what was happening to people as they tipped from rational mode to an emotional mode. In new research they've just published in the journal Psychological Science, these psychologists say they have the answer.
"Emotional responses don't just pop out of nowhere," Greene said. "They have to be triggered by something. And one possibility is that you hear the words describing some event, you picture that event in your mind, and then you respond emotionally to that picture."
That's the key: Some dilemmas produce vivid images in our heads. And we're wired to respond emotionally to pictures. Take away the pictures — the brain goes into rational, calculation mode.
Here's how they found that out: Greene and Amit set up an experiment. They presented people with moral dilemmas that evoked strong visual images. As expected, the volunteers made emotional moral judgments. Then the psychologists made it difficult for volunteers to visualize the dilemma. They distracted them by making them visualize something else instead.
When that happened, the volunteers stopped making emotional decisions. Not having pictures of the moral dilemma in their head prompted them into rational, cost-benefit mode.
In another experiment, Greene and Amit also found that people who think visually make more emotional moral judgments. Verbal people make more rational calculations.
Amit says people don't realize how images tip the brain one way or another. And that can create biases we aren't even aware of.
She laid out a scenario to think about: "Imagine a horrible scenario in which a terrorist takes an ax and starts slaughtering people in a bus," she said. "I'm coming from Israel, so these are the examples that I have in my mind."
The story produces a movie in our heads. We can see blood everywhere. We can hear people screaming. We don't have to think at all. It feels terribly wrong.
Then Amit presented another kind of news event: A drone strike that sends a missile hurtling toward a target. At the center of the cross-hairs, an explosion. There's dust billowing everywhere.
"So if you learn about these events from television or from pictures in a newspaper, which one [would you] judge as more horrible?" Amit asked. "The person with the ax that killed maybe two people but the scene looks horrible and extremely violent, or the picture of the drone that killed 100 people but looks relatively clean and nice?"
To be sure, the events Amit describes are completely different. One's a terrorist attack, the other is a military action. But it's true the ax murderer instantly sends the brain into emotional mode.
The drone strike has less vivid imagery. You can't see, up close, what the missile does. So most people go into utilitarian mode — they start to think about the costs and benefits.
Amit's point is not that one mode is better than the other. It's something much more disturbing. As you listen to the news everyday, hidden circuits in your brain are literally changing the ground rules by which you judge events.
You think you're making consistent moral choices when, really, the movies playing in your head might be making your choices for you.
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Click on the names to hear how they are pronounced
AD 581, Yang Jian replaced North Zhou from the Two Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties and established a new era. He named this new dynasty Sui. He was the emperor -- Sui Wendi. He was a good emperor who made the lives of civilians much better than before. He made many reforms that helped to increase national power. The unifying of China once again was also accredited to him and his general (also son) Yang Guang.
Because of political needs, Sui started constructing many structures starting at the beginning of the dynasty. Wendi's son, Sui Yangdi, scaled up the construction. The projects were 1) building the two capital cities -- the city of Da Xing and city of Luo Yang; 2) filling up the storehouse; 3) opening up a canal, 4) constructing roads. During Yangdi's rein, a canal connecting the north and south was constructed, and a road connecting Luo Yang, through the mountain of Tai Hang, and Bing Zhou was constructed.
Right --> A Sui Woman Rider statue (graphic courtesy of China-Window.com)
After the death of Sui Wendi, his son Yang Guang inherited the throne. Yang Guang was later known as the famous tyrant Sui Yangdi. This title came from 1) his lavish of civilian's labour, 2) frequent invasion to Gaoli, 3)extravagance, 4) cruel punishments. During Yangdi's rein, there was conscription every year. If there were not enough men, he drafted women to do work for him. If anyone dared to say anything against him, he used cruel punishments on him. He didn't care who died or who lived.
Because of Yangdi's tyranny and natural hazards, neither people nor animals had means to live. Having no choice, the people revolted. AD 611, Wang Bo started a rebel army on the moutain of Chang Bai and called upon everybody in the country to follow him. Under these revolts, Sui was on the verge of destruction. AD 618, Sui Yangdi was killed by one of his officers. Sui was finished.
Although Sui was short-lived, its importance in Chinese history cannot be overlooked.
Because Sui was so short-lived, many of its cultural and scientific developments are grouped with Tang.
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Shortly after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, mysterious honeycomb material was found floating in the Gulf of Mexico and along coastal beaches. Using state-of-the-art chemical forensics and a bit of old-fashioned detective work, a research team led by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) confirmed that the flotsam were pieces of material used to maintain buoyancy of the pipe bringing up oil from the seafloor.
The researchers also affirmed that tracking debris from damaged offshore oil rigs could help forecast coastal pollution impacts in future oil spills and guide emergency response efforts—much the way the Coast Guard has studied the speed and direction of various floating debris to guide search and rescue missions. The findings were published Jan. 19 in Environmental Research Letters.
On May 5, 2010, 15 days after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, oceanographer William Graham and marine technicians from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab were working from a boat about 32 miles south of Dauphin Island, Ala., when they saw a 6-mile-long, east-west line containing more than 50 pieces of white material interspersed with sargassum weed. The porous material was uniformly embedded with black spheres about a centimeter in diameter. No oil slick was in sight, but there was a halo of oil sheen around the honeycomb clumps.
Two days later, the researchers also collected similar samples about 25 miles south of Dauphin Island. Nobody knew what the material was, with some hypothesizing at first that it could be coral or other substance made by marine plants or animals. Graham sent samples to WHOI chemist Chris Reddy, whose lab confirmed that the material was not biological. But the material’s source remained unconfirmed.
In January 2011, Reddy and WHOI researcher Catherine Carmichael, lead author of the new study, collected a piece of the same unknown material of Elmer’s Beach, Grand Isle, La. In April, 2011, they found several large pieces, ranging from 3 to 10 feet, of the honeycomb debris on the Chandeleur Islands off Louisiana.
Oil on all these samples was analyzed at WHOI using comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography. The technique identifies the thousands of individual chemical compounds that comprise different oils from different reservoirs. The chemistry of the oil on the debris matched that of oil sampled directly from the broken pipe from the Macondo well above the Deepwater Horizon rig.
In addition, one piece of debris from the Chandeleur Islands retained a weathered red sticker that read “Cuming” with the numbers 75-1059 below it. Reddy found a company called Cuming Corporation in Avon, Mass., which manufactures syntactic foam flotation equipment for the oil and gas industry. He e-mailed photos of the specimen to the company, and within hours, a Cuming engineer confirmed from the serial number that the foam came from a buoyancy module from Deepwater Horizon.
“We realized that the foam and the oil were released into the environment at the same time,” Reddy said. “So we had a unique tracer that was independent of the oil itself to chronicle how oil and debris drifted out from the spill site.”
The scientists overlaid the locations where they found honeycomb debris on May 5 and 7 with daily forecasts produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the trajectory of the spreading oil slick. NOAA used a model that incorporated currents and wind speeds, along with data from planes and satellites. On both days, the debris was about 6.2 miles ahead of the spreading slick.
The explanation, the scientists said, is the principle of leeway, a measure of how fast wind or waves push materials. The leeway for fresh oil is 3 to 3.3 percent, but the scientists suspected that “the protruding profile of the buoyant material” acted acting like a sail, allowing wind to drive it faster than and ahead of the floating oil.
In this case, the flotsam served as a harbinger for the oncoming slick, but because different materials can have different leeways, oil spill models may not accurately forecast where oiled debris will head. “Even a small deviation in leeway can, over time, results in significant differences in surface tracks because of typical wind fields,” the scientists wrote.
The Coast Guard has a long history of calculating the leeway of various materials, from life jackets to bodies of various sizes and weights, to improve forecasts of where the materials would drift if a ship sank or a plane crashed into the sea. But calculating leeways has not been standard practice in oil spills.
“We never had solid data to make the case until this study,” said Merv Fingas, who tracked oil spills for more than 38 years for Environment Canada, which is equivalent to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“These results,” the study’s authors wrote, “provide insights into the fate of debris fields deriving from damaged marine materials and should be incorporated into emergency response efforts and forecasting of coastal impacts during future offshore oil spills.”
This research was funded by the National Science Foundation.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, independent organization in Falmouth, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the ocean and its interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the ocean's role in the changing global environment.
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The Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) of Seyfert galaxy M77 (NGC 1068), about 60 million light years from Earth, in the X-ray light, as photographed by Chandra X-ray Observatory.
A composite Chandra X-ray (blue/green) and Hubble optical (red) image of M77 (NGC 1068) shows hot gas blowing away from a central supermassive object at speeds averaging about 1 million miles per hour. The elongated shape of the gas cloud is thought to be due to the funneling effect of a torus, or doughnut-shaped cloud, of cool gas and dust that surrounds the central object, which many astronomers think is a black hole. The X-rays are scattered and reflected X-rays that are probably coming from a hidden disk of hot gas formed as matter swirls very near the black hole. Regions of intense star formation in the inner spiral arms of the galaxy are highlighted by the optical emission. This image extends over a field 36 arcsec on a side.
This three-color high energy X-ray image (red =1.3-3 keV, green = 3-6 keV, blue = 6-8 keV) of NGC 1068 shows gas rushing away from the nucleus. The brightest point-like source may be the inner wall of the torus that is reflecting X-rays from the hidden nucleus. Scale: Image is 30 arcsec per side.
This three-color low energy X-ray image of M77 (NGC 1068) (red = 0.4-0.6 keV, green = 0.6-0.8 keV, blue = 0.8-1.3 keV) shows gas rushing away from the the nucleus (bright white spot). The range of colors from blue to red corresponds to a high through low ionization of the atoms in the wind. Scale: Image is 30 arcsec per side.
This optical image of the active galaxy NGC 1068, taken by Hubble's WFPC2, gives a detailed view of the spiral arms in the inner parts of the galaxy. Scale: Image is 30 arcsec per side.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/P. Ogle et.al.; Optical: NASA/STScI/A. Capetti et.al.
Last Modification: July 12, 2003
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Uncle Tom's Trail was first constructed in 1898 by "Uncle" Tom Richardson. The five years following its construction, Uncle Tom led visitors on tours which included crossing the river upstream from the present day Chittenden Bridge, and then following his rough trail to the base of the Lower Falls. The tour was concluded with a picnic and a return trip across the river.
Today Uncle Tom's Trail is very different from the simple trail used by Mr. Richardson and his visitors. It is still, however, a very strenuous walk into the canyon. The trail drops 500 feet (150 m) in a series of more than 300 stairs and paved inclines.
Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone Tour
Previous Stop | Next Stop
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Home | Photos and Multimedia | Tour Map | List of Stops | Tour Home
an email comment or suggestion
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The Godavari River is a major waterway in India, next to the Ganges and Indus rivers. It rises at Trimbakeshwar, near Nasik and Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in Maharashtra around 380 km distant from the Arabian Sea, but flows southeast across south-central India into Andhra Pradesh, and empties into the Bay of Bengal
The river Godavari starts at the western ghats and flows towards the eastern ghats. It flows in the southern India and is considered to be one of the seven sacred rivers. This river originates from the hills situated at the back of the village Tryanibak, located at Nasik district in Maharashtra. A large reservoir is situated at the hill from which the river originates. At 'Daulekharam' it merges into the "Bay of Bengal", making a delta. According to the Hindu religion the river Godavari is considered to be one of the very sacred rivers. The people believe that taking a holy dip in the river relieves them from all the sins.
The Godavari is the largest river system in Peninsular India. Arising in the Western Ghats near Nasik it passes through Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh before debouching into the Bay of Bengal near Kakinada. on the Andhra coast. There are ten major distributaries flowing through well established drainage networks.
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Student athletes everywhere can chalk up another point in the win column as the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has successfully issued a guidance measure that addresses the rights of children with disabilities to participate in school athletics and other extracurricular activities. In an addendum to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the proposed guidance adds clarity to the responsibilities of federally-funded schools for the provision of opportunities in physical activities and sports participation for students with disabilities.
The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) also aided in the initiative by providing a report stressing the important health and social benefits of access to and participation in school sports for all students, especially those with disabilities. The measure calls for schools to accommodate students with disabilities who choose to join traditional sports teams by making “reasonable modifications.” The National Center for Health, Physical Activity, and Disability has information and examples of sports adaptation on their website. In cases that an adjustment causes a disruption to the essence of the sport, then the order calls for the school to create a parallel athletic program that would have equal or at least comparable standing to the traditional platform.
The measure piggybacks on the successes of Title IX and augments the 1972 legislation (which focused on the inclusion of women in education programs and activities) to include those with disabilities. This opens the door for massive inclusion of students living with disabilities to be able to participate in sports and extracurricular activities at all levels, much like Title IX did for girls’ athletics.
This initiative will do much to improve the opportunities for athletes of all diversities in sport and give those athletes the muscle to erase the stigma that not fitting a prototype doesn’t mean one cannot be an athlete.
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A hernia occurs when a section of intestine protrudes through a weakness in the abdominal wall. A soft bulge is seen underneath the skin where the hernia has occurred. An inguinal hernia occurs in the groin area, when a section of intestine pushes through a weak spot in the inguinal canal--a triangle-shaped opening between layers of abdominal muscle near the groin.
As a male fetus grows and matures during pregnancy, the testicles develop in the abdomen and then move down into the scrotum through the area called the inguinal canal. Shortly after the male is born, the inguinal canal closes, preventing the testicles from moving back into the abdomen. If this area does not close off completely, a loop of intestine can move into the inguinal canal through the weakened area of the lower abdominal wall, causing a hernia. Although females do not have testicles, they do have an inguinal canal and can develop hernias in this area, as well.
Obesity, pregnancy, heavy lifting, and straining to pass stool can all be causes of inguinal hernias.
The following are the most common symptoms of an inguinal hernia. However, each individual may experience symptoms differently. Symptoms may include:
- Lump in the groin near the thigh
- Pressure or pain in the groin
- Partial or complete blockage of the intestine (in more severe cases) that may lead to nausea, vomiting, and poor appetite
The symptoms of an inguinal hernia may resemble other medical conditions or problems. Always consult your doctor for a diagnosis.
In addition to a complete medical history and physical examination, diagnostic procedures for an inguinal hernia may include the following:
- Blood tests
- X-rays and/or CT scan--diagnostic tests which use invisible electromagnetic energy beams to produce images of internal tissues, bones, and organs onto film; to check for blockage of the intestine.
Specific treatment for an inguinal hernia will be determined by your doctor based on:
- Your age, overall health, and medical history
- Extent of the condition
- Your tolerance of specific medicines, procedures, or therapies
- Expectations for the course of the condition
- Your opinion or preference
The main treatment for an inguinal hernia is a surgical procedure known as herniorrhaphy. In this procedure, the opening in the muscle wall is repaired. Sometimes, in a procedure known as hernioplasty, the weak area is repaired and reinforced with steel mesh or wire. Lapraroscopic surgery can also be performed by making several small incisions in the lower abdomen and inserting an instrument called a laparoscope to carefully repair the hernia using synthetic mesh.
If the protruding intestine becomes twisted or traps stool, a bowel resection may need to be performed. In this procedure, part of the intestine, or bowel, is removed.
Click here to view the
Online Resources of Digestive Disorders
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Much as a hybrid bicycle is a cross between two bikes--a road bike frame with mountain bike handlebars, for instance--this hybrid compound is a cross between two molecules. One is a traditional anticancer drug, a small molecule that targets cancer tumors. The other is a type of antibody, which is a protein produced in great abundance by the bodys immune system and found naturally in the bloodstream.
The hybrid of the two, described in an upcoming issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was found to have a profound effect on the size of tumors in mouse models--shrinking tumors of both Kaposi's sarcoma and colon cancers in these preclinical studies. Moreover, this approach is general enough that it could be used to design hybrids against any number of cancers.
"A single antibody can become a whole multiplicity of therapeutics simply by mixing it with the desired small molecule," says TSRI Professor Carlos F. Barbas III, Ph.D., who is Janet and W. Keith Kellogg II Chair in Molecular Biology. Barbas conducted the research with TSRI President Richard A. Lerner, M.D., and several colleagues at TSRI's Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology.
Steering and Support, Joined at the Hip
The TSRI team built the hybrid molecule with a "catalytic" antibody, a small drug molecule, and a linker molecule that joins the two. The hybrid thus formed borrows the wheels and the frame of the antibody for supports and the handlebars of the small drug molecule for steering ability.
Also called immunoglobulins, antibodies are proteins produced by immune cells that are designed to recognize a wide range of foreign pathogens. After a bacterium, virus, or other pathogen enters the bloodstream,
Contact: Jason Bardi
Scripps Research Institute
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"Basically what has happened by introducing the toads is it has created really strong evolutionary pressure both on the toads themselves and on animals that interact on the toads," Shine said.
For example, Shine and his colleague Benjamin Phillips previously showed that two native Australian snake species have evolved smaller heads and are no longer able to eat the toads, which carry a lethal toxin.
Other studies have shown that some would-be toad predators have altered their diets to exclude toads, while others have evolved resistance to the cane toad toxin, Shine said.
"These studies tell us a lot about the evolutionary process," said Jonathan Losos, an evolutionary biologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
"Invading species are a huge problem, and cane toads are a classic example of that," he added. "But they also represent an inadvertent evolutionary experiment, the sort of experiment you couldn't [normally] conduct."
Rules and regulations prohibit scientists from purposely confronting native species in the wild with a non-native competitor or predator to see how natural selection works, he explained.
The evolutionary processes spawned by the cane toad invasion have occurred in a span of just 70 years. This adds to evidence from the past two decades that populations can adapt quickly when selection pressure is strong.
"We're taught evolution occurs over these very, very long time frames. But in systems like these, it's incredibly fast," Shine, the study co-author, said.
According to Losos, the unusual aspect of the toad leg length adaptation is the mechanism that drives it.
In most instances rapid evolution occurs when an organism enters a new environment and some variation that was previously irrelevant becomes favored. That variation is repeatedly selected until it becomes more common, he explained.
In the case of the cane toads, longer legs make the toads faster, and the fastest toads are always at the invasion front. The lead toads mate, passing their long legs to their offspring.
As long as there is no disadvantage to being the first into a new territory, this process should allow the toads to "evolve faster and faster rates of movement," Shine said.
Cane Toad Management
According to Shine, as scientists learn more about cane toad biology, they can devise strategies for eradicating local populations, such as changing the character of a breeding pond or staking out toad migration routes.
But the toads are likely to be permanent fixtures in Australia and will continue their spread, he said.
While Shine is optimistic that ecosystems will adapt, "there may be some parts of native systems that don't and, in time, will go extinct," he said.
"One message from the work," he added, "is to try to stop invasive species, you probably ought to start as soon as you get a chance. The longer you let it linger, the more formidable the adversary will be."
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A Comparison of Gray's Reef and Savannah Scarp
September 10, 2001
Reed Bohne, Manager
Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary
Dr. Jack McGovern
Associate Marine Scientist
South Carolina Department of Natural Resources
View a video of one of the sea's most fascinating creatures, the octopus. (5.6 MB, QuickTime required).
For those of us from the Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary, the exploration of the Savannah Scarp is a trip to a realm closely related to, but significantly different from, the familiar waters of the sanctuary. At the surface, the endless expanse of water with Sargassum weed drifting by is familiar, but at this depth and proximity to the Gulf Stream, the water is a deep cobalt blue. At Gray's Reef, 40 mi shoreward, the water over the reef 60 ft below is often a jade green, rich in nutrients and influenced substantially by sediments washing off the coastal plain in Georgia and out the rivers and estuaries along the shore. At the Scarp we are riding the edge of the Gulf Stream, with its clear, tropical water, which is less rich in nutrients, but carries the tropical species that spin out in eddies and populate Gray's Reef with its more hardy and temperature-tolerant individuals.
A Look at the Bottom of Savannah Scarp
Descending 200 ft to the sea floor, the ambient light levels remain strong. Visibility is about 30 ft, but we notice that we can see features in the distance best if we leave the sub lights off. The scarp presents a very different vista from the one at the sanctuary. At Gray's Reef, extensive sand flats are interrupted by large, rocky ledges and diffuse patches of live bottom habitat. Our view at the scarp reveals broad boulevards of broken, rocky rubble, sloping gradually, from 190 to 225 ft, into open sandscapes. Of course, we have but a snapshot of this environment, which may not be fully representative of the diversity of habitat here, but is clearly different from the topography at Gray's Reef.
At the scarp, we know the rock formations are considerably older than those closer to shore. As the continental shelf gradually slopes downward offshore, the rocks that emerge represent earlier geologic eras. While we must await the detailed geologic analysis of the rock samples to characterize them properly, these rocks appear darker and more porous than formations at Gray's Reef. The analysis will also reveal whether these rocks were part of an ancient shoreline.
The physical environment governs which species will be successful in colonizing the hard substrate of the scarp and Gray's Reef. The rock environment of the scarp, unlike Gray's Reef, is sparsely populated with sponges, tunicates, mossy bryozoans, and cnidarians. The rock at the scarp appears to be considerably more barren. Not surprisingly, the scarp holds more tropical invertebrate species than we find at Gray's Reef. Greg McFall, the sanctuary research coordinator, recovered species of tube and finger sponges that are familiar in Florida but rare in the near-shore waters of Georgia.
The Scarp is well-known as a haven for snappers, groupers, and porgies of commercial and recreational importance. During our dive, we encountered many groupers, such as gag and scamp. Large numbers of red snapper, vermilion snapper, some red porgy, and knobbed porgy occurred during transects across the bottom. Greater amberjack followed the submersible and seemed to swarm around it whenever it stopped. We also saw many small, colorful species, such as tattler, blue angelfish, several species of butterflyfish, cardinalfish, wrasses, and damselfish. Many of these species, as adults, are found less frequently at Gray's Reef, but reside at the sanctuary during larval or juvenile stages of their life histories. Our most obvious reef fish at the sanctuary, the black sea bass, is absent at the scarp. Dr. George Sedberry, chief scientist on this cruise, reports that long-term trapping data indicate that black sea bass are rarely found in waters deeper than 150 ft.
Harvey Walsh, of NOAA's Beaufort Lab, is using a small beam trawl to capture early life stages of fishes at the scarp, and he will compare his finds with what he has discovered at the sanctuary. Through his work for the sanctuary, we will have a good characterization of the early life histories of these fish species across the continental shelf off Georgia. Furthermore, video footage obtained during submersible dives at the scarp will be compared to video obtained at Gray's Reef to describe differences and similarities in the composition and abundance of invertebrate and vertebrate species.
University of Charleston, CCHEBR/NCCOS/NOS
Graduate Student, Submersible Observer
This was one of the most spectacular expeditions in which a young scientist could participate. The geology and ecology of the area are so interesting, and one learns so much more by experiencing it firsthand. I also learned a great deal from the day-to-day interactions with the media by observing how science and the media can work together toward the same educational goals.
On our way out to the Savannah Scarp (~70 mi offshore), we saw a waterspout far off in the distance, which was a spectacular sight. We then came upon a large pod of pilot whales that rode along the bow of our ship for quite a while. They appeared to be as interested in us as we were in them. At certain times, you could even hear them making noises with one another on the surface. We also saw a pod of spotted dolphin on the second day.
Once we reached our destination, we began to prepare for the first submersible launching. It was an amazing sight to see the Clelia lifted above the stern of the ship, and dangle in the air before being launched into the water. Once the Clelia was at the bottom, the sub pilot was able to communicate with the surface, where the crew navigates the sub in the direction of the target areas.
I participated in a dive on Saturday to an area known as "The Sampler," where we descended to a maximum depth of 250 ft. The experience was amazing, especially when we first plunged into the water. It was similar to scuba diving, but without having to worry about buoyancy control or breathing through a regulator. Once we reached the bottom and allowed the sediment to settle, the visibility outside of our observation window was about 30 ft. The sediment was fine, but too compact to allow us to take a sediment core sample.
Chris Koenig and Sandra Brooke, scientist observers in the Clelia, reported that the habitat looked reasonably good in this location with no signs of bottom-trawling activities. They reported seeing "tons" of amberjack.
While some ocean scientists may argue that manned submersibles will one day be replaced by ROVs or even by autonomously operated vehicles (vehicles without tethers) that can be programmed to navigate by an on-board computer, many others would argue that there is a role for the human observer and that manned submersibles are here to stay. Judging from the interest of the scientists aboard this expedition, everyone wants to get beneath the surface to have a look for themselves, whether exploring through a video screen linked to an ROV or peering through the porthole of a submarine.
Compared to the other dives on this leg of the expedition, we saw relatively little relief, and no schools of large pelagic fish, such as greater amberjack. When we came upon some relief, however, it was only a few inches high and was surrounded by life. Each rock we encountered seemed to be occupied by either a juvenile snowy grouper or short bigeye, and oftentimes one of each. We also saw many tattler, yellowtail reeffish, butterflyfish, scamp, gag, and a large red snapper. We saw many vermilion snapper schooling just outside of our lights.
At one point, we turned off all of the external lights, and used sonar to locate areas of reef. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful. Just prior to our ascent, we came upon a rocky area surrounded by shell hatch and inhabited by two octopii (see photo in log, above). It was interesting to observe them as they interacted with the suction tube that the submersible pilot positioned nearby.
During the nights, I helped with the deployment of beam trawls and the sorting of catches. This was an interesting supplement to the information we were obtaining from the videos taken during the submersible dives. The goal of this part of the study was to observe the diversity and abundance of organisms, primarily fish and shrimp, that used areas outside of Grays Reef, just inshore of the shelf-edge (~120 ft), as a nursery ground. We collected many interesting specimens, including rock shrimp, a seahorse, many octopii, juvenile moray eels, juvenile filefish, juvenile puffers, and various species of grouper and sea bass. The trawls were conducted on the bottom and brought with them many pen shells, Oculina fragments, and shell hatch.
The knowledge I gained on this research cruise has been extremely valuable in bringing a greater field component into my master's thesis work. I analyzed approximately 30 yrs of fisheries-independent data from a database, called MARMAP, in the continental shelf and upper slope of the southeastern Atlantic coast for trends in abundance, biomass, and diversity. One of my primary observations from this expedition is that it brought some more evidence to the result I found, from the historical trawl data, of the highest fish diversity occurring in depths from 40-80 m (120-240 ft). The high diversity and the presence of many tropical fish fauna in this area of the shelf edge are a result of the proximity to the warm, stable waters of the Gulf Stream.
September 10, 2001
Chief Scientist, R/V Palmetto
South Carolina Department of Natural Resources
During this Savannah Scarp leg of the Islands in the Stream-South Atlantic Bight mission, the R/V Palmetto was also on station. The Palmetto conducts annual fishery surveys of reef fishes from North Carolina to Florida. Savannah Scarp is not one of its frequent sampling locations, so this project provided an opportunity to learn more about this important fishery habitat. The collected data will be incorporated into a long-term regional database compiled by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources on reef fish distribution and relative abundance throughout the region.
Aboard the Palmetto, we made observations of fishes and fish habitats using an ROV (remotely operated vehicle). Six deployments were made with the ROV in two areas of the Savannah Scarp: Sow Pen Reef and Sandwich Reef. All six deployments observed hard, rocky bottom. The bottom was predominantly flat hard bottom except for scattered rocky outcrops that were still low compared to the rocky outcrops normally associated with the southeastern shelf-edge reef.
Most of the usual reef fishes associated with the southeastern coast were abundant here. Among these are several species of groupers: gag, scamp, speckled hind, and juvenile snowy grouper. Red snapper, vermilion snapper, gray triggerfish, soapfish, porcupinefish, tattler, queen and blue angelfish, cubbyu, and black sea bass were all observed with the ROV. Black sea bass and vermilion snapper were two economcially valuable species that were not observed from the submersible dives conducted on these sites during the same time period. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this area were the holes or small burrows scattered throughout the area that were heavily guarded by bigeyes (glasseye snappers). These looked similar to deep potholes in pavement, and were a haven for eels and cardinal fish in addition to the bigeyes.
Plenty of the smaller, colorful reef fishes also make this hard, sparse, and not-so-tropical reef their home. Among these are the butterflyfishes (bank, spotfin, and reef), damsels, wrasses, beaugregories, yellowtail reeffish, and two-spot cardinal fishes.
The R/V Palmetto also deployed chevron fish traps to compare the catches with that observed with the ROV. We intended to tag these fishes, release them, and then observe them with the ROV and submersible Clelia. The depth (200-230 ft), however, was simply too great to expect much survival of the tagged fish. We also wanted to observe the fish traps at work, but conditions at sea made it impossible to anchor close enough to the trap to be able to observe with the ROV. The catches in the traps were similar to those we observed with the ROV. Scamp, juvenile snowy grouper, porgies, and black sea bass were all part of the catch, with vermilion snappers being predominant. The abundance of vermilion snapper was particularly interesting, as they were not observed by the submersible Clelia, which conducted dives in the same area. Clearly, a variety of methods are needed to assess reef fish populations on deep reefs such as the Savannah Scarp.
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Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, the third surviving son of a rector whose violent alcoholism blighted the family home. Tennyson went to Cambridge where he met Arthur Henry Hallam whose early death was to prompt Tennyson to write his great elegy of mourning, In Memoriam. Tennyson had begun writing as a child and published some of his best-known poems, including 'Mariana', when he was only twenty. However, success was slow to come and the years between Hallam's death and 1843 when Tennyson began to receive an annual government grant were difficult, financially and emotionally. His situation changed with the publication of In Memoriam which brought him lasting fame and success and for the next forty years he was the dominant figure in English poetry, being made Poet Laureate in 1850 following the death of Wordsworth. Later work such as The Idylls of the King were held in high esteem and sold well. By this time he was married to Emily Sellwood after a prolonged ten-year engagement due to financial difficulties and his fears over his mental state, the 'black blood' of the Tennysons. This darkness informs much of his poetry which tends to focus on loss and mortality: T. S. Eliot called him "the great master . . . of melancholia". He was made a peer in 1884 and died in 1892.
Since his death his critical reputation has had its ups and downs: W. H. Auden described his genius as essentially lyrical and the general consensus has been that the longer narrative poems he spent so much time on are less successful, though this view has begun to be challenged. However, he remains the defining English poet of the Victorian era, nowhere more so than in his famous Archive-featured poem 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' (1854) which commemorates an infamous incident from the Crimean War. In the course of this action, undertaken in error due to misinterpreted orders, the Light Brigade (that is cavalry bearing only light arms) attempted to capture the Russian gun redoubts at Balaclava with disastrous results. Of the six hundred and seventy three men who charged down "The Valley of Death" only a hundred and ninety five survived unwounded. News of the charge and its bloody consequences reached London three weeks later and there was an immediate public outcry. The news affected Tennyson who wrote his poem in commemoration of their courage only a few minutes after reading an account in The Times. It was immediately popular, even reaching the troops back in the Crimea where it was distributed in pamphlet form.
Less well-known is Tennyson's celebration of a more successful action during the same battle, 'The Charge of the Heavy Brigade'. This was written much later in 1882 at the prompting of a friend which is perhaps why it fails to capture the white-hot creative burst of the first poem. The "three hundred" mentioned are the men of the Heavy Brigade and their commander, Sir James Yorke Scarlett, but the poem never caught the public's imagination. Nevertheless, it is of historical interest to hear the two poems side by side which we're able to do thanks to a remarkable recording made in 1890. These poems and eight others were recorded on a set of twenty three soft wax cylinders. Although their age and the primitive technology sometimes renders a word inaudible, Tennyson's voice comes through clearly, intoning the pounding dactylic rhythms of the verse which gives it a breathless momentum.
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Submitted by Mrs. Alexander's Class
To keep droppings from piling up on the ground we thought of a little vacuum that sucks the droppings into a net. Once each day when the astronauts check on the cage they will empty out the net and throw it into the garbage. It will only take a minute or two to do this simple job.
To keep the smell from going around the cage we came up with a clever idea. We would use an unscented spray which is talked about in our smell paragraph.
For the smell problem we thought that you could send an unscented deodorizer down. When the substance goes down to the stench it will absorb it. You could attach a container to the top to hold it. Then you could put a switch on the container. This switch would allow it so that a ray of deodorizer hits the stench. Then there would be no stench problems. The astronauts could push the switch during their ten-minute period oftime with the animal. This would allow the deodorizer to take effect whenever you want.
The water problem was hard but we have thought of a way to recycle and the rat has enough to drink! You take the leftover water from the cabin during your 10 minutes and add it to the water tank below the cage like on the picture. The water tank will pump the water it has to the 3 water bottles around the cage. When the rat drinks and it drips it will go through the screen on the bottom of the cage to the water tank centered below it. Then the water tank will pump that water back through the pipe leading into the water bottle and you have a cycle also you are recycling the water because rats will eat or drink anything.
Our thought on how to handle the food is to have a bowl with flaps the rat can lift up. This bowl will be basically a regular bowl. The only thing different about this bowl is it will have a lid with flaps all over the place, with a little bit of them sticking out so the rat can lift them up and get food. This way the rat's head will be in the hole grabbing food so the food will not float out. This is a good way to feed the rat because it is easy for the rat to get food and it won't let the food float around and disturb the astronauts. The bowl will be velcroed down to the cage so that the rat can get to it easily and won't have to float around until it bumps into the bowl. One more thing, the astronauts will have to fill the bowl up if it gets low during their ten-minute period. This is a very convenient way to feed the rat without a lot of hassle.
Our habitat has a little dimming light bulb on the ceiling. It's on a timer set for every 12 hours so it dims in like a sunrise and dims backout like a sunset. This way the rat gets the full 12 hours of sunlight on Earth and the normal amount of nighttime so it's sleeping habits aren't disturbed.
For the window problem of the 90-minute intervals outside we have thought of a way to keep that from happening. What you do is make the cage out of tinted windows like in the laboratories where they test things. When you look in the rat doesn't get scared because he can't see out but you can see in! That way you can study the rat and he won't get scared.
Gravity - To keep the rat from floating around his cage we have decided
on using the BOTEX system which will simulate Earth gravity.
For exercise we thought you could have an exercise ball. See picture below.
The ball would have a hole in it. There it will have a strip. He could crawl in either side. See picture below.
Then you could have a stand.
You could have a little metal piece attached to the ball. Then you could have a wire. The wire will be set next to the ball. The wire on the other side would be attached to a generator. When the wire hits the metal piece it will create energy for a light and a fan.
Click on picture to see more detail
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"If this business was easy, it would be a sin."
-Hayao Miyazaki, Animerica Magazine. 1993
Animation is the youngest medium of art that mankind has created. Spanning barely over one hundred years, its history is as rich and dramatic as any other. Starting as the simple idea of an illusion of moving art by a couple clever innovators at Edison's film company in the early 1900's, it soon boomed into a mega-corporate commercial venture that employed thousands and captivated millions only decades later. It spread outside of America and took many different forms in many different countries and cultures. Today, the face of animation is very different than it ever was. Computers, corporate chokeholds and the death of the innovators of animation has left a doubtful future for the preservation of animation's defining age.
The 1910's saw the rise of animation as a serious medium and the first studios began to appear in the United States. Winsor McCay, a masterful draftsman and artist, had created two cartoons with ink on rice paper - "Little Nemo" in 1911 and "Gertie The Dinosaur" in 1916, which contained over 10,000 individual drawings. Unlike the largely experimental and detached experiments in animation before them, McCay's cartoon creations had a sense of weight and character to them, and they captivated audiences wherever he showed them. Knowing it was unrealistic for one person to create these on their own time repeatedly, studios began to make their way into the limelight. Fleischer Brothers, Terrytoons, Warner Brothers, MGM, Disney, and Leon Schlesinger to name a few.
For 50 years animation flourished as an art form. It was unhinged and wild, allowing its creators to put to work anything their imaginations were willing. The artists ran the show - it wasn't about the money, it was about the story. The spectrum of animation being produced ranged from the wildly bizarre, akin to Bob Clampett's "Porky In Wackyland" (1938), where the audience takes witness to Porky Pig's oncoming insanity - to silent and stirring social commentaries like "Black & White" (1933), a short music-driven cartoon by Ivan Ivanov-Vano dealing with racism. Their styles differed from the simple, yet smart designs of from Pat Sullivan's 1920's studio with characters like Felix the Cat, to the painstakingly detailed epic worlds of Walt Disney's money-eating venture in films like "Fantasia".
The mid-20th century saw the peak of animation - often referred to as the "Golden Age". Warner Bros. Animation Studio led the way with timeless classics of quality not often found in your average Saturday Morning programming. "[It was the] Golden Age for [Warner Bros. Director] Chuck Jones: A time for fully realized characters in ideally told tales so brief and ingenious in their structure it could take the breath away, and yet so disarmingly simple that even adults could understand them." (Beck, 124). Their success was attributed to their teamwork - a group of artists working together under one roof. "His team had worked so long and well together that they could very nearly finish each other's sentences." (Beck). Many cartoons created during this era are heralded as the best of all time, 1957's Chuck Jones' short "What's Opera, Doc?" being chosen #1 in animation historian Jerry Beck's book "The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals" in 1994.
To their creators, the drawings in their cartoons were actors, not symbols (Barrier, 539.) They all believed that what they were doing had a purpose void of material gain or profit. Walt Disney, founder of the Walt Disney Company and director of many of the earlier films in their canon said, "I have had a stubborn, blind confidence in the cartoon medium, a determination to show the skeptics that the animated cartoon was deserving of a better place, that it was more than mere 'filler' on the program, more than a novelty, that it could be one of the greatest mediums of fantasy and entertainment." (Solomon). To this affect, cartoons and animation had successfully saturated themselves in the imaginations of millions of Americans. Characters like Mickey Mouse, Felix The Cat and Bugs Bunny became instantaneous household names in an era when mass communication was a luxury. To this end, animation naturally began to spread beyond the borders of the United States.
As early as the 1930's, Russia, Germany and France were creating animations. By the 1960's, animation was flourishing worldwide as well. In March 1956, Japan's first major animation studio Toei is founded on the principal of being the "Disney of the East" (Beck, 181). It still exists today. Even further East, China's Shanghai Film Studio created many award-winning animated classics that were culturally relevant and captured their society's imagination. Many other nations housed successful studios as well, including but not limited to Poland, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia and the United Kingdom. All these studios took their cues from American models and adapted them over time to fit their styles, cultures and methods of storytelling.
However - as with all new media - as animation began to penetrate society and bring about a new way of delivering a message to people, some people felt threatened and intimidated by this sudden wave of information in a format unfamiliar to them. Some also felt threatened by the people responsible for the content. While the 50's and 60's were the Golden Age for animators, it was also the beginning of a dark age.
Post-WWII America brought about the Cold War and the fear of Communism. In the 1950's, the Communist Party of America had reached its peak of 50,000 members. Propaganda and fears of the "nuclear winter" prompted a federal breach in American political freedom as the United States government created the House Representative's Committee on Un-American Activities. Tasked in finding high-profile Communist Party members, the "Hollywood Blacklist" was created in order to weed them out and ruin their careers. Often with little or no evidence, entertainment employees would often disappear from payrolls without notice (Barrier, 539). One studio that suffered from this was United Productions of America. Major UPA writers Phil Eastman, Bill Scott and John Hubley were accused of being Community party supporters and subsequently blacklisted. Hubley was the only one with legitimate party ties. Either way, the actions of the investigation severely damaged the work ethic and spirit of the studio, and UPA stopped producing cartoons in 1959.
Another blow to the animation industry were lobbyist groups to censor and regulate the diverse animation industry. While many cartoons were for children and adults alike, rising animators like Ralph Bakshi were "reminding audiences that cartoons are not just for children", creating the first X-rated animated feature films. By the 1970's, "[the] triumph of various parent groups in their efforts to strip all of the fun from cartoons [had succeeded], essentially removing all slapstick action comic violence, injecting educational and pro-social messages into the narratives." (Beck, 246.) Cartoons had been reduced to a "Saturday morning ghetto" (Beck) with shallow, childish stories.
The drop in production quality was not singularly tied to censorship. The businessman duo gone animation studio Hannah Barbera had begun to mass produce cartoons in a factory-line type process known today as limited animation, a practice in what animator Anne Joliffe described fondly as akin to "bottling pickles". Reused backgrounds, walk cycles and animated sequences saved the studios a lot of money. These major cost-cutting practices were appealing to the ever-growing broadcasting networks that distributed animated material. Studios like Warner Brothers became less enchanted with the higher budgets they used to give their teams, and as the 3D-glasses craze swept film, WB Animation quickly flickered and died. On top of the domestic money saving techniques, outsourcing most of the work overseas to Japanese and Australian studios kept an even tighter budget at the expense of animation jobs. Because of these circumstances, the 1970's had a sharp contrast to the cartoons of the previous decade. Characterized by cheap production values, stiff animation and weak writing at the expense of not offending any audience, most cartoons of this era had little staying power and are long forgotten. As the mid-1990's approached, only Dreamworks and Disney remained from the wake of the oppression of animation, as Richard William's 29-years-in-the-making masterpiece Thief and the Cobbler was seized by Warner Studios and sent off to Korea for a swift video release.
While American animation suffered at the expense of corporate interests, foreign animation continued to thrive - especially Japanese animation. The fundamental difference between American and Japanese studios were the people in charge. While NBC, ABC and the major broadcasting networks left artists at the mercy of corporate changes, Japanese studios kept the artists in charge of the business. Over time, certain directors made their way from television to theatrical releases. One of them was Hayao Miyazaki, arguably Japan's most prominent director in their history. Japan's film industry is dominated by anime, and it shows in box office numbers.
Japan did suffer from the same stereotypes of animation for a time, but Miyazaki's films bridged the gap between general audiences of adults and children. With Miyazaki on the front, anime from comic books to animation exploded in Japan as the most popular medium for storytelling - and something was available for every age group. Rumiko Takahashi, creator of some of Japan's top selling manga such as Ranma ½ and Uresei Yatsura, is the prime market for young girls. Yoshiyoki Tomino, creator of the Gundam series which sparked a mecha/space opera craze, grabbed a large audience of adult males. These are only a few examples of the explosion of modern animation and art culture in Japan, which has only grown in the last 40 years - similar to the growth of American animation at its birth.
Unafraid to express his creativity and not bound by any restrictions, Miyazaki thrived in Japan as Chuck Jones did during the Golden Age of Warner Brothers. "How can we make films which will gain the acceptance of those people who've never seen animation before? We need to get near to that universal appeal of animation when making a movie, or all our efforts will have been for nothing." (Fuiji, 27). Part of his and other's success was also the lack of creativity in the live action film industry. "I never trust the response of industry people. They're too conservative. They've always been behind the times. If industry people knew what they were talking about, the movie business wouldn't be on the decline like it is." (Fuiji).
But as time went on and the American animation industry continued to falter, as did Japans. Animators had fought several battles in the states to get their jobs back, turning a once stable job into a rollercoaster of stunted projects and short contracts from corporations interested in creating a product, not a film. This turned American animators from a few teams of people who worked together into a travelling band of starved talent fighting for quick fixes and a short term creative injection. Like a sick patient dependent on manufactured pharmaceuticals to sustain itself, major American broadcasting networks have made animation teams wholly dependent on their brief inoculations of cartoon projects, stifling the creative process and everything that made the studios of the Golden Age successful (and profitable.)
How this affected Japanese animation is simple - its existence is dependent on its predecessors. Yoshiyoki Tomino of Gundam was inspired by American sci-fi. Rumiko Takahashi of Ranma½, Spiderman. Yukito Kishiro of Battle Angel Alita, Frank Miller's Batman. Like Toei Animation's goal to be the "Disney of the East", Japanese pioneers of anime were first inspired by American counterparts. Since then, they have taken on their own look, and on the flip side American cartoons began to take on their looks as anime crept its way on the airwaves.
Recently, Japan's own Golden Age is beginning to show signs of trouble in a different fashion. While America feels creatively bankrupt, animators in Japan have felt that they are beginning to run out of ideas. Mamoru Oshii, an animation director, said that "animation studios are surviving, animators are getting better paid, but the quality of new works is not improving. On the surface, it's thriving, but in reality, there's very little new happening." (Saito). This issue is perhaps related to the aging group of Japan's flagship of anime pioneers - similar to the plight of American animation pioneers unwillingly succumbing to mega corporations and the conveyor-belt cartoons of the 70's.
Hayao Miyazaki is now nearing 70 years old. Oshii states in the same interview; "From a directors' viewpoint, we cannot expect anything new from Miyazaki. He is like a very old man, almost retired now." Even Miyazaki has expressed his doubt in the generation that precedes him - and not just in Japan. "I don't know how much the people in Hollywood actually believed in [loving film]. Personally, they were probably more concerned with getting a home in Beverly Hills. But at one time, that illusion held sway throughout the world. It's become too difficult to even pretend you believe in that anymore. The goal now is to throw a huge amount of money at a project, do a huge promotion, and mobilize a huge number of viewers."
While Japan's market suffered from more of the same, American studios follow the model Miyazaki explained. A good example was Disney under the reigns of Eisner in from the mid-1990's to the early 2000's. As Eisner saw Disney's toy and product profits soar, films were chosen for production based on their value to toy manufacturers such as Hasbro, instead of their appeal to audiences. As the animation became more about selling a product, Disney began to struggle to captivate its audiences. Roy Disney, upon retiring in 2003, described Eisner's Disney as "soul-less."
After the production of "Brother Bear", Eisner closed Disney's 2D Florida studio and fired nearly every 2D production animator and artist, proudly boasting that "2D is dead." Not soon after, Eisner was pressured to step down as CEO, and did so. However he left in his wake the near destruction of Walt Disney, a company founded on the principle that animation should be treated as a gift, in the name of greed and maximizing profits. To stay afloat, Disney would eventually purchase Pixar studios, whose business model headed by John Lasseter would save the wavering animation giant for the time being.
Although it is not a question of whether if cartoons will survive but how, it's important to see how the industry has come to this point. There are two parts to the cycle of animation - the boom of creativity when artists are free to be artists, and the busts, when money takes the reins and the artists - and their creations - suffer. And while cartoons may seem different from border to border, at their core they are the same stories, the same visions and the same artists, simply wishing to create their visions through the illusion of life through art. When one part of the body is sick and isn't treated, it slowly creeps its way throughout.
American animation being treated as a gimmicky sideshow for advertising and web-based series reminiscent of the "bottled pickles" of the 70's is slowly beginning to cripple cartoons big and small. Those who have innovated before us are starting to see it. And while times have changed, the one thing animators today have to learn from those before them is that the animation business is not easy. If animation is as powerful as its creators believed it were, it can triumph over greed, fear and soulless mass production like it has before.
In animation's young history, there has never been a more urgent time than now for the next generation of animation pioneers to follow in the fearless footsteps of its creators. While some are aware of this urgency, most never consider the dedication of animators and the imaginative worlds they have given to mankind. Their work will never fade, but time marches on, and as they pass on they leave a void. The digital age has made it easy to take for granted the work of animation past, and those times will likely never be re-lived. But if we listen to their words and take their spirit to heart, animation will thrive and live again in a new era.
- 1. Fuiji, Narita, Ledoux, Davis et al. Anime Interviews: The First Five Years of Animerica. Cadence Books, 1997.
- 2. Barrier, J. Michael. Hollywood Cartoons: American In Its Golden Age. Oxford University Press, 1999.
- 3. Beck, Jerry. Animation Art. Harper Collins, 2004.
- 4. Charles, Solomon. Enchanted Drawings: The History Of Animation. Knopf, 1989.
- 5. Lotman, Jeff. Animation Art: The Early years, 1911-1953. Schiffer, 1995.
- 6. Kelts, Ronald. Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
- 7. "Anime's future world: Japanese filmmakers give the genre a hard look" Los Angeles Times. 28 Mar. 2005. C7
- 8. Sprang, K. "History of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse." Pagewise. <http://www.essortment.com/all/mickeymousewal_rnnh.htm>
- 9. Macdonald, Christopher. "Silly Otaku, Cartoons are for Kids." Anime News Network. 30 Oct. 2001. <http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/editorial/2001-10-30>
- 10. Kenji, Saito. "Media in Asia." Kyoto Journal. 2001. <http://www.kyotojournal.org/media/animated.html>
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Part 1 –
View an installed PBO station and download position data.
Part 2 –
Learn what the numbers in the spreadsheet mean.
Part 3 –
In a spreadsheet program, make graphs of GPS positions over time.
Part 4 –
Add a linear trendline to the graph and use its equation to find the average daily motion of a GPS station.
Part 5 –
Plot velocity vectors on a map and use them to interpret the regional geology.
| 3.070194 |
Windows NT is a series of Microsoft's Windows operating systems written in the C and C++ programming languages. They were the first to use their new 'NT' (New Technology) core. That meant it had a brand new core to do more things than the MS-DOS-based one that they used in older versions of Windows. Also, it was more secure and crashed less.
Microsoft decided to create a portable operating system, compatible with OS/2 and POSIX and supporting multiprocessing, in October 1988. When development started in November 1989, Windows NT was to be known as OS/2 3.0, the third version of the operating system developed jointly by Microsoft and IBM. To ensure portability, initial development was targeted at the Intel i860XR RISC processor, switching to the MIPS R3000 in late 1989, and then the Intel i386 in 1990.
It is well believed that Dave Cutler intended the initialism 'WNT' as a pun on VMS, incrementing each letter by one. However, the project was named NT OS/2 before receiving the Windows brand. One of the original OS/2 3.0 creators, Mark Lucovsky, claims that the name was taken from the original target processor—the Intel i860, code-named N10 ('N-Ten'). Various Microsoft publications, including a 1998 question-and-answer session with Bill Gates, reveal that the letters were expanded to 'New Technology' for marketing purposes but no longer carry any specific meaning. The letters were dropped from the name of Windows 2000, though Microsoft described the product as 'Built on NT technology.'
Versions of Windows NT are Windows NT 3.1, NT 3.51, NT 4, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. Windows NT 3.1 was the first release of the Windows NT line. The version number 3.1 was from the fact that it looked very much like Windows 3.1. It was released in 1993. Next was Windows NT 3.5 and then 3.51. 3.5 was released in 1994 and 3.51 just a few months before Windows 95. The version after that was NT 4.0, released in 1996. It was advertised as 'power of Windows NT and look of Windows 95' and included Internet Explorer version 2. It's final releases are currently Windows 2000 (NT 5.0), Windows XP (NT 5.1), Vista (NT 6.0), and the newest version, Windows 7 (NT 6.1).
The NT version number is not now generally used for marketing purposes, but is still used internally, and said to reflect the degree of changes to the core of the operating system.
- "Windows NT System Overview". Microsoft.com. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/winntas/training/ntarchitectoview/ntarc_2.mspx. Retrieved 2010-11-24.
- Lextrait, Vincent (January 2010). "The Programming Languages Beacon, v10.0". http://www.lextrait.com/Vincent/implementations.html. Retrieved 4 January 2010.
- Dave Cutler's preface to Mark Russinovich, David A. Solomon. Microsoft Windows Internals, (Fourth Edition), Microsoft Press. ISBN 0-7356-1917-4
- Andrew Pollack (1991-07-27). "Microsoft Widens Its Split With I.B.M. Over Software". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE0D81339F934A15754C0A967958260. Retrieved 2008-09-02.
- Paul Thurrott (2003-01-24). "Windows Server 2003: The Road To Gold". http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/winserver2k3_gold1.asp. Retrieved 2010-01-05.
- Zachary, G. Pascal (1994). Show Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft. Free Press. ISBN 978-0029356715.
- "Microsoft Windows NT OS/2 Design Workbook". http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object.cfm?key=35&objkey=124. Retrieved 2008-11-15.
- "Paul Thurrott's History of Windows Server 2003: The Road To Gold". http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/winserver2k3_gold1.asp.
- Gates, Bill (1998-06-05). "Q&A: Protecting children from information on the Internet". http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/columns/1998q&a/QA5-6.asp. Retrieved 2005-06-26.
- Russinovich, Mark; Solomon, David (2001-12), Windows XP: Kernel Improvements Create a More Robust, Powerful, and Scalable OS, archived from the original on 2003-04-23, http://web.archive.org/web/20030424123732/http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/01/12/XPKernel/, retrieved 2006-12-19
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"He was of an active, restless, indefatigable Genius even almost to the last, and always slept little to his death, seldom going to sleep till two three, or four a Clock in the Morning, and seldomer to Bed, often continuing his Studies all Night, and taking a nap in the day. His temper was Melancholy...."
These words were intended to describe Robert Hooke, but have been said to equally describe Isaac Newton. Both men played vital roles in the development of science in the seventeenth century, though at first glance Newton appears to outshine and outclass Robert Hooke. When Hooke is mentioned to this day, we usually speak of Newton as well, but not the other way around. They influenced one another far more than either would ever admit and, though each deserves his own separate identity, Hooke has rarely been granted his. This is largely because, though Newton and Hooke had much in common, they were bitter enemies, and Newton was able to exert far more influence over the Royal Society and, thereby, over the entire scientific community of his day. Robert Hooke's genius is hidden in shadows created partly by Hooke himself, but largely by Isaac Newton, a man who could not speak without contempt for Hooke, even long after Hooke's death, and who may well have taken steps to obliterate much of Hooke's contributions to science. Hooke's reputation is riddled by exaggerated accusations and misconceptions.
Robert Hooke was a significant influence in the advancement of science as well as Newton. An established physicist and astronomer, Hooke was with the Royal Society from its inception, and served it tirelessly and loyally for over forty years; it was he who had worded the society's credo "To improve the knowledge of natural things, and all useful Arts, Manufactures, Mechanic practices, Engines and Inventions by Experiments (not meddling with divinity, Metaphysics, Morals, Politics, Grammar, Rhetoric or Logic)." But the rancor between Newton and Hooke did much to tarnish Hooke's reputation.
Hooke was born on the Isle of Wight, July 18, 1635. As a child he survived smallpox, but was scarred physically and emotionally for life. When Hooke was thirteen years old, his father, John Hooke, a clergyman hanged himself. Young Robert had much emotional pain in his youth. Receiving a 100 pound inheritance from his father, Robert Hooke became an orphan of sorts, being sent off to London. In London was the painter Sir Peter Lely, and there, Hooke was to develop his artistic skills.
As a boy, Robert Hooke had shown considerable interest and skill in mechanical things, and this, along with Hooke's intelligence, did not escape the notice of Richard Busby, the most feared man of Westminster School. Busby had a reputation for "flogging sense into them," but there was no threat here for Robert Hooke. Busby saw great genius in Hooke, and got involved to the extent of taking the boy into his own home.
Hooke moved through Westminster, to Oxford University, working his way through as a servant as had Newton in Cambridge. At Oxford, Hooke met Physicist Robert Boyle, becoming his paid assistant. During his time with Boyle, their greatest accomplish-ment was the construction of the air pump. Hooke stayed with Boyle until 1662 when Boyle helped Hooke secure the job as Curator of Experiments for the Royal Society.
No job could have suited Robert Hooke more, and most other scientists less, than the job of Curator of Experiments. His task, three to four major experiments each week to be reported on and/or demonstrated to the Royal Society. The experiments varied in topic greatly, some of chemical nature, some of astronomy, some of biology, all were considered Natural Philosophy. All had to be understood. It was not a menial task, but Hooke performed it excellently for forty one years until his death.
Testimony to Hooke's stamina, and ability to handle a tremendous workload lay in the endeavors of the next few years of his life after being appointed curator. In 1663, Hooke was elected a Fellow of the Society. In 1665, he was appointed Professor of Geometry at Gresham College. The same year he published his Micrographia, a book with elaborate drawings of various things under the microscope.
And while it is Flamsteed, Cassinni and Halley who usually get the credit for getting Newton involved with comets, a great deal of interest was sparked in Newton by a book entitled "Cometa," published around 1666, the author, Robert Hooke. Newton had made mention of the book in his notes, and later mentioned it in his correspondences. Hooke had taken close observations of the comets of 1664 and 1665, as well as collecting data from other astronomers. The only thing Hooke could not decide on was what type of motion the comet would take, straight line, circular orbit, or ellipse. By 1666, Hooke had put it aside for the time, apparently because of the necessity of pursuing other matters. In 1666, after the Great Fire of London, Hooke was appointed surveyor of London, designing many buildings including Montague House, the Royal College of Physicians, Bedlam and Bethlehem Hospital. Hooke was indeed a very busy man.
In 1677, after Henry Oldenburg's death, Hooke succeeded him to the post of Secretary of the Royal Society while still maintaining his responsibilities as Curator. Hooke continued in this capacity until 1683 when the post of secretary was filled by Richard Waller who would eventually write Hooke's biography.
Hooke continued as curator and with his interest in architecture, an interest he shared with Christopher Wren, though Wren practiced it far more diligently as an occupation. The two conversed often about the subject of architecture. While Wren was constructing St. Paul's Cathedral, his greatest work, Hooke assisted in modifying the great arches of the structure. And when the Royal Observatory was under construction, references appear about Hooke's connection with that, though precisely to what degree is not known.
While Hooke never married, there was only one instance where he seemed to be in love, that was with his niece, Jane Hooke, who took over the duties of housekeeper at Gresham. But though he became obsessed with her, she would not be faithful to him. Hooke was ever a lonely person.
Though Hooke outwardly may have seemed arrogant and self assured, underlying this seemed to be a great deal of insecurity. Perhaps his physical condition had much to do with it. While physical deformities and scars were far more common in those days, Hooke seems to have been an extreme case. Descriptions of him such as "scarred to the point of ugliness" and his condition of "twistedness, which grew worse with age" and references to a great deal of pain, seem to imply a tortured person. Certainly there were those who avoided him because of his condition, some even mocked him, Newton once made a reference to a "dwarf" that was most certainly a barb directed at Hooke.
Hooke devoted a great deal of time to the universe and its mysteries. The search for parallax was on in the seventeenth century, and Hooke made an attempt to find it using a zenith telescope. The idea of using zenith telescopes was based on atmospheric distortion being at a minimum directly overhead, and therefore making for the most accurate measurements. Hooke used the star Gamma Draconis, but the telescope was too crude to reach any definite conclusions.
Hooke anticipated some of the most important discoveries and inventions of his time. Among Hooke's contributions are the correct formulation of the theory of elasticity, the kinetic hypothesis of gases and the nature of combustion. He was the first to use the balance spring for the regulation of watches and devised improvements in pendulum clocks and invented a machine for cutting the teeth of watch wheels. An expert micro-scopist, his microstudies of the composition of cork led him to suggest the use of the word cell (meaning a tiny bare room, like a monk's cell), and the word survived as the name for living cells. The publication of his Micrographia in 1665, published in English, with its engraved magnifications of minute bodies, was a major milestone of English science.
Hooke was the first to report the Great Red Spot of Jupiter and the first to establish the rotation of the giant planet. He formulated the theory of planetary motion as a problem in mechanics, and pioneered the scientific trail that led Newton to his goal in the formulation of the law of gravitation. As a scientist, Hooke made useful contributions to the wave theory of light. His interests ranged from these matters to pre-Daltonian atomic studies, astronomy, earthquakes and the physics of spring mechanisms. He set the thermo-metrical zero at the freezing point of water and studied the relationship of barometrical readings to changes in the weather; he invented a land carriage, a diving bell, a method of telegraphy and he and ascertained the number of vibrations corresponding to musical notes.
The first confrontation between Hooke and Newton came in 1672. Newton had written a paper on his demonstration of white light being a composite of other colours. It was presented to the Royal Society just prior to Newton's reception as a Fellow of the Society. Newton thought a great deal of his demonstration, referring to it as "the oddest if not the most considerable detection wch hath hitherto beene made in the operations of Nature."1 But Newton was met with a strong rebuff by Hooke. Hooke had his own wave theory of light, he had gone into some detail about it in the Micrographia, and he still believed in it strongly. He claimed Newton had not proven his idea clearly, and needed more detail.
Newton had the equivalent of a temper tantrum. The situation was made worse for Newton because Hooke was not the only one attacking Newton's theory, he had been joined by Christian Huygens, Ignace Pardies and the Jesuits of Liege. Newton had since childhood, reacted strongly to criticism. He constantly challenged authority, and to rebuff him, was to become an enemy. Newton demonstrated this over and over during his lifetime; his response was often either complete withdrawal, or open battle. On this occasion, Newton chose withdrawal (though usually for Newton withdrawal was some form of manipulation in battle plans.) In March 1673, Newton wrote to Henry Oldenburg, the current secretary of the Royal Society. Newton requested to withdraw from the Society. It took much gushing of admiration, respect, etc. on Oldenburg's part, as well as an offer to wave dues to the Society to get Newton to change his mind. Oldenburg also offered an apology for the behavior of an "unnamed member." The stage was set. Newton had successfully established his place in the Society, and had scored a victory, of sorts, over Hooke.
In many ways, the problems between Hooke and Newton could be attributed to the traits they had in common, rather than to their differences of opinion on scientific matters. Both were short tempered. Both were quick to make someone an enemy. Newton once threw a colleague out of his office and refused to speak with him for years because the man had made a joke about a nun. And Newton refused to speak with Flamsteed for years because Flamsteed refused to surrender raw data on comet observations. (Actually it made both Newton and Halley mad, they needed the data for their studies and did not want to wait for "finished data," but while Newton ranted and raved, Halley took matters into his own hands, literally; he stole the data!) Hooke became enemies of Henry Oldenburg, secretary of the Royal Society, in 1658 because Oldenburg had taken Christian Huygens side of an argument over a claim to the invention of spring balanced watches.
Both Newton and Hooke were suspicious of other people's motives, (especially each other's), to the point of paranoia. Newton seems to have always been that way. But Hooke seems have developed this trait later in life. Richard Waller, who knew Hooke quite well, and was with him until his death wrote this of Hooke: "He was in the beginning of his being made known to the Learned, very communicative of his Philosophical Discoveries and Inventions, till some Accidents made him to a Crime close and reserv'd. He laid the cause upon some Persons, challenging his Discoveries for their own, taking occasion from his Hints to perfect what he had not; which made him say he would suggest nothing until he had time to perfect it himself, which has been the Reason that many things are lost, which he affirm'd he knew."2
In other ways Hooke and Newton were opposite, almost as if they had all the wrong things in common. While Newton was a recluse, seldom dining out, Hooke was gregarious and loved nothing better than the coffee house. He often dined there and stayed until one or two in the morning, drinking some, and smoking and talking to friends. When it came to experiments and work, they were opposite also. Newton would work on one project relentlessly until he had defeated it. Hooke, and it must be said this attribute would be required of him if he was to do a proper job as curator of Experiments, flitted from one topic to another. He was, similar to Halley, curious to a fault about everything. It was quite probably the demands of his job as Curator of Experiments that kept Hooke from concentrating adequate time on any one subject. The very job at which he had worked so diligently and so faithfully would be the cause of later accusations of Hooke's work being "broken" and "disjointed."
The next major confrontation between Hooke and Newton surfaced openly in 1684. It concerned Newton's Principia, and the involvement Hooke had in it. Newton claimed Hooke had none, and quite a few historians have agreed; but a closer look at the events prior to the Principia's publication, leave little doubt that Hooke was indeed involved.
The idea of gravity and its force of attraction was a common topic of interest in those days. Newton, Halley, Wren and Hooke all played with the concept. In 1679, there were several letters exchanged between Hooke and Newton. Both had made a slight attempt to work out their differences. Hooke had suggested it was other people (namely Oldenburg) who had made problems, and they should correspond with each other in order to avoid misunder-standings. Newton seemed agreeable. The topic of the first letters between them was the old trajectory problem. What path would an object follow falling to the Earth. Newton had suggested an experiment to prove it. But Newton made a mistake, suggesting that the trajectory would be a spiral. Hooke grabbed this and ran with it. He announced to the Society that Newton was wrong.
Newton was incensed, he felt Hooke had no right to take their correspondence to the Society, and that the major issue was one of a conduct problem on the part of Hooke. Hooke had no right to announce Newton wrong to the Society. It is entirely possible that Hooke was making the most of it, but one can hardly blame him when one considers the godlike esteem in which many people held Newton. Newton may have been the "giver of laws" but he often upstaged the others of his time, and was not inclined to give credit to anyone else.
Newton refused to correspond with Hooke any further, Hooke had written a third letter to Newton, that Newton refused to answer. And it is this third letter that is of particular interest. This letter was written January 6, 1680, and in it, Hooke spoke of his theory of gravity. Hooke wrote; "But my supposition is that the Attraction always is in a duplicate proportion to the Distance from the Center Reciprocal, and Consequently that the Velocity will be in a subduplicate proportion to the Attraction and Consequently as Kepler supposes Reciprocal to the Distance." This was the main letter Hooke used as evidence when he claimed Newton had robbed him of his theory, but Hooke had no answer from Newton acknowledging Hooke's theory.
Hooke first appealed to Halley saying that Newton had taken all credit for the theory of gravity, when in fact, he, Hooke, had given the idea to Newton. This put Halley in a difficult situation. Halley was himself paying for the Principia to be published, and the last thing he needed was for Newton to get temperamental. However, Halley had to know first hand, because of previous communication with Hooke, that Hooke was not unreasonable in his claims. Halley and Hooke had long before discussed the idea that the force of gravitation must diminish by the square of the distance across which it is propagated and agreed that the inverse square law could explain Kepler's discovery that the planets move in elliptical orbits, each sweeping out an equal area within its orbit in equal time. Halley wrote Newton and told him, "He sais you had the notion from him, though he owns the Demonstration of the Curves generated thereby to be wholly your own: how much of this is so you know best, as likewise what you have to do in this matter, only Mr. Hooke seems to expect you should make some mention of him in the preface, which, it is possible, you may see reason to prefix."3
Newton vehemently denied any such accusation to Halley. A second letter to Newton from Halley pointed out that Hooke had not made a formal complaint of the matter, and that he felt that others had made Hooke's conduct seem worse than it was. Halley further pointed out again that Hooke was not trying to lay claim to the entire theory. It must have been a terribly uncomfortable situation for the easy going Halley.
Newton had another temper tantrum and told Halley he would not write the third book of the Principia. Halley thought this an incredible loss to mankind, and he had already invested much of his own resources in the publication of the first two books; he stopped at nothing to appease Newton. This incident only served to further harm Hooke's reputation. Newton still maintained Hooke was wrong; Newton would share his credit with no one, most certainly not with Hooke, and refused to do anything for him. The Principia was formally presented to the Royal Society in 1687 with no mention of Hooke in the preface; clearly, Newton had scored another victory over Hooke.
The year 1687 was indeed a dark year for Robert Hooke. The Principia was published, without recognition to Hooke. As if that was not enough, Hooke's niece also died that year. She was the niece who had captured the heart of the aging scientist. After the Principia publication and the death of Hooke's niece, his health declined at a greater rate. It is possible, judging by some descriptions, that Hooke was inflicted with Scoliosis, a crippling degenerative disease that causes an unnatural curvature of the spine and would account for his "incurvature" and stooping posture. But he stayed active until the last year of his life when he possibly had a stroke and was confined to bed. But Waller reported that his mind stayed clear until his death, though he became increasingly melancholy and disagreeable.
Hooke died on March 3, 1703, having been blind and bedridden the last year of his life. There had been little justice for Hooke during his life, and there would be little to follow after his death. His grave location is not even known. Moreover, Richard Waller published some of Hooke's works in 1705, dedicated to none other than Isaac Newton. This posthumous insult did little for Hooke and it is quite doubtful Newton appreciated it anyway. What remained of Hooke's works then passed to the Reverend William Derham, who was an old friend of Newton's and took until 1725 to publish any more of Hooke's works.
What part Newton played in the events that took place in the moving of the Royal Society from Gresham is unknown for sure. However it was during the move, that Hooke's portrait, the only one known, disappeared, as did most of Hooke's instruments, papers and scientific contrivances which Hooke had fashioned with his own hands. Derham commented that even twenty years after Hooke's death, Newton could still not speak of him and remain calm. There may be no evidence to prove Newton was responsible, but the motive is damning.
It was also probably due to Newton's spite that one of Hooke's gifts to the Society fell through. Hooke had spent little of his money, keeping it locked away in an iron chest. When he was a dying man he told Waller he wanted to give his money after his death, to the Society, so that new quarters, meeting rooms, laboratories, and a library might be constructed. But Hooke had unfortunately not made a will, or at least one was never found. It seems logical that, had Newton wanted to assert the Society's right to the money, based on Waller's testimony, he undoubtedly would have gotten it. Newton, who after becoming president of The Royal Society in 1703 had severed all ties that bound the Society to Hooke, wanted nothing of him.
Those who charge Robert Hooke with, habitually and without justification, accusing others of stealing his work need only consider that Wren's name had been attached to the architecture of the Royal College of Physicians, Willen Church in Buckingham-shire. Perhaps the only justice Hooke ever received, albeit posthumously, is that Robert Hooke was eventually recognized as the true architect.
Newton once wrote Halley and referring to his (Newton's) works, said they were a garden, and that Hooke had pilfered from it. Sometimes we need to take a look at the facts rather than to judge someone by a reputation his enemies helped create in order to grasp the true picture. Robert Hooke may have had his faults, and he may have been too quick to make assertions, but he most certainly does not deserve his fate or lack of recognition. Newton's actions in severing all ties between Hooke and the Society did nothing to further the knowledge of science and its development and denied the rest of us of the opportunity to know all the contributions to the advancement of science Hooke really made. Newton once said, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on ye sholders of giants." There can be little doubt that one of those giants was Robert Hooke. It seems that it would apparently be more appropriate to consider Hooke as the sower of many of the seeds in Newton's garden.
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When you sit down at your computer and do a Google search, you're almost instantly presented with a list of results from all over the web. How does Google find web pages matching your query, and determine the order of search results?
In the simplest terms, you could think of searching the web as looking in a very large book with an impressive index telling you exactly where everything is located. When you perform a Google search, our programs check our index to determine the most relevant search results to be returned ("served") to you.
The three key processes in delivering search results to you are:
- Crawling: Does Google know about your site? Can we find it?
- Indexing: Can Google index your site?
- Serving: Does the site have good and useful content that is relevant to the user's search?
Crawling is the process by which Googlebot discovers new and updated pages to be added to the Google index.
We use a huge set of computers to fetch (or "crawl") billions of pages on the web. The program that does the fetching is called Googlebot (also known as a robot, bot, or spider). Googlebot uses an algorithmic process: computer programs determine which sites to crawl, how often, and how many pages to fetch from each site.
Google's crawl process begins with a list of web page URLs, generated from previous crawl processes, and augmented with Sitemap data provided by webmasters. As Googlebot visits each of these websites it detects links on each page and adds them to its list of pages to crawl. New sites, changes to existing sites, and dead links are noted and used to update the Google index.
Google doesn't accept payment to crawl a site more frequently, and we keep the search side of our business separate from our revenue-generating AdWords service.
Googlebot processes each of the pages it crawls in order to compile a massive index of all the words it sees and their location on each page. In addition, we process information included in key content tags and attributes, such as Title tags and ALT attributes. Googlebot can process many, but not all, content types. For example, we cannot process the content of some rich media files or dynamic pages.
When a user enters a query, our machines search the index for matching pages and return the results we believe are the most relevant to the user. Relevancy is determined by over 200 factors, one of which is the PageRank for a given page. PageRank is the measure of the importance of a page based on the incoming links from other pages. In simple terms, each link to a page on your site from another site adds to your site's PageRank. Not all links are equal: Google works hard to improve the user experience by identifying spam links and other practices that negatively impact search results. The best types of links are those that are given based on the quality of your content.
In order for your site to rank well in search results pages, it's important to make sure that Google can crawl and index your site correctly. Our Webmaster Guidelines outline some best practices that can help you avoid common pitfalls and improve your site's ranking.
Google's Did you mean and Google Autocomplete features are designed to help users save time by displaying related terms, common misspellings, and popular queries. Like our google.com search results, the keywords used by these features are automatically generated by our web crawlers and search algorithms. We display these predictions only when we think they might save the user time. If a site ranks well for a keyword, it's because we've algorithmically determined that its content is more relevant to the user's query.
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Output expanded robustly after 1933. Between 1933 and 1937, the US economy grew by 8% a year. Between 1938 and 1941, growth averaged more than 10%.
Rapid output growth without equally rapid capital-stock or employment growth must have reflected rapid productivity growth. This is the paradox of the 1930’s. Despite being a period of chronic high unemployment, corporate bankruptcies, and continuing financial difficulties, the 1930’s recorded the fastest productivity growth of any decade in US history.
How could this be? As the economic historian Alexander Field has shown, many firms took the “down time” created by weak demand for their products to reorganize their operations. Factories that had previously used a single centralized power source installed more flexible small electric motors on the shop floor. Railways reorganized their operations to make more efficient use of both rolling stock and workers. More firms established modern personnel-management departments and in-house research labs.
There are hints of firms responding similarly now. General Motors, faced with an existential crisis, has sought to transform its business model. US airlines have used the lull in demand for their services to reorganize both their equipment and personnel, much like the railways in the 1930’s. Firms in both manufacturing and services are adopting new information technologies – today’s analog to small electric motors – to optimize supply chains and quality-management systems.
A similar argument has been made that extensive business restructuring around the time of the 2001 recession contributed to productivity growth in the following years.
(Business sector output per hour - Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Eichengreen goes on to argue that policy support is necessary:
But this positive productivity response is not guaranteed. Policymakers must encourage it. Small, innovative firms need enhanced access to credit. Firms need stronger tax incentives for R&D. Productivity growth can be boosted by public investment in infrastructure, as illustrated by the 1930’s examples of the Hoover Dam and the Tennessee Valley Authority.Which sounds alot like the Obama administration's recent initiatives to increase small-business credit, build more infrastructure and make the R&D tax deduction permanent. While a case can be made for the first two as short-run stimulus, the benefits of the research and development tax credit are almost entirely of the long run variety.
In the long run, higher productivity is good news: it means more output per worker and, therefore, higher average wages. However, it also means less employment is needed for any given level of output, which means the increase in unemployment during the recession was than the decline in output would normally imply (see this previous post).
By increasing potential output, ceteris paribus, productivity growth increases the distance between actual economic activity and the economy's capacity sometimes known as the "output gap." This suggests that even stronger demand growth is necessary to close the gap.
The resurgence of productivity growth in the mid-1990's is one of the factors that allowed the Fed to keep interest rates low and allow unemployment to fall to 4% without igniting inflation (whatever else we say about Alan Greenspan now, he deserves credit for recognizing this early on). If Eichengreen is correct, the "productivity boom-in-waiting" will raise the economy's speed limit, and this is one more reason for the Fed to step on it.
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Satellite Image of Lake Carnegie in Australia
Lansat 7 (15m) Satellite Image of Lake Carnegie in Australia
Click on image to view in high resolution.
Lake Carnegie is an ephemeral lake in Western Australia. It fills with water only during very rare periods of significant rainfall, such as during the huge 1900 floods and in numerous recent tropical wet seasons when the monsoon and tropical cyclones have been moved south by recent climate change. In dry years, it is reduced to a muddy marsh.
Water entering the lake, unlike in more easterly playas of the Australian arid zone, does not come from well-defined river channels since the soils of the region are so weathered – lacking tectonic or glacial activity since the Carboniferous ice ages – that sediment is completely absent and the terrain so flat that only the most unweatherable rocks remain on the surface and well-defined river channels cannot form especially since the extreme age of the soils and consequent high rooting density of native flora limits runoff to an extreme extent. Image credit: NASA/USGS
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You are here:
Geodatabases and ArcSDE
An overview of the Geodatabase
The geodatabase is a "container" used to hold a collection of datasets. There are three types:
- File Geodatabases—Stored as folders in a file system. Each dataset is held as a file that can scale up to 1 TB in size. This option is recommended over personal geodatabases.
- Personal Geodatabases—All datasets are stored within a Microsoft Access data file, which is limited in size to 2 GB.
- ArcSDE Geodatabases—Stored in a relational database using Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, or IBM Informix. These multiuser geodatabases require the use of ArcSDE and can be unlimited in size and numbers of users.
Comparing the three types of Geodatabases
Learn about creating geodatabases
File geodatabases and personal geodatabases
||A collection of various types of GIS datasets held as tables in a relational database
This is the recommended native data format for ArcGIS stored and managed in a relational database.
|A collection of various types of GIS datasets held in a file system folder
This is the recommended native data format for ArcGIS stored and managed in a file system folder.
|Original data format for ArcGIS geodatabases stored and managed in Microsoft Access data files
This is limited in size and tied to the Windows operating system.
|Number of Users
Many readers and many writers
ArcSDE can be licensed for use at three levels:
- Personal ArcSDE
- Workgroup ArcSDE
- Enterprise ArcSDE
|Single user and small workgroups
Some readers and one writer per feature dataset, standalone feature class or table.
Concurrent use of any specific file eventually degrades for large numbers of readers.
|Single user and small workgroups with smaller datasets
Some readers and one writer.
Concurrent use eventually degrades for large numbers of readers.
- Microsoft SQL Server
- IBM DB2
- IBM Informix
|Each dataset is a separate file on disk
A file geodatabase is a file folder that holds its dataset files.
|All the contents in each personal geodatabase are held in a single Microsoft Access file (.mdb).
|Up to DBMS limits
||One TB for each dataset. Each file geodatabase can hold many datasets
Each feature class can scale up to hundreds of millions of vector features per dataset.
|Two GB per Access database
Effective limit before performance degrades is typically between 250 and 500 MB per Access database file.
||Fully supported across all DBMSs; includes cross-database replication and updates
||Windows, Unix, Linux, and direct connections to DBMSs that can potentially run on any platform on the user's local network
|Security and Permissions
||Provided by DBMS
|Operating file system security
|Windows file system security
|Database Administration Tools
||Full DBMS functions for backup, recovery, replication, SQL support, security, and so on
|File system management
||Windows file system management
|Requires the use of ArcSDE
|Allows you to optionally store data in a read-only compressed format to reduce storage requirements
|Often used as an attribute table manager (via Microsoft Access). Users like the string handling for text attributes.
File and personal geodatabases, which are freely available to all ArcGIS users (i.e., users of ArcView, ArcEditor, and ArcInfo), are designed to support the full information model of the geodatabase. This includes topologies, raster catalogs, network datasets, terrain datasets, address locators, and so on. File and personal geodatabases are designed to be edited by a single user and do not support geodatabase versioning. With a file geodatabase, it is possible to have more than one editor at the same time providing they are editing in different feature datasets, standalone feature classes or tables.
The file geodatabase is a new geodatabase type released in version 9.2. Its goals are to
- Provide a widely available, simple, and scalable geodatabase solution for all users.
- Provide a portable geodatabase that works across operating systems.
- Scale up to handle very large datasets.
- Provide excellent performance and scalability, for example, to support individual datasets containing well over 300 million features and datasets that can scale beyond 500 GB per file with very fast performance.
- Use an efficient data structure that is optimized for performance and storage. File geodatabases use about one third of the feature geometry storage required by shapefiles and personal geodatabases. File geodatabases also allow users to compress vector data to a read-only format to reduce storage requirements even further.
- Out perform shapefiles for operations involving attributes and scale the data size limits way beyond shapefile limits.
Personal geodatabases have been used in ArcGIS since their initial release in Version 8.0 and have used the Microsoft Access data file structure (the .mdb file). They support geodatabases that are limited in size to 2 GB or less. However, the effective database size is smaller, somewhere between 250 and 500 MB before the database performance starts to slow down. Personal geodatabases are also only supported on the Microsoft Windows operating system. Users like the table operations they can perform using Microsoft Access on personal geodatabases. Many users really like the text handling capabilities in Microsoft Access for working with attribute values.
ArcGIS will continue to support personal geodatabases for numerous purposes. However, it is also highly recommended to use the file geodatabase. It is ideal for working with file-based datasets for GIS projects, for personal use, and for use in small workgroups. It has strong performance and scales well to hold extremely large data volumes without requiring the use of a DBMS. Plus, it is portable across operating systems.
Typically, users will employ multiple file or personal geodatabases for their data collections and access these simultaneously for their GIS work.
When you need a large multiuser geodatabase that can be edited and used simultaneously by many users, the ArcSDE geodatabase provides a good solution. It adds the ability to manage a shared, multiuser geodatabase as well as a number of critical version-based GIS workflows. The ability to leverage your organization's enterprise relational databases is a key advantage of the ArcSDE geodatabase.
ArcSDE geodatabases work with a variety of DBMS storage models (IBM DB2, Informix, Oracle, and SQL Server). ArcSDE geodatabases are primarily used in a wide range of workgroups, departments, and enterprise settings. They take full advantage of their underlying DBMS architectures to support
- Extremely large, continuous GIS databases
- Many simultaneous users
- Long transactions and versioned workflows
- Relational database support for GIS data management (providing the benefits of a relational database for scalability, reliability, security, backup, integrity, etc.)
- SQL Types for Spatial when the DBMS supports this capability (i.e., Oracle, Informix, and DB2).
Through many large geodatabase implementations, it has been found that DBMSs are efficient at moving in and out of tables the type of large binary objects required for GIS data. In addition, GIS database sizes and the number of supported users can be much larger than with GIS file bases.
For information about the ArcSDE geodatabase architecture and how ArcSDE geodatabases leverage relational database technology, see Architecture of the geodatabase
There are three levels for accessing and using ArcSDE in ArcGIS
ArcSDE geodatabases readily scale from personal, single-user geodatabases through workgroup geodatabases, and on up to extremely large enterprise geodatabases. ArcSDE geodatabase capabilities are available in the following ESRI software products:
Personal ArcSDE included with ArcEditor and ArcInfo: Beginning at Version 9.2, ArcEditor and ArcInfo include the Microsoft SQL Server Express database free of charge. These desktops also include ArcSDE capabilities to support "personal ArcSDE" geodatabases for three simultaneous users—one of whom can edit data.
SQL Server Express is limited to run on one CPU (or Core within a Socket) and utilize 1 GB RAM. The maximum database size for SQL Server Express is limited to 4 GB.
Personal ArcSDE provides the ability to fully administer and manage ArcSDE geodatabases using SQL Server Express within ArcEditor and ArcInfo. This provides full ArcSDE geodatabase capabilities for a few users and one editor at a time. You set up and manage these ArcSDE geodatabases within ArcCatalog. No extra software or database administration expertise is required.
Workgroup ArcSDE included with ArcGIS Server for Workgroups: ArcGIS Server for Workgroups includes ArcSDE support for SQL Server Express. With this level of ArcSDE, you can use SQL Server Express for up to 10 simultaneous Windows desktop users and editors (for example, users of ArcView, ArcEditor, ArcInfo, a custom ArcGIS Engine application, AutoCAD, MicroStation, and so on) plus any number of additional server connections from Web applications. (Consult your license agreement for specific information on the number of connections for your implementation.)
SQL Server Express is limited to running on one CPU or Core with a maximum of 1 GB RAM. Database sizes are limited to a maximum of 4 GB.
As with personal ArcSDE, you use ArcEditor or ArcInfo to create, administer, and manage workgroup ArcSDE geodatabases. You set up and manage these workgroup ArcSDE geodatabases using SQL Server Express within ArcCatalog. No extra database administration expertise is required.
In this context, you can think of ArcGIS Server for Workgroups as being an extension for ArcEditor or ArcInfo to help you manage and serve workgroup ArcSDE geodatabases. Of course, ArcGIS Server can perform many more functions and tasks. See An overview of GIS services
Enterprise ArcSDE included with ArcGIS Server for Enterprises: This is the traditional ArcSDE technology that runs on Oracle, SQL Server, IBM DB2, and IBM Informix and can scale to databases of any size and number of users, running on computers of any size and configuration. Users provide their own DBMS license for this level of ArcSDE use. The DBMS is typically administered and managed by a database administrator (DBA).
To learn more about ArcGIS Server, see An overview of GIS services
|You do not need to monitor and manage the use of your memory and cpu's for SQL Server Express. The SQL Server Express software will automatically limit computer use to 1 GB RAM on a single cpu and to a database size of 4GB.
|Personal ArcSDE is included free as a part of ArcEditor and ArcInfo. If you choose to install SQL Server Express, you can administer SQL Server Express databases using ArcCatalog.
|When you install the ArcGIS Server for Workgroups, you can install and use SQL Server Express and ArcSDE. After installing SQL Server Express, you can use ArcCatalog to administer SQL Server Express databases on your computer.
|These various levels enable users to take full advantage of ArcSDE geodatabases for any number of users, large or small. It allows organizations to have one scalable data architecture that works across their single user systems up into their large enterprise systems.
ArcSDE provides long and short transaction management on the DBMS transaction framework
The ArcSDE geodatabase includes advanced support for managing edits and updates to a multiuser geodatabase. As GIS increasingly adds users and the requirement to manage data from an array of sensor networks, the need for transaction management becomes more critical. In GIS, long transactions are needed along with the more common, short database transactions that are orchestrated on the DBMS's short transaction framework.
Often, GIS users have specialized transactional requirements, one of which is the need for some transactions to span long periods of time (sometimes hours, even days and months, not just seconds or minutes).
Additionally, a single editing session in a GIS can involve changes to multiple rows in multiple tables. Users need to be able to undo and redo changes. Users want to treat each edit session as a single transaction when they commit their changes. Furthermore, the edits must often be performed in a system that is disconnected from the central, shared database.
During these specialized GIS data flow processes, the GIS database must remain continuously available for daily operations, where each user might have a personal view or state of the shared GIS database.
In a multiuser database, the GIS transactions must be orchestrated on the DBMS's short transaction framework. ArcSDE plays a key role during these operations by managing the high-level, complex GIS transactions on the simple DBMS transaction framework.
ArcSDE does this by storing change information as delta records in the database; isolating multiple edit sessions using versions; and supporting complex transactions, automatic archive, and historical queries.
See An overview of editing and maintaining data
for more information.
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Difference between revisions of "Rocky Mountain National Park"
Revision as of 04:07, 5 August 2010
Rocky Mountain National Park is a United States National Park that is located in the Front Range region of the state of Colorado. The park's borders lie within three counties, Larimer, Boulder, and Grand and it is surrounded by Roosevelt, Arapaho, and Routt National Forests. The Continental Divide cuts almost directly through the center of the park, creating two areas with very different landscapes - a drier and heavily glaciated eastern side, and a wetter, more forested western side. Both areas offer excellent spots for high altitude alpine hiking, backpacking and rock climbing as well as ample opportunity for spotting wildlife. The park is dominated by Longs Peak one of Colorado's 54 "Fourteeners" at 14,259 feet, and dubbed the "Monarch of the Front Range."
Evidence of Native American peoples visiting the park date back almost 10,000 years, mainly from the Ute and Arapaho communities. Several expeditions visited the area in the early to mid 19th century, including one by Joel Estes in 1859 after which he and his family established a homestead that would soon become Estes Park, the resort town that currently sits on the east side of the park. After a small mining rush on the western side of the park in the early 1880s, a 14 year old boy by the name of Enos Mills moved to the area and began to extensively document the region's geography and ecology through essays and books. He began to lobby Congress to establish a national park in the area surrounding Longs Peak, a mountain he had climbed over 40 times by himself. On January 26, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill that established the creation of Rocky Mountain National Park. The 1930s brought a building boom to the park during the Great Depression, during which time the Trail Ridge Road was constructed through the park, which remains today the highest continuous stretch of highway in the United States.
Rocky Mountain National Park sits on the Continental Divide, separating the park into two distinct regions. The eastern and more developed side of the park is dominated by striking valleys and cirques that were formed through heavy glaciation and is a good starting point for first-time visitors. The western side of the park is wetter, is heavily forested and is less developed, but still contains excellent trekking and backcountry opportunities. Most areas of the park sit well above 9,000 feet with mountains along the Continental Divide topping off at above 12,000 feet. The 13,000 foot Mummy Range rests on the northern side of Rocky Mountain National Park with two roads skirting long it's southern edges; a one-way, dirt road that winds up the Fall River called the Old Fall River Road; and a section of Highway 34 famously known as the Trail Ridge Road. The Never Summer Mountains sit on the western side of the park and consist of 10 distinct peaks, all rising well over 12,000 feet, and contain the headwaters for the Colorado River. One of the most dominating features in the southeast area of the park is Longs Peak at 14,259 feet, which is surrounded on all sides by several peaks well about 13,000 feet, including Mt. Meeker, Mount Lady Washington, and Storm Peak.
Flora and fauna
For wildlife seekers, Rocky Mountain National Park offers some fantastic opportunities to view the variety of animals that live inside its borders. Elk, deer, chipmunks, ground squirrels, beavers, porcupines, foxes, and coyotes are all commonly seen in meadows and in and around lakes and streams. Marmots seem to be ubiquitous above the tree line, especially on well-hiked trails around Longs Peak. Hawks and eagles are often seen soaring above the glacier gorges in search of critters that hide among the rocks and colorful tree birds such as blue jays and cardinals fly in the lower altitudes. Hummingbirds have a tendency to close to where people - and their food - are sitting. Less common animal sightings include black bears and the rare mountain lions, although the former will manage to hang out if human food is accessible. Moose mainly stay on the western side of the park and Bighorn Sheep - a rare but exciting find - stay above the tree line and can sometimes be seen off the Trail Ridge Road.
Wildflowers seem to be everywhere throughout the park, including the popular Indian Paintbrush and Columbine, Colorado's state flower. One of the most spectacular sights in the mid to late fall is to walk through a grove of Aspen trees as their leaves change from green to gold. Ponderosa and Lodgepole pines are the dominate conifer trees in the area, although they have been recently dying in large numbers due to an outbreak of pine beetle infestation.
Considering the park's high altitude, the weather trends closer toward moderate four-season climate than edging on the extremes. Winters bring heavy snowfall, and although there is rarely a deep-freeze the park gets significantly less visitors. Summer are the high season with warm temperatures ranging in from mid 70s-80°F during the day, but dropping into the low 40s°F to near freezing. Thunderstorms are constantly looming in the early to mid afternoon during the summer, but clear off quickly by evening, bringing crisp and cool weather.
Highway 34 connects Grand Lake and Estes Park across the Continental Divide, giving you awesome views of the western and eastern sides of the park. A great stopping point along the road is the Alpine Visitor Center at the Fall River Pass, which sits at almost 11,800 feet. Colorado Route 7 runs from Estes Park to the south, passing by several trailheads, including those for Lily Mountain, the Twin Sisters, the Longs Peak Ranger Station and the Wild Basin. Many visitors use Bear Lake or Glacier Gorge as their starting point into the park, both of which can be accessed via the Bear Lake Road. The Beaver Meadows and Moraine Park visitor centers are popular destinations for getting oriented with the park's layout, the former having been designed by students of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
From the east: The Beaver Meadows Visitor Center is three miles from downtown Estes Park near the terminus of US-36 and can be reached via several roads. SR-7 runs from Boulder via Lyons and Allenspark along the east side of the park, passing the Longs Peak Ranger Station and intersects US-36 in Estes Park. SR-66/US-36 run from Denver through Longmont up the Big Thompson River canyon. US-34 also intersects US-36 in Estes Park via Loveland and continues on into the park toward the Fall River Visitor Center.
Rental cars are available at the Denver International Airport. If you aren't driving, the Estes Park Shuttle offers reasonable one-way and round-trip rates from DEN to downtown Estes Park.
NOTE: While the park is open year-round, the Trail Ridge Road closes in the winter and may not open until the late spring or early summer, depending on the snowpack.
The nearest major airport is Denver International Airport (IATA: DEN) located about 1 hour and 45 minutes away from the park, with connecting service to most major US cities. A smaller option is Eagle County Regional Airport (IATA: EGE) located near the skiing resorts of Vail and Beaver Creek; however, service to this airport is usually seasonal and confined to the winter months.
Entrance fees are $20 per private vehicle or $10 for individuals on foot or on bicycle, valid for seven days. Holders of the National Park Pass ($80, allows entry to all national park areas for one year) do not need to pay an entrance fee. In addition, there is a $40 pass available that allows entry into Rocky Mountain National Park for one year.
If you drive in early in the morning or late at night the fee booth will probably be unmanned. It is rumored that local Larimer County and Grand County residents can pass through the park without paying a fee if they mention that intention to the entrance guards.
Most of the major trailheads in the park are accessible by car and have parking lots depending on the popularity of the route. While parking is relatively ample in the early mornings, many lots are full by mid-morning during the peak summer months. The Trail Ridge Road and Old Fall River Roads are closed during the winter and usually don't reopen till late spring at the earliest. Access to Moraine Park and Bear Lake via the Bear Lake Road are open year-round and plowed.
There are several entrances to the park which do not have fees on the east side of the park:
Starting around Memorial Day Weekend and going through the end of September, Rocky Mountain National Park operates a free shuttle bus service which enables you to access many destination and loop hikes along Bear Lake Road, including Sprague Lake and Glacier Gorge to cut down on traffic congestion and limited parking. Shuttle buses run between many trailheads, Moraine Park Visitor Center, and Moraine Park and Glacier Basin Campgrounds.
There are two routes: The Bear Lake Route and the Moraine Park Route. Both routes are based at the Park & Ride shuttle bus parking area across from the Glacier Basin Campground. The first bus departs from Park & Ride at 7PM. and the last bus leaves at 7PM. The last bus of the day leaves Bear Lake and Fern Lake Trailheads at 7:30PM. The Bear Lake Route shuttle makes the round trip between the Park & Ride and Bear Lake. These buses run every 10 to 15 minutes. The Moraine Park Route shuttle makes the round trip between the Park & Ride and the Fern Lake Trailhead bus stop. These buses run every 30 minutes.
To experience the true beauty of Rocky Mountain National Park means getting out onto some of the 355 miles of trail that wind in, around and over the Continental Divide, Wild Basin, Mummy Range, and more.
Cycling through the park offers riders a chance to take in some of the scenery and striking vistas at a casual pace; however, some may be daunted by the high altitudes and steep climbs on the main roads. Elevations range from 8,000 feet to 12,183 feet (2,400 to 3,700 m). There are 60 miles (97 km) of hard-surfaced road with a five to seven percent grade. Most of the roads in the park have little to no shoulder, with the added challenge of dealing with heavy summer traffic. Early mornings or late evening rides may minimize conflict with other vehicles. Be vigilant for thunderstorms in the early to late afternoons, where lightning can create a serious hazard.
Winter cyclists will have access to Upper Beaver Meadows Road, Moraine Park Campground, Endovalley Road, Aspenglen Campground and High Drive. For a unique cycling experience, check with the park information office for specifics on the Old Fall River Road (gravel surface) and Trail Ridge Road (paved), which are open to bicycles early in the summer season, before they open to vehicles.
Off-road mountain biking is prohibited inside the park.
The park offers 359 miles of trail to hikers, backpackers and horseback riders. Difficulty levels range from the half mile wheelchair accessable jaunt around Bear Lake to the backbreaking 'Mummy Kill', recommended only for those with years of mountaineering experience or a death wish. A few of the most memorable hikes are listed below. Many of the trails in the Eastern Part of the Park can be reached via shuttle buses. Note that snow conditions should be considered before hiking as higher elevations will be snow-covered later into the year.
Most of the visitor centers offer books and other items for purchase, and there is a gift shop located next door to the Fall River Visitor Center.
Snacks are available for purchase at the Alpine Visitor Center, and there is a snack shop located next door to the Fall River Visitor Center. There are no sit-down restaurants inside of the park, but the neighboring towns of Estes Park and Grand Lake have numerous options.
There is no wine or alcohol for sale anywhere in the park. Beverages may be purchased at the snack bar next to the Fall River Visitor Center or at the Alpine Visitor Center. Water is available at the entrance station and visitor centers, and during summer months at the campgrounds.
There are five drive-in campgrounds and two group camping areas in the park (one group campground is winter only, one is summer only). Three campgrounds, Moraine Park, Glacier Basin, and Aspenglen, take reservations, as does the group-camping area at Glacier Basin. Other park campgrounds are first-come, first-served, and fill on most summer days. There are no electric, water or sewer hookups at any campsites. The water is turned off in the winter at all year-round campgrounds but drinking water is available at entrance stations and open visitor centers.
You must have a backcountry/wilderness permit to camp overnight in the park's backcountry/wilderness. You can pick one up at the Headquarters Backcountry Office or at the Kawuneeche Visitor Center. To minimize impacts on the park's resources, the number of permits issued is limited. You may obtain day-of-trip permits in person year round. You may make reservations by mail or in person anytime after March 1 for a permit for that calendar year. You may make reservations by phone from March 1 to May 15 and anytime after October 1 for a permit for that calendar year.
Backcountry/Wilderness Permits Rocky Mountain National Park Estes Park, CO 80517
You can also call the backcountry office at (970) 586-1242 to reserve a permit. For all reservations:
During the busy summer months, if you have a permit reservation, you must pick up the permit by 10 AM on the first day of your planned backcountry/wilderness stay, otherwise, the permit will be cancelled in its entirety, and given to other backpackers. If you know you will not be using your permit, please cancel your reservation as soon as possible.
The greatest danger to most park visitors is due to altitude. The entire park is above 7,500 feet and ranges as high as 14,259 feet, so it is important to take time to acclimate before undertaking strenuous activities. Even driving at high elevation can affect sensitive individuals. Altitude sickness symptoms include shortness of breath, fatigue, dizziness, nausea, rapid heartbeat and insomnia. Also note that high elevation increases the chance of dehydration, severe sunburn, and the aggravation of pre-existing medical conditions. Drink several quarts of water per day to ward off dehydration. Wear and reapply sunscreen often. If you begin to feel sick or experience any physical problems descend to lower elevations.
In addition, be aware of the weather. A bright, sunny day can turn windy and wet within a matter of minutes with high winds and driving rain or snow. Be prepared for changing conditions by dressing in layers and always carrying gear appropriate for both cold, wet weather and bright, sunny conditions. If caught in a lightning storm above treeline get away from summits and isolated trees and rocks and find shelter (but avoid small cave entrances and overhangs) and crouch down on your heels.
Other park dangers include wildlife - never feed wild animals, and always give them their space. Animals are unpredictable, particularly if they feel threatened, and even a deer is capable of killing a human. To protect against larger predators like bears and mountain lions make noise while hiking to avoid startling an animal, and use bear-proof containers to store anything with a scent; this includes food, toothpaste, deodorant, empty food wrappers, or anything else that might attract a bear's interest.
Park streams may contains giardia and other water borne diseases, so always purify water before drinking. Be careful on snowfields, particularly on steep slopes where avalanche dangers may be high.
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There's something lurking around distant and icy dwarf planet Pluto: a fifth moon.
A team of scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope said Wednesday they have discovered the tiniest moon yet around Pluto. That brings the number of known moons to five.
The mini-moon is estimated to be 6 to 15 miles across, smaller than the one that scientists spotted last year, which is 8 to 21 miles wide. Pluto's largest moon, Charon, is about 650 miles across.
Until the newly found moon gets a name, it will be known as P5.
A NASA spacecraft named New Horizons is speeding toward Pluto where it will arrive in 2015. When New Horizons launched in 2006, Pluto was a full-fledged planet, but astronomers have since demoted it to dwarf planet.
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Akamba people alongside other central Bantu speaking people are believed to have originated in the current Democratic Republic of Congo and migrated to East Africa across Tanzania border. They settled around Mount Kilimanjaro before migrating further to the settle in the plains of Nithi at a place called Kiima Kya Kyeu (Mountain of White). Due to frequent conflicts in the 16th century with the neighboring Maasai people, the Akamba further migrated to Chyulu Hills a place they purported to be safe. Due to persistent drought, they further moved to Kibwezi plains. The Akamba live in the semi-arid Eastern Province of Kenya stretching east from Nairobi to Tsavo and north up to Embu. This land is called Ukambani.
The oldest form of Kamba artistic expression have been engraving and painting of calabashes or gouards. This art, mainly done by women, served both to embellish and imbue the vessels with the mystic or spiritual meaning.
The Kamba are nowadays most known for African black wood carvings, although this is a very recent art form. They were introduced to wood sculpturing by Mutisya Munge who had served in the colonial Carrier Corps in Tanzania during World War I. There, he came into contact with Zaramo carvers, who had themselves been influenced by the Makonde carvers. Munge collected Zaramo models, and on returning to Kenya, took up carving as a full time occupation. Following Munge’s efforts, a booming trade in carving developed at a small town of Wamunyu along the Machakos- Kitui highway. It is estimated that about three thousand people many of them of youthful age, eke out their living from wood carving. Many more carvers are located throughout Ukambani, and at the coast where they sell to tourists.
Akamba are the most highly organized and productive art movement in Kenya and East Africa region. They produce an enormous line of hand made artifacts. At the carving centre, labour is divided between wood merchants, carvers and finishers. Wood is usually purchased ready cut into logs of 4 to 15 inches or more. Carving is executed with tools local tools from scrap metals and timber. Some artists work on order but many simply mass-produce carvings and stock them hoping to sell eventually. Workers who work in assembly lines of productions often receive set wages for producing a number of carvings per day.
The first step on production line is to select a chunk of wood considering the approximate size and shape of the figure to be created. The shape of the wood may also influence the choice of the figure to be designed. Hard wood are more difficult to shape but have better luster and longevity whereas soft wood are easier to curve but less resistant to damage. Detailed figures require hard wood with fine grain such as African Black Wood.
Once the wood has been selected, a sculptor begins with general shaping process using hand made gouges of various sizes. For harder wood, a sculptor use saws, chisels and mallets, while on smaller ones, knives of different sizes are used. Sculptors always carve across or with the grain of the wood as a basic principal.
Once the general shape has been achieved the sculptor uses a variety of tools for creating details. A veiner or fluter may be used to make deep gouges in the surface. A v-tool is used for making fine lines or decorative cuts.
The method used on finishes depends on the required quality of surface required. The texture may be left by shallow gouges to give life to the sculpture surface. Many carvers, buyers and collectors prefer this tooled finish. If completely smoothened surface is priority, it is done using tools such as rasp, a flat blade with a surface of pointed teeth. Rifflers are similar to rasps but smaller, double ended and of various shapes for working in folds or crevasse. The finer polishing is attained using filing and abrasive paper which comes in various sizes of grain.
A finished sculpture is then sealed and coloured with a variety of natural oils such as walnut or linseed oil. These protect wood from moisture and dirt. It also imparts a sheen to the wood, which by reflecting light, helps the observer appreciate the form. Glossy varnishes are rarely used. Objects made out of wood are frequently finished with a layer of wax which protects the wood and gives it a softer sheen. A wax finish is comparatively fragile though and is only suitable for indoor carvings.
The most common materials used in Akamba carvings are locally available woods from trees such as African black wood (Delbergia melanoxylon), African ebony, rose wood, mahogany, teak and jacaranda (Jacaranda mimosifolia). Finishes are always coated with wax, oil colour and varnishes. Other sculptors may require adornment with beads, leather metallic decorative pins, metallic clips, fibers and ivory.
Akamba carvings range from figures of various sizes and shapes. The figures are carved keenly detailing basic curves but maintaining accurate shapes and proportions. Very accurate lines and textures are shown giving the figures life. Natural colours of materials are maintained when a thin layer of wax and oil is applied giving the product a natural aesthetic value.
The carvings maintain laws of art and design. Most Akamba carvings are in proper shapes and proportions that are enhanced by harmonious movement and rhythm created by lines, shapes and decorations. A scene of a predator killing a prey can be depicted with very accurate movement and energy involved. Such scenes at times are left on unrefined wooden ground and backdrop but concentrate emphasis and finishes on the subject, which brings unity that controls the perception of the sculpture.
Akamba wood carvings have very strong denotative messages. A mask for example carries a clear spiritual message just like a stool may portray elderly values from the way it is decorated. Connotative values are scanty in most of the Akamba carvings because of the direct imitation from nature and the environment. Most of the reproduced forms do not communicate much about the period in which the carvings are created. They are not influenced by cultural trends, in either music, culture or even dance. They do not respond to any social or political change. Mass production destroys individual styles and gives rise to unscrupulous business. Middle business dealers claim ownership and even claim to employ Akamba artists who produce the work.
Since Akamba carvers are inspired by the arid semi arid region in which they live, most of their subjects are prominent animals such lions, elephants, giraffes and other cultures exposed to them like the Maasai people. They are further inspired by the market demands of such kind of carvings since most of the buyers are people visiting Kenya.
Repetitive production of carvings lowers their values and quality. Buyers, collectors and general audience need a variety of subjects, styles and Messages and meanings. Every carving should tell its own story. Replication of these carvings is good for mass demand but dilutes the very intricate value of Akamba art for prosperity.
The Kamba sculptors have formed cooperative societies for purposes of proper management and improved product. The management sources for raw materials, markets and supports artists with loans for personal development. Some societies have over 350 members all working in the same shade. Ten percent of the proceeds from individual work once sold is retained by the society management for administrative purposes and also part of it retained by the society account to be issued out to members in form of soft loans. Some societies get some grants from the government to enhance operations and products.
Small scale Kamba sculptors who run small cottage workshops in towns and cities often use mobile communication technologies to transact business. It is now common for artists to receive orders, make purchases and receive payments through mobile phone money transfer services available locally.
Akamba sculptors have evolved into huge companies that manufacturer and export fine wood carvings, animal sculptures, decorative accessories, and fancy customized goods mainly to foreign markets. This is in the effort to diversify into other areas of craft to be able to remain in business. The companies have developed websites where they market and sell their carvings online. Amongst the most popular products are the "big five" (lion, elephant, buffalo, rhino, and leopard); a variety of human sculptures; realistic and abstract African art, masks, stools, and decorated African wooden utensils (bowls, spoons, stools, walking sticks) that are fancied by both local and foreign markets.
Akamba Handicraft Cooperative Society Ltd has 3000 members and 2000 sub-contracted sculptors in their in-house workshop and showroom located on Airport Road, Mombasa. It exports 30% of their products to Europe, Japan, North America, and South Africa and sells 30% in their Mombasa showroom. The remaining 40% is sold to other curio vendors in Kenya. Shipment is done using currier companies and payments received through telegraphic money transfers keeping abreast with competitors in the global market through information communication technologies available.
By Adams Namayi Wamukhuma,
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Moving people toward compassionate living
Your letters and calls do help!
|Originally Posted: 23 May 2011|
Help Save Hammerhead and Oceanic Whitetip Sharks
Tell National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service (NMFS) it's time to stop catching hammerhead and oceanic whitetip sharks in U.S. waters! Prohibiting the retention of these species in all Highly Migratory Species (HMS) fisheries will allow for straightforward enforcement and implementation of the proposed ban and help to safeguard these species in U.S. waters.
Please add the oceanic whitetip and scalloped, great and smooth hammerhead sharks to the prohibited species list under HMS management in the Atlantic.
Sign an online petition
And/Or make direct contact:
NOAA Fisheries Service
INFORMATION / TALKING POINTS
Oceanic whitetip and hammerhead sharks are some of the most amazing creatures in the world's oceans, but they are disappearing at an alarming rate. These top predators play a critical role in maintaining the balance of life in the sea, and their loss could cause irreversible damage to the oceans. Up to 73 million sharks are killed every year for their fins, valued for the Asian delicacy shark fin soup.
Sharks grow slowly, mature late and produce few offspring over long life spans, making them particularly vulnerable to overexploitation and slow to recover from overfishing.
This is particularly true for oceanic whitetip and hammerhead sharks, which have an even lower ability to recover from decline compared to most shark species. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species classifies oceanic whitetips as Critically Endangered and hammerhead sharks as Endangered. Caught primarily for their fins for exports and generally not used for their meat, these lions and tigers of the ocean need special protection now.
The United States has an opportunity to demonstrate global leadership for sharks by permanently protecting these threatened species in our waters. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) governs the management of sharks in U.S. ocean territory, and has supported proposals for global trade restrictions to ensure the future of these sharks. While the world deliberates, the U.S. should act now to permanently protect these species in our waters.
Thank you for everything you do for animals!
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Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Southern American English
Southern American English is a dialect of the English language spoken throughout the Southern region of the United States, from central Kentucky and northern Virginia to the Gulf Coast and from the Atlantic coast to eastern Texas. Southern American English can be divided into different sub-dialects (see American English), with speech differing between, say, the Appalachian region and the coastal area around Charleston, South Carolina. The South Midlands dialect was influenced by the migration of Southern dialect speakers into the American West. The traditional dialect of African Americans, popularly called "Ebonics", shares many similarities with Southern dialect, unsurprising given that group's strong historical ties to the region.
Speakers of Southern American English have been stereotyped as uneducated or stupid commonly due the slower rate of speech and intertextualization of cultural factors of the region. Since the use of the dialect is stigmatized, educated speakers often attempt to eliminate many of its more distinctive features from their personal idiolect, settling for a more "neutral-sounding" English, though more often this involves changes more in phonetics than vocabulary. Well-known speakers of Southern dialect include United States Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton along with playwright Tennessee Williams and singer Elvis Presley.
Few generalizations can be made about Southern pronunciation as a whole, as there is great variation between regions. One phenomenon that is probably found throughout the region is the merger of and [ɪ] before nasal consonants, so that "pen" and "pin" are pronounced the same. This sound change has spread beyond the south in recent decades and is now quite widespread in the Midwest and West as well.
Other typical (sometimes stereotypical) aspects of the Southern accent:
- [z] becomes [d] before [n], e.g. [wʌdn̩t] wasn't, [bɪdnɪs] business
- The diphthong /aɪ/ becomes monophthongized to [aː]. Some speakers have this feature before voiced consonants but Canadian-style raising before voiceless consonants, so that ride is [raːd] and wide is [waːd], but right is [rəɪt] and white is [hwəɪt]; others monophthongize /aɪ/ in all contexts.
- The diphthongization or triphthongization of the traditional short front vowels as in the words pat, pet, and pit: these develop a glide up from their original starting position to [j], and then back down to schwa. This is the feature often called the "Southern drawl".
- The English of the coastal Deep South is historically non-rhotic: it drops the sound of final /r/ before a consonant or a word boundary, so that guard sounds similar to god (but the former has a longer vowel than the latter) and sore like saw. Intrusive /r/, where an /r/ sound is inserted between two vowel sounds ("lawr and order") is not a feature of coastal SAE, as it is in many other non-rhotic accents. The more western (including Appalachian) varieties of SAE are rhotic. Non-rhoticity is rapidly disappearing from almost all Southern accents, to a greater degree than it has been lost in the other traditionally non-rhotic dialects of the East Coast such as New York and Boston.
- The distinction between the vowels sounds of words like caught and cot or talk and tock is mainly preserved. In much of the Deep South, the vowel found in words like talk and caught has developed into a diphthong, so that it sounds like the diphthong used in the word loud in the Northern United States. This diphthong also applies to words outside of such pairs. For example, in "boat," "god", salt" round off the mouth almost to make a schwa preceding the consonant (though not as fully as the di/triphthongization of short front vowels).
- For many Southern speakers, some nouns are stressed on the first syllable that would be stressed on the second syllable in other accents. These include pólice, cément, and béhind.
- The distinction between /ɔr/ and /or/, as in horse and hoarse, for and four etc., is often preserved, especially in non-rhotic varieties.
- Merger of lax vowels with tense vowels before 'l', making pairs like feel/fill, fail/fell, and fool/full homophones.
- The distinction between w and wh, as in wine and whine is preserved for some speakers.
- The distinction between /ær/, /ɛr/, and /er/ in marry, merry, and Mary is preserved.
- Yod-dropping is not found among many speakers, thus /dj/, /nj/, /tj/, in due, new, tune is preserved.
- The distinction between /3`r/ and /Vr/ in furry and hurry is preserved.
- In some regions of the south, there is a merger of [ɔr] and [ɑAr], making cord and card, for and far, form and farm etc. homonyms.
- The distinction between /Ir/ and /i:r/ in mirror and nearer, Sirius and serious etc. is preserved.
- The distinction between pour and poor, more and moor etc. is lost in many regions.
- Use of double modals ("might could", "might should", "might would", etc.)
- "You" may be "ye" ("Did ye get yer car?")
- Occasional preservation of the aspirative "h" for the third person singular neuter ("hit").
- Use of "y'all" as the second person plural pronoun (less commonly "you-all," "all-y'all")
- Some Appalacian and Ozark dialects prefer "you'uns", and by extension "we'uns" and "they'uns".
- Use of "fixin' to" or "a-fixin' to" as an indicator of immediate future action. For example: "He's 'fixin to eat," or "We're 'a-fixin to go."
- Use of the word "done" in place of "already" or "did", such as in "We 'done' did this" (We already did this).
- Use of the emphatic definite article (frequently abbreviated to the dental fricative /ð/): "He went to the Wal-Mart." "I'ma go to th'IGA."
- Use of "over yonder" in place of "over there" or "in or at that indicated place," especially when being used to refer to a particularly different spot, such as in "the house over yonder"
- Use of "the grocery" in place of "the supermarket" or "the grocery store." For example "I went to the grocery earlier today" or "we're fixin' to go to the grocery"
- Use of a quasi-reflexive pronoun "me" or "him". For example, "I'm fixin' to paint me a picture."
- Use of "to love on someone or something" in place of "to show affection to" or "be affectionate with someone or something." For example: "He was lovin' on his new kitten."
- Word use tendencies from the Harvard Dialect Survey:
- A carbonated beverage in general as "coke" (likely influenced by The Coca-Cola Company being headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and the resultant dominance of Coca-Cola in the region).
- The small land crustaceans that roll when you touch them as "roley-poleys" rather than "pill bugs" or "woodlouse"
- The push-cart at the grocery store as a "buggy"
- The small freshwater crustacean in lakes and streams as a "crawdad," "crawfish," or "crayfish" depending on the location
The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details
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Montenegro was part of the former Yugoslavia at one time. Illyrians originally settled the area, followed by the Greeks, Celts, Byzantines, Romans and the Slavs. The nation was eventually Christianized under Nicholas I and later united with Serbia to fight the Turks of the Ottoman Empire. Nicholas oversaw the expansion of Montenegro’s borders and led it toward independence in 1878. Italy occupied the country during World War II, and Montenegro adopted socialism as part of Yugoslavia during the Cold War. In 1992, Montenegro joined with Serbia as Yugoslavia began to break up, leaving behind a truncated Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. While Serbia became involved in the war in Bosnia, Montenegro remained largely out of the conflict. The Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro became the dominant political force in the country throughout the 1990s. During this time Montenegro became a hotspot for smuggling due to its location on the Adriatic Sea. In 2003, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia renamed itself Serbia and Montenegro. This lasted until June 2006 when Montenegro became completely independent. The United States soon thereafter established diplomatic relations with Montenegro.
Lay of the Land: Montenegro occupies an area slightly smaller than the state of Connecticut, and lies between Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo and Albania. Its terrain is varied, from the mountainous regions with thick forests to central plains and the Adriatic coast, with a few small islands off the coast. The climate is generally continental, and Mediterranean off the coast.
The area now known as Montenegro was originally settled by the Illyrians before the 6th century. Subsequently, the Greeks and Celts formed settlements to enhance trade in the region. The Romans eventually conquered the Illyrian kingdom and divided the territory with the Byzantine Empire.
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was a conglomeration of six regional republics and two autonomous provinces that was roughly divided on ethnic lines. Following a string of violent conflicts during the 1990s Yugoslavia split into several independent countries, including Serbia and Montenegro,.
In 2009, the and the United States’ leading export to Montenegro were new and used passenger cars ($3.3 million) and drilling/oilfield equipment ($2.3 million). Other major exports included unmanufactured agricultural goods ($2 million), medicinal equipment ($1.3 million), generators and accessories ($1.1 million), plastic materials ($1.1 million), and household appliances ($1.1 million).
Montenegro Accused of Caving to US Pressure on Kosovo
According to the U.S. State Department, Montenegro’s government has been accused of “allowing police mistreatment of suspects in detention, substandard prison conditions, abusive and arbitrary arrests, police impunity, lengthy pretrial detention, delayed and inefficient trials, widespread perception of corruption in law enforcement agencies and the judiciary, physical assaults on journalists, excessive monetary judgments against the media for slander, denial of public and press access to information, mistreatment and discrimination against the large number of refugees and internally displaced persons, sectarian intolerance and homophobia, discrimination against women, trafficking in persons, and discrimination against ethnic minorities,” .
Note: The United States recognized the Republic of Montenegro on Jun 13, 2006 and established relations with it on Aug. 15. The US Consulate in Podgorica became an embassy Oct 5, 2006, with Arlene Ferrill as Charge d’Affaires ad interim.
Montenegro’s ambassador to the United States since November 2010, Srdjan Darmanovic knows a thing or two about strategy, both the diplomatic kind and that used on a chess board.
Sue K. Brown, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, was appointed in November 2010 by President Barack Obama to serve as ambassador to Montenegro. She was sworn in on April 27, 2011.
A native of Rhode Island, Roderick W. Moore served as the first-ever US Ambassador to Montenegro. He was sworn in on September 12, 2007. Moore attended Brown University where he received his BA in Russian studies and international relations in 1986. He also earned an MA in Slavic linguistics in 1987 and has studied Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Russian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Czech, French, Spanish and Haitian Creole.
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1997-1999: Children's book
Completed AE projects
When someone is suffering from dementia, the whole family is affected. It can be difficult for everyone, but particularly for children who do not always understand what is going on. In 1999, Alzheimer Europe (in collaboration with the Association Luxembourg Alzheimer) produced a book aimed at helping children understand more about Alzheimer’s disease and possibly come to terms with it. The book is aimed at children between the age of 8 and 11 and is suitable for those who have a relative with dementia, as well as those who do not.
Participants from eight of our member associations were involved in the project:
- France: Association France Alzheimer
- Greece: Greek Alzheimer Association
- Iceland: F.A.A.S.
- Luxembourg: Association Luxembourg Alzheimer
- Portugal: APFADA
- Switzerland: Association Alzheimer Suisse
- The Netherlands: Alzheimerstichting
- United Kingdom: Alzheimer Scotland-Action on Dementia
Funding and duration
The European Commission granted the necessary funds for the “Alzheimer Children’s Book Project” to the Association Luxembourg Alzheimer. Alzheimer Europe worked in close cooperation with the Association Luxembourg Alzheimer on this project which started in December 1997 and finished in June 1999.
The main aims of this project were to produce a book about Alzheimer's disease which would provide children with basic information about Alzheimer's disease (though the story), answer some of the questions they may have, remove some of the stigma associated with having a relative with Alzheimer's disease and provide a tool for the topic to be discussed in schools, at home and amongst friends.
Moreover, it was our aim to write a book which would be directly accessible to a young audience rather than the parents of children with a relative with dementia .
The first stage of this project involved collecting copies of existing information in order to analyse its content, produce a summary and compile an inventory. Before starting to write the story, Alzheimer Luxembourg Association, in close collaboration with Alzheimer Europe, organised interviews with young children in order to assess their real needs with regard to information about Alzheimer's disease and their preferences concerning the style of the book. These interviews enabled us to analyse the language used by young children in order to write a story in a style which was understandable and adapted to the needs of the target group.
Finally, two meetings were held with the project participants in Luxembourg. These meetings enabled the participants to define guidelines for the book, the overall structure of the story, the audience, the specific aspects of the disease to be dealt with, the characters, the setting, the style and the kind of illustrations to be included etc. and later to agree on the actual text and overall presentation.
The children's book was written in French and then translated into all the official languages of the European Union.
The children’s book, which is called “Chère Mamie” in the original version, is available in French, German, Italian, Greek, Flemish and Danish and can be obtained from Alzheimer Europe or its member associations in the respective countries.
Last Updated: mercredi 25 avril 2012
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A modifier describes another word or word group. Words, phrases (groups of words without a subject or predicate, usually introduced by a preposition or conjunction), and clauses (groups of words with a subject and verb within a compound or complex sentence) may all be modifiers. An adjective modifies a noun or a pronoun. An adverb modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or a clause. Clauses or phrases may serve as adjectives or adverbs.
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- Historic Sites
William Trent House Museum
William Trent built his country estate north of Philadelphia, in New Jersey, at the Falls of the Delaware River about 1719. It was a large, imposing brick structure, built in the newest fashion. An "allee" of English cherry trees led from the entrance down to the ferry landing. Nearby, there were numerous outbuildings as well as grist, saw and fulling mills along the Assunpink Creek. In 1720 Trent laid out a settlement, which he incorporated and named "Trenton." Through careful preservation and accurate historical interpretation, visitors will become aware of the importance of this building in national, state and municipal history. An ambitious restoration project is nearly complete and will provide a more accurate historical representation of the museum's original appearance.
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Using scientific techniques and cutting-edge equipment, researchers at the Indianapolis Museum of Art
Conservation Science Laboratory have recently solved mysteries about paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Giorgio de Chirico. Since opening in early 2011, the Conservation Science Laboratory has undertaken multiple projects that have provided the museum world with new research, techniques and advances in the field of conservation.
A partnership between the IMA Conservation Science Laboratory and the Cincinnati Art Museum (CAM) has shed new light on the colors that Vincent van Gogh used in his 1890 painting Undergrowth with Two Figures. Van Gogh was known to use vibrant colors in his paintings but many of his works today have lost this original vibrancy. Undergrowth with Two Figures is one such work and during a cleaning of the work, former CAM paintings conservator Per Knutas unearthed miniscule traces of bright pink colorant in areas where the frame covered the edge of the painting. This discovery prompted Knutas to contact Dr. Gregory D. Smith, the IMA Otto N. Frenzel III Senior Conservation Scientist. Smith agreed to help identify the paint colorant used by van Gogh and worked with visiting researcher Dr. Jeffrey Fieberg, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Centre College in Danville, KY, to examine the painting and solve the mystery.
I gladly accepted the challenge to identify the colorant, knowing this project would allow the Conservation Science Laboratory to build ongoing partnerships within the museum community, contribute useful research on paint fading and fully utilize the state-of-the-art instruments available in the lab, Smith said. This project is a shining example of the type of research the lab is equipped to conduct.
Van Gogh painted Undergrowth within the last five weeks of his lifea period when he was known to have used a bright Geranium Lake organic dye and the brilliance of Geranium Lake is short lived when exposed to light. A helpful clue in the process came from a letter written by van Gogh to his brother, Theo, while he was painting the work stating it contained . . . undergrowth, lilac trunks of poplars, and underneath them some flower-dotted grass, pink, yellow, white and various greens. Since the pink flowers rapidly faded to white, the question addressed by the IMA lab was which flowers were white because of the fading, and which ones were always white.
The painting was brought to the IMA for an in-depth, nondestructive analysis. Smith utilized a small broken paint chip found lodged in the varnish to analyze the dye by Raman microspectroscopya process that collects a characteristic spectral fingerprint from the dye by measuring changes in laser light scattered by the molecules. Comparison of the spectrum to a digital library of thousands of materials identified the dye as eosin, which gives Geranium Lake its vibrant color. After identifying the ink, Smith and Fieberg painstakingly mapped out its location by elemental spectroscopy in the 387 dobs of white paint used by van Gogh to represent the flowers. The team used Adobe Photoshop to record all the spots in which the dyestuff was detected, creating a virtual restoration of the aged painting.
The research collaboration between Smith, Fieberg and CAM is ongoing. An upcoming scholarly publication by the projects core collaborators will make the information more widely known to art history scholars. Smith is now working with forensic scientists at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis to refine the coloration used in the virtual restoration based on actual microcolorimetry measurements of small paint flakes from the van Gogh painting.
Van Gogh said, . . . in the colours there is adulteration as in wines. How can one judge correctly when, like myself, one knows nothing of chemistry. Although the damage has already been done, through chemistry the IMA is now working to understand the changes in this work and others by van Gogh in the Museums collection and to give todays admirers of his work a more accurate picture of his artworks brilliance.
The Conservation Science Lab did similar work on a Giorgio de Chirico painting from the IMAs permanent collection. IMA Associate Curator for Research, Annette Schlagenhauff, gained assistance from the science lab and conservation imaging specialists while studying the provenance and authenticity of de Chiricos The Mysterious Departure. The piece was taken off view for more than 30 years because of the belief that it might be a forgery. Closer examination revealed a figure study underneath that was characteristic of de Chiricos later works. It is now believed that de Chirico painted this work in the 1930s as a copy of one of his earlier pieces to take advantage of the popularity of this metaphysical style later in his career.
Other ongoing projects in the Conservation Science Lab include:
Developing internship opportunities for high school, undergraduate and graduate students
Offering sabbatical programs for university professors who teach Chemistry of Art courses
Studying fading behaviors in photographs and woodblock prints
Developing non-destructive identification techniques for plastic materials used in modern design objects
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Brazilian name: arapaçu-de-bico-torto
|São Paulo state, Brazil
The Black-billed Scythebill is distributed in south-east Brazil and into adjacent areas of Paraguay and Argentina. It is found in Atlantic Rain Forest and secondary woodland, often associated with stands of bamboo.
It has a very long, decurved black bill the colour of which distinguishes it from the other two scythebills found in Brazil; Red-billed Scythebill Campylorhamphus trochilirostris and Curve-billed Scythebill C. procurvoides. Otherwise it is olive-brown above with a black head and nape with white streaks. The wings and tail are chestnut-rufous and the throat is whitish.
|It forages on trunks, as seen in these photos, and on
bamboo and bromeliads where its bill must help it catch its insect
There are recordings and a distribution map on xeno-canto.
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The Breman Jewish Heritage and Holocaust Museum
Location & Contact:
The William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum explores the universal themes of respect for difference, responsible citizenship, human dignity, and community building through the lens of the Jewish experience. The Breman features: Absence of Humanity: The Holocaust Years, 19331945; Creating Community: The Jews of Atlanta from 1845 to the Present in The Blonder Family Heritage Gallery; The Marlene J. and William A. Schwartz Special Exhibition Gallery; The Ida Pearle and Joseph Cuba Community Archives and Genealogy Center; The Lillian and A.J. Weinberg Center for Holocaust Education; a comprehensive resource library for educators, scholars and the media supporting archival, genealogical and Holocuast research, character education and heritage studies; and The Elinor Rosenberg Breman Museum Shop.
Through its signature exhibitions and special exhibitions, The Breman attracts diverse audiences and educates visitors about Jewish values, customs and traditions. Tzedakkah (righteousness) and tikkun olam (repairing the world) are two such concepts. Exhibitions also explore universal themes, such as personal responsibility, community building and cross-cultural understanding.
The Bremans Cuba Archives and Genealogy Center holds memories and documentation of Jewish life in Georgia and Alabama. The archives contribute greatly to the study of Jewish culture and the humanities by illuminating how Jewish people lived, organized and participated in communities throughout the state. Personal stories and historical memorabilia of individuals provide a springboard for discovery and dialogue.
The Breman is a teaching museum committed to serving a broad spectrum of teachers, students, their families and lifelong learners in Georgia and the Southeast. More than 20,000 visitors a year have the opportunity to learn about the Holocaust as well as Jewish history from The Bremans exhibitions, survivor speakers, and archives. They are challenged to consider the relevance and implications of the Holocaust today.
The Education Departmentof The Breman, including the Weinberg Center for Holocaust Education, provides age-appropriate tours, speakers, lesson plans, books, films, courses, a speaker series, online exhibitions, and other resources that are intended to support and enlighten visitors from diverse settings including public, private, and parochial schools. These educational resources may be integrated into mandated areas of study in almost all academic disciplines. They meet Georgia Performance Standards in a variety of curricular areas, including:
Through its public exhibitions and programs, The Breman explores the universal themes of respect for difference, responsible citizenship, human dignity, and community-building through the lens of the Jewish experience. The museum provides visitors with a strong historical perspectiv,e as well as a positive example of the strength of the human spirit and our interdependence. The Breman, a local and national resource, houses two permanent exhibitions, Absence of Humanity: The Holocaust Years which provides the history of the Holocaust and Creating Community: The Jews of Atlanta from 1845 to the Present, depicting Jewish life in the State of Georgia; one gallery for special exhibitions, a resource library, and extensive archives relating to Jewish history in Georgia with materials (including diaries, documents, scrapbooks, photographs, audio and video recordings, oral histories; and an extensive newspaper collection) that date back to the 1850s.
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logging in or signing up Ecological pyramids bothrops 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 Dynamic Copy Does not support media & animations Automatically changes to Flash or non-Flash embed WordPress Embed Customize Embed URL: Copy Thumbnail: Copy The presentation is successfully added In Your Favorites. Views: 11910 Category: Education License: All Rights Reserved Like it (4) Dislike it (2) Added: November 30, 2008 This Presentation is Public Favorites: 3 Presentation Description A level ecology - looks at trophic levels and diiferences between pyramids of numbers, biomass and energy Comments Posting comment... Premium member Presentation Transcript Ecological Pyramids : Ecological Pyramids Revision : Revision We have looked at the use of food chains and food webs to the direction of energy flow in ecological systems. What is A trophic level? A secondary consumer? An autotroph? A heterotroph? Ecological pyramids : Ecological pyramids There are three types of pyramid that can be used to display ecological systems Pyramids of NUMBER Pyramids of BIOMASS Pyramids of ENERGY Pyramids of Number : Pyramids of Number The simplest example of an ecological pyramid Produced by a simple count of the organisms in each trophic level of the ecosystem. The number of each type of organism is represented by a rectangle that’s length is proportional to the number of individual organisms in a given area (or volume) Pyramids of Number : A typical pyramid of numbers Pyramids of Number Log numbers Producers herbivores 1st level carnivore 2nd level carnivore 3rd level carnivore Pyramids of Number : An inverted pyramid of numbers Pyramids of Number numbers Producers herbivores 1st level carnivore 2nd level carnivore Pyramids of Number : Advantage Data relatively easy to collect using simple sampling Disadvantages Producers vary in size Large range of numbers Trophic level difficult to work out Pyramids of Number Pyramids of Biomass : Pyramids of Biomass These are based on an estimation of the total mass of the organisms at each trophic level How might this data be collected? Individual organisms weighed and counted. Dry mass should be compared to eliminate errors due to water content Pyramids of Biomass : Pyramids of Biomass Advantages The data is more accurate. Eliminates misleading problems of producer size differences Disadvantages Laborious and expensive Destructive Can also be misleading in some circumstances Pyramids of Biomass : Pyramids of Biomass For example, in certain aquatic ecosystems a pyramid of biomass may look like this phytoplankton zooplankton 1st level carnivore WHY? Pyramids of Biomass : Sample only takes into STANDING BIOMASS not PRODUCTIVITY Misleading when; Producers are small with a high turnover rate The rate of consumption is about equal to rate of production Pyramids of Biomass Pyramids of energy : Pyramids of energy Each bar represents the total amount of energy used by the trophic level per unit area over a set period of time (remember KJm-2yr-1?) Pyramids of energy : Pyramids of energy Gross production Herbivores to carnivores Producers to herbivores Carnivores to top carnivores 87110 88 1603 14098 Energy (in KJm-2yr-1) Pyramids of energy : Advantages Takes into account the PRODUCTIVITY Addresses the fact that weight for weight, two species do not necessarily have the same energy content Disadvantages Very difficult to obtain data Destructive Problems identifying trophic level Pyramids of energy Please get out your information booklets! : Please get out your information booklets! You do not have the permission to view this presentation. In order to view it, please contact the author of the presentation.
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Earth-sized planet found in Alpha Centauri by European astronomers using HARPS telescopeBy Angel Cuala on Oct 17, 2012 in Astronomy, Science •
European astronomers announced on Tuesday, October 16, 2012 their discovery of an Earth-sized planet in Alpha Centauri, the star system closest to our plant. The said planet was reportedly only 4.3 light years away from Earth, and was detected using a High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) telescope.
According to a report by European Southern Observatory (ESO) on its official website that day, the unnamed planet was discovered by the astronomers using the 3.6-metre telescope HARPS instrument at ESO‘s La Silla Observatory in Chile. Search of such kind of planets was said to be going on since the nineteenth century.
Alpha Centauri is known to be a system composed of of two stars (Alpha Centauri A and B) similar to the Sun and are orbiting close to each other; and a faint red component known as Proxima Centauri, which is slightly closer to Earth than A or B. Alpha Centauri B is a bit smaller and less bright than the Sun.
As noted in the report, the European team found the planet “by picking up the tiny wobbles in the motion of the star Alpha Centauri B created by the gravitational pull of the orbiting planet.” The full report can be found at journal Nature this Wednesday, October 17 titled ‘An Earth mass planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B.’
“Our observations extended over more than four years using the HARPS instrument and have revealed a tiny, but real, signal from a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B every 3.2 days. It’s an extraordinary discovery and it has pushed our technique to the limit!” Xavier Dumusque, lead author of the report told the paper.
“This is the first planet with a mass similar to Earth ever found around a star like the Sun. Its orbit is very close to its star and it must be much too hot for life as we know it.” Stéphane Udry of the Geneva Observatory, a co-author of the report and team member, was quoted as saying.
Artist’s impression showing the Earth-sized planet orbiting the star Alpha Centauri B
Image Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/N. Risinger (skysurvey.org)
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Colorado DesertArticle Free Pass
Colorado Desert, part of the Sonoran Desert, extending southeastward for 164 miles (264 km) from the San Gorgonio Pass in southeastern California, U.S., to the Colorado River delta in northern Mexico. A low-lying, arid region, it is bounded by the Pacific coastal ranges (west), the San Bernardino, Cottonwood, Chuckawalla, and Chocolate mountains and the Colorado River (north through east), and the head of the Gulf of California (south). The typical vegetation of the desert is the creosote bush–desert shrub association. Shifting sand dunes lie in the northwest and in the Algodones sand hills in the east. The Salton Sea, a brackish-water lake, occupies the deepest section of the Salton Trough (Salton Basin), a landform that effectively outlines the Colorado Desert and the neighbouring Yuma Desert of Arizona, U.S., and northwestern Sonora, Mex. The productive, irrigated Coachella and Imperial valleys stretch northwest and southeast from the Salton Sea. Water is supplied to these valleys through canals from the Colorado River, after which the desert was named. Within the desert are several Indian reservations, the Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge, and popular resorts such as Palm Springs.
What made you want to look up "Colorado Desert"? Please share what surprised you most...
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In the UK one person dies from a smoking-related disease every four minutes.
Lung cancer (smoking causes over 80 per cent of all lung cancer deaths)
Other cancers e.g mouth and throat cancer
Smoking can also worsen colds, chest problems and allergies like hay fever, bronchitis and emphysema. It can bring on unpleasant side-effects such as wrinkles and bad breath and can make you feel short of breath when you exercise.
The benefits of stopping smoking are immediate. Within weeks you will have better breathing and cleaner clothes. Even better, the risk of serious disease starts going down immediately and continues going down for years as your body recovers.
As well as the health effects of giving up smoking there is the cost of smoking, complete the smoking calculator to see how much you could save by going smokefree.
The National Public Health Service (NPHS) operates Stop Smoking Wales, which provides support for smokers across Wales through the process of giving up. Most people used to smoke – now only 25% do. Thousands have given up, helping themselves and those around them.
Call 0800 085 22 19 for support and advice on giving up.
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Document ID: 12905
Cisco IOS® Network Address Translation (NAT) is designed for IP address simplification and conservation. It enables private IP internetworks that use nonregistered IP addresses to connect to the Internet. NAT operates on a Cisco router that connects two networks together, and translates the private (inside local) addresses in the internal network to public addresses (outside local) before packets are forwarded to another network. As a part of this functionality, you can configure NAT to advertise only one address for the entire network to the outside world. This effectively hides the internal network from the world. Therefore, it provides additional security.
There are no specific requirements for this document.
This document is not restricted to specific software and hardware versions.
For more information on document conventions, refer to the Cisco Technical Tips Conventions.
One of the main features of NAT is static Port Address Translation (PAT), which is also referred to as "overload" in a Cisco IOS configuration. Static PAT is designed to allow one-to-one mapping between local and global addresses. A common use for static PAT is to allow Internet users from the public network to access a Web server located in the private network.
In order to get more information about NAT, refer to the NAT Technical Support pages.
This table shows the three blocks of IP address space available for private networks. Consult RFC 1918 for more details about these special networks.
|IP Address Space||Class|
|10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 (10/8 prefix )||Class A|
|172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 (172.16/12 prefix )||Class B|
|192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 (192.168/16 prefix )||Class C|
Note: The first block is nothing but a single class A network number, while the second block is a set of 16 contiguous class B network numbers, and third block is a set of 256 contiguous class C network numbers.
In this example, the Internet Service Provider (ISP) assigns the DSL subscriber only a single IP address, 188.8.131.52/24. The assigned IP address is a registered unique IP address and is called an inside global address. This registered IP address is used by the entire private network to browse the Internet and also by Internet users that come from the public network to reach the Web server in the private network.
The private LAN, 192.168.0.0/24, is connected to the Ethernet interface of the NAT router. This private LAN contains several PCs and a Web server. The NAT router is configured to translate the unregistered IP addresses (inside local addresses) that come from these PCs to a single public IP address (inside global - 184.108.40.206) to browse the Internet.
IP address 192.168.0.5 (Web server) is an address in the private address space that cannot be routed to the Internet. The only visible IP address for public Internet users to reach the Web server is 220.127.116.11. Therefore, the NAT router is configured to perform a one-to-one mapping between IP address 18.104.22.168 port 80 (port 80 is used to browse the Internet) and 192.168.0.5 port 80. This mapping allows Internet users on the public side to have access to the internal Web server.
This network topology and sample configuration can be used for the Cisco 827, 1417, SOHO77, and 1700/2600/3600 ADSL WIC. As an example, the Cisco 827 is used in this document.
In this section, you are presented with the information you can use to configure the features described in this document.
This document uses this network setup.
Current Configuration: ! version 12.1 service timestamps debug uptime service timestamps log uptime ! hostname 827 ! ip subnet-zero no ip domain-lookup ! bridge irb ! interface Ethernet0 ip address 192.168.0.254 255.255.255.0 ip nat inside !--- This is the inside local IP address and it is a private IP address. ! interface ATM0 no ip address no atm ilmi-keepalive pvc 0/35 encapsulation aal5snap ! bundle-enable dsl operating-mode auto bridge-group 1 ! interface BVI1 ip address 22.214.171.124 255.255.255.240 ip nat outside !--- This is the inside global IP address. !--- This is your public IP address and it is provided to you by your ISP. ! ip nat inside source list 1 interface BVI1 overload !--- This statement makes the router perform PAT for all the !--- End Stations behind the Ethernet interface that uses !--- private IP addresses defined in access list #1. ip nat inside source static tcp 192.168.0.5 80 126.96.36.199 80 extendable !--- This statement performs the static address translation for the Web server. !--- With this statement, users that try to reach 188.8.131.52 port 80 (www) are !--- automatically redirected to 192.168.0.5 port 80 (www). In this case !--- it is the Web server. ip classless ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 184.108.40.206 !--- IP address 220.127.116.11 is the next hop IP address, also !--- called the default gateway. !--- Your ISP can tell you what IP address to configure as the next hop address. ! access-list 1 permit 192.168.0.0 0.0.0.255 !--- This access list defines the private network !--- that is network address translated. bridge 1 protocol ieee bridge 1 route ip ! end
From the show ip nat translation command output, the Inside local is the configured IP address assigned to the Web server on the inside network. Notice that 192.168.0.5 is an address in the private address space that cannot be routed to the Internet. The Inside global is the IP address of the inside host, which is the Web server, as it appears to the outside network. This address is the one known to people who try to access the Web server from the Internet.
The Outside local is the IP address of the outside host as it appears to the inside network. It is not necessarily a legitimate address. But, it is allocated from an address space that can be routed on the inside.
The Outside global address is the IP address assigned to a host on the outside network by the owner of the host. The address is allocated from an address or network space that can be globally routed.
Notice that the address 18.104.22.168 with port number 80 (HTTP) translates to 192.168.0.5 port 80, and vice versa. Therefore, Internet users can browse the Web server even though the Web server is on a private network with a private IP address.
In order to get more information about how to troubleshoot NAT, refer to the Verifying NAT Operation and Basic NAT Troubleshooting.
827# 827#show ip nat translation Pro Inside global Inside local Outside local Outside global tcp 22.214.171.124:80 192.168.0.5:80 --- --- tcp 126.96.36.199:80 192.168.0.5:80 188.8.131.52:11000 184.108.40.206:11000 827#
In order to troubleshoot address translation, you can issue the term mon and debug ip nat detailed commands on the router to see if the address translates correctly. The visible IP address for outside users to reach the Web server is 220.127.116.11. For example, users from the public side of the Internet who try to reach 18.104.22.168 port 80 (www) are automatically redirected to 192.168.0.5 port 80 (www), which in this case is the Web server.
827#term mon 827#debug ip nat detailed IP NAT detailed debugging is on 827# 03:29:49: NAT: creating portlist proto 6 globaladdr 22.214.171.124 03:29:49: NAT: Allocated Port for 192.168.0.5 -> 126.96.36.199: wanted 80 got 80 03:29:49: NAT: o: tcp (188.8.131.52, 11000) -> (184.108.40.206, 80) <... snipped ...>
- Cisco DSL Technology Support Information
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|Updated: Apr 09, 2007||Document ID: 12905|
| 3.105936 |
Science fiction (abbreviated SF or sci-fi with varying punctuation and capitalization) is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology. Fiction is the telling of stories which are not real More specifically fiction is an imaginative form of Narrative, one of the four basic Rhetorical modes. Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning " Knowledge " or "knowing" is the effort to discover, and increase human understanding Technology is a broad concept that deals with a Species ' usage and knowledge of Tools and Crafts and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt Science fiction is found in books, art, television, films, games, theater, and other media.
In organizational or marketing contexts, science fiction can be synonymous with the broader definition of speculative fiction, encompassing creative works incorporating imaginative elements not found in contemporary reality; this includes fantasy, horror, and related genres. Speculative fiction is a term used as an inclusive descriptor covering a group of Fiction Genres that speculate about worlds that are unlike the real world in Fantasy is a Genre that uses magic and other Supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting Horror fiction is broadly Fiction in any medium intended to scare unsettle or horrify the audience
Science fiction differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically established or scientifically postulated laws of nature (though some elements in a story might still be pure imaginative speculation).
Science fiction is largely based on writing entertainingly and rationally about alternate possibilities in settings that are contrary to known reality. These include:
Exploring the consequences of such differences is the traditional purpose of science fiction, making it a "literature of ideas". Outer space, often simply called space, comprises the relatively empty regions of the Universe outside the escape velocities of Celestial bodies. Extraterrestrial life is Life originating outside of the Earth. This article details time travel itself For other uses see Time Traveler. Psionics is the study and/or practice of using the mind to induce paranormal phenomena Nanotechnology, sometimes shortened to nanotech, refers to a field of Applied science whose theme is the control of matter on an Atomic and Molecular A robot is a mechanical or Virtual Artificial agent In practice it is usually an electro-mechanical system which by its appearance or movements
Science fiction is difficult to define, as it includes a wide range of subgenres and themes. A genre (ˈʒɑːnrə also /ˈdʒɑːnrə/ from French "kind" or "sort" from Latin: genus (stem gener-) is a loose set Author and editor Damon Knight summed up the difficulty by stating that "science fiction is what we point to when we say it". Damon Francis Knight ( September 19, 1922 &ndash April 15, 2002) was an American Science fiction Author, Vladimir Nabokov argued that were we rigorous with our definitions, Shakespeare's play The Tempest would have to be termed science fiction. This page is about the novelist For his father the politician see Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov. William Shakespeare ( baptised The Tempest is a comedy written by William Shakespeare. It is generally dated to 1610-11 and accepted as the last play written solely by him although
According to science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, "a handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method. Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7 1907 – May 8 1988 was an American Novelist and Science fiction Writer. Scientific method refers to bodies of Techniques for investigating phenomena " Rod Serling's stated definition is "fantasy is the impossible made probable. Rodman Edward "Rod" Serling ( December 25, 1924 &ndash June 28, 1975) was an American Screenwriter, best known Science Fiction is the improbable made possible. "
Lester Del Rey wrote, "Even the devoted aficionado– or fan- has a hard time trying to explain what science fiction is," and that the reason for there not being a "full satisfactory definition" is that "there are no easily delineated limits to science fiction. Lester del Rey ( June 2 1915 &ndash May 10 1993) was an American Science fiction author and editor. "
Author Mark C. Glassy stated that the definition of science fiction was very much like the definition of porn; you don't know what it is, but you know it when you see it. Pornography or porn is the explicit depiction of Sexual subject matter with the sole intention of sexually exciting the viewer
Forrest J. Ackerman publicly used the term "sci-fi" at UCLA in 1954, though Robert A. Heinlein had used it in private correspondence six years earlier. Forrest J Ackerman (born November 24, 1916) is an American collector of Science fiction books and movie memorabilia and a science fiction Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7 1907 – May 8 1988 was an American Novelist and Science fiction Writer. As science fiction entered popular culture, writers and fans active in the field came to associate the term with low-budget, low-tech "B-movies" and with low-quality pulp science fiction. Popular culture (or pop culture) is the Culture — patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance — A B movie is a motion picture made on a low or modest budget Originally the term was used for films intended for distribution as the less-publicized second half of a Double Pulp magazines (or pulp fiction; often referred to as "the pulps" were inexpensive Fiction magazines By the 1970s, critics within the field such as Terry Carr and Damon Knight were using "sci-fi" to distinguish hack-work from serious science fiction, and around 1978, Susan Wood and others introduced the pronunciation "skiffy. Terry Gene Carr ( February 19, 1937 – April 7, 1987) was a U Damon Francis Knight ( September 19, 1922 &ndash April 15, 2002) was an American Science fiction Author, Susan Joan Wood ( August 22, 1948 - November 12, 1980 was a Canadian Author, critic, and Science fiction Skiffy is a deliberate humorous misspelling or mispronunciation of the controversial term "sci-fi" a neologism referring to Science fiction. " Peter Nicholls writes that "SF" (or "sf") is "the preferred abbreviation within the community of sf writers and readers. " David Langford's monthly fanzine Ansible includes a regular section "As Others See Us" which offers numerous examples of "sci-fi" being used in a pejorative sense by people outside the genre. David Rowland Langford (born 10 April 1953 is a British author editor and Critic, largely active within the Science fiction field An ansible is a hypothetical machine capable of Superluminal communication and used as a Plot device in Science fiction literature
As a means of understanding the world through speculation and storytelling, science fiction has antecedents back to mythology, though precursors to science fiction as literature began to emerge from the 13th century (Ibn al-Nafis, Theologus Autodidactus) to the 17th century (the real Cyrano de Bergerac with "Voyage de la Terre à la Lune" and "Des états de la Lune et du Soleil") and the Age of Reason with the development of science itself, Voltaire's "Micromégas" was one of the first, together with Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Isaac Asimov (c January 2 1920 &ndash April 6 1992 ˈaɪzək ˈæzɪmʌv originally Исаак Озимов but now transcribed into Russian as, was a Russian TemplateInfobox Muslim scholars --> Ala al-Din Abu al-Hassan Ali ibn Abi-Hazm al-Qarshi al-Dimashqi ( Hector Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac (6 March 1619 &ndash 28 July 1655 was a French Dramatist and Duelist who is now best remembered for the many works 17th century philosophy in the Western world is generally regarded as being the start of Modern philosophy, and a departure from the medieval approach Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning " Knowledge " or "knowing" is the effort to discover, and increase human understanding Micromégas (1752 is a Short story written in the 18th century by the French Philosopher and Satirist Voltaire. Gulliver's Travels (1726 amended 1735 officially Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World in Four Parts Following the 18th century development of the novel as a literary form, in the early 19th century, Mary Shelley's books Frankenstein and The Last Man helped define the form of the science fiction novel; later Edgar Allan Poe wrote a story about a flight to the moon. Mary Shelley ( Née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin; 30 August Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, generally known as Frankenstein, is a Novel written by the British author Mary Shelley The Last Man is an apocalyptic Science fiction novel by Mary Shelley, which was first published in 1826 Edgar Allan Poe (January 19 1809 – October 7 1849 was an American poet, short-story Writer, editor and Literary critic, More examples appeared throughout the 19th century. Then with the dawn of new technologies such as electricity, the telegraph, and new forms of powered transportation, writers like Jules Verne and H. G. Wells created a body of work that became popular across broad cross-sections of society. Jules Gabriel Verne ( February 8 1828 &ndash March 24 1905) was a French Author who pioneered the science-fiction Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 &ndash 13 August 1946 He was an outspoken socialist and a pacifist, his later works becoming increasingly political In the late 19th century the term "scientific romance" was used in Britain to describe much of this fiction. See also History of science fiction Scientific romance is a bygone name for what is now commonly known as Science fiction. This produced additional offshoots, such as the 1884 novella Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott Abbott. For other uses see Flatland (disambiguation Flatland A Romance of Many Dimensions is an 1884 Science fiction Edwin Abbott Abbott ( December 20, 1838 &ndash October 12, 1926) English Schoolmaster and theologian, The term would continue to be used into the early 20th century for writers such as Olaf Stapledon. William Olaf Stapledon ( May 10, 1886 &ndash September 6, 1950) was a British philosopher and author of several influential works
In the early 20th century, pulp magazines helped develop a new generation of mainly American SF writers, influenced by Hugo Gernsback, the founder of Amazing Stories magazine. Pulp magazines (or pulp fiction; often referred to as "the pulps" were inexpensive Fiction magazines Hugo Gernsback ( August 16 1884 – August 19 1967) born Hugo Gernsbacher, was a Luxembourg American Inventor Amazing Stories was an American Science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback 's Experimenter Publishing. In the late 1930s, John W. Campbell became editor of Astounding Science Fiction, and a critical mass of new writers emerged in New York City in a group called the Futurians, including Isaac Asimov, Damon Knight, Donald A. Wollheim, Frederik Pohl, James Blish, Judith Merril, and others. John Wood Campbell Jr (June 8 1910 – July 11 1971 was an important Science fiction editor and writer Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American Science fiction Magazine. The City of New York The Futurians were an influential group of Science fiction fans, many of whom became editors and writers as well Isaac Asimov (c January 2 1920 &ndash April 6 1992 ˈaɪzək ˈæzɪmʌv originally Исаак Озимов but now transcribed into Russian as, was a Russian Damon Francis Knight ( September 19, 1922 &ndash April 15, 2002) was an American Science fiction Author, Donald Allen Wollheim (October 1 1914 &ndash November 2, 1990) was a Science fiction writer, editor, publisher and Frederik George Pohl Jr (born November 26, 1919) is a American Science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career James Benjamin Blish ( East Orange, New Jersey, May 23, 1921 – Henley-on-Thames, July 30, 1975) was an Judith Josephine Grossman ( January 21, 1923 - September 12, 1997) who took the pen-name Judith Merril about 1945 was an Other important writers during this period included Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and A. E. Van Vogt. Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7 1907 – May 8 1988 was an American Novelist and Science fiction Writer. Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE (16 December 1917–19 March 2008 was a British Science fiction Author, Inventor, and Alfred Elton van Vogt (April 26 1912 – January 26 2000 was a Canadian -born Science fiction author who was one of the most prolific Campbell's tenure at Astounding is considered to be the beginning of the Golden Age of science fiction, characterized by hard SF stories celebrating scientific achievement and progress. The first Golden Age of Science Fiction, often recognized as a period from the late 1930s or early 1940s through to the 1950s was an era during which the science fiction genre gained wide This lasted until postwar technological advances, new magazines like Galaxy under Pohl as editor, and a new generation of writers began writing stories outside the Campbell mode. Galaxy Science Fiction was a digest-size Science fiction magazine, the creation of noted editor H
In the 1950s, the Beat generation included speculative writers like William S. Burroughs. William Seward Burroughs II ( – ˈbʌroʊz was an American Novelist, Essayist, Social critic, painter and Spoken word In the 1960s and early 1970s, writers like Frank Herbert, Samuel R. Delany, Roger Zelazny, and Harlan Ellison explored new trends, ideas, and writing styles, while a group of writers, mainly in Britain, became known as the New Wave. Franklin Patrick Herbert Jr ( October 8 1920 &ndash February 11 1986) was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American Samuel Ray Delany Jr (born April 1, 1942, New York City) is an award-winning American Science fiction Roger Joseph Zelazny ( May 13, 1937 – June 14, 1995) was an American writer of Fantasy and Science fiction Harlan Jay Ellison (born May 27, 1934) is a prolific American Writer of Short stories, Novellas, Teleplays The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located New Wave is a term applied to Science fiction writing characterized by a high degree of experimentation both in form and in content and a Highbrow and self-consciously In the 1970s, writers like Larry Niven and Poul Anderson began to redefine hard SF. Laurence van Cott Niven (born April 30, 1938 Los Angeles California) is a US Science fiction author. Poul William Anderson ( November 25, 1926 – July 31, 2001) was an American Science fiction author who wrote during a Golden Ursula K. Le Guin and others pioneered soft science fiction. Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (ˈɝsələ ˈkroʊbɚ ləˈgwɪn (born October 21, 1929) is an American author
In the 1980s, cyberpunk authors like William Gibson turned away from the traditional optimism and support for progress of traditional science fiction. Cyberpunk is a Science fiction genre noted for its focus on " High tech and low life. William Ford Gibson (born March 17 1948 is an American - Canadian writer who has been called the "noir prophet" of the Cyberpunk subgenre Star Wars helped spark a new interest in space opera, focusing more on story and character than on scientific accuracy. Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope (originally released as Star Wars) is a 1977 Space opera Space opera is a subgenre of Speculative fiction or Science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often Melodramatic adventure set mainly or entirely C. J. Cherryh's detailed explorations of alien life and complex scientific challenges influenced a generation of writers. Carolyn Janice Cherry (born September 1, 1942) better known by the Pseudonym C Extraterrestrial life is Life originating outside of the Earth.
Emerging themes in the 1990s included environmental issues, the implications of the global Internet and the expanding information universe, questions about biotechnology and nanotechnology, as well as a post-Cold War interest in post-scarcity societies; Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age comprehensively explores these themes. This is a list of environmental issues that are due to human activity Biotechnology is Technology based on Biology, especially when used in Agriculture, Food science, and Medicine. Nanotechnology, sometimes shortened to nanotech, refers to a field of Applied science whose theme is the control of matter on an Atomic and Molecular Cold War is the state of conflict tension and competition that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR and their respective allies from the Post scarcity or post-scarcity describes a hypothetical form of Economy or Society, often explored in Science fiction, in which things such as Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known primarily for his Science fiction works in the Postcyberpunk genre The Diamond Age or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is a Postcyberpunk Novel by Neal Stephenson. Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan novels brought the character-driven story back into prominence. Lois McMaster Bujold (born November 2, 1949, Columbus, Ohio) is an American author of Science fiction and Fantasy The Vorkosigan Saga is a series of Science fiction novels and short stories by Lois McMaster Bujold, most of which concern Miles Vorkosigan, a physically The television series Star Trek: The Next Generation began a torrent of new SF shows, of which Babylon 5 was among the most highly acclaimed in the decade. Star Trek The Next Generation ( STTNG or TNG) is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning science fiction television program created by Gene Roddenberry Babylon 5 is an American science fiction television series created produced and largely written by J A general concern about the rapid pace of technological change crystallized around the concept of the technological singularity, popularized by Vernor Vinge's novel Marooned in Realtime and then taken up by other authors. The technological singularity is a theoretical future point of unprecedented technological progress caused in part by the ability of machines to improve themselves using Artificial Vernor Steffen Vinge (ˈvɪndʒi (born October 2, 1944 in Waukesha Wisconsin, U Marooned in Realtime is a 1986 murder mystery and Time-travel Science fiction novel by Vernor Vinge, about a small time-displaced Television shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and films like The Lord of the Rings created new interest in all the speculative genres in films, television, computer games, and books. Fictional narratives (and works of art exist beyond their completion e The Lord of the Rings film trilogy consists of three Live action Fantasy Epic films The Fellowship of the Ring ( 2001
While SF has provided criticism of developing and future technologies, it also produces innovation and new technology. The discussion of this topic has occurred more in literary and sociological than in scientific forums.
Cinema and media theorist Vivian Sobchack examines the dialogue between science fiction film and the technological imagination. Vivian Sobchack is an American cinema and media theorist and cultural critic Technology does impact how artists portray their fictionalized subjects, but the fictional world gives back to science by broadening imagination. While more prevalent in the beginning years of science fiction with writers like Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Frank Walker and Arthur C. Clarke, new authors like Michael Crichton still find ways to make the currently impossible technologies seem so close to being realized. Isaac Asimov (c January 2 1920 &ndash April 6 1992 ˈaɪzək ˈæzɪmʌv originally Исаак Озимов but now transcribed into Russian as, was a Russian Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7 1907 – May 8 1988 was an American Novelist and Science fiction Writer. Frank Walker may refer to Frank Comerford Walker, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee Frank Ray Walker architect partner in Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE (16 December 1917–19 March 2008 was a British Science fiction Author, Inventor, and John Michael Crichton, ˈkraɪtən, (born October 23 1942 is an American author Film producer, Film director, Medical doctor, and Television producer
This has also been notably documented in the field of nanotechnology with University of Ottawa Professor José Lopez's article "Bridging the Gaps: Science Fiction in Nanotechnology. Nanotechnology, sometimes shortened to nanotech, refers to a field of Applied science whose theme is the control of matter on an Atomic and Molecular For the university in Ottawa Kansas see Ottawa University. The University of Ottawa or Université d'Ottawa in French " Lopez links both theoretical premises of science fiction worlds and the operation of nanotechnologies.
Authors and filmmakers draw on a wide spectrum of ideas, but marketing departments and literary critics tend to separate such literary and cinematic works into different categories, or "genres", and subgenres. Literary criticism is the study discussion evaluation and interpretation of Literature. A genre (ˈʒɑːnrə also /ˈdʒɑːnrə/ from French "kind" or "sort" from Latin: genus (stem gener-) is a loose set These are not simple pigeonholes; works can be overlapped into two or more commonly-defined genres, while others are beyond the generic boundaries, either outside or between categories, and the categories and genres used by mass markets and literary criticism differ considerably.
Hard science fiction, or "hard SF", is characterized by rigorous attention to accurate detail in quantitative sciences, especially physics, astrophysics, and chemistry, or on accurately depicting worlds that more advanced technology may make possible. Hard science fiction is a category of Science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail or on scientific accuracy or on both Physics (Greek Physis - φύσις in everyday terms is the Science of Matter and its motion. Astrophysics is the branch of Astronomy that deals with the Physics of the Universe, including the physical properties ( Luminosity, Chemistry (from Egyptian kēme (chem meaning "earth") is the Science concerned with the composition structure and properties Many accurate predictions of the future come from the hard science fiction subgenre, but numerous inaccurate predictions have emerged as well. Hard science fiction is a category of Science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail or on scientific accuracy or on both For example, Arthur C. Clarke accurately predicted (and invented the concept of) geostationary communications satellites, but erred in his prediction of deep layers of moondust in lunar craters. Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE (16 December 1917–19 March 2008 was a British Science fiction Author, Inventor, and A geostationary orbit (GEO is a Geosynchronous orbit directly above the Earth 's Equator (0° Latitude) with a period equal to the Earth's Some hard SF authors have distinguished themselves as working scientists, including Robert Forward, Gregory Benford, Charles Sheffield, and Geoffrey A. Landis, while mathematician authors include Rudy Rucker and Vernor Vinge. This is about the physicist and science fiction writer You may be looking for his son Robert D Gregory Benford (born January 30, 1941 in Mobile Alabama) is an American science fiction author and Astrophysicist who is on the Charles Sheffield ( June 25, 1935 &ndash November 2, 2002) was an English -born mathematician physicist and Science fiction Geoffrey A Landis works as a scientist and writer of Science fiction. Rudolf von Bitter Rucker (born March 22, 1946 in Louisville Kentucky) is an American Computer scientist and Science fiction Vernor Steffen Vinge (ˈvɪndʒi (born October 2, 1944 in Waukesha Wisconsin, U Other noteworthy hard SF authors include Hal Clement, Joe Haldeman, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Kim Stanley Robinson, Robert J. Sawyer, and Stephen Baxter. Harry Clement Stubbs ( May 30, 1922 in Somerville Massachusetts – October 29, 2003 in Milton Massachusetts) better Joe William Haldeman is an American Science fiction author. Life and work Haldeman was born in 1943 in Oklahoma City Oklahoma Laurence van Cott Niven (born April 30, 1938 Los Angeles California) is a US Science fiction author. Jerry Eugene Pournelle (born August 7, 1933) is an American Science fiction Writer, Essayist and Journalist Kim Stanley Robinson (born March 23 1952) is an American Science fiction Writer, probably best known for his award-winning Robert J Sawyer is a Canadian Science fiction writer born in Ottawa in 1960 and now resident in Mississauga. Stephen Baxter (born 13 November 1957 is a British Hard science fiction Author.
The description "soft" science fiction may describe works based on social sciences such as psychology, economics, political science, sociology, and anthropology. The Left Hand of Darkness is a Science fiction Novel by Ursula K Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (ˈɝsələ ˈkroʊbɚ ləˈgwɪn (born October 21, 1929) is an American author Soft science fiction, or soft SF, like its complementary opposite Hard science fiction, is a descriptive term that points to the role and nature of the Social science fiction is a term used to describe a subgenre of Science fiction concerned less with technology and Space opera and more with Sociological The social sciences comprise academic disciplines concerned with the study of the social life of human groups and individuals including Anthropology, Communication studies Psychology (from Greek grc ψῡχή psȳkhē, "breath life soul" and grc -λογία -logia) is an Academic and Economics is the social science that studies the production distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Political science is a branch of Social sciences that deals with the theory and practice of Politics and the description and analysis of Political systems Sociology (from Latin: socius "companion" and the suffix -ology "the study of" from Greek λόγος lógos "knowledge" Anthropology (/ˌænθɹəˈpɒlədʒi/ from Greek grc ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos, "human" -λογία -logia) is the study of Noteworthy writers in this category include Ursula K. Le Guin and Philip K. Dick. Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (ˈɝsələ ˈkroʊbɚ ləˈgwɪn (born October 21, 1929) is an American author Philip Kindred Dick (December 16 – March 2) was an American Science fiction Novelist and Short story Writer. The term can describe stories focused primarily on character and emotion; SFWA Grand Master Ray Bradbury is an acknowledged master of this art. Ray Douglas Bradbury (born August 22 1920 is an American mainstream, Fantasy, horror, Science fiction and mystery Some writers blur the boundary between hard and soft science fiction - for example Mack Reynolds's work focuses on politics but anticipated many developments in computers, including cyber-terrorism. Dallas McCord "Mack" Reynolds ( November 11, 1917 - January 30, 1983) was an American Science fiction writer
Related to Social SF and Soft SF are the speculative fiction branches of utopian or dystopian stories; The Handmaid's Tale, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Brave New World are examples. Utopia is a name for an ideal community taken from the title of a book written in 1516 by Sir Thomas More describing a fictional Island in the A dystopia (from the Greek δυσ- and τόπος alternatively cacotopia, kakotopia, cackotopia, or anti-utopia) is the vision of a society The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, first published by McClelland and Stewart in Nineteen Eighty-Four (also titled 1984) by George Orwell (the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair) is a 1949 English Novel Brave New World is a 1932 Novel by Aldous Huxley. Set in the London of AD 2540 (632 A Satirical novels with fantastic settings such as Gulliver's Travels may be considered speculative fiction. Gulliver's Travels (1726 amended 1735 officially Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World in Four Parts
The Cyberpunk genre emerged in the early 1980s; the name is a portmanteau of "cybernetics" and "punk" , and was first coined by author Bruce Bethke in his 1980 short story "Cyberpunk". Neuromancer is a 1984 novel by William Gibson, notable for being the most famous early Cyberpunk novel and winner of the science-fiction "triple William Ford Gibson (born March 17 1948 is an American - Canadian writer who has been called the "noir prophet" of the Cyberpunk subgenre Cyberpunk is a Science fiction genre noted for its focus on " High tech and low life. Steampunk is a subgenre of fantasy and Speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s Bruce Bethke is an American author best known for his 1980 Short story "Cyberpunk" which led to the widespread use of the term and his novel The short story is a literary genre of Fictional Prose Narrative that tends to be more concise and to the point than longer works of fiction such The time frame is usually near-future and the settings are often dystopian. Common themes in cyberpunk include advances in information technology and especially the Internet (visually abstracted as cyberspace), (possibly malevolent) artificial intelligence, enhancements of mind and body using bionic prosthetics and direct brain-computer interfaces called cyberware, and post-democratic societal control where corporations have more influence than governments. Information technology ( IT) as defined by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA is "the study design development implementation support The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks Cyberspace &mdash from the Greek el Κυβερνήτης (el kybernētēs steersman governor pilot or rudder &mdash is the global domain of electro-magnetics accessed Bionics (also known as biomimetics, biognosis, Biomimicry, or bionical creativity engineering) is the application of biological In Medicine, a prosthesis (plural prostheses) is an Artificial extension that replaces a missing Body part. A brain-computer interface (BCI sometimes called a direct neural interface or a brain-machine interface, is a direct communication pathway between a human or animal Cyberware is a relatively new and unknown field (a Proto-science, or more adequately a “proto-technology” Nihilism, post-modernism, and film noir techniques are common elements, and the protagonists may be disaffected or reluctant anti-heroes. Nihilism (from the Latin nihil, nothing is a philosophical position that argues that Existence is without objective meaning Purpose Postmodernism literally means 'after the modernist movement' While " Modern " itself refers to something "related to the present" the movement of modernism Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize moral ambiguity and sexual motivation Noteworthy authors in this genre are William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Pat Cadigan, Rudy Rucker, and Neal Stephenson. William Ford Gibson (born March 17 1948 is an American - Canadian writer who has been called the "noir prophet" of the Cyberpunk subgenre Michael Bruce Sterling (born April 14, 1954) is an American Science fiction author, best known for his novels and his seminal work on the Mirrorshades Pat Cadigan (born 1953 is an American-born Science fiction author, whose work is described as part of the Cyberpunk movement Rudolf von Bitter Rucker (born March 22, 1946 in Louisville Kentucky) is an American Computer scientist and Science fiction Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known primarily for his Science fiction works in the Postcyberpunk genre The 1982 film Blade Runner is commonly accepted as a definitive example of the cyberpunk visual style. Blade Runner is a 1982 American Science fiction Film, directed by Ridley Scott.
Time travel stories have antecedents in the 18th and 19th centuries, and this subgenre was popularized by H. G. Wells's novel The Time Machine. Time travel is a common theme in Science fiction and is depicted in a variety of media Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 &ndash 13 August 1946 He was an outspoken socialist and a pacifist, his later works becoming increasingly political The Time Machine is a novella by H G Wells, first published in 1895 and later directly adapted into at least two Feature films of the same name as Stories of this type are complicated by logical problems such as the grandfather paradox. This article refers to the Time travel paradox In novels based on the television series Doctor Who, "Grandfather Paradox" is the semi-mythical Time travel is a popular subject in novels, television series (most famously Doctor Who), as individual episodes within more general science fiction series (for example, "The City on the Edge of Forever" in Star Trek, "Babylon Squared" in Babylon 5, and "The Banks of the Lethe" in Andromeda) and as one-off productions such as The Flipside of Dominick Hide. Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. " The City on the Edge of Forever " is the penultimate episode of the first season of Star Trek. Star Trek is a Science fiction Television series created by Gene Roddenberry that aired from September 8, 1966 through " Babylon Squared " is an Episode from the first season of the science-fiction television series Babylon 5. Babylon 5 is an American science fiction television series created produced and largely written by J See Andromeda (disambiguation for other uses of "Andromeda" The Flipside Of Dominick Hide is a British television play which has attained cult status
Alternate history stories are based on the premise that historical events might have turned out differently. Alternate history or alternative history is a subgenre of Speculative fiction (or Science fiction) and Historical fiction These stories may use time travel to change the past, or may simply set a story in a universe with a different history from our own. Classics in the genre include Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore, in which the South wins the American Civil War and The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Bring the Jubilee, by Ward Ward Moore (b August 10 1903, Madison New Jersey - d January 28 1978) was the working name of American author Joseph Ward Causes of the war See also Origins of the American Civil War, Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War The coexistence of a slave-owning South The Man in the High Castle is a 1962 Alternate history Novel by Science fiction writer Philip K Dick, in which Germany and Japan win World War II. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including The Sidewise Award acknowledges the best works in this subgenre; the name is taken from Murray Leinster's early story "Sidewise in Time". The Sidewise Award for Alternate History were established in 1995 to recognize the best Alternate history stories and novels of the year Murray Leinster ( June 16, 1896 in Norfolk Virginia - June 8, 1975) was a Nom de plume of William Fitzgerald Jenkins
Military science fiction is set in the context of conflict between national, interplanetary, or interstellar armed forces; the primary viewpoint characters are usually soldiers. Military science fiction is a Subgenre of Science fiction in which the principal characters are members of a military service and an armed conflict is taking For the military meaning see Armed forces. For the Soviet sports society see Armed Forces (sports society Armed Forces Stories include detail about military technology, procedure, ritual, and history; military stories may use parallels with historical conflicts. Heinlein's Starship Troopers is an early example, along with the Dorsai novels of Gordon Dickson. Starship Troopers is a Science fiction Novel by Robert A Heinlein, first published (in abridged form as a serial in The Magazine The Childe Cycle is an unfinished series of Science fiction novels by Gordon R Gordon Rupert Dickson ( November 1, 1923 – January 31, 2001) was an American Science fiction author Joe Haldeman's The Forever War is a critique of the genre, a Vietnam-era response to the World War II-style stories of earlier authors. Joe William Haldeman is an American Science fiction author. Life and work Haldeman was born in 1943 in Oklahoma City Oklahoma The Forever War is a 1974 Science fiction Novel by Joe Haldeman. The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, or the Vietnam Conflict, occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Prominent military SF authors include David Drake, David Weber, Jerry Pournelle, S. M. Stirling, and Lois McMaster Bujold. David Drake (born September 24, 1945) is an author of Science fiction and Fantasy literature David Mark Weber is an American Science fiction and Fantasy author. Jerry Eugene Pournelle (born August 7, 1933) is an American Science fiction Writer, Essayist and Journalist Stephen Michael Stirling is a French -born Canadian - American Science fiction and Fantasy author Lois McMaster Bujold (born November 2, 1949, Columbus, Ohio) is an American author of Science fiction and Fantasy Baen Books is known for cultivating military science fiction authors. Baen Books is an American Publishing company established in 1983 by long time Science Fiction publisher and editor Jim Baen. Television series within this subgenre include Battlestar Galactica and Stargate SG-1. Battlestar Galactica is a franchise of Science fiction Films and television series, the first of which was produced in 1978 The popular Halo videogame and novel series is another prominent modern example. Halo is a Science fiction Video game franchise created by Bungie and owned and published by Microsoft Game Studios.
The broader category of speculative fiction includes science fiction, fantasy, alternate histories (which may have no particular scientific or futuristic component), and even literary stories that contain fantastic elements, such as the work of Jorge Luis Borges or John Barth. Speculative fiction is a term used as an inclusive descriptor covering a group of Fiction Genres that speculate about worlds that are unlike the real world in Alternate history or alternative history is a subgenre of Speculative fiction (or Science fiction) and Historical fiction John Simmons Barth (born May 27 1930 is an American novelist and short-story writer known for the postmodernist and metafictive quality of his work For some editors, magic realism is considered to be within the broad definition of speculative fiction. Magic realism, or magical realism, is an artistic Genre in which magical elements or illogical scenarios appear in an otherwise realistic or even "normal"
Fantasy is closely associated with science fiction, and many writers, including Robert A. Heinlein, Poul Anderson, Larry Niven, C. J. Cherryh, C. S. Lewis, Jack Vance, Terry Pratchett, Roger Zelazny, and Lois McMaster Bujold have worked in both genres, while writers such as Anne McCaffrey and Marion Zimmer Bradley have written works that appear to blur the boundary between the two related genres. The Lord of the Rings is an epic Fantasy literature is Fantasy in written form Historically speaking the majority of fantasy works have been literature Fantasy is a Genre that uses magic and other Supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7 1907 – May 8 1988 was an American Novelist and Science fiction Writer. Poul William Anderson ( November 25, 1926 – July 31, 2001) was an American Science fiction author who wrote during a Golden Laurence van Cott Niven (born April 30, 1938 Los Angeles California) is a US Science fiction author. Carolyn Janice Cherry (born September 1, 1942) better known by the Pseudonym C Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963 John Holbrook Vance (born August 28, 1916 in San Francisco, Terence David John Pratchett, OBE (born 28 April 1948 is an English fantasy, Science fiction, and children's author. Roger Joseph Zelazny ( May 13, 1937 – June 14, 1995) was an American writer of Fantasy and Science fiction Lois McMaster Bujold (born November 2, 1949, Columbus, Ohio) is an American author of Science fiction and Fantasy Anne Inez McCaffrey (born April 1, 1926) is an American Science fiction Author best known for her Dragonriders Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley ( June 3, 1930 – September 25, 1999) was an American author of Fantasy novels such The authors' professional organization is called the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). Science Fiction Writers of America, or SFWA (ˈsɪfwə or /ˈsɛfwə/ was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight. SF conventions routinely have programming on fantasy topics, and fantasy authors such as J. K. Rowling and J. R. R. Tolkien (in film adaptation) have won the highest honor within the science fiction field, the Hugo Award. The definition of a fantasy author is somewhat diffuse and a matter of opinion – Jules Verne considered H Joanne "Jo" Rowling OBE (born 31 July 1965 who writes under the Film adaptation is the transfer of a written work to a Feature film. The Hugo Awards are given every year for the best Science fiction or Fantasy works and achievements of the previous year Some works show how difficult it is to draw clear boundaries between subgenres, for example Larry Niven's The Magic Goes Away stories treat magic as just another force of nature and subject to natural laws which resemble and partially overlap those of physics. Laurence van Cott Niven (born April 30, 1938 Los Angeles California) is a US Science fiction author. The Magic Goes Away is a Fantasy Short story written by Larry Niven in 1976 and later expanded to a Novella of the same name which
However, most authors and readers make a distinction between fantasy and SF. In general, science fiction is the literature of things that might someday be possible, and fantasy is the literature of things that are inherently impossible. Magic and mythology are popular themes in fantasy. Magic in Fiction is the endowing of Fictional characters or objects with magical powers. The word mythology (from the Greek grc μυθολογία mythología, meaning "a story-telling a legendary lore" There are many elements that show up throughout the fantasy genre in different guises
It is common to see narratives described as being essentially science fiction but "with fantasy elements. Frankenstein is a Horror film from Universal Pictures directed by James Whale and very loosely based on the novel of the same name " The term "science fantasy" is sometimes used to describe such material. Science fantasy is a mixed Genre of story which contains some Science fiction and some Fantasy elements
Horror fiction is the literature of the unnatural and supernatural, with the aim of unsettling or frightening the reader, sometimes with graphic violence. Horror fiction is broadly Fiction in any medium intended to scare unsettle or horrify the audience The term supernatural or supranatural ( Latin: super, supra "above" + natura "nature" pertains to entities events Graphic violence is the depiction of especially vivid brutal and realistic acts of violence in visual media such as Literature, Film, Television Historically it has also been known as "weird fiction. " Although horror is not per se a branch of science fiction, many works of horror literature incorporates science fictional elements. One of the defining classical works of horror, Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, is a fully-realized work of science fiction, where the manufacture of the monster is given a rigorous science-fictional grounding. Mary Shelley ( Née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin; 30 August Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, generally known as Frankenstein, is a Novel written by the British author Mary Shelley The works of Edgar Allan Poe also helped define both the science fiction and the horror genres. Edgar Allan Poe (January 19 1809 – October 7 1849 was an American poet, short-story Writer, editor and Literary critic, Today horror is one of the most popular categories of films. Horror films are Movies that strive to elicit Fear, Horror and terror responses from viewers
Works in which science and technology are a dominant theme, but based on current reality, may be considered mainstream fiction. Much of the thriller genre would be included, such as the novels of Tom Clancy or Michael Crichton, or the James Bond films. The thriller is a broad Genre of Literature, Film, Gaming and Television. Thomas Leo Clancy Jr (born April 12 1947) is an American author best known for his technically detailed espionage and Military science storylines John Michael Crichton, ˈkraɪtən, (born October 23 1942 is an American author Film producer, Film director, Medical doctor, and Television producer James Bond 007 is a Fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve Novels and two Short story
Modernist works from writers like Kurt Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick, and Stanisław Lem have focused on speculative or existential perspectives on contemporary reality and are on the borderline between SF and the mainstream. Modernism describes an array of Cultural movements rooted in the changes in Western society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Kurt Vonnegut Jr (November 11 1922 – April 11 2007 (ˈvɒnəgət was a prolific and genre-bending American Novelist known for works blending Satire, Black Philip Kindred Dick (December 16 – March 2) was an American Science fiction Novelist and Short story Writer. Stanisław Lem ( sta'ɲiswaf lɛm 12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006 was a Polish Science fiction, philosophical and satirical writer Existentialism is a philosophical doctrine which posits that individuals create the meaning and essence of their lives and that this essence follows from their existence
According to Robert J. Sawyer, "Science fiction and mystery have a great deal in common. Robert J Sawyer is a Canadian Science fiction writer born in Ottawa in 1960 and now resident in Mississauga. Both prize the intellectual process of puzzle solving, and both require stories to be plausible and hinge on the way things really do work. " Isaac Asimov, Anthony Boucher, Walter Mosley, and other writers incorporate mystery elements in their science fiction, and vice versa. Isaac Asimov (c January 2 1920 &ndash April 6 1992 ˈaɪzək ˈæzɪmʌv originally Исаак Озимов but now transcribed into Russian as, was a Russian Anthony Boucher (born William Anthony Parker White) ( August 21, 1911 – April 29, 1968) was an American Science fiction Walter Ellis Mosley (born January 12, 1952) is a prominent American novelist most widely recognized for his Crime fiction.
Superhero fiction is a genre characterized by beings with much higher than usual physical or mental prowess, generally with a desire or need to help the citizens of their chosen country or world by using his or her powers to defeat natural or superpowered threats. Superhero fiction is a subgenre of Fiction that deals with Superheroes Supervillians super-powered humans aliens, or mutants Many superhero fiction characters involve themselves (either intentionally or accidentally) with science fiction and fact, including advanced technologies, alien worlds, time travel, and interdimensional travel; but the standards of scientific plausibility are lower than with actual science fiction.
Some of the best-known authors of this genre include Stan Lee, Keith R. A. DeCandido, Diane Duane, Peter David, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, George R. R. Martin, Pierce Askegren, Christopher Golden, Dean Wesley Smith, Greg Cox, Nancy Collins, C. J. Cherryh, Roger Stern, and Elliot S! Maggin. Stan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber; December 28, 1922) is an American Writer, editor, creator of comic book characters Keith Robert Andreassi DeCandido (born April 18, 1969 in New York, United States) is an American Sci-fi and Fantasy writer Diane Duane (born May 18, 1952) is an American Science fiction and Fantasy author For the Grenadian politician see Peter David (politician. Peter Allen David (often abbreviated PAD) (born September 23 Len Wein (born June 12, 1948) is an American Comic book Writer and editor best known for co-creating DC Comics Marvin A "Marv" Wolfman (born May 13, 1946) is an award-winning American Comic book Writer. George Raymond Richard Martin ( September 20, 1948) sometimes referred to as GRRM, is an American Author and Screenwriter John Pierce Askegren (1955 - November 2006 of the Louisiana Askegrens was an American Author best known for his work in adaptations of licensed properties and is a lifelong Christopher Golden is an American author of horror, Fantasy, and suspense novels for adults teens and young readers Dean Wesley Smith is a Science fiction author known primarily for his Star Trek novels movie novelizations and other novels of licensed properties such Greg Cox (born 1959 is a Science fiction Writer. He lives in Oxford, Pennsylvania, U Nancy A Collins (born 10 September, 1959) is a United States Horror fiction writer best known for her series of Vampire novels featuring Carolyn Janice Cherry (born September 1, 1942) better known by the Pseudonym C Roger Stern (born September 17 1950) is an American Comic book Author and Novelist. Elliot S Maggin, also spelled Elliot S! Maggin (born 1950 is an American writer of comic books film television and novels
References to the most noteworthy science fiction books and authors are included here.
External link: Locus 1977 All-Time Best Author Poll
Science fiction fandom is the "community of the literature of ideas. Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community of people actively interested in Science fiction and Fantasy literature, and in contact with one another . . the culture in which new ideas emerge and grow before being released into society at large. " Members of this community, "fans", are in contact with each other at conventions or clubs, through print or online fanzines, or on the Internet using web sites, mailing lists, and other resources. Fans in Little Italyjpg|thumb|right|Fans in Little Italy Manhattan celebrating the victory of the Italian association football team after the 2006 FIFA World Cup]][[Image Wm-oly-de-cr Science fiction conventions are gatherings of the community of fans (called Science fiction fandom) of various forms of Speculative fiction including Science A science fiction fanzine is an amateur or semi-professional magazine published by members of Science fiction fandom, from the 1930s to the present day A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients
SF fandom emerged from the letters column in Amazing Stories magazine. Soon fans began writing letters to each other, and then grouping their comments together in informal publications that became known as fanzines. Once they were in regular contact, fans wanted to meet each other, and they organized local clubs. In the 1930s, the first science fiction conventions gathered fans from a wider area. Science fiction conventions are gatherings of the community of fans (called Science fiction fandom) of various forms of Speculative fiction including Science Conventions, clubs, and fanzines were the dominant form of fan activity, or "fanac", for decades, until the Internet facilitated communication among a much larger population of interested people.
Among the most respected awards for science fiction are the Hugo Award, presented by the World Science Fiction Society at Worldcon, and the Nebula Award, presented by SFWA and voted on by the community of authors. The Hugo Awards are given every year for the best Science fiction or Fantasy works and achievements of the previous year The Nebula Award is an award given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA for the best Science fiction / Fantasy fiction One notable award for science fiction films is the Saturn Award. The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in Science fiction, Fantasy It is presented annually by The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films.
There are national awards, like Canada's Aurora Award, regional awards, like the Endeavour Award presented at Orycon for works from the Pacific Northwest, special interest or subgenre awards like the Chesley Award for art or the World Fantasy Award for fantasy. The Prix Aurora Awards are given out annually for the best Canadian Science fiction and Fantasy literary works Art Works and Awards for Fan Activities The Endeavour Award, announced annually at OryCon in Portland Oregon is awarded to a distinguished Science fiction or fantasy book written by a Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest is a region in the northwest of North America (the term refers to the land not the ocean The Chesley Awards were established in 1985 by the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists to recognize individual works and achievements during a given year The World Fantasy Awards are annual international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of Fantasy. Magazines may organize reader polls, notably the Locus Award. The Locus Awards were established in 1971 and are presented to winners of Locus Magazine 's annual readers' poll
Conventions (in fandom, shortened as "cons"), are held in cities around the world, catering to a local, regional, national, or international membership. Minicon is a Science fiction and Fantasy convention in Minneapolis usually held on Easter weekend General-interest conventions cover all aspects of science fiction, while others focus on a particular interest like media fandom, filking, etc. Media fandom is a fan term invented in the late 1970s to describe the collective Fandoms for contemporary television shows and movies Filk is a musical culture genre and community tied to science fiction/fantasy fandom. Most are organized by volunteers in non-profit groups, though most media-oriented events are organized by commercial promoters. A non-profit organization ( abbreviated "NPO" also "not-for-profit" is a legally constituted Organization whose objective is to support or engage The convention's activities are called the "program", which may include panel discussions, readings, autograph sessions, costume masquerades, and other events. Activities that occur throughout the convention are not part of the program; these commonly include a dealer's room, art show, and hospitality lounge (or "con suites"). Conventions may host award ceremonies; Worldcons present the Hugo Awards each year. The Hugo Awards are given every year for the best Science fiction or Fantasy works and achievements of the previous year SF societies, referred to as "clubs" except in formal contexts, form a year-round base of activities for science fiction fans. They may be associated with an ongoing science fiction convention, or have regular club meetings, or both. Most groups meet in libraries, schools and universities, community centers, pubs or restaurants, or the homes of individual members. Long-established groups like the New England Science Fiction Association and the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society have clubhouses for meetings and storage of convention supplies and research materials. The New England Science Fiction Association, or NESFA, is a Science fiction club centered in the New England area The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society or LASFS (pron "Lahss-Fuss" "Loss-Fuss" "Lass-Fass" or "Lahss-Fahss" is a membership fan
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) was founded by Damon Knight in 1965 as a non-profit organization to serve the community of professional science fiction authors. Science Fiction Writers of America, or SFWA (ˈsɪfwə or /ˈsɛfwə/ was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight. Damon Francis Knight ( September 19, 1922 &ndash April 15, 2002) was an American Science fiction Author,
Fandom has helped incubate related groups, including media fandom, the Society for Creative Anachronism, gaming, filking, and furry fandom. Media fandom is a fan term invented in the late 1970s to describe the collective Fandoms for contemporary television shows and movies Society for Creative Anachronism (usually shortened to SCA) is a historical re-creation and Living history group founded in 1966 which Historically the term " gamer " usually referred to someone who played Role-playing games or wargames. Filk is a musical culture genre and community tied to science fiction/fantasy fandom. Furry fandom is a Fandom devoted to anthropomorphic animal
The first science fiction fanzine, "The Comet", was published in 1930. Fanzine printing methods have changed over the decades, from the hectograph, the mimeograph, and the ditto machine, to modern photocopying. The hectograph or gelatin duplicator or jellygraph is a Printing process which involves transfer of an original prepared with special inks to a pan of A spirit duplicator (also referred to as a Ditto machine or Banda machine) was a low-volume printing method used mainly by schools and churches A photocopier (or copier is a machine that makes Paper copies of documents and other visual images quickly and cheaply Subscription volumes rarely justify the cost of commercial printing. Modern fanzines are printed on computer printers or at local copy shops, or they may only be sent as email. Electronic mail, often abbreviated to e-mail, email, or originally eMail, is a Store-and-forward method of writing sending receiving
The best known fanzine (or "'zine") today is Ansible, edited by David Langford, winner of numerous Hugo awards. A zine (an abbreviation of the word Fanzine, or magazine ziːn "zeen" is most commonly a small circulation non-commercial Publication An ansible is a hypothetical machine capable of Superluminal communication and used as a Plot device in Science fiction literature David Rowland Langford (born 10 April 1953 is a British author editor and Critic, largely active within the Science fiction field Other fanzines to win awards in recent years include File 770, Mimosa, and Plokta. File 770 is a Science fiction fanzine published by Mike Glyer and named for the party in Room 770 at the 1951 Worldcon science fiction Mimosa is a Genus of about 400 species of herbs and shrubs in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the legume family Fabaceae. Plokta is a Science fiction Fanzine, first published in 1996 Subtitled "The journal of superfluous technology" the magazine includes
Artists working for fanzines have risen to prominence in the field, including Brad W. Foster, Teddy Harvia and Joe Mayhew; the Hugos include a category for Best Fan Artists. Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist. About this award The Hugo Awards the most prestigious awards in Science fiction and Fantasy
The earliest organized fandom online was the SF Lovers community, originally a mailing list in the late 1970s with a text archive file that was updated regularly. A file archiver is a Computer program that combines a number of files together into one Archive file, or a series of archive files for easier transportation In the 1980s, Usenet groups greatly expanded the circle of fans online. Usenet, a Portmanteau of "user" and "network" is a world-wide distributed Internet discussion system In the 1990s, the development of the World-Wide Web exploded the community of online fandom by orders of magnitude, with thousands and then literally millions of web sites devoted to science fiction and related genres for all media. The World Wide Web (commonly shortened to the Web) is a system of interlinked Hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. Most such sites are small, ephemeral, and/or very narrowly focused, though sites like SF Site offer a broad range of references and reviews about science fiction. SF Site is a Webzine edited by Rodger Turner. Established in 1996 by John O'Neill, it is based in Canada, but includes contributors from around
Fan fiction, known to aficionados as "fanfic", is non-commercial fiction created by fans in the setting of an established book, film, or television series. The community surrounding modern Fan fiction has generated a considerable number of unique subgenres and literary terminology over the past several decades A non-commercial enterprise is work that values other considerations above and beyond that of making a profit
This modern meaning of the term should not be confused with the traditional (pre-1970s) meaning of "fan fiction" within the community of fandom, where the term meant original or parody fiction written by fans and published in fanzines, often with members of fandom as characters therein ("faan fiction"). Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community of people actively interested in Science fiction and Fantasy literature, and in contact with one another A science fiction fanzine is an amateur or semi-professional magazine published by members of Science fiction fandom, from the 1930s to the present day Examples of this would include the Goon stories by Walt Willis. Walter Alexander Willis (1919-1999 was a well-known Irish science fiction fan, resident in Belfast
In the last few years, sites have appeared such as Orion's Arm and Galaxiki, which encourage collaborative development of science fiction universes. Orion's Arm, (also called the Orion's Arm Universe Project OAUP or simply OA is an online Science fiction World-building project founded by M Galaxiki is a web -based Free content Virtual community Web 2
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The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife recently released a new pamphlet titled “Frogs are Cool: Facts About Frogs for Kids,” an informative and fun flyer aimed at raising awareness of the many endangered and sensitive species of frogs native to Oregon.
There are 16 species of frogs native to Oregon, and many are recognized as Oregon State Sensitive species, meaning they have small or declining populations. ODFW hopes the new frog awareness campaign will help kids and adults alike recognize and protect the protected species.
“Worldwide, frogs are in trouble and many are on the road to extinction,” the ODFW website says. “Habitat loss, pollution, pesticides, climate change, infectious diseases, the pet trade and invasive animal species are all causing problems for frogs.”
Want to help make a difference? Here are the top things you and your kids can do to help protect Oregon’s native frog population.
- Learn about frogs.
- Never keep a wild frog as a pet.
- Tell others about protecting frogs.
- Never release non-native frogs, such as ones used in science projects, into the wild.
Frog spotting is a great activity for hiking and camping – it’s silly, easy and educational. Download the “Frogs are Cool” pamphlet, make sure you have the proper camping or hiking gear, and get out there and enjoy some frogs!
[photo: Dan Hershman]
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I have seen many tutorials on ASP.NET but most of them starts with coding and writing your first ASP.NET Program. But here I has written this tutorial for explaining why there is a need for ASP.NET when classy ASP is working fine and what are the underlying technology behind ASP.NET, What programming model ASP.NET Provides to programmers. Now let us get started.
ASP.NET is the new offering for Web developers from the Microsoft .It is not simply the next-generation of ASP; in fact, it is a completely re-engineered and enhanced technology that offers much, much more than traditional ASP and can increase productivity significantly.
Because it has evolved from ASP, ASP.NET looks very similar to its predecessor—but only at first sight. Some items look very familiar, and they remind us of ASP. But concepts like Web Forms, Web Services, or Server Controls gives ASP.NET the power to build real Web applications.
Looking Back : Active Server Pages (ASP)
Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) is a server-side scripting technology. ASP is a technology that Microsoft created to ease the development of interactive Web applications. With ASP you can use client-side scripts as well as server-side scripts. Maybe you want to validate user input or access a database. ASP provides solutions for transaction processing and managing session state. Asp is one of the most successful language used in web development.
Problems with Traditional ASP
There are many problems with ASP if you think of needs for Today's powerful Web applications.
- Interpreted and Loosely-Typed Code
ASP scripting code is usually written in languages such as JScript or VBScript. The script-execution engine that Active Server Pages relies on interprets code line by line, every time the page is called. In addition, although variables are supported, they are all loosely typed as variants and bound to particular types only when the code is run. Both these factors impede performance, and late binding of types makes it harder to catch errors when you are writing code.
- Mixes layout (HTML) and logic (scripting code)
ASP files frequently combine script code with HTML. This results in ASP scripts that are lengthy, difficult to read, and switch frequently between code and HTML. The interspersion of HTML with ASP code is particularly problematic for larger web applications, where content must be kept separate from business logic.
- Limited Development and Debugging Tools
Microsoft Visual InterDev, Macromedia Visual UltraDev, and other tools have attempted to increase the productivity of ASP programmers by providing graphical development environments. However, these tools never achieved the ease of use or the level of acceptance achieved by Microsoft Windows application development tools, such as Visual Basic or Microsoft Access. ASP developers still rely heavily or exclusively on Notepad.
Debugging is an unavoidable part of any software development process, and the debugging tools for ASP have been minimal. Most ASP programmers
resort to embedding temporary Response. Write statements in their code to trace the progress of its execution.
- No real state management
Session state is only maintained if the client browser supports cookies. Session state information can only be held by using the ASP Session object. And you have to implement additional code if you, for example, want to identify a user.
- Update files only when server is down
If your Web application makes use of components, copying new files to your application should only be done when the Web server is stopped. Otherwise it is like pulling the rug from under your application's feet, because the components may be in use (and locked) and must be registered.
- Obscure Configuration Settings
The configuration information for an ASP web application (such as session state and server timeouts) is stored in the IIS metabase. Because the metabase is stored in a proprietary format, it can only be modified on the server machine with utilities such as the Internet Service Manager. With limited support for programmatically manipulating or extracting these settings, it is often an arduous task to port an ASP application from one server to another.
ASP.NET was developed in direct response to the problems that developers had with classic ASP. Since ASP is in such wide use, however, Microsoft ensured that ASP scripts execute without modification on a machine with the .NET Framework (the ASP engine, ASP.DLL, is not modified when installing the .NET Framework). Thus, IIS can house both ASP and ASP.NET scripts on the same machine.
Advantages of ASP.NET
- Separation of Code from HTML
To make a clean sweep, with ASP.NET you have the ability to completely separate layout and business logic. This makes it much easier for teams of programmers and designers to collaborate efficiently. This makes it much easier for teams of programmers and designers to collaborate efficiently.
- Support for compiled languages
developer can use VB.NET and access features such as strong typing and object-oriented programming. Using compiled languages also means that ASP.NET pages do not suffer the performance penalties associated with interpreted code. ASP.NET pages are precompiled to byte-code and Just In Time (JIT) compiled when first requested. Subsequent requests are directed to the fully compiled code, which is cached until the source changes.
- Use services provided by the .NET Framework
The .NET Framework provides class libraries that can be used by your application. Some of the key classes help you with input/output, access to operating system services, data access, or even debugging. We will go into more detail on some of them in this module.
- Graphical Development Environment
Visual Studio .NET provides a very rich development environment for Web
developers. You can drag and drop controls and set properties the way you do in Visual Basic 6. And you have full IntelliSense support, not only for your code, but also for HTML and XML.
- State management
To refer to the problems mentioned before, ASP.NET provides solutions for session and application state management. State information can, for example, be kept in memory or stored in a database. It can be shared across Web farms, and state information can be recovered, even if the server fails or the connection breaks down.
- Update files while the server is running!
Components of your application can be updated while the server is online and clients are connected. The Framework will use the new files as soon as they are copied to the application. Removed or old files that are still in use are kept in memory until the clients have finished.
- XML-Based Configuration Files
Configuration settings in ASP.NET are stored in XML files that you can easily read and edit. You can also easily copy these to another server, along with the other files that comprise your application.
Here are some point that gives the quick overview of ASP.NET.
- ASP.NET provides services to allow the creation, deployment, and execution of Web Applications and Web Services
- Like ASP, ASP.NET is a server-side technology
- Web Applications are built using Web Forms. ASP.NET comes with built-in Web Forms controls, which are responsible for generating the user interface. They mirror typical HTML widgets like text boxes or buttons. If these controls do not fit your needs, you are free to create your own user controls.
- Web Forms are designed to make building web-based applications as easy as building Visual Basic applications
ASP.NET is based on the fundamental architecture of .NET Framework. Visual studio provide a uniform way to combine the various features of this Architecture.
Architecture is explained form bottom to top in the following discussion.
At the bottom of the Architecture is Common Language Runtime. NET Framework common language runtime resides on top of the operating system services. The common language runtime loads and executes code that targets the runtime. This code is therefore called managed code. The runtime gives you, for example, the ability for cross-language integration.
.NET Framework provides a rich set of class libraries. These include base classes, like networking and input/output classes, a data class library for data access, and classes for use by programming tools, such as debugging services. All of them are brought together by the Services Framework, which sits on top of the common language runtime.
ADO.NET is Microsoft’s ActiveX Data Object (ADO) model for the .NET Framework. ADO.NET is not simply the migration of the popular ADO model to the managed environment but a completely new paradigm for data access and manipulation.
ADO.NET is intended specifically for developing web applications. This is evident from its two major design principles:
- Disconnected Datasets—In ADO.NET, almost all data manipulation is done outside the context of an open database connection.
- Effortless Data Exchange with XML—Datasets can converse in the universal data format of the Web, namely XML.
The 4th layer of the framework consists of the Windows application model and, in parallel, the Web application model.
The Web application model-in the slide presented as ASP.NET-includes Web Forms and Web Services.
ASP.NET comes with built-in Web Forms controls, which are responsible for generating the user interface. They mirror typical HTML widgets like text boxes or buttons. If these controls do not fit your needs, you are free to create your own user controls.
Web Services brings you a model to bind different applications over the Internet. This model is based on existing infrastructure and applications and is therefore standard-based, simple, and adaptable.
Web Services are software solutions delivered via Internet to any device. Today, that means Web browsers on computers, for the most part, but the device-agnostic design of .NET will eliminate this limitation.
- One of the obvious themes of .NET is unification and interoperability between various programming languages. In order to achieve this; certain rules must be laid and all the languages must follow these rules. In other words we can not have languages running around creating their own extensions and their own fancy new data types. CLS is the collection of the rules and constraints that every language (that seeks to achieve .NET compatibility) must follow.
- The CLR and the .NET Frameworks in general, however, are designed in such a way that code written in one language can not only seamlessly be used by another language. Hence ASP.NET can be programmed in any of the .NET compatible language whether it is VB.NET, C#, Managed C++ or JScript.NET.
Quick Start :To ASP.NET
After this short excursion with some background information on the .NET Framework, we will now focus on ASP.NET.
File name extensions
Web applications written with ASP.NET will consist of many files with different file name extensions. The most common are listed here. Native ASP.NET files by default have the extension .aspx (which is, of course, an extension to .asp) or .ascx. Web Services normally have the extension .asmx.
Your file names containing the business logic will depend on the language you use. So, for example, a C# file would have the extension .aspx.cs. You already learned about the configuration file Web.Config.
Another one worth mentioning is the ASP.NET application file Global.asax - in the ASP world formerly known as Global.asa. But now there is also a code behind file Global.asax.vb, for example, if the file contains Visual Basic.NET code. Global.asax is an optional file that resides in the root directory of your application, and it contains global logic for your application.
All of these are text files
All of these files are text files, and therefore human readable and writeable.
The easiest way to start
The easiest way to start with ASP.NET is to take a simple ASP page and change the file name extension to .aspx.
Here is quick introduction of syntax used in ASP.NET
You can use directives to specify optional settings used by the page compiler when processing ASP.NET files. For each directive you can set different attributes. One example is the language directive at the beginning of a page defining the default programming language.
Code Declaration Blocks
Code declaration blocks are lines of code enclosed in <script> tags. They contain the runat=server attribute, which tells ASP.NET that these controls can be accessed on the server and on the client. Optionally you can specify the language for the block. The code block itself consists of the definition of member variables and methods.
Code Render Blocks
Render blocks contain inline code or inline expressions enclosed by the character sequences shown here. The language used inside those blocks could be specified through a directive like the one shown before.
HTML Control Syntax
You can declare several standard HTML elements as HTML server controls. Use the element as you are familiar with in HTML and add the attribute runat=server. This causes the HTML element to be treated as a server control. It is now programmatically accessible by using a unique ID. HTML server controls must reside within a <form> section that also has the attribute runat=server.
Custom Control Syntax
There are two different kinds of custom controls. On the one hand there are the controls that ship with .NET, and on the other hand you can create your own custom controls. Using custom server controls is the best way to encapsulate common programmatic functionality.
Just specify elements as you did with HTML elements, but add a tag prefix, which is an alias for the fully qualified namespace of the control. Again you must include the runat=server attribute. If you want to get programmatic access to the control, just add an Id attribute.
You can include properties for each server control to characterize its behavior. For example, you can set the maximum length of a TextBox. Those properties might have sub properties; you know this principle from HTML. Now you have the ability to specify, for example, the size and type of the font you use (font-size and font-type).
The last attribute is dedicated to event binding. This can be used to bind the control to a specific event. If you implement your own method
MyClick, this method will be executed when the corresponding button is clicked if you use the server control event binding shown in the slide.
Data Binding Expression
You can create bindings between server controls and data sources. The data binding expression is enclosed by the character sequences <%# and %>. The data-binding model provided by ASP.NET is hierarchical. That means you can create bindings between server control properties and superior data sources.
Server-side Object Tags
If you need to create an instance of an object on the server, use server-side object tags. When the page is compiled, an instance of the specified object is created. To specify the object use the identifier attribute. You can declare (and instantiate) .NET objects using class as the identifier, and COM objects using either progid or classid.
Server-side Include Directives
With server-side include directives you can include raw contents of a file anywhere in your ASP.NET file. Specify the type of the path to filename with the pathtype attribute. Use either File, when specifying a relative path, or Virtual, when using a full virtual path.
To prevent server code from executing, use these character sequences to comment it out. You can comment out full blocks - not just single lines.
First ASP.NET Program.
Now let us have our First ASP.NET program.
Let’s look at both the markup and the C# portions of a simple web forms application that generates a movie line-up dynamically through software.
Web form application part 1 -- SimpleWebForm.aspx
<% @Page Language="C#" Inherits="MoviePage" Src="SimpleWebForm.cs" %>
<H1 align="center"><FONT color="white" size="7">Welcome to <br>Supermegacineplexadrome!</FONT></H1>
<P align="left"><FONT color="lime" size="5"><STRONG>
<U>Showtimes for <%WriteDate();%></U>
<FONT size="5" color="yellow"><%WriteMovies();%></FONT>
And this is where the C# part of a web forms application comes in.
Web form application part 2 - SimpleWebForm.cs
public class MoviePage:Page
protected void WriteDate()
protected void WriteMovies()
Response.Write("<P>The Glass Ghost (R) 1:05 pm, 3:25 pm, 7:00 pm</P>");
Response.Write("<P>Untamed Harmony (PG-13) 12:50 pm, 3:25 pm, " + <br> "6:55 pm</P>");
Response.Write("<P>Forever Nowhere (PG) 3:30 pm, 8:35 pm</P>");
Response.Write("<P>Without Justice (R) 12:45 pm, 6:45 pm</P>");
Execution Cycle :
Now let's see what’s happening on the server side. You will shortly understand how server controls fit in.
A request for an .aspx file causes the ASP.NET runtime to parse the file for code that can be compiled. It then generates a page class that instantiates and populates a tree of server control instances. This page class represents the ASP.NET page.
Now an execution sequence is started in which, for example, the ASP.NET page walks its entire list of controls, asking each one to render itself.
The controls paint themselves to the page. This means they make themselves visible by generating HTML output to the browser client.
We need to have a look at what’s happening to your code in ASP.NET.
Compilation, when page is requested the first time
The first time a page is requested, the code is compiled. Compiling code in .NET means that a compiler in a first step emits Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL) and produces metadata—if you compile your source code to managed code. In a following step MSIL has to be converted to native code.
Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL)
Microsoft intermediate language is code in an assembly language–like style. It is CPU independent and therefore can be efficiently converted to native code.
The conversion in turn can be CPU-specific and optimized. The intermediate language provides a hardware abstraction layer.
MSIL is executed by the common language runtime.
Common language runtime
The common language runtime contains just-in-time (JIT) compilers to convert the MSIL into native code. This is done on the same computer architecture that the code should run on.
The runtime manages the code when it is compiled into MSIL—the code is therefore called managed code.
ASP.NET Applications and Configuration
Like ASP, ASP.NET encapsulates its entities within a web application. A web application is an abstract term for all the resources available within the confines of an IIS virtual directory. For example, a web application may consist of one or more ASP.NET pages, assemblies, web services configuration files, graphics, and more. In this section we explore two fundamental components of a web application, namely global application files (Global.asax) and configuration files (Web.config).
Global.asax is a file used to declare application-level events and objects. Global.asax is the ASP.NET extension of the ASP Global.asa file. Code to handle application events (such as the start and end of an application) reside in Global.asax. Such event code cannot reside in the ASP.NET page or web service code itself, since during the start or end of the application, its code has not yet been loaded (or unloaded). Global.asax is also used to declare data that is available across different application requests or across different browser sessions. This process is known as application and session state management.
The Global.asax file must reside in the IIS virtual root. Remember that a virtual root can be thought of as the container of a web application. Events and state specified in the global file are then applied to all resources housed within the web application. If, for example, Global.asax defines a state application variable, all .aspx files within the virtual root will be able to access the variable.
Like an ASP.NET page, the Global.asax file is compiled upon the arrival of the first request for any resource in the application. The similarity continues when changes are made to the Global.asax file; ASP.NET automatically notices the changes, recompiles the file, and directs all new requests to the newest compilation. A Global.asax file is automatically created when you create a new web application project in the VS.NET IDE.
Application directives are placed at the top of the Global.asax file and provide information used to compile the global file. Three application directives are defined, namely Application, Assembly, and Import. Each directive is applied with the following syntax:
<%@ appDirective appAttribute=Value ...%>
In ASP, configuration settings for an application (such as session state) are stored in the IIS metabase. There are two major disadvantages with this scheme. First, settings are not stored in a human-readable manner but in a proprietary, binary format. Second, the settings are not easily ported from one host machine to another.(It is difficult to transfer information from an IIS’s metabase or Windows Registry to another machine, even if it has the same version of Windows.)
Web.config solves both of the aforementioned issues by storing configuration information as XML. Unlike Registry or metabase entries, XML documents are human-readable and can be modified with any text editor. Second, XML files are far more portable, involving a simple file transfer to switch machines.
Unlike Global.asax, Web.config can reside in any directory, which may or may not be a virtual root. The Web.config settings are then applied to all resources accessed within that directory, as well as its subdirectories. One consequence is that an IIS instance may have many web.config files. Attributes are applied in a hierarchical fashion. In other words, the web.config file at the lowest level directory is used.
Since Web.config is based on XML, it is extensible and flexible for a wide variety of applications. It is important, however, to note that the Web.config file is optional. A default Web.config file, used by all ASP.NET application resources, can be found on the local machine at:
ASP.NET is an evolution of Microsoft’s Active Server Page (ASP) technology. Using ASP.NET, you can rapidly develop highly advanced web applications based on the .NET framework. Visual Studio Web Form Designer, which allows the design of web applications in an intuitive, graphical method similar to Visual Basic 6. ASP.NET ships with web controls wrapping each of the standard HTML controls, in addition to several controls specific to .NET. One such example is validation controls, which intuitively validate user input without the need for extensive client-side script.
In many respects, ASP.NET provides major improvements over ASP, and can definitely be considered a viable alternative for rapidly developing web-based applications.
Points of Interest
I has write this tutorial to share my Knowledge of ASP.NET with you. You can find more articles and software projects with free source code on my web site http://programmerworld.net .
- Date Posted: June 27, 2003
I am a B.E in Information Technology form Lingaya's Institute of Managemant and Technology Faridabad, India.
I has worked on VC++, MFC, VB, Sql Server. Currently I am working on .net, C# and ASP.net
I keeps my free source code projects and articles at website http://programmerworld.net
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This page describes how to specify the direction of a vector. It contains a text description and an animation of an arrow turning counterclockwise that displays the degree that it is at. There are links at the bottom of the page for similar animations.
This tutorial is part of The Physics Classroom. This web site also includes interactive tools to help students with concepts and problem solving, worksheets for student assignments, and recommendations for simple introductory laboratories.
%0 Electronic Source %A Henderson, Tom %D 1996 %T The Physics Classroom: Vector Direction %V 2013 %N 26 May 2013 %9 image/gif %U http://www.physicsclassroom.com/mmedia/vectors/vd.cfm
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.
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This image was well known in the African American community. First published in 1925, it was reprinted four years later in The Negro in Chicago. This area of State Street (just off the top of Map 3) was located in an older section of black businesses closer to the downtown area than Thirty-fifth Street.
1) Which of the following black-owned businesses that occupied this stretch of buildings would you expect to find in a neighborhood shopping center today: a drugstore, a barber shop, a florist, a tailor, a music store, a photographer, a millinery shop, and a fish market? How might shopping here in the 1920s differ from your shopping experiences today?
2) List the most obvious differences between the buildings pictured here and those found in Drawing 1. What might account for these differences?
* The image on the screen has a resolution of 72 dots per inch (dpi), and therefore will print poorly. You can obtain a high quality version of this photo, but be aware that the entire file will take about 90 seconds to load with a 28.8K modem.
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Definitions For Great Lakes Water Withdrawal Registration
For purposes of implementing the Great Lakes Water Conservation and Management Act, the following definitions are applicable for registering water withdrawals and losses.
- Facility is one or more pieces of water withdrawal equipment at the same site, including but not limited to any place of business, farm, factory, industrial or commercial site, institution, structure, open land, vessel, or rolling stock, where water is withdrawn for any purpose.
- Agriculture is the practice of farming on a farm for crops, plants, vines and trees; and the keeping, grazing or feeding of livestock for sale as livestock or livestock products.
- Farm is an agricultural business that may be composed of up to 25 non-contiguous parcels of land within a radius of 40 miles that are under the ownership or control of the same person.
- Water withdrawal is a withdrawal of surface or ground water from the Great Lakes Basin of 100,000 gallons per day averaged over 30 consecutive days.
- Water loss means the consumptive use of Great Lakes water, or the diversion of water out of the Great Lakes Basin, or both.
- Consumptive use is a use of water that results in a failure to return any portion of the amount withdrawn to the Great Lakes Basin.
- Interbasin diversion is a transfer of water out of the Great Lakes Basin through any mechanism such as a pipe or canal and including a change in ground water flow caused by pumping.
- Great Lakes Basin is shown in a map along with a list of basin communities in Appendix A of the Great Lakes Water Withdrawal Registration Program Handbook.
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The cactus moth, Cactoblastis cactorum is native to northern Argentina and parts of Peru and Paraguay. It was introduced into the Caribbean islands in the 1960’s to control several (native) prickly-pear cactus (Opuntia) species (Simonson 2005).
In 1989 the cactus moth was discovered to have spread to southern Florida. The moth probably entered the United States more than once (Simonsen et al. 2008) - either on winds from nearby Caribbean islands or on imported cactus plants. In the 20 years since, the cactus moth has spread up the peninsula as far north as coastal South Carolina and west along the shore of the Gulf of Mexico. (There are both native prickly pear cacti and ornamental cacti throughout the Southeast.) In 2009, it was detected growing on spoil islands in the swamps of southern Louisiana.
The cactus moth can kill most prickly pear cacti (genus Opuntia), in particular those species that have flat pads. In Florida, the cactus moth has already caused considerable harm to the six species of vulnerable prickly pears (Garrett 2004), three of which are state listed. In some places, 75% of the prickly pear cacti have been attacked by the moth, with small individuals at greatest risk of death from these attacks (Johnson and Stiling 1998, Baker and Stiling 2009). Most of the peninsula from Gainesville south is now infested (USDA APHIS 2009a).
The greatest threat is to the deserts of the American Southwest - from Texas to California - and Mexico. These deserts are home to 114 native species of Opuntia (APHIS 2009b), about 80 of which are flat-padded species vulnerable to the cactus moth (Simonson et al. 2005). In the difficult desert environment, prickly pears are a nutritious and reliable food supply for many wildlife species, including deer, javalina (peccaries), Texas and desert tortoises, spiny iguana, and pollen-feeding insects. Prickly pears provide shelter for packrats - which in turn are eaten by raptors, coyotes, and snakes; and for nesting birds including the cactus wren and curve-billed thrasher. The cacti also are nurse plants, under which other desert plants' seedlings may start life. Finally, the prickly pears' root systems hold the highly erodible soils (Simonson 2005).
The economic consequences of loss of prickly pear cacti will fall most heavily on Mexico, where prickly pears provide food to both people and livestock. Prickly pears are cultivated on some 250,000 ha in Mexico for both the fruits (tunas) and pads (nopales). Fruits and pads are collected from the wild across another 3 million ha (Simonson 2005). An estimated 28,000 people are employed by the prickly pear trade in Mexico, generating an estimated US$50 million in revenue annually during the 1990s (Simonson 2005) - and certainly more now. Opuntia are the third most important subsistence food source for Mexico's rural poor, so failure of this crop would be devastating (Soberon et al. 2001).
Another associated commercial crop is the natural deep-red dye extracted from the cochineal beetle (Dactylopius coccus) – which feeds on prickly-pear cacti. In Mexico, cochineal dye production constitutes a significant agricultural crop (Simonson 2005). The dye, as a natural product, is considered by some to be preferable for use in foods and cosmetics (http://www.botgard.ucla.edu/html/botanytextbooks/economicbotany/Cochineal/index.html).
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has tried since 2005 to slow the spread of the cactus moth. The USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and APHIS have relied on a program that combines release of sterile moths to disrupt mating and removal of the cactus hosts on the leading edge of the invasion. In cooperation with state departments of agriculture, APHIS has funded surveys in western states to assure that those most vulnerable areas are still free of the cactus moth. A volunteer network managed by Mississippi State University monitors federal, state, and private lands along the Gulf Coast for the presence of cactus moth to ensure any new populations of the species are quickly eradicated.
This integrated program has had some success in slowing the rate of the cactus moth’s spread; nevertheless, it has continued to move westward - to Petit Bois and Horn Islands, Mississippi in 2008; and the swamps and bayous southwest of New Orleans. The Louisiana outbreaks were detected in May 2009 – probably 4 years after the moth arrived there. These swamps are more than 50 miles farther West than the Mississippi islands. (USDA APHIS 2009a).
There would be smaller potential economic losses in the U.S. Depending on what species, if any, expand into areas where the prickly pear cacti were formerly abundant, losses could include reduced revenue from licensed hunting opportunities. In South Texas, higher rents are received for ranchland leased for hunting than for cattle production (Garrett 2004). Ecotourism in the Southwest would probably also be harmed by widespread death of prickly-pear cacti. Just one form of such recreation, off-highway vehicle recreation, resulted in expenditure of $3 billion in Arizona alone in 2002 – with a statewide economic impact of $4.25 billion (Simonson 2005).
While the Louisiana detection was a discouraging setback, researchers taking part in the program review in December 2009 still believed that it is possible to create a barrier to halt further westward spread of the moth by aggressively applying control tactics at the leading edge and managing hot spot infestation to the east of that line. Since there are few cacti in St. Mary Parish or the Atchafalaya swamp, this area might be a good barrier to westward movement; intensive surveys will be needed to verify this approach. Increased funding might enable the program to push the leading edge back to the east, where a better location for the barrier might be the Apalachicola River in Florida (USDA APHIS 2009a).
The moth is spreading much faster along the coast (approximately 75 miles per year) than inland (even in Florida). It will probably move inland faster in TX where cactus density is high throughout the state (USDA APHIS 2009a).
The primary tools for managing the moth at this time are removal of infested host material, limited herbicide treatment to kill cacti, and release of sterile moths (SIT). Monitoring and survey efforts depend on pheromone-baited sticky traps and visual inspections of host plants (USDA APHIS 2009a).
The attractant currently used in the cactus moth lure works, but not for long distances. Another weakness is that it attracts a significant number of non-target moths (USDA APHIS 2009a). Improving the attractant is key to both detecting moth presence and any attempts to use mating disruption to suppress moth numbers (USDA APHIS 2009a). An improved lure is expected to be field-tested by the end of 2010 (Javier Trujillo Arriaga, Servicio Nacional de Sanidad, Mexico, pers. comm. October 2010).
The Program Review team (USDA APHIS 2009a) set out trapping site priorities for Louisiana and called for intensive delimitation survey of the Louisiana and Texas coastline (the latter is 250 miles long) using both traps and visual inspections (USDA APHIS 2009a).
Host plant removal (meaning elimination of all Opuntia from a given area, whether the plants are infested or not) and sanitation (meaning removal of all cactus moth life stages and infested plants) are key components of the containment program. The strategy chosen depends on circumstances (USDA APHIS 2009a). Both strategies depend on finding the cacti. This is difficult since cactus populations are not mapped. The Review Team suggested testing aerial surveys of bayou areas – which could be assisted by the fact that, so far, cacti are usually on spoil banks with trees (USDA APHIS 2009a).
Release of sterile moths has proved effective against small populations. Scientists cannot produce enough sterile insects to flood a large population such as that present in Louisiana. To suppress that large moth population, APHIS planned to focus in 2010 on cactus removal and sanitation; with sterile insect releases scheduled for 2011. Once sterile insect components of the program are instituted, they will face the challenge of delivering sterile insects twice per month to infested areas scattered across large wetlands (USDA APHIS 2009a). The oil spill in the Gulf made access to the area more difficult because of few boats were available for lease. Mexico sent a team of experienced cactus eradicators to assist (Robyn Rose, Entomological Society of America, December 2010).
Cactus moths have been successfully eradicated in limited areas using either complete removal of all cactus hosts (Isla Mujeres, Mexico and Ft. Morgan, AL), or sanitation to reduce the moth population accompanied by sterile insect releases (Isla Contoy, Mexico). Host plant removal was possible where plants could be accessed by vehicles and machinery, and homeowners and officials were comfortable with removing the plants. Sanitation and the SIT were used in protected areas where only limited plant removal was allowed and the plants difficult to access. In order to eradicate Cc in LA, an integrated approach focusing on sanitation, host plant removal and SIT with other control methods utilized on a case by case basis (USDA APHIS 2009a).
Once the cactus moth reaches Texas and the Southwest, biocontrol would be the only probable strategy. Most predators currently known are generalists so they are unsuitable for release. One candidate appears to be a specialist - the braconid larval-pupal parasitoid Apanteles alexanderi; host specificity testing was begun in 2010 in Argentina and Puerto Rico (Strickman 2010). US mainland cactus-feeding moths are poorly known so they will be hard to capture and test for vulnerability to the parasitoid.
Trichogramma pretiosum, a hymenopteran egg parasitoid, has been found parasitizing the cactus moth in the U.S. (Paraiso et al. 2009). While these wasps are available commercially, they offer little promise because they are not host specific and the level of parasitism is normally very low.
The USDA program has been hampered from its beginning by insufficient funding from unstable sources. There has never been an appropriation by Congress for this work. The USDA Agriculture Research Service and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service have absorbed more than $9 million in costs since 2001. Mexico has provided $1.4 million. Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Mississippi State University, and the U.S. Geological Survey (Department of Interior) have also participated in cactus moth control work.
In 2009 APHIS amended its regulations to ensure that Opuntia cactus nursery stock moved from infested states in the southeastern United States would not spread the cactus moth (Federal Register Vol. 74 No. 108 [June 8, 2009], pp. 27071-27076).
The cactus moth has also been introduced to Mexico. In August 2006, it was discovered on Isla Mujeres, offshore from Quintana Roo, in southeastern Mexico. A second outbreak on Isla Contoy was detected in May 2007. These populations have been eradicated with the help of USDA APHIS (APHIS 2009).
Baker, A. J. and P. Stiling. 2009. Comparing the effects of the exotic cactus-feeding moth, Cactoblastis cactorum (Berg) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) and the native cactus-feeding moth, Melitara prodenialis (Walker) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) on two species of Florida Opuntia. Biol. Invasions 11: 619-624.
Garrett, L. 2004. USDA APHIS PPQ CPHST. White Paper: Economic Impact from spread of Cactoblastis cactorum in the United States.
Johnson, D. M. and P. D. Stiling. 1998. Distribution and dispersal of Cactoblastis cactorum (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), an exotic Opuntia-feeding moth in Florida. Florida Entomol. 81: 12-21
Paraiso, O., Kairo, M., Bloem, S., Hight, S.D. 2009. Survey for egg parasitoids attacking Cactoblastis cactorum in North Florida. Meeting Abstract
Simonsen, T.J., R.L. Brown, and F.A. H. Sperling. 2008. Tracing an Invasion: Phylogeography of Cactoblastis cactorum (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) in the United States Based on Mitochondrial DNA. Ann. Entomol. Soc. Am. 101(5): 899-905 (2008)
Simonson, S.E., T. J. Stohlgren, L. Tyler, W. Gregg, R. Muir, and L. Garrett. 2005.
Preliminary assessment of the potential impacts and risks of the invasive cactus moth, Cactoblastis cactorum Berg, in the U.S. and Mexico. Final Report to the International Atomic Energy Agency, April 25, 2005 © IAEA 2005
Soberon J, Golubov J, Sarukhan J (2001) The importance of Opuntia in Mexico and routes of invasion and impact of Cactoblastis cactorumLepidoptera: Pyralidae). Fla Entomol 84:486–492.
Strickman, D. 2010. Research Project: Collection and Evaluaton of Biological Control Agents Against Cactus Moth in Argentina Project Number: 0211-22000-006-11
USDA APHIS C. cactorum Program, Technical Working Group Report, New Orleans, LA, December 1-3, 2009
USDA APHIS. 2009. Eradication of Cactoblastis cactorum, from 11 Parishes in Southeast Louisiana. September 2009 USDA APHIS
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Concrete Examples of Orderings
Last week, I noted that if you have an object with two components, each of which you know how to order independently, it requires at least a little thought to figure out how to do so. Moreover, there is a commonly used strategy, often called lexicographical order or dictionary order, for taking the ordering strategies for individual components and combining them.
The C++ library is considerate enough to implement dictionary ordering for its users in (at least) three places. The first is the
std::pair template, which defines the six comparison operators in terms of the corresponding operators of the pair's components. Specifically,
pair(x1, y1) < pair(x2, y2) is defined as x1<x2 || (!(x2 < x1) && y2 < y1)
Note that this definition is careful to use only < on components, not > or ==. Part of its technique for doing so rests on the fact that the comparison x2 < x1 can take place only when it has already been established that x1<x2 is false, so that !(x2 < x1) is really a clever way of saying x2 == x1 without using == or !=.
pair(x1, y1) == pair(x2, y2) is defined as x1 == x2 && y1 == y2
This definition is careful to use only == to define == on pairs.
You might think that the other four comparison operators would be defined in terms of the corresponding operators on the component, but you would be wrong. Instead,
pair(x1, y1) > pair(x2, y2) is defined as pair(x2, y2) < pair(x1, y1) pair(x1, y1) != pair(x2, y2) is defined as !(pair(x1, y1) == pair(x2, y2)) pair(x1, y1) <= pair(x2, y2) is defined as !(pair(x1, y1) > pair(x2, y2)) pair(x1, y1) >= pair(x2, y2) is defined as !(pair(x1, y1)< pair(x2, y2))
The underlying principles are easy to understand once explained:
- The pair template never depends on more than the == and < operations on the components.
- Order relations are defined entirely in terms of other order relations.
- Equality relations are defined entirely in terms of other equality relations.
- If the element types have relations defined that meet the library requirements, then the resulting relations on pairs will also meet the library requirements.
As a generalization of
pair, the library tuple template also implements the six comparison operators in terms of < and == on the
tuple's elements. Like
tuple does not reply on the other four comparison operators on elements.
The third place where the library implements dictionary order is in the
lexicographical_compare algorithm. This algorithm accepts two pairs of iterators, each of which defines a range of elements, and uses an extended version of this comparison procedure to compare the sequences:
- If both sequences have the same length and every element is equal to the corresponding element of the other sequence, the two sequences are considered equal. This case holds even if both sequences are empty.
- If one sequence is a prefix of the other, the shorter sequence is considered less than the other.
- Otherwise, the result of the comparison is the result of comparing the elements that make up the first discrepancy between the sequences.
This function offers an easy way to define sequence comparison in terms of element comparison when all the elements have the same type.
Unless there is a good reason to do otherwise, one's first thought about how to define comparison between two data structures should probably be to compare the data structure's elements along the lines that we've been discussing. The main mistake that beginners make is to believe that it is possible to define
pair(x1, y1) < pair(x2, y2) as something such as
x1 < x2 && y1 < y2, which doesn't work.
There is another pitfall in defining comparison relations: Sometimes the obvious way of comparing individual elements doesn't always work. We'll look at some examples of that pitfall next week.
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How to Ask for and Understand Directions in Japanese
7 of 10 in Series: The Essentials of Japanese Words and Phrases for Traveling
Exploring Japan can be quite an adventure, but you need to know how to ask for directions in Japanese and how to understand the directions you are given. After all, if you don't know how to understand what you're told, you might miss the very things you hoped to see.
The first thing you need to know is how to ask for directions. To get help you can say Sumimasen. (Excuse me.); or Michi o kiite mo ii desu ka. (May I ask you for directions?); or Tasukete kudasasimasen ka. (Will you help me?).
The following words can be used when asking for or receiving directions in Japan.
tonari (next to)
mae (in front of)
michi (street, road)
massugu iku (to go straight)
migi ni magaru (to turn right)
kōsaten o hidari ni magaru (to turn left at the intersection)
Be forewarned. It can be very difficult to find streets and houses based on addresses in Japan. An address is usually used to indicate the area of a building rather than its exact location. In fact, most streets are usually not laid out in a grid pattern and most of the time there are no street signs. So, having an address might not be enough information to actually find your destination address.
Here are some phrases that might come in handy when you need directions.
Takushī de nan-pun gurai desu ka. (How many minutes by taxi approximately?)
Mō ichido onegaishimasu. (Could you repeat that, please?)
Yukkuri onegaishimasu. (Could you speak slower, please?)
Chikatetsu de ikemasu ka. (Can we go there by subway?)
Try putting some phrases and direction words together. The following conversation is typical of getting and receiving directions in Japan.
Tom: Chotto sumimasen. Michi o kiite mo ii desu ka. (Excuse me. May I ask you for directions?)
Hiro: Mochiron. (Of course!)
Tom: Hoteru wa doko desu ka. (Where is the hotel?)
Hiro: Daigaku no kita desu. [(It) is north of the university.]
Tom: ATM wa doko desu ka. (Where is the ATM?)
Hiro: Asoko desu. [(It's) over there.]
Tom: Benten to iu resutoran o shirimasen ka. (Do you know the restaurant called Benten?)
Hiro: Hai. Daigaku no minami desu. (Yes. (It) is south of the university.)
Tom: Eigakan wa dono tōri ni arimasu ka. (What street is the movie theater on?)
Hiro: Eigakan wa migi ni arimasu. (The movie theater is on your right.)
Tom: Gakkō ni wa dōyatte iku n-desu ka. (How do I get to the school?)
Hiro: Migi ni magatte, hidari no hito-tsu-me no michi desu. (Turn right, and it is the first street on your left.)
Tom: Sakura Hoteru wa doko desu ka. (Where is Sakura Hotel located?)
Hiro: Hoteru wa eki no tonari desu. (The hotel is next to the train station.)
Tom: Ginkō to yūbinkyoku no aida desu. [(It) is between the bank and the post office.]
Hiro: Massugu iku to arimasu. (Go straight and you will find it.)
Tom: Hakubutsukan wa koko kara tōi desu ka. (Is the museum far from here?)
Hiro: Koko kara hakubutsukan made yaku ichi-kiromētoru desu. (The museum is about one kilometer from here.)
The measurement units used in Japan are different than those used in the United States. For expressing the distance between two locations, Japanese commonly uses kiromētoru (kilometer) instead of mile. One kilometer is 0.621 miles.
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There are some very important things that you need to keep in mind when you're on your computer at home or at school.
I will talk with my parents so that we can set up rules for going online. We will decide upon the time of day that I can be online, the length of time I can be online, and appropriate areas for me to visit. I will not access other areas or break these rules without their permission.
First, remember never to give out personal information such as your name, home address, school name, or telephone number in a chat room or on bulletin boards. Also, never send a picture of yourself to someone you chat with on the computer without your parent's permission.
Never write to someone who has made you feel uncomfortable or scared. I will tell my parents right away if I come across any information that makes me feel uncomfortable. I will not respond to any messages that are mean or in any way make me feel uncomfortable. It is not my fault if I get a message like that. If I do I will tell my parents right away so that they can contact the online service.
I will never agree to get together with someone I "meet" online without first checking with my parents. If my parents agree to the meeting, I will be sure that it is in a public place and bring my mother or father along.
Tell your parents right away if you read anything on the Internet that makes you feel uncomfortable.
Remember that people online may not be who they say they are. Someone who says that "she" is a "12-year-old girl" could really be an older man.
Social Networking Sites: Safety Tips for Tweens and Teens
You’ve probably learned a long list of important safety and privacy lessons already: Look both ways before crossing the street; buckle up; hide your diary where your nosy brother can’t find it; don’t talk to strangers.
The Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s consumer protection agency, is urging kids to add one more lesson to the list: Don’t post information about yourself online that you don’t want the whole world to know. The Internet is the world’s biggest information exchange: many more people could see your information than you intend, including your parents, your teachers, your employer, the police — and strangers, some of whom could be dangerous.
Social networking sites have added a new factor to the “friends of friends” equation. By providing information about yourself and using blogs, chat rooms, email, or instant messaging, you can communicate, either within a limited community, or with the world at large. But while the sites can increase your circle of friends, they also can increase your exposure to people who have less-than-friendly intentions. You’ve heard the stories about people who were stalked by someone they met online, had their identity stolen, or had their computer hacked.
Your Safety’s at Stake
The FTC suggests these tips for socializing safely online:
- Think about how different sites work before deciding to join a site. Some sites will allow only a defined community of users to access posted content; others allow anyone and everyone to view postings.
- Think about keeping some control over the information you post. Consider restricting access to your page to a select group of people, for example, your friends from school, your club, your team, your community groups, or your family.
- Keep your information to yourself. Don’t post your full name, Social Security number, address, phone number, or bank and credit card account numbers — and don’t post other people’s information, either. Be cautious about posting information that could be used to identify you or locate you offline. This could include the name of your school, sports team, clubs, and where you work or hang out.
- Make sure your screen name doesn’t say too much about you. Don’t use your name, your age, or your hometown. Even if you think your screen name makes you anonymous, it doesn’t take a genius to combine clues to figure out who you are and where you can be found.
- Post only information that you are comfortable with others seeing — and knowing — about you. Many people can see your page, including your parents, your teachers, the police, the college you might want to apply to next year, or the job you might want to apply for in five years.
- Remember that once you post information online, you can’t take it back. Even if you delete the information from a site, older versions exist on other people’s computers.
- Consider not posting your photo. It can be altered and broadcast in ways you may not be happy about. If you do post one, ask yourself whether it’s one your mom would display in the living room.
- Flirting with strangers online could have serious consequences. Because some people lie about who they really are, you never really know who you’re dealing with.
- Be wary if a new online friend wants to meet you in person. Before you decide to meet someone, do your research: Ask whether any of your friends know the person, and see what background you can dig up through online search engines. If you decide to meet them, be smart about it: Meet in a public place, during the day, with friends you trust. Tell an adult or a responsible sibling where you’re going, and when you expect to be back.
- Trust your gut if you have suspicions. If you feel threatened by someone or uncomfortable because of something online, tell an adult you trust and report it to the police and the social networking site. You could end up preventing someone else from becoming a victim.
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Heart disease is the leading cause of death in America. It's important to learn about how you and your family can follow a heart-healthy diet.
The key to heart health is eating foods low in saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol and sodium, and high in omega-3 fatty acids and fiber. Eating a well-balanced diet will include a combination of whole grains, lean proteins, fruits and vegetables and low-fat dairy.
Saturated and trans fats are found in some meats, dairy products, baked goods and deep-fried and processed foods. Both types of fat raise your LDL – or "bad" – cholesterol level. Instead, eat more plant proteins, fish, poultry and low-fat dairy foods. Start cooking with oils high in monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat instead of butter, margarine or shortening, which are high in trans fat.
Switch refined grains, like white rice or bread, with whole-grain options, such as brown rice and 100-percent whole-grain bread or pasta. Throughout the day, sip on water and limit sugary beverages by choosing fat-free milk and 100-percent fruit juices.
Next time you are at the grocery store, pick up some of these heart-healthy items:
- Beans, peas and barley
- Soybeans, other soy-based foods
- Fruits and vegetables
- Salmon, tuna, sardines and mackerel
- Red grapes and purple grape juice
- Nuts like almonds, walnuts, pecans and hazelnuts
Another way to reduce your risk of heart disease is to be active. Regular, moderate physical activity lowers blood pressure and helps your body control stress and weight. Be physically active in your own way, and start by doing what you can, at least 10 minutes at a time. Children and teens should get 60 or more minutes of physical activity per day, and adults should get two hours and 30 minutes per week. Encourage your family to take a walk after dinner or play a game of catch or basketball.
For more heart-healthy cooking tips and information on reducing your risk for heart disease, consult a registered dietitian in your area.
Reviewed April 2013
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Nausea and Vomiting, Age 12 and Older
Nausea is a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. When you are nauseated, you may feel weak and sweaty and have too much saliva in your mouth. You may even vomit. This forces your stomach contents up your esophagus and out of your mouth. Most of the time, nausea and vomiting are not serious. Home treatment will often help you feel better.
Nausea and vomiting can be a symptom of another illness. Nausea and vomiting may be caused by:
Nausea or vomiting also may be a symptom of a problem or a disease, such as:
Nausea and vomiting can quickly cause dehydration. Older adults have an increased chance of becoming dehydrated, because they may:
Check your symptoms to decide if and when you should see a doctor.
eMedicineHealth Medical Reference from Healthwise
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.
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Depression is an illness that causes a person to feel sad and hopeless for much of the time. It is different from normal feelings of sadness, grief, or low energy.
People who are depressed may also:
Depression affects men and women of all ages and has often been shown to run in families. A person can have one or many episodes of depression in a lifetime. Each episode of depression makes a person more likely to have another episode of depression.
Most people who are depressed get better with medicine, counseling, or a combination of the two. Some people with depression may need to be hospitalized.
eMedicineHealth Medical Reference from Healthwise
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.
Find out what women really need.
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- including 24 hour, pharmacies
| 3.042513 |
An outbreak of an illness occurs when there is an increase in the number of people who live in the same area and are infected around the same time by an organism such as a virus or bacteria. A community may have an outbreak of the flu or measles as that specific organism spreads through the water or food in that area.
Organisms passed to people from insects or rodents can cause outbreaks too. These outbreaks usually do not spread much beyond the region where the rodents or insects live.
eMedicineHealth Medical Reference from Healthwise
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.
Find out what women really need.
Most Popular Topics
Pill Identifier on RxList
- quick, easy,
Find a Local Pharmacy
- including 24 hour, pharmacies
| 3.747624 |
Category: Sponges view all from this category
Description 8" tall (20 cm) and 1" (2.5 cm) wide. Sponge produces brilliantly colored tree-like, intertwined branches in red and orange. Surface is covered with tiny, scattered pores.
Habitat Ocean or bay shallows, Tidepools.
Range Eastern Canada, Florida, New England, Mid-Atlantic, California, Texas, Northwest.
Discussion Branches of the Red Beard Sponge provide important habitats for crustaceans and juvenile fish species. Reproduces both asexually and sexually. Broken branches can regenerate into new sponges. When cells from the Red Beard Sponge are separated, they have the ability to reorganize themselves.
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The transistor ushered the modern world of gadgets that we all love, and now optical transistors could help to bring us to the proper next generation of the internet. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics have demonstrated successful electromagnetically induced transparency, or EIT, which is effectively a way of enabling one beam of light to control another. In their experiments, researchers used a rubidium atom to indicate state, blocking a beam of light in one direction but, when a laser hit it at a perpendicular angle, turning it transparent to allow the first beam through. The idea is that this could serve as a sort of optical gate for quantum computers
; the building block of a next-gen internet for next-gen devices. There's reason for excitement about the potential here, but researchers have a long, long way to go before anything like this is ready for reality, so don't give up those handlinks just yet.
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What does this program measure?
Sulfur Dioxide is measured at 4,10,23,and 40 meters above the ground, in units of parts per trillion by volume.
How does this program work?
Why is this research important?
This is part of an effort to monitor long-term of emissions from Kilauea and Mauna Loa volcanoes. It may provide a precursor to the next Mauna Loa eruption. These measurements also detection large sulfur dioxide pollution events from Asia.
Are there any trends in the data?
No trends. Kilauea has been in continuous eruption since 1983. Mauna Loa last erupted in 1984. Since 1994; SO2 levels from Mauna Loa have been low (<500ppt, or parts per trillion).
How does this program fit into the big picture?
What is it's role in global climate change?
The SO2 data can be used to detect periods of volcanic pollution at the observatory. This can provide a non-baseline filter for other measurements.
Comments and References
NOAA Sulfur Dioxide Monitoring (SO2)
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Fort Dearborn, U.S. army post on the Chicago River, NE Ill.; est. 1803 and named for Secretary of War Henry Dearborn. Threatened by the indigenous population at the start of the War of 1812, the frontier post was ordered by Gen. William Hull to evacuate. On Aug. 15, 1812, as Capt. Nathan Heald led the small contingent of troops, militia, women, and children from the fort, a large Native American force attacked. More than half of the people were killed and most of those remaining were taken prisoner; the fort was destroyed. Fort Dearborn was rebuilt in 1816–17.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
More on Fort Dearborn from Fact Monster:
See more Encyclopedia articles on: U.S. History
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Dengue Fever in India
04 March 2013
Dengue fever is a growing concern in India. In 2012, 247 deaths were recorded as a result of dengue fever nationwide.
Latest data on disease prevalence released by the Health Ministry shows a significant rise in the incidence of dengue fever from 18 860 cases in 2011, to 49 606 in year 2012.
Around 1700 dengue cases were reported from Delhi in 2012.
Advice for Travellers
India is a popular tourist destination and travellers should be aware of the risk of dengue fever. Avoidance of mosquito bites, particularly during daylight hours, by covering up with clothing, the use of bite avoidance measures such as repellent and bed nets is advised. Elimination of breeding sites around hotel rooms/houses is advised for longer term stays.
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|Updated: 4/10/2007 10:12 am
||Published: 4/10/2007 10:12 am
For your car's engine to be able to start, several things have to happen. The flywheel needs to turn the crankshaft, which moves the pistons up and down, which in turn makes the valves draw air into the combustion chamber to mix with fuel to ignite. The process starts when your car's starter motor connects gears with the flywheel after the key switch is turned to start. The starter motor will disengage after the engine is started. Your car's battery provides electricity to turn the starter, and your car's alternator keeps the battery charged and powers all the accessories in your car once it's running. The alternator generates more electricity the faster your car's engine runs. The voltage regulator in your car controls the amount of current to the battery and prevents damage from overcharging. Contact a qualified mechanic in your area for more information on your car's starting system.
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What causes Tsunamis?
Tsunami are waves caused by sudden movement of the ocean due to earthquakes, landslides on the sea floor, land slumping into the ocean, large volcanic eruptions or meteorite impact in the ocean.
Most tsunami are caused by large earthquakes on the seafloor when slabs of rock move past each other suddenly, causing the overlying water to move. The resulting waves move away from the source of the earthquake event.
Underwater landslides can cause tsunami as can terrestrial land which slumps into the ocean. View our landslide generation animation which demonstrates how a landslide induces a tsunami.
Less common are tsunami initiated by volcanic eruptions. These occur in several ways:
- destructive collapse of coastal, island and underwater volcanoes which result in massive landslides
- pyroclastic flows, which are dense mixtures of hot blocks, pumice, ash and gas, plunging down volcanic slopes into the ocean and pushing water outwards
- a caldera volcano collapsing after an eruption causing overlying water to drop suddenly.
Topic contact: [email protected] Last updated: December 5, 2012
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Breathing-related sleep disorder
Breathing-related sleep disorder is marked by sleep disruption caused by abnormal breathing during sleep. The most common complaint of individuals with breathing-related sleep disorder is excessive daytime sleepiness, brought on by frequent interruptions of nocturnal, or nighttime, sleep. A less frequent complaint is insomnia or inability to sleep.
Mental health professionals use the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders also known as the DSM to diagnose mental disorders. In the 2000 edition of this manual (the fourth edition, text revision, also known as DSM-IV-TR) breathing-related sleep disorder is listed as one of several different primary sleep disorders. Within the category of primary sleep disorders, it is classified as one of the dyssomnias, which are characterized by irregularities in the quality, timing, and amount of sleep.
The DSM-IV-TR lists three types of breathing-related sleep disorder: obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (the most common type); central sleep apnea syndrome; and central alveolar hypoventilation syndrome.
The most common feature of any breathing-related sleep disorder is interruption of the person's sleep leading to excessive daytime sleepiness. When the regular nighttime sleep of individuals is frequently interrupted, sleepiness at other times of the day is the usual result. People with breathing-related sleep disorder often find that they feel sleepy during such relaxing activities as reading or watching a movie. With extreme cases, the person may feel so sleepy that he or she falls asleep during activities that require alertness, such as talking, walking, or driving.
Other people with breathing-related sleep disorder report having insomnia, or the inability to sleep. Patients also find that their sleep does not refresh them; they may awaken frequently during sleep, or have difficulty breathing while sleeping or lying down.
The two sleep apnea syndromes that are listed as subtypes of breathing-related sleep disorder are characterized by episodes of airway blockage or stopping of breathing during sleep. Sleep apnea is potentially deadly. The other type of breathing-related sleep disorder, central alveolar hypoventilation syndrome, is distinguished from the other two subtypes by the fact that the reduced oxygen content of the blood is caused by shallow breathing. The alveoli, which are the tiny air sacs in the lung tissue, are not able to oxygenate the blood efficiently because the person is not breathing deeply enough. Shallow breathing often occurs when people are awake and is common in severely overweight individuals.
Many persons with the obstructive sleep apnea syndrome subtype of breathing-related sleep disorder are overweight. The symptoms often grow worse as the person's weight increases. Persons who have obstructive sleep apnea and are not overweight often have breathing passages that are narrowed by swollen tonsils, abnormally large adenoids, or other abnormalities of the various structures of the mouth and throat.
Central sleep apnea syndrome is often associated with cardiac or neurological conditions affecting airflow regulation. It is a disorder that occurs most frequently in elderly patients.
Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, which is the most common type of breathing-related sleep disorder, is marked by frequent episodes of upper-airway obstruction during sleep. Patients with this syndrome alternate between loud snores or gasps and silent periods that usually last for 20–30 seconds. The snoring is caused by the partial blockage of the airway. The silent periods are caused by complete obstruction of the airway, which makes the patient's breathing stop.
Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome is also common in children with enlarged tonsils. The symptoms of any breathing-related sleep disorder in children are often subtle and more difficult to diagnose. Children under five are more likely to demonstrate such nighttime symptoms as apnea and breathing difficulties. Children over five are more likely to demonstrate such daytime symptoms as sleepiness and attention difficulties.
Persons with central sleep apnea syndrome experience periods when the oxygenation of blood in the lungs temporarily stops during sleep; but they do not suffer airway obstruction. Although these patients may snore, their snoring is usually mild and not a major complaint.
Central alveolar hypoventilation syndrome is characterized by excessive sleepiness and insomnia.
The majority of patients with the obstructive sleep apnea type of breathing-related sleep disorder are overweight, middle-aged males. Adult males are two to four times as likely as adult females to experience obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. Among children the male: female ratio is 1:1.
Central sleep apnea syndrome is most common in the elderly.
A diagnosis of breathing-related sleep disorder usually requires a thorough physical examination of the patient. The patient may be referred to an otorhinolaryngologist (a doctor who specializes in disorders of the ear, nose, and throat) for a detailed evaluation of the upper respiratory tract. The physical examination is followed by observation of the patient in a sleep clinic or laboratory. Breathing patterns, including episodes of snoring and apnea, are evaluated when the patient is connected to a device called a polysomnogram. The polysomnogram uses a set of electrodes to measure several different body functions associated with sleep, including heart rate, eye movements, brain waves, muscle activity, breathing, changes in blood oxygen concentration, and body position. Interviews are also conducted with the patient and his or her partner.
To meet criteria for the diagnosis of breathing-related sleep disorder, the patient must experience interruptions of sleep leading to insomnia or excessive sleepiness that have been determined to result from one of the following sleep-related breathing conditions: obstructive sleep apnea syndrome; central sleep apnea syndrome; or central alveolar hypoventilation syndrome.
The disturbance in sleep must also not be better accounted for by another mental disorder or by a general medical condition not related to breathing.
The disturbance in sleep must not be due to the direct effects on the body of a prescription medication or drug of abuse.
Weight loss is a key to effective treatment of overweight people with breathing-related sleep disorder. It is often considered the first step in treating any disorder involving sleep apnea. Increased exercise and reduced-calorie diets are the most important components of an effective weight loss regimen.
Nasal continuous positive airway pressure therapy, also known as nasal CPAP therapy, is a popular form of treatment for the obstructive sleep apnea subtype of breathing-related sleep disorder. Nasal CPAP therapy, which has been in use since 1981, involves the use of a high-pressure blower that delivers continuous air flow to a mask worn by the patient during sleep. The airflow from the nasal CPAP blower is often very effective in reducing or eliminating sleep apnea episodes. Nasal CPAP treatment is, however, inconvenient and somewhat noisy for anyone who must share a bedroom with the patient. Patients do not always comply with this form of treatment; one study indicated that about 25% of patients who are treated with nasal CPAP therapy stop using it within a year.
Medications for patients with the sleep apnea subtype of breathing-related sleep disorder are most commonly such respiratory stimulants as medroxyprogesterone acetate (Depo-Provera) and acetazolamide (Diamox). Protriptyline (Vivactil), which is a tricyclic antidepressant, is also used for some patients.
Surgery to relieve airway obstruction is increasingly preferred by many patients. If the airway obstruction is related to anatomical structures that are narrowing the airway, surgical reshaping of the soft palate and uvula (a small, conical-shaped piece of tissue attached to the middle of the soft palate) may be performed. Another surgical procedure that is sometimes done in very obese patients with obstructive sleep apnea is a tracheostomy, or an artificial opening made in the windpipe. This operation has a number of unpleasant side effects, however, and so is usually reserved for patients whose breathing related disorder is life-threatening.
Patients with sleep apnea are advised to abstain from alcohol and sedative medications, which are often given to patients who display any type of sleeping irregularities. Alcohol and sedatives often increase the likelihood of upper airway problems during sleep.
Breathing-related sleep disorder often has a gradual long-term progression and a chronic course. For this reason, many people have the disorder for years before seeking treatment. For many, symptoms worsen during middle age, causing people to seek treatment at that point.
Successful treatment of other conditions, such as obesity, cardiac or neurological conditions in the elderly, or enlarged tonsils in children often aids in the treatment of breathing-related sleep disorder. Weight loss often leads to spontaneous resolution of the disorder.
Because overweight people are more likely to develop the more common obstructive sleep apnea type of breathing-related sleep disorder, a good preventive measure is effective weight management. Good general health and treatment of related physiological conditions are also effective in preventing the disorder.
American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 4th edition, text revised. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 2000.
Buysse, Daniel J., Charles M. Morin, and Charles F. Reynolds III. "Sleep Disorders." In Treatments of Psychiatric Disorders, edited by Glen O. Gabbard. 2nd edition. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press.
Hobson, J. Allan, and Rosalia Silvestri. "Sleep and Its Disorders." In The Harvard Guide to Psychiatry, edited by Armand M. Nicholi, Jr., M.D. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999.
Saskin, Paul. "Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Treatment Options, Efficacy, and Effects." In Understanding Sleep: The Evaluation and Treatment of Sleep Disorders, edited by Mark R. Pressman, Ph.D., and William C. Orr, Ph.D. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1997.
Thorpy, Michael J., M.D., and Jan Yager, Ph.D. The Encyclopedia of Sleep and Sleep Disorders. 2nd edition. New York: Facts on File, 2001.
American Sleep Apnea Association. 1424 K Street NW, Suite 302, Washington DC 20005. <http://www.sleepapnea.org>.
American Sleep Disorders Association. 6301 Bandel Road NW, Suite 101, Rochester, MN 55901. <http://www.asda.org>.
Ali Fahmy, Ph.D.
| 3.354646 |
Its victory in the Spanish American War catapulted the United States into the international limelight. This program investigates the history of the war, as well as the journalistic accounts of the conflict. The two are at variance. Archival film footage, photographs, and commentary by historians contrast actual events with the newspaper accounts of "yellow journalist" William Randolph Hearst. Regardless of the truth of his sensationalism, the truth remains that Theodore Roosevelt became a national hero, his Rough Riders became legendary, and the United States became a country to be reckoned with on the world stage.
~ Rose of Sharon Winter, All Movie Guide
| 3.141223 |
the story of the 112th Infantry Regiment of the 28th Infantry Division in the battle for Schmidt, Germany.
by CHARLES B. MACDONALD
Attack on Vossenack
The Aachen Front
1 November 1944
By October 1944, the First United States Army in Western Europe had ripped two big holes in the Siegfried Line, at Aachen and east of Roetgen.1 (Map V) Having captured Aachen, the army was next scheduled to cross the Roer River and reach the Rhine. It planned to make its main effort toward Dueren in the zone of VII Corps south and east of Aachen and thence toward Bonn on the Rhine. But east of Roetgen, where the 9th Infantry Division had breached the Siegfried Line and parts of a forest mass known generally as the Huertgen Forest,2 V Corps was first to launch a limited flank operation. The 28th Infantry Division, under the command of Maj. Gen. Norman D. Cota, was ordered to make the V Corps attack; its initial objective was to be the crossroads town of Schmidt.
Schmidt was an important objective. Lying on a ridge overlooking the upper Roer River, it also afforded a view of the Schwammenauel Dam, an important link in a series of Roer dams which the Germans might blow at any time. The rush of floodwaters thus unleashed would isolate any attack which had crossed the Roer in the Aachen vicinity. Located in rear of the main Siegfried Line defenses in the area, Schmidt was an important road center for supply of enemy forces. The capture of Schmidt would enable the 28th Division to advance to the southwest and attack from the rear the enemy's fortified line facing Monschau, while a combat command of the 5th Armored Division hit the line frontally. Thus V Corps could complete the mission assigned by First Army--clearing the enemy from its area south to the Roer River on a line Monschau-Roer River dams. In enemy hands the Roer dams remained a constant threat to any major drive across the Roer downstream to the north.
The Schmidt operation was expected to accomplish four things: gain maneuver space and additional supply routes for the VII Corps attack to the north; protect VII Corps' right flank from counterattack; prepare the ground for a later attack to seize the Roer River dams;3 and
28th Division Objectives
2 November 1944
attract enemy reserves from VII Corps, thus preventing their employment against First Army's main effort.
Because the permanent boundary between V Corps and VII Corps intersected the planned zone of operations, First Army on 25 October designated a temporary boundary to run just south of Kleinhau and north of Huertgen. This would keep the Schmidt operation entirely within the bounds of V Corps. Between the northernmost positions of the 28th Division and the new corps boundary, the defensive line was being held with a series of road blocks in the Huertgen Forest by the 294th Engineer Combat Battalion; south of the planned zone of operations the line was being held by the 4th Cavalry Group.
Taking over the 9th Infantry Division's sector on 26 October, the 28th Division found itself facing roller-coaster terrain that was to play an even more vital role than usual in the attack on Schmidt. (Map VI) Its front lines extended generally along the Huertgen-Germeter-Rollesbroich road from Germeter through Richelskaul to the vicinity of a forester's house, Raffelsbrand. To the north and south lay dense forests, the southern forests hiding numerous enemy pillboxes and the town of Simonskall. To the east from Germeter ran a ridge topped by the town of Vossenack, surrounded on three sides by deep, densely wooded draws with wooded fingers stretching up toward the town itself. To the northeast was the Huertgen-Brandenberg-Bergstein ridge, dominating the Vossenack ridge. (In 9th Division operations in this area, one battalion had attacked between these two ridges and secured positions in the woods north of Vossenack, but a violent enemy counterattack in the woods southwest of Huertgen had forced the advance battalion's withdrawal.) Through a precipitous wooded gorge to the east and southeast of Vossenack ran the Kall River, a small, swift-flowing stream emptying into the Roer near Nideggen. Although a river road ran generally north-south alongside the Kall, only a small woods trail, very difficult to locate on the available maps and aerial photographs, crossed the river in the direction of the 28th Division's attack. That trail led across the river and up another ridge on which were seated the towns of Kommerscheidt and Schmidt. This ridge also dominated the Vossenack ridge, and Schmidt in turn commanded Kommerscheidt. The Brandenberg-Bergstein ridge line, northeast of Vossenack and north of Kommerscheidt, was lower than the highest point of the Schmidt-Kommerscheidt ridge but overlooked its lower slopes where the towns of Schmidt and Kommerscheidt were situated. Schmidt
and Kommerscheidt were also surrounded by dense woods and deep draws.
Two important considerations influenced the planners of the Schmidt operation. First, air support could isolate the battlefield from large-scale intervention of enemy reserves, especially armored reserves. Thus the Schmidt action would remain an infantry action inasmuch as crossing tanks over the Kall River was a doubtful possibility. The air task, extremely formidable because it involved neutralization of a number of Roer River bridges--and bridges are a difficult target for air--was assigned to the IX Tactical Air Command of the Ninth Air Force. Second, artillery support could deny the enemy the advantages of the dominating Brandenberg-Bergstein ridge. While the planners displayed great concern about enemy observation from this ridge, V Corps had too few troops to assign the ridge as a ground objective. Neutralization of the ridge by artillery would require almost constant smoking of approximately five miles and still could not be expected to eliminate the most forward enemy observation. But neutralization by artillery was apparently the only available solution.
The 28th Division was strongly reinforced for the operation. Major attachments included the following units: the 707th Tank Battalion (Medium); the 893d Tank Destroyer Battalion (Self Propelled) (minus one company); the 630th Tank Destroyer Battalion (Towed); the 86th Chemical Battalion (4.2-inch mortars); and the 1171st Engineer Combat Group. The 1171st consisted of the 20th, 146th (minus one company), and 1340th Engineer Combat Battalions.4 Artillery in direct support was to include the 28th Division's organic artillery (the 107th, 109th, and 229th Field Artillery Battalions of 105-mm. howitzers and the 108th Field Artillery Battalion of 155mm. howitzers); Battery A, 987th Field Artillery Battalion of 155-mm. self-propelled guns; 76th Field Artillery Battalion of 105-mm. howitzers; 447th Antiaircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion; and the attached tank destroyers and tanks. Two 155-mm. howitzer battalions of the 187th Field Artillery Group of V Corps were later assigned in direct support and a battalion of 4.5-inch guns in general support. Also to furnish general support were the 190th Field Artillery Group of V Corps, consisting of one 155-mm. gun battalion and one 8-inch howitzer battalion, and the 188th Field Artillery Group of VII Corps, consisting of one 155-mm. gun battalion and one battalion (less one battery) of 4.5-inch guns.
The 28th Division's employment of its regiments was virtually dictated by V Corps.5 The 109th Infantry was to attack north toward Huertgen in order to prevent repetition of the enemy counterattack that had hit the 9th Division from that direction. It was also to carry out a secondary mission of securing a line of departure overlooking Huertgen from which another division might later capture
the town. This later attack on Huertgen was to be a part of the main First Army attack by VII Corps, and the securing of a line of departure for the later attack was specifically assigned by First Army. The 110th Infantry was to attack through the dense woods to the southeast to secure a road from Schmidt to Strauch that would ease the problem of the tenuous supply route from Vossenack to Schmidt. The road could be used also in the later phase of the operation, the planned co-ordinated attack to roll up enemy defenses facing Monschau. One battalion of the 110th Infantry was to be held out initially as the division's only infantry reserve. The 112th Infantry was to make the division's main effort toward the east and southeast to Schmidt. Two major factors influenced this deviation from the tactical doctrine of a convergent attack: (1) the lack of troops available for the operation and (2) the necessity for performing the three initial missions: (a) protecting the north flank against counterattack and securing a line of departure overlooking Huertgen, (b) clearing the main route south toward Strauch in preparation for the latter phase of the attack, and (c) capturing the initial division objective, the town of Schmidt.
Attached to the 112th Infantry in the main effort to capture Schmidt were: Company C, 103d Engineer Combat Battalion (organic); Companies B and D, 86th Chemical Battalion (4.2-inch mortars); and Company C, 103d Medical Battalion (organic). In direct support were: the 229th Field Artillery Battalion, reinforced by Company C, 630th Tank Destroyer Battalion (Towed); the 20th Engineer Combat Battalion; and Company C, 707th Tank Battalion (Medium). The 893d Tank Destroyer Battalion (Self-Propelled) and the remainder of the 707th Tank Battalion (minus Company D, which was to assist the 28th Reconnaissance Troop in maintaining contact with the 4th Cavalry Group in defensive positions to the south) were to reinforce fires of the general support artillery.
The artillery plan called for conventional fires on known and suspected enemy locations, installations, and sensitive points, the bulk of them in the Huertgen area to the north. The preparation was to begin at H minus 60 minutes all along the V Corps front and the southern portion of the VII Corps front to conceal as long as possible the specific location of the attack. At H minus 15 minutes, fires were to shift to local preparation, and after H Hour fires were to be supporting, chiefly prepared fires on call from the infantry. Since weather limited air observation before the attack, counterbattery fires were based primarily on sound and flash recordings, which could not be considered accurate because of unfavorable weather and wooded, compartmented terrain. Ammunition was limited but considered adequate, and antitank defense was also included in the artillery plan. Artillery units were located in the general area Zweifall-Roett-Roetgen, from which all expected targets would be within effective range.
The engineer plan revolved around the attached 1171st Engineer Combat Group. One battalion of this group was to support the 110th Infantry and one was to work on rear area roads. The 20th Engineer Combat Battalion, in support of the 112th Infantry, was assigned the primary engineer mission of opening the trail from Vossenack across the Kall River to Kommerscheidt and Schmidt. In the
planning phases, engineer responsibility for security of the Kall River crossing was emphasized, but the engineer plan as issued by the 1171st Group on 30 October did not charge any engineer unit with security of the crossing. The plan stated only that, because of the disposition of friendly troops, local security would be required. The written engineer plan, including this statement, was nevertheless approved by the 28th Division commander, the division engineer, and the corps engineer.6
The 28th Division, whose men wore the red Keystone shoulder patch that revealed the division's Pennsylvania National Guard background, had participated in the latter stages of the Normandy battle and had pursued the enemy across France and Belgium. Rested after almost a month along a relatively inactive sector of the Siegfried Line to the south, the division was nearly at full strength, although there had been many replacements after an unsuccessful effort to penetrate the Siegfried Line opposite Pruem at the close of the pursuit across Belgium. The major supply shortage was in all types of artillery ammunition, chronic throughout First Army since September when the Siegfried Line battles had begun. The supply of arctic overshoes was also far under requirements; only about ten to fifteen men per infantry company were equipped with them. There was little patrolling before D Day, partially because of the proximity of enemy lines and partially because of the limitations of the densely wooded terrain; but intelligence information obtained in the area by the 9th Division was turned over to the 28th. Maps to be used were primarily the standard 1:25,000 (Germany, revised), which could be considered generally accurate, but aerial photographs were usually not available in lower echelons.
When the 28th Division moved into the area on 26 October, the men found themselves in a dank, dense forest of the type immortalized in old German folk tales. All about them they saw emergency rations containers, artillery-destroyed trees, loose mines along poor, muddy roads and trails, and shell and mine craters by the hundreds. The troops relieved by the 28th Division were tired, unshaven, dirty, and nervous. They bore the telltale signs of a tough fight--signs that made a strong impression on the incoming soldiers and their commanders. After the operation the 28th Division commander himself, General Cota, recalled that at the time he felt that the 28th's attack had only "a gambler's chance" of succeeding.7
The 28th Division G-2 estimated that to the immediate front the enemy had approximately 3,350 men, to the north 1,940, and to the south 1,850, all of whom were fighting as infantry. Enemy reserves capable of rapid intervention were estimated at 2,000 not yet committed and 3,000 capable of moving quickly from less active fronts. The G-2 estimate did not mention that holding Schmidt and the Roer River dams was an important fundamental in the German scheme for preventing an Allied break-through to the Rhine.
THE SCHWAMMENAUEL DAM located southeast of Schmidt. The holders of this dam controlled the flow of water along the Roer River and could flood a wide area along its path.
Although the 28th's attack was originally scheduled to be launched on 31 October, rain, fog, and poor visibility necessitated postponement. Despite continued bad weather, the attack was ordered for 2 November to avoid the possibility of delaying the subsequent VII Corps attack. The 109th Infantry was to initiate the action by launching its northerly thrust at 0900.8 While the 110th Infantry and two battalions of the 112th were not to attack until H plus 3 hours (1200), the 2d Battalion, 112th, was to join the 109th in the H Hour jump-off--0900, 2 November.9
Facing the planned American attack was an enemy determined to hold the Huertgen-Vossenack area for several
reasons now apparent: the threat to the Roer dams; the dominating terrain of the ridges in the area; the importance of Dueren as a road and communications center; the threat to plans already made for an Ardennes counteroffensive; and the neutralizing effect of the Huertgen Forest against American superiority in air, tanks, and artillery. The unit charged with the defense was the 275th Infantry Division of the LXXIV Corps of the Seventh Army of Army Group B.
That an attack was imminent was already known from obviously preplanned American artillery fires and from reports and observation of American troop movement in the rear of Roetgen. It was also known that the new American unit in the area was the 28th Infantry Division, although the Germans thought the division a part of VII Corps instead of V Corps.
North of the 275th Infantry Division the line was held by the 12th Volks Grenadier Division, and to the south by the 89th Infantry Division, which was scheduled to be relieved soon by the 272d Volks Grenadier Division so that the 89th could be re-equipped. To the north, in Army Group B reserve in the Muenchen-Gladbach area, was the 116th Panzer Division. Although the Germans believed an American attack imminent in the Vossenack area, no specific precautions had been taken in movement of troops, because timing and direction of attack were still unknown.10
The 112th Makes the Main Effort
In the center of the 28th Division zone the 112th Infantry, making the division's main effort, was assigned the capture of Kommerscheidt and Schmidt. It had the secondary mission of protecting its own north flank by the capture and defense of Vossenack and the Vossenack ridge. After the planned artillery preparation beginning at H minus 60 minutes, the 2d Battalion, 112th, was to attack at H Hour (0900) to capture Vossenack and the forward (northeastern and eastern) nose of the ridge. The 1st Battalion, 112th, attacking at H plus 3 hours, was to move in a column of companies through defensive positions occupied by the same regiment's Company A at Richelskaul. Then it was to attack southeast through the wooded draw south of Vossenack, crossing the Kall River in a cross-country move and taking Kommerscheidt. The 3d Battalion, 112th, was to follow the 1st Battalion on order and capture the final objective, the town of Schmidt.11
The 2d Battalion's plan for seizing Vossenack and the Vossenack ridge called for an attack with two companies abreast (Company G on the left, Company F on the right) from the line Germeter-Richelskaul east through Vossenack. Company G was to move along the open northern slope of the ridge to the nose
Attack on Vossenack-Jump-Off
2 November 1944
northeast of Vossenack; Company F was to take the town itself and the eastern nose of the ridge; and Company E was to follow and complete mopping up of the town. One platoon from Company F was to protect the battalion's right flank by advancing along the open southern slope of the ridge and was to be followed by one platoon of Company E.12
This 2d Battalion attack was to be assisted by a company of medium tanks, Company C, 707th Tank Battalion. The five tanks of Company C's 1st Platoon, plus two tanks from its 2d Platoon, were to attack with Company G, 112th, on the left; the three other tanks of the 2d Platoon were to attack with Company F, 112th, on the right. The remaining tank platoon was to assist Company E in its mop-up operations. Two towed guns of Company B, 630th Tank Destroyer Battalion, and five 57-mm. antitank guns of the Antitank Company, 112th, all in position around Richelskaul, were to be prepared to assist the attack by fire. Company B, 86th Chemical Battalion, equipped to fire high explosive shells, was to support the attack from positions along the Weisser Weh Creek in the wooded draw west of Germeter. The night before the attack Company C, 103d Engineers, was to clear paths through friendly mine fields to the east of Germeter.13
The regiment's eighteen 81-mm. mortars were grouped under Company H for preparation and supporting fires against Vossenack. After capture of the town, they were to revert to their respective battalions. The Company D mortars were to concentrate their fire on the draw south of Vossenack, Company H on the houses in the town, and Company M on the wooded area north of the town, firing to begin twelve minutes before H Hour. The Company H machine guns were attached to the three rifle companies, the entire 2d Platoon going to Company G on the left, the 1st Section of the 1st Platoon to Company F on the right, and the 2d Section of the 1st Platoon to Company E for the mop-up.14
Before the attack Company E, 112th Infantry, was outposting the town of Germeter, while the remainder of the 2d Battalion was in an assembly area in the woods approximately 300 yards southwest of Germeter. (Map VII) On the left (north) the 3d Battalion, 109th Infantry, held Wittscheidt on the Huertgen road and was to attack almost due north at H Hour. On the right (south) Company A, 112th, held the Richelskaul road junction and was to be passed through at noon (H plus 3 hours) by other elements of the 1st Battalion, 112th, and the 3d Battalion, 112th, in the attack southeast toward Kommerscheidt and Schmidt. The 112th's Cannon Company was to
provide supporting fires from positions in the woods some 2,000 yards west of Germeter. The 112th Infantry command post was in a captured pillbox along the Weisser Weh Creek west of Germeter.15
The 2d Battalion Attacks
The morning of 2 November dawned cold and misty, not quite freezing, but damp and uncomfortable. At 0800, an hour before H Hour, artillery along the entire V Corps front and the southern portion of the VII Corps front roared into action. Fifteen minutes before jump-off time direct support artillery shifted to targets in the immediate sector and was joined by heavy weapons of the 112th Infantry. By 0900 V Corps and VII Corps artillery had fired over 4,000 rounds, and 28th Division artillery had fired 7,313 rounds. Artillery liaison officers watched the preparation from the 112th Infantry observation post in an attic in Germeter, where the 112th regimental commander, Lt. Col. Carl L. Peterson, prepared to watch the attack.16
At 0900 the riflemen of Companies G and F, accompanied by the tanks of Company C, 707th, began to pass through the outpost positions in Germeter. Almost as soon as the preparatory American artillery fire shifted to more distant targets, the Germans replied with a heavy artillery concentration of their own upon the line of departure, and the attacking companies sustained a number of casualties. Nevertheless the attack continued, and the men and tanks moved out into the shell-pocked open fields leading east to the objective, plainly marked in the morning mist by the shell-scarred tower of the Vossenack church. With the tanks taking the lead, the infantrymen fell in close behind, stepping in the tank tracks as a precaution against antipersonnel mines. Scattered small arms fire from Vossenack sprayed the tanks, and the Germans fired light mortar concentrations; but neither stopped the advance.17
Company G on the Left
On the left in its attack along the open slopes north of Vossenack toward the northeastern nose of the ridge, Company G started out with its 3d Platoon on the left, its 1st Platoon on the right, and its 2d, which was considerably understrength, in support. Its seven attached tanks initiated the movement by swinging into a line formation and firing four rounds each at the Vossenack church steeple, presumably to discourage any enemy observation from the steeple.
Two gaps had been cleared in the friendly mine field in the Company G sector. Although the southernmost gap near the center of Germeter was poorly marked and difficult to locate initially, it was used because it was more directly
VOSSENACK. The damaged tower of the Vossenack church could be seen by men approaching from the northwest across the shell pocked open fields..
along the proposed route of advance. The assault platoons moved through the gap close in the wake of the seven tanks, about a squad of infantry following each tank. The advance had only just begun when the driver of the lead tank on the left, that of the tank platoon sergeant, T. Sgt. Audney S. Brown, misread the mine-field markings and blundered out of the cleared gap. The tank hit a mine and blew a track. When the assault platoons and their six remaining tanks again moved forward, the platoon leader's tank mired in a muddy patch of ground in the north-south draw which creased the ridge between Germeter and Vossenack, again halting the advance. The tank company commander, Capt. George S. West, Jr., seeing the difficulty, came forward in his command tank, picked up the platoon leader, 2d Lt. William D. Quarrie, and took position on the right of the formation. Again the attack moved forward.18
With infantrymen following close in their tracks, the tanks fired as they advanced. A provisional platoon of .50-caliber machine guns supported the advance from Germeter, its fire clipping the edge of the woods north of Vossenack; fire from supporting 81-mm. mortars was well co-ordinated and fell about a hundred yards in front of the attack formation.
Even as the tanks were having their difficulties, the company headquarters of Company G and the attached machine guns from Company H ran into trouble. Either the light enemy mortar fire or harassing small arms fire from Vossenack wounded the machine gun platoon leader shortly after the machine gunners left Germeter, and the platoon sergeant took over. A few minutes later the last man in Company G's headquarters group stepped on a booby trap or a mine. When a man from the machine gun platoon moved up to see if he could help, he stepped on still another booby trap or mine and was killed. The explosion set off about five antipersonnel mines simultaneously. Of the twenty-seven men who had been in this group, twelve were injured or killed in the mine field. Only two noncommissioned officers, both corporals, remained out of the machine gun platoon's leaders. Although slightly wounded, they reorganized the platoon and continued forward.19
The assault rifle platoons also suffered casualties, both the 1st and 3d Platoon leaders being hit within approximately 400 yards of the line of departure. That the leaders should be wounded seemed ironic, for as the advance continued the only enemy opposition came from light mortar fire. The supporting tanks fired as they moved, and many of the Germans in Vossenack, already weakened by long days and nights of American artillery fire and now faced with a co-ordinated tank-infantry assault, fled north, east, and southeast. Past outlying farms and through the open fields north of Vossenack the Company G assault pushed on quickly and soon reached its objective, the nose to the northeast of the town. In an attack for which the planners had allowed three hours, Company G and its supporting tanks and machine gun platoon had taken only one hour and five
minutes, gaining the objective shortly after 1000 hours.20
Having reached the nose of the ridge, the company began to reorganize and to dig in against counterattack. Its assigned zone included a trail--actually an extension of Vossenack's main street--northeast of the town. The trail was in the defensive sector of the 3d Platoon, which planned to tie in later with Company F on the right. The 1st Platoon took up positions on the left of the 3d; the 2d Platoon, which had been in support in the attack, came up almost an hour later and extended the semicircular perimeter to the left and left rear. The two light machine guns went into position with the 1st Platoon to cover the company's front with cross fire. When the platoon of heavy machine guns came forward, it was placed in position with the 3d Platoon on the right to fire across the company front in the other direction, thus forming a final protective line. The 60-mm. mortars were moved up during the afternoon and placed in slight defilade about 200 yards behind the company. All defenses except the 60-mm. mortars were on the exposed forward nose of the ridge, in accordance with the battalion order; despite this exposed terrain, the men were virtually ignored by the enemy for the rest of the day. The six supporting tanks churned around on the forward slope of the ridge and fired to the northeast toward Brandenberg-Bergstein, as if the attack were going to continue in that direction. Company G's advance had been surprisingly easy; its principal casualties had been incurred in a mine field; only minor casualties had resulted from the artillery shelling at the line of departure, light mortar fire, and the occasional harassing small arms fire.
Company F on the Right
While Company G was launching its successful attack on the left, Company F had also moved out at H Hour in a column of platoons preceded by its three supporting tanks. The lead platoon, the 3d, under 1st Lt. Eugene S. Carlson, was to advance along the open southern slope of the Vossenack ridge as the battalion's right flank protection. Since the area south of the Richelskaul-Vossenack road was deemed too exposed to suspected enemy positions in the southern woods in front of Richelskaul, the 3d Platoon and its three tanks planned to advance north of the road initially, then turn south on the outskirts of Vossenack, cross the road, and resume their movement to the east. Company F's 1st Platoon was to follow the lead platoon closely until it turned south. The 1st Platoon was to continue east through the town itself. The 2d Platoon was to remain in Germeter as support to move forward on call. The section of light machine guns and two 60-mm. mortars were attached to the leading 3d Platoon; the other mortar was attached to the 1st Platoon. Also with the company was a section of heavy machine guns from Company H. The three supporting tanks were under the command of 1st Lt. James J. Leming, the 2d Tank Platoon leader and acting company executive officer.
The assault force moved out at H Hour, the infantry platoon following so closely behind its column of spearheading tanks that for the first 500 yards the infantry platoon leader, Lieutenant Carlson, had his hand on the rear of Lieutenant
Leming's tank. There was no resistance except from light enemy mortar fire. When the tanks and the lead riflemen passed the Germeter-Vossenack-Richelskaul road fork, the column veered to the south across the main Vossenack road as planned. Beyond the road the third tank in the column continued too far to the south before turning east again and ran into surprise German opposition from the wooded draw to the south. A Panzerfaust at the edge of the woods knocked it out. The two remaining tanks and the accompanying infantry platoon continued to the east, the tanks firing toward the southern woods line at possible enemy positions. They had gone approximately 300 yards past the first wooded finger pointing toward Vossenack from the south when the 75-mm. gun on Lieutenant Leming's tank jammed. The tank's coaxial machine guns and bow guns incurred stoppages that "immediate action" would not clear, and the antiaircraft gun also failed when its bolt jammed from overheating. The advance stopped. Lieutenant Leming radioed for 2d Lt. Joseph S. Novak, platoon leader of the 3d Tank Platoon with Company E in reserve, to come forward in his tank and lead Leming's one remaining tank forward.21
Back nearer the line of departure, Company F's 1st Platoon had followed about 200 yards behind the lead platoon and its tanks. In an approach march formation with the 2d and 1st Squads forward and the 3d in close support, the 1st Platoon passed through the gap in the mine field and neared the Germeter-Richelskaul-Vossenack road fork. At this point, a sudden burst of fire came from two or three hitherto undetected German machine guns emplaced near a group of buildings at the road fork. The Germans had evidently held their fire when the preceding tanks and infantry had passed.
This first burst of enemy fire hit the 1st Squad heavily, wounding or killing all but three men. Although the 2d Squad and the remnants of the 1st built up a base of fire, the Germans continued to resist. To break the deadlock, the infantry platoon leader, 2d Lt. John B. Wine, crawled to within twenty-five yards of the position and knocked out at least one machine gun with a hand grenade. At the lieutenant's signal the two advance squads assaulted the position, overcame the German gunners, and captured four or five prisoners.
Reorganizing his platoon quickly, Lieutenant Wine continued without opposition into the outskirts of Vossenack. One squad began to operate on each side of the main street. The men sprayed the entrances of the houses with fire, tossed in hand grenades, and assaulted each building in the wake of the grenade explosions. At least one Company F man was wounded and another killed as the enemy threw in scattered artillery fire.22
The Company F commander, 1st Lt. Eldeen Kauffman, had followed the 3d Platoon to a point just past the gap in the mine field. He waited there for the 1st Platoon and then followed it through the action at the road fork and on into Vossenack. When he heard over his intracompany SCR 536 that the 2d
Attack on Vossenack-Completion
2 November 1944
Platoon, in support at the line of departure in Germeter, was receiving intense enemy artillery fire, he ordered the platoon to join him in Vossenack.
Lieutenant Wine's 1st Platoon, continuing its advance, had almost reached the main crossroads marked by the church in the center of Vossenack. (Map VIII) At this point it was held up by small arms fire from the house on the left just short of the crossroads. Supported by fire from the rest of the platoon, half of one squad assaulted the house and netted between thirty and fifty prisoners. The town of Vossenack as far east as the crossroads was then in American hands.
Upon the arrival of the 2d (support) Platoon, Lieutenant Kauffman, the company commander, ordered it to pass through Lieutenant Wine's unit, which had become disorganized in its fight at the crossroads. Except for three men lost to artillery fire in Germeter, the 2d Platoon was at full strength. The exchange in assault platoons was made about 1030 at the crossroads, approximately an hour and a half after the jump-off. Though the advance had been rapid, the leading elements of Company F had covered only a little more than half the distance to their objective, whereas elements of Company G had already reached the northeastern nose of the Vossenack ridge.23
The 3d Platoon was still waiting on the exposed slope south of the town for Lieutenant Novak to come forward with his tank from Germeter to assist the one remaining operational tank of Lieutenant Leming's platoon. When the assistance arrived, it developed that Lieutenant Novak had evidently misunderstood the request and, instead of coming forward himself, had sent S. Sgt. Paul F. Jenkins with the 3d Tank Platoon's 2d Section, two tanks instead of one.
The advance continued and the three tanks came abreast of the town's main crossroads. Seeing what they suspected to be an enemy mine field ahead, the tankers changed their route of advance and moved north with their accompanying infantry through the center of Vossenack. They followed the open northern slope over which the tanks with Company G had passed earlier. Without opposition the three tanks and Company F's 3d Platoon moved just to the right of Company G on the eastern nose of the ridge. There the infantrymen began to dig in on their objective.24
While the 3d Platoon was taking its roundabout route forward, the 2d Platoon under 1st Lt. George E. Scott continued its advance past the crossroads in Vossenack. From a house on the left, two or three houses east of the crossroads, a German "Burp gun" (machine pistol) opened fire and halted the Americans with its first burst. As Lieutenant Scott moved up to one of his squads to meet the situation, another burst killed him instantly. The platoon sergeant then tried to organize a flanking force, but he too was hit and seriously wounded. A squad leader was killed and his second in command seriously wounded in an attempt to shift their squad to where it could flank the position from the north.
Back at the Germeter line of departure, the remaining three tanks of Lieutenant Novak's 3d Tank Platoon had started forward shortly after Sergeant Jenkins left with the platoon's 2d Section.
Novak's tanks, scheduled to assist Company E in the Vossenack mop-up, moved too quickly for the infantry to keep pace and reached the crossroads ahead of the reserve company. There Lieutenant Kauffman seized the opportunity and commandeered one of the tanks to help in demolishing the burp gun resistance. The tanker fired two rounds at the building indicated by Lieutenant Kauffman, and the F Company commander and his runner, Pfc. Bud Kern, charged the house close behind the tank fire. Inside they found seven men and two German officers, one of whom was already wounded. Kauffman and Kern killed the other officer, and the German enlisted men promptly surrendered.
Lieutenant Novak, meanwhile, had turned south with his tank, apparently intending either to use the southern slope and so avoid the town as he moved eastward or to help knock out the burp gun by firing on the house from another direction. As he neared the southern edge of the town, his tank struck a mine and was immobilized. Since it could still be used as a stationary firing point, Lieutenant Novak stayed with his vehicle, while his two remaining tanks went on with Lieutenant Kauffman and Company F.
With the German burp gun resistance now out of the way, the advance continued. Lieutenant Kauffman tossed a grenade into the basement of the next house as a routine precaution, with the result that a group of Germans, who proved to be staff members of the battalion charged with the defense of Vossenack, came out in surrender. When questioned, one of the German officers pointed out the town's defensive positions on a map. There had been five thirty-man companies in Vossenack, he said, and despite high losses another company had the mission of counterattacking to retake the town.
Lieutenant Kauffman shifted Company F's 1st Platoon, now reorganized, back into the attack echelon and returned the 2d Platoon to its original support role. Accompanied by the two tanks of Lieutenant Novak's tank platoon, Lieutenant Wine's men continued down the main street, charging each building close behind assault fire from the tanks. The Germans fired only a few desultory shots in return, and by 1230 the 1st and 2d Platoons had joined the 3d Platoon on the final objective, the bald eastern nose of Vossenack ridge.25
Lieutenant Kauffman set up his Company F command post in the last house on the right (south) side of Vossenack's main street. The 2d Platoon began to dig in on the left next to Company G's right flank. On the 2d's right was the 1st Platoon, its depleted 1st and 2d Squads combined into one and designated to defend a wooded draw that stretched up toward the town from the Kall River valley. The 3d Platoon dug in on the 1st's right on a little exposed nose projecting east between two draws. The section of light machine guns dug in with the 2d Platoon on the left, the 1st (machine gun) Platoon from Company H with the right platoon, and the provisional .50-caliber machine gun platoon alone on the ridge farther to the southwest. One section of Company H 81-mm. mortars had moved up to firing positions to the north of Vossenack as soon as Company G had reached its
objective; after Company F completed its advance, the other sections displaced to the vicinity of the church. Through this day and the next, forward observers from the mortar platoon were with all three rifle companies. Later, because of enemy shelling, observers were pulled back to a central observation post in a house near the eastern end of the town.26
Company E Mops Up
The mission of Company E was to follow Company F at an interval of approximately 300 yards to Vossenack. There it would complete the mopping up of German resistance in the town. One platoon was to move along the edge of the woods on the south behind the right platoon of Company F in order to assist in protecting the battalion's right flank. The 3d Tank Platoon under Lieutenant Novak was to precede Company E into Vossenack and assist in mopping up. One section of machine guns from Company H was also attached.
When the acting company commander of Company E, 1st Lt. James A. Condon, saw Company F moving out at 0830 in preparation for its attack, he began to assemble his men. Lieutenant Condon assumed that Company E was to wait until all of Company F had gone forward, and as time passed Company F's support platoon still did not advance. Company E's premature assembly had brought the men out of their holes and buildings ready to move forward, and thus they fell easy prey to the German artillery and mortar fire which centered on the line of departure. The company suffered a number of casualties.27
Company E's 1st platoon, assigned the right flank security mission, preceded the forward movement of the company's main body, following behind the right flank platoon of Company F about 0920. (See Map VII) The platoon leader, S. Sgt. Edward J. Beck, employed two squads forward and one back with the assault squads in skirmish line and the support squad in squad column echeloned to the right rear.
Evidently not aware of the previous decision to use the more defiladed route north of the Richelskaul-Vossenack road instead of the southern route, Sergeant Beck's men had gone only about 300 yards past the line of departure when two enemy machine guns located in the edge of the woods to the south opened fire. The Company E platoon was pinned to the ground. Although Beck directed his men to work forward by individual rushes, the enemy stopped even that forward movement by plastering mortar fire on the exposed position. One man was killed and several were wounded, including Sergeant Beck.
Several men, one of whom was hysterical and obviously suffering from shock, made their way back individually to the acting company commander in Germeter with varying accounts of what had happened. Finally, as Lieutenant London was starting the remainder of his company toward Vossenack, an assistant squad leader, Sgt. Henry Bart, returned from the hard-pressed platoon and said he was now senior noncommissioned officer in the platoon and in command.
When Sergeant Bart said there were only a few of his men left, Lieutenant Condon told him to "pick up the remnants," evacuate the wounded, and follow the tail of the company through Vossenack. Bart returned to his men, but the enemy fire blocked evacuation. Not until about noon, when the 1st Battalion attacked southeast from Richelskaul and thus relieved the pressure against Company E's 1st Platoon, did two men, Sergeant Bart and Pfc. Clyde Wallace, manage to work around behind the German machine guns and take them from the rear. Private Wallace went back to the battalion command post in Germeter with two prisoners, and the remainder of the platoon, reduced now to about thirteen men, continued into Vossenack.28
While the 1st Platoon was still pinned down in the open field, the remainder of Company E and its attached machine gun section continued on the mission to mop up in Vossenack. (See Map VIII.) In a column of twos on either side of the main road, the men advanced cautiously, checking all buildings and cellars and taking occasional prisoners. Only one man was wounded, a 2d Platoon rifleman, hit in the arm by a shell fragment.29
Lieutenant Novak's three tanks, which were supposed to accompany Company E in the mop-up, soon outdistanced the riflemen and instead assisted Company F in clearing the eastern portion of Vossenack. About 1040, shortly after Company E must have first entered the outskirts of the town, Captain West, the tank company commander, who had moved with Company G to the northeastern nose of the ridge, received a radio message asking for tank support for Company E. On his way back via the southern route to help out, his command tank hit a mine just south of the church, probably in the mine field which Lieutenant Leming's tanks had previously suspected and avoided. Captain West dismounted and found that his battalion headquarters tank had come up. It was near by performing forward observation for the tank battalion's assault gun platoon. West took over the headquarters tank to assist Company E in completing its mop-up. Back on the northeastern nose of the ridge, the tanks that had reached the objective maneuvered around in rear of the infantry positions. There Lieutenant Quarrie's tank threw a track, and the crew could not replace it.30
About 1530 Company E finished its attack mission in Vossenack and began to prepare for the defense. Lieutenant Condon placed his 3d Platoon on the left (north) of town, generally along the line of houses on the northern side of the street, and his 2d Platoon similarly on the right (south) side of town. The remaining men of the 1st Platoon faced to the west in a defense within the town itself, denying the battalion rear. Light enemy artillery fire fell as the company was going into position, and two men were killed, one of them Private Wallace, who had assisted Sergeant Bart in overcoming the German resistance southeast of Germeter and had returned after taking two prisoners to the battalion CP.31
During the afternoon a tank retriever that was sent into Vossenack to tow out
Lieutenant Novak's damaged tank near the church was itself damaged by a direct hit from enemy artillery. With his own tank Lieutenant Leming tried to tow out Lieutenant Quarrie's tank, but his efforts were unsuccessful. The tank company received permission about 1600 to draw back to bivouac positions in the western edge of Vossenack and there went into a circle defense for the night and effected gasoline and ammunition resupply.32
The forward battalion command group had followed the attack closely and by 1630 had established a command post in a house approximately 300 yards east of the church in Vossenack on the south side of the main street. The rear battalion command post moved up after dark, every available man being pressed into service to carry an extra load of ammunition for resupplying the companies.33
Artillery in the Vossenack Attack
The 229th Field Artillery Battalion in direct support of the 112th Infantry fired a total of 1,346 rounds from 0800 to 1200 on 2 November, thus providing continuous artillery support on call during the entire Vossenack attack. In addition to the preparation fires, missions were harassing, counterbattery, and targets of opportunity. Company B, 86th Chemical Battalion, fired 274 high explosive and 225 white phosphorous rounds with its 4.2 mortars, and at various times during the day Vossenack was reported burning and covered with a haze of smoke. Company D, 86th Chemical Battalion, did not fire, having pulled out of firing position to be prepared to follow the 1st and 3d Battalions, 112th Infantry, to Schmidt.34
The 1st Battalion Attacks at H Plus 3 Hours
When the 28th Division moved into the Vossenack-Schmidt area, the 1st Battalion, 112th Infantry, had initially been in regimental reserve, but on 1 November Company A had relieved elements of the 110th Infantry in defense of the junction of the Richelskaul-Rollesbroich road with the Simonskall road to the south. The rest of the battalion had remained in an assembly area a few hundred yards west of Richelskaul. (See Map VII.)
The 112th Infantry's attack plan for 2 November designated the 1st and 3d Battalions to attack cross country at H plus 3 hours (1200) in a column of battalions, the 1st leading. They were to move generally through the wooded part of the southern slope of Vossenack ridge, cross the Kall River, and seize Kommerscheidt. The 3d Battalion was then to take Schmidt, and both were to to be prepared to continue the attack toward the southwest and Steckenborn. This was the division's main effort.35
The 1st Battalion, under the command of Maj. Robert T. Hazlett, was to lead the attack in a column of companies, Company B leading and passing through
Company A's Richelskaul defenses. Company C was to follow Company B on order, and, after Company C had passed through, Company A was then to leave its defenses to follow. Attached to Company B for spearheading the attack was the 1st (machine gun) Platoon of Company D. The 2d (machine gun) Platoon was to support the attack by firing up the wooded draw to the east from positions with Company A at Richelskaul. The 81-mm. mortars were to support on call from a position in a draw in the woods 900 yards behind the line of departure.36
No preparatory artillery barrage preceded the men of Company B as they passed through the Richelskaul defenses shortly after noon in a column of platoons--1st, 3d, 2d, Weapons. The first phase line had been designated as a generally north-south trail, some 400 yards east of Richelskaul, which ambled, south from Vossenack's western outskirts to a juncture in the southern woods with the road to Simonskall. As the 1st Platoon advanced toward that trail, it was fired upon from woods in the vicinity of the trail and pinned to the ground by intense enemy fire from small arms and entrenched automatic weapons. The 1st Platoon leader, 1st Lt. Ralph Spalin, acting as point for his platoon, was instantly killed.
Capt. Clifford T. Hackard, the Company B commander, committed his 3d Platoon to assist the 1st, but in the attempted advance the 3d Platoon leader, 2d Lt. Gerald M. Burril, was hit by the enemy fire. Despite a broken leg, Lieutenant Burril dragged himself into a hole from which he directed mortar fire with his SCR 536. He was not evacuated until after dark when one of the men of his platoon and an aid man brought him out on a litter. Either the loss of its platoon leader or the enemy small arms fire, or both, kept the 3d Platoon from advancing farther.
About one and one-half hours after the jump-off, Captain Hackard committed his 2d Platoon to the action. One squad from the 2d Platoon managed to work its way far enough forward to cross the trail; there it too was stopped by the intense small arms fire. Despite heavy supporting fire from Company D's 81-mm. mortars, the attack was stalemated. At 1510 one concentration of twenty-four rounds was fired by the 229th Field Artillery Battalion at enemy machine guns along the trail just south of Company B's attack route. This was seen by a forward observer and reported as "excellent," but no further mission was recorded as having been fired in this area during the day. Company B still could not advance.37
The 1st Battalion commander, Major Hazlett, went to the regimental command post about 1500 and talked with Colonel Peterson, the regimental commander. On his return, Major Hazlett announced that most of the gain of the day would be held. Because of plans he had received
28th Division Front
Evening, 2 November 1944
for the next day, however, he did not want to leave Company B "stuck so far out front."38 When Captain Hackard made his way back about dusk, Major Hazlett told him to pull back his advance elements (evidently the 2d Platoon) to the remainder of the company, which now was in a small patch of woods about 200 to 250 yards in front of the line of departure, and to dig in there for the night. This move was accomplished after nightfall.39
Thus, the 28th Division's main effort had been halted after its one attacking company had hit stiff German resistance. Except for one mission, artillery support had not been utilized, and neither the other two rifle companies of the 1st Battalion nor any part of the 3d Battalion had been committed. The battalion and regimental commanders apparently decided that, in view of the stiff opposition encountered by Company B and the comparative ease with which the 2d Battalion had taken Vossenack, the attack should be shifted to pass through Vossenack and avoid the resistance facing Richelskaul. At any rate, those were the plans for the next day.40
109th and 110th Infantry Regiments Attack
To the north of the 112th Infantry's divisional main effort, the 109th Infantry had jumped off at H Hour in its attack to protect the division's left flank and secure a line of departure overlooking Huertgen. (Map 20) By 1400 the 1st
Battalion, on the left, had two companies on its objective, the woods line west of the Germeter-Huertgen road. The 3d Battalion had attacked generally up the Huertgen road and committed all three rifle companies. They gained only about 300 to 500 yards before being stopped by a wide enemy mine field. After two companies of the regiment's 2d Battalion had moved up to a close reserve position a few hundred yards behind the 1st Battalion, ostensibly to cover a gap between the 1st and 3d Battalions, the regiment buttoned up for the night.41
The 110th Infantry in the woods to the south had attacked at 1200, its 3d Battalion moving generally southeast in the cross-country direction of Simonskall and its 2d Battalion aiming for eight or ten pillboxes astride the main road south toward Rollesbroich. These pillbox defenses later became known as the Raffelsbrand strong point. Both battalions were stopped after almost no gain by determined resistance and heavily fortified pillboxes. The 1st Battalion, 110th Infantry, was the division's infantry reserve and was not committed. The 110th's attack to reach the Strauch-Schmidt road and thus open the way for the latter phase of the Schmidt operation (the capture of the Strauch-Steckenborn area) had made virtually no progress.42
A vital mission in the Schmidt operation, that of isolating the Vossenack-Schmidt battlefield from large-scale intervention of enemy armor, had been assigned to the aircraft of the IX Tactical Air Command. Although the IX TAC was to continue its usual large-scale offensive against enemy transportation and communications, its main single effort was to be support of the 28th Division. The air plan involved use of five fighter bomber groups--the 365th, 366th, and 368th (P-47's), and 370th and 474th (P-38's)--and the 422d Night Fighter Group (P-61's).
On the first day of the 28th Division attack, a third of the IX TAC aircraft were to perform armed reconnaissance on all roads leading out of Schmidt to a limit of 25 miles, and another third were to attack special targets and drop leaflet bombs in support of the division. But weather conditions prevented the first planes from taking off from their base at Verviers, Belgium, until 1234. Two of five group missions were canceled and two others were vectored far afield in search of targets of opportunity. One mission did succeed: twelve P-38's of the 474th Fighter Bomber Group attacked Bergstein at 1445 and continued on to hit barges on the Roer River, a Roer bridge at Heimbach, and two factories east of Nideggen. The 28th Division air control officer reported that one squadron mistakenly bombed an American artillery
OBJECTIVE: PILLBOXES. Troops of the 110th Infantry, on 2 November, moving through the woods (above). One of the heavily fortified pillboxes near Rollesbroich (below).
position near Roetgen and caused twenty-four American casualties (including seven killed) before attacking Schmidt.43
The Enemy Situation
On 2 November staff officers of Army Group B, the Fifth Panzer and Seventh Armies, and several corps and divisions, including the 116th Panzer Division, were meeting with Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model, Army Group B commander, at Schlenderhan Castle, near Quadrath, west of Cologne, for a map study. The subject of the study was a theoretical American attack along the boundary of the two armies in the Huertgen area. Not long after the meeting began, a telephone call from the chief of staff of the LXXIV Corps told of actual American attacks north of Germeter and in the direction of Vossenack. The message said the situation was critical and asked for reserve troops from Seventh Army because LXXIV Corps did not have the men available to close the gaps already opened up by the American attacks. Field Marshal Model directed the LXXIV Corps commander to return to his command and ordered the other officers to continue the map study with the actual situation as subject.
As the map study continued, reports of the 28th Division's attack continued to come in, and it was decided to commit immediately a Kampfgruppe of the 116th Panzer Division to assist local reserves in a counterattack against the 109th Infantry's penetration north of Germeter. The remainder of the 116th Panzer Division was to follow later from its rest area near Muenchen-Gladbach. The chance presence of the various major commanders at the map conference facilitated preparations for this counterattack. It was designed to hit at dawn on 3 November to eliminate the 109th Infantry's northern penetration and to push farther south so as to cut off the Vossenack penetration of the 112th Infantry. This was virtually the same type of counterattack which had threatened the 9th Infantry Division when it had held this area.44
Summary for 2 November and Night of 2-3 November
Beginning with a heavy artillery barrage at 0800 on 2 November, the 28th Division attack on Schmidt had met varying degrees of success. The 2d Battalion, 112th Infantry, had made one of the more notable advances of the day in seizing Vossenack and the Vossenack ridge. Although the 1st Battalion, 112th Infantry, had attempted an attack southeast from Richelskaul toward Kommerscheidt and Schmidt, its one committed company had been held up by small arms fire and the attack not pursued, although the remainder of that battalion, plus the entire 3d Battalion and a company of medium tanks, had been available. During the night plans were issued for a new attack the next morning to take the same objectives via a different route.
To the north one battalion of the 109th
Infantry had reached the woods line overlooking Huertgen, while another had been held up by a previously unlocated mine field. To the south the 110th Infantry in a two-battalion attack had gained nothing except comparatively heavy casualties and the knowledge that its opposition was much stiffer than had been expected.
Although artillery support had been excellent, except in the attack of the 1st Battalion, 112th Infantry, where it was not requested, air support had been negligible. Attached engineers had concerned themselves primarily with maintenance of roads in rear areas, although Company C, 103d Engineers, had cleared mines east of Germeter and had gone into Vossenack after dark for road clearance.
After dark all three regiments buttoned up for the night, evidently confining themselves to resupply, for there was no record of any patrolling. Meanwhile, the Germans, their defense facilitated by a chance map conference at Army Group B headquarters, were planning a dawn counterattack to eliminate both the 109th and 112th Infantry penetrations.
The 28th Division's main effort for Kommerscheidt and Schmidt had on 2 November been pushed with a surprising lack of vigor, presumably because a decision was made somewhere in command channels that the original attack plan would not be followed. Although this decision was probably based on success in Vossenack as compared with stiff opposition on the original route of advance, it had nevertheless set back considerably the hour by which Schmidt might be taken. But on 3 November the 112th Infantry would make another attempt to capture the objective.
1. Although the official German name for the fortified belt along the western German frontier was Westwall, it was known to American troops as the Siegfried Line.
2. A misnomer. The "Huertgen Forest" was actually only a small part of a forest mass extending from southeast of Eschweiler (Meroder Wald) to the area Lammersdorf-Rollesbroich-Steckenborn. It included the Wenau Forest, the Roetgen Forest, and other subdivisions. Since the entire forest mass was known to American troops as the "Huertgen Forest," this term is used throughout this narrative.
3. Although this objective has come to be considered one of the more important of the Schmidt operation, neither V Corps nor 28th Division attack orders mentioned it. According to an interview with Col Carl L. Peterson (formerly CO, 112th Inf), Bradford, Pa., 21-22-23 Sep 48, the Roer dams "never entered the picture." While the First United States Army Report of Operations--1 August 1944-22 February 1945 (hereafter cited as FUSA Rpt) does say that the Schmidt attack was "a preliminary phase of a plan by V Corps to seize the two large dams on the Roer River . . . ," 28th Division troops probably did not consider the dams an objective. Just when the American command fully realized the importance of the dams is not clear. The German command thought the 28th Division attack was aimed at them, and the violent German reaction was based primarily on fear of losing the dams. See postwar German accounts, MSS # A-891 and A-892 by Generalmajor Rudolf Freiherr von Gersdorff (formerly CofS of Seventh Army); MS # C-016 by General der Infanterie Erich Straube (formerly CG of LXXIV Corps); European Theater Historical Interview (hereafter cited as ETHINT) 53 of Gersdorff; ETHINT 56 of Gersdorff and Generalmajor Siegfried von Waldenburg (formerly CG of 116th Panzer Division). For a fuller discussion of the question, see The Siegfried Line, a volume under preparation in the series UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II.
4. The 1171st Engr (C) Gp also included the following: the 502d Engr Lt Pon Co, the 668th Engr Top Co (detached during this opn), the 993d Engr Tdwy Br Co, and the 2d Plat, 610th Engr Lt Equip Co. These units performed rear area duties and are not mentioned further in this narrative.
5. Combat Interv 77 with Cota. This dictation by V Corps was apparently based on the limitations of terrain, number of troops involved, and missions of the attack as originally decided by First Army and 12th Army Group. (All combat interviews on the Schmidt operation are by the 2d Information and Historical Service and were conducted in November 1944 or early December 1944.)
6. Engr story is from the following: V Corps Factual Study, Opns of the 28th Inf Div, Engr Sec, 2-9 Nov 44 (hereafter cited as V Corps Study); Engr Plan, 30 Oct 44, 28th Div G-3 Jnl File, Oct 44. For a further discussion of the security problem, see below, Ch. III, n. 10.
7. Interv with Cota, Washington, D. C., 15 Sep 48.
8. All clock time given is that officially designated by the Allies; during this period it was British Summer Time.
9. Unless otherwise noted, this introduction is based on the following sources: FUSA Rpt; V Corps Opns in the ETO, 6 Jan 42 to 9 May 45; V Corps Study; V Corps FO 30, 21 Oct 44, and V Corps Ltrs of Instn, 23 Oct 44 and 30 Oct 44, V Corps G-3 Jnl and File, Oct 44; 28th Div G-3 Jnl and File, 26 Oct-2 Nov 44; Combat Interv 77 with Cota; Combat Interv 74, General Notes on 28th's Opns; 28th Div AAR, Nov 44; V Corps G-2 Jnl and File, Oct 44; FO 25, 28th Div G-3 File, 29 Oct 44; Intervs with Peterson and with Cota.
10. MS # A-891 (Gersdorff); MS # A-905 (Waldenburg); ETHINT 53 (Gersdorff); ETHINT 56 (Gersdorff and Waldenburg); ETHINT 57 (Gersdorff); I c (G-2) Sit Map, 1 Nov 44, found in OB WEST Kriegstagebuch, Anlagen (War Diary Annexes), Befehle and Meldungen, 1.-10.XI.44 (hereafter cited as OB WEST KTB Anlagen 1.-10.XI.44). OB WEST was the abbreviation of the headquarters of Oberbefehlshaber West, Commander in Chief in the West. See also Relief Schedule, Abloesungsplan, 28 Oct 44, found in OB WEST KTB Anlage 50 1.VII.-31.XII.44., Vol. I, 24.X.-31.XII.44.
11. No copy of 112th Inf FO 30 can be found. This information is based on 112th Inf Atk Overlays, 31 Oct 44, 28th Div G-3 File; 28th Div G-3 Jnl, Oct 44; 112th Inf Atk Overlay, 1st Bn Plan of Attack, 31 Oct 44, 112th Inf S-3 File, Nov 44; all combat intervs for the period. The general plan is supported by FO 25, 28th Div G-3 File, 29 Oct 44.
12. Combat Interv 75 with the following: Maj Richard A. Dana, S-3, 112th Inf; Capt John D. Pruden, Ex Off and later CO, 2d Bn, 112th Inf; 1st Lt James A. Condon, Ex Off, Co E, 112th Inf; 1st Lt Eldeen Kauffman, CO, Co F, 112th Inf. The attack overlays dated 31 October 1944 in the 28th Division G-3 File indicate that another platoon of Company E was to advance through the edge of the woods north of Vossenack to protect the battalion's left flank, but this plan evidently did not develop. No mention of it is made in the OCMH combat interviews or unit journals, and the interview with Colonel Peterson indicates that he recalls no such arrangement.
13. Combat Interv 76 with the following: 1st Lt James J. Leming, 2d Lt William D. Quarrie, S Sgt Paul F. Jenkins, and 1st Lt James J. Ryan. All of Company C, 707th Tk Bn. See also V Corps Study; Combat Interv 75 with Condon.
14. Combat Interv 75 with Capt Charles L. Crain, CO, Co H, 112th Inf.
15. Combat Interv 75 with Condon and Capt John T. Nesbitt, S-1, 2d Bn, 112th Inf; 112th Inf Atk Overlay, 31 Oct 44. Information on the 112th Infantry Cannon Company is meager. Maj. Albert L. Berndt, 112th Infantry Surgeon, in a letter to the Historical Division, 18 Oct 48, says the company continued to support the operation from its original positions throughout the attack. Records show that in later stages of the operation Cannon Company, 112th, was attached to the 109th Infantry.
16. Interv with Peterson; V Corps Opns in the ETO; V Corps Arty S-3 Jnl, 2 Nov 44.
17. Combat Interv 75 with 112th Inf personnel; Combat Interv 76 with Leming-Quarrie-Jenkins-Ryan.
18. Combat Interv 76 with Leming-Quarrie-Jenkins-Ryan; Combat Interv 75 with 1st Lt Clyde R. Johnson, Co G, 112th Inf.
19. Combat Interv 75 with Crain; Combat Interv 76 with Leming-Quarrie-Jenkins-Ryan.
20. Combat Interv 75 with Johnson; 112th Inf S-3 Jnl, 2 Nov 44.
21. Combat Interv 76 with Leming-Quarrie-Jenkins-Ryan; Combat Interv 75 with Kauffman.
22. Combat Interv 75 with Kauffman and S Sgt Charles W. Cascarano, Co F, 112th Inf. See also 28th Div citation recommendation for Lt Wine in Combat Interv 75 File.
23. Combat Interv 75 with Kauffman.
24. Combat Interv 76 with Leming-Quarrie-Jenkins-Ryan.
25. Combat Interv 77 with Kauffman, Condon; Combat Interv 76 with Leming-Quarrie-Jenkins-Ryan; 112th Inf S-3 Jnl, 2 Nov 44.
26. Combat Interv 75 with Kauffman, Crain, Cascarano. There is no available information on placement of Company F's 60-mm. mortars.
27. Combat Interv 75 with Condon, Crain, Pruden, 1st Lt Clifton W. Beggs, Co E, 112th Inf; Combat Interv 76 with Leming-Quarrie-Jenkins-Ryan.
28. Combat Interv 75 with Condon and Col Gustin M. Nelson, CO (after 7 Nov 44), 112th Inf.
29. Combat Interv 75 with Condon.
30. Combat Interv 76 with Leming-Quarrie-Jenkins-Ryan.
31. Combat Interv 75 with Condon.
32. Combat Interv 76 with Leming-Quarrie-Jenkins-Ryan.
33. Combat Interv 75 with Nesbitt.
34. 28th Div Arty Jnl, 2 Nov 44; 28th Div G-3 Jnl, 2 Nov 44; Hq and Hq Co, 28th Div Arty, AAR, Nov 44; 86th Cml Bn AAR, Nov 44.
35. Combat Interv 75 with the following: Dana; S Sgt Nathanuel M. Quinton, 1st Sgt Harvey B. Hausman, T Sgt George A. Lockwood, S Sgt Stephen J. Kertes, and Sgt Travis C. Norton. Last five of Co A, 112th Inf. See also 112th Inf Atk Overlay, 31 Oct 44.
36. Combat Interv 75 with the following: S Sgt Eugene Holden, 2d Bn Hq Co, 112th Inf; S Sgt Joseph R. Perll, Co C, 112th Inf; Capt Richard Gooley, S-1, 1st Bn, 112th Inf; 1st Lt Jack E. Kelly and Sgt Thomas G. Hunter. Last two from Co D, 112th Inf.
37. Combat Interv 75 with S Sgt Roy W. Littlehales and Pfc Clarence J. Skain. Both of Co B, 112th Inf. See also Combat Interv 75 with Holden, Kelly-Hunter; 28th Div Arty Jnl, 2 Nov 44. The combat interviews do not specifically state the commitment of the 2d Platoon, although they do state that one squad of this platoon worked its way across the trail. No mention is made of the use of Company B's attached heavy machine gun platoon from Company D.
38. Combat Interv 75 with Holden.
40. 112th Inf S-3 Jnl, 2 Nov 44. There is little mention of this attack in either combat interviews or unit journals, and some combat interviews indicate that some men even thought it was a "limited objective" attack. General Cota knows of no reason why this attack was not pushed with more vigor; it was not his intention that it be abandoned. See Interv with Cota. According to Colonel Peterson, it was not to be a major attack. See Interv with Peterson. The applicable FO is missing (see n. 11 above), but the attack overlays agree with the version as herein presented and are substantiated by Ltr, Brig Gen George A. Davis (formerly asst div comdr, 28th Div) to Hist Div, 27 Dec 49, which says, "This was definitely the main effort and it was not to pass through Vossenack."
41. Combat Interv 77 with 109th Inf personnel; 109th Inf S-2 and S-3 Jnls, 2 Nov 44; 28th Div G-3 Jnl, 2 Nov 44.
42. Combat Interv 77 with 110th Inf personnel and Notes on Opns of the 110th Inf; 110th Inf, S-2 and S-3 Jnls, 2 Nov 44; 28th Div G-3 Jnl, 2 Nov 44.
43. FUSA and IX TAC Sum of Air Opns, 2 Nov 44, in Unit History, IX Fighter Command and IX TAC, 1-30 Nov 44 (hereafter cited as FUSA and IX TAC Sum); V Corps Study, G-3 Air Sec; Combat Interv 74 with Maj Edwin M. Howison, Air Ln Off from IX TAC to 28th Div; 28th Div G-3 Air Jnl, Nov 44.
44. MSS # A-891 and A-892 (Gersdorff); MS # A-905 (Waldenburg); ETHINT 53 (Gersdorff); Noon Sit Rpt, 3 Nov 44, found in OB WEST KTB Anlagen 1.-10.XI.44.
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To finish Aladdin's Window—i.e. to attempt to complete something begun by a great genius, but left imperfect. The genius of the lamp built a palace with twenty-four windows, all but one being set in frames of precious stones; the last was left for the sultan to finish; but after exhausting his treasures, the sultan was obliged to abandon the task as hopeless.
Tait's second part of Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel is an Aladdin's Window.
Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
More on Aladdin's Window from Infoplease:
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Islamic slavery has been the most horrible, yet the least known slavery in history. So, author M. A. Khan decided to publish the chapter "Islamic Slavery" from his book "Islamic Jihad: A Legacy of Forced Conversion, Imperialism and Slavery". This part contains: 1) INTRODUCTION, 2) THE QURANIC SANCTION OF SLAVERY, 3) THE PROPHETIC MODEL OF SLAVERY. (Part 2)
"Allah sets forth (another) Parable of two men: one of them dumb, with no power of any sort; a wearisome burden is he to his master; whichever way he directs him, he brings no good: is such a man equal with one who commands Justice, and is on a Straight Way?" --- Allah, in Quran 16:76
"(Allah) brought those of the People of the Scripture… and cast panic into their hearts. Some (adult males) ye slew, and ye made captive some (women and children)." --- Allah, in Quran 33:26–27
"It is written in the Quran that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their (Muslims’) authority were sinners; that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners; and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise." --- Tripoli’s London ambassador Abd al-Rahman to Thomas Jefferson & John Adams (1786) on by what right the Barbary States enslaved American seamen.
The cover image shows Muhammad & his followers on a
Jihad raid, in which he used to plunder and capture the
women and children as slaves.
Slavery is a socio-economic institution, in which some human individuals, called slaves, become property of others, called masters or owners. Devoid of freedom and liberty, slaves are expected to provide loyal and diligent service for the comfort and economic well-being of their masters. Deprived of any human rights, slaves are the unconditional possession of their owners: mere chattels, having no right to leave, refuse work, or receive compensation for their labor. The position of slaves in society in many respects is akin to that of domesticated animals. Just as cows, horses and other beasts of burden are trained and utilized for economic advantage, such as for pulling carts or plowing fields—slaves are exploited for the benefit, comfort and economic well-being of the owner. Slave-trade, integral to slavery, involves buying and selling of human beings as a commodity like any other commercial transaction. Slavery, in essence, is the exploitation of the weak by the strong and has a very long history.
One major criticism of the West by all, and particularly by Muslims, pertains to the trans-Atlantic slave‑trade by European powers and their mindless exploitation and degrading treatment of slaves in the Americas and West Indies. Muslims are often quick to point fingers at the European slave-trade; they often claim that the exploitation of slaves enabled countries like the United States to amass the huge wealth they enjoy today. One young Muslim, born in America, wrote: ‘Do you know how the American slave-hunters went to Africa, seized the black people and brought them to America as slaves? America’s economic power owes a great deal to the labor of those slaves’ (personal communication). Terming the 350-year trans-Atlantic slave-trade ‘the worst and most cruel slavery’ in history, the Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan claims that some white Americans do not know that ‘they are in the privileged position… today based on what happened to us (Blacks)’ in the past. An overwhelming majority of Muslims believe that Islamic history is devoid of the abhorrent practice of slavery. Rocky Davis (aka Shahid Malik), an Australian Aboriginal convert to Islam, told the ABC Radio that ‘Christianity were the founders of slavery. Not Islam.’ When Muslims in India talk about the practice of slavery in the subcontinent—they talk about the harrowing tales of how the Portuguese transported slaves from coastal areas of Goa, Kerala and Bengal in terrible conditions. It is already noted that history books in Pakistan teach that before Islam, there was exploitation and slavery, which vanished with the coming of Islam. They will never talk about the slavery that Muslim invaders and rulers practiced on a grand scale in India.
This Muslim silence about the widespread practice slavery under Islamic rules, such as in India, likely results from their ignorance of historical facts. In modern history writing in India, there is extensive whitewashing of the atrocities that took place during the Muslim invasions and the subsequent Islamic rule. Such distortions of the true picture of Islamic history compound Muslims’ ignorance about Islamic atrocities in medieval India and create an erroneous perception amongst them about the extensive slavery practised by Muslim rulers. As recounted throughout this book, slavery was regrettably a prominent institution throughout the history of Islamic domination everywhere. It also had unique features, namely large-scale concubinage, eunuchs, and ghilman (described below).
THE QURANIC SANCTION OF SLAVERY
The institution of slavery in Islam was formalized in the following Quranic verse, in which Allah distinguishes free human beings or masters, who exercise justice and righteousness, from the dumb, useless and burdensome ones, the slaves:
Allah sets forth (another) Parable of two men: one of them dumb, with no power of any sort; a wearisome burden is he to his master; whichever way he directs him, he brings no good: is such a man equal with one who commands Justice, and is on a Straight Way? [Quran 16:76]
Allah warns the believers against taking the slaves as equal partner in status and in sharing their wealth, lest they have to fear them as anyone else:
…do ye have partners among those whom your right hands possess (i.e., slaves, captives) to share as equals in the wealth We have bestowed on you? Do ye fear them as ye fear each other? [Quran 30:28]
Allah recognizes some human beings, namely the masters, as more blessed by Himself than the less favored slaves as part of His divine plan. He warns Muslims against sharing His gifts to them equally with their slaves. Those who would take slaves as equal, warns Allah, would deny Him:
Allah has bestowed His gifts of sustenance more freely on some of you than on others: those more favoured are not going to throw back their gifts to those whom their right hands possess, so as to be equal in that respect. Will they then deny the favours of Allah? [Quran 16:71]
Allah does not only sanction the institution of slavery, He also gave divine blessing to masters (Muslim men only can own slaves) to have sex with the female slaves:
And those who guard their private parts, Except in the case of their wives or those whom their right hands possess—for these surely are not to be blamed [Quran 70:29–30]
And who guard their private parts, except before their mates or those whom their right hands possess, for they surely are not blameable [Quran 23:5–6]
Therefore, if there are women amongst the captives or slaves, Muslims are divinely sanctioned to have sex with them as they do with their wives. This verdict of Allah founded the institution of sex-slavery or slave-concubinage in Islam, which was widespread in the pre-colonial Muslim world and continued well into the mid-twentieth century. As far as legal marriage is concerned, there is a limitation of four wives for a man at one time [Quran 4:3], but no such limitation on the number of sex-slaves.
Allah also gave a divine sanction to Muslims for acquiring female slaves for sexual engagement by waging wars against the infidels:
O Prophet! surely We have made lawful to you your wives whom you have given their dowries, and those whom your right hand possesses out of those whom Allah has given to you as prisoners of war… [Quran 33:50]
Muslims can engage in sex with the captured slave women even if they are married, but not with the married free Muslim women:
Also (prohibited are) women already married, except those whom your right hands possess… [Quran 4:24].
There are other verses in the Quran that talks approvingly of slaves and capturing them in wars. Thus, according to the divine commands of the Islamic God as enshrined in the holy Quran, Muslims are allowed to keep slaves. They can amass slaves by waging wars, have sex with the female slaves, and of course, use them as they wish. For Muslims, having sex with female slaves is as legal as having sex with their married wives. Slavery appears to be one of the most desired divine privileges in Islam, since Allah took the pain of reminding Muslims about this divine right time and again in so many verses.
THE PROPHETIC MODEL OF SLAVERY
Allah did not rest with repeatedly reminding Muslims to engage in slavery, but also took the initiative to guide Prophet Muhammad on how to enslave the infidels, such as in the following verse:
And He (Allah) brought those of the People of the Scripture (i.e., Banu Qurayza) who supported them (i.e., the Quraysh) down from their strongholds, and cast panic into their hearts. Some (adult males) ye slew, and ye made captive some (women and children)… [Quran 33:26–27]
In this verse, Allah charged the Banu Qurayza Jews with supporting the Quraysh of Mecca "from their strongholds" against Muslims in the battle of the Trench (627). Based on this unsubstantiated accusation, Allah commanded that some of the Jews, the adult males, were to be slain, and the rest, the women and children, enslaved. The Prophet duly complied with this divine command. He distributed the enslaved women and children among his disciples, himself acquiring one-fifth of them. The young and pretty ones amongst the female captives were made sex-slaves; the Prophet himself took beautiful Rayhana, whose husband and family members had been slain in the massacre. He took her to bed on the same night.
After conquering Khaybar the following year, Muhammad carried away their women and children as slaves. In many other attacks, the Prophet and his followers enslaved and carried away the women and children of the vanquished. Therefore, after aggressively attacking and defeating the infidels, enslaving the women and children became a model of Muhammad’s wars. Some of the slaves could be sold or ransomed for generating revenues. The young and pretty ones amongst the female captives became sex-slaves.
Since emulating Muhammad in action and deed is central to living a good Muslim life in Islamic thought, Muslims duly embraced his model of slavery (comprising enslavement, slave-trade and slave-concubinage) and perpetuated it during the later centuries of Islamic domination. Muhammad’s example of dealing with the Jews of Banu Qurayza or Khaybar became the standard template for capturing slaves. This led to a massive rise in enslavement, sex-slavery and slave-trade in medieval Islamdom. After Muhammad’s death, Muslims—armed with sanctions of the Quran and Sunnah—embarked on an unbridled mission of waging holy war to conquer the world for the purpose of spreading Islam and expanding Islamic rule. As Islam burst out of Arabia, Muslim invaders became adept at capturing the vanquished infidels, particularly the women and children, in large numbers as slaves.
In Islamic thoughts (as noted already), the civilizations preceding and outside of Islam are jahiliyah or erroneous in nature, invalidated with the coming of Islam. Only Muslims were in the sole possession of truth in the form of the true faith of Islam. In their thoughts, the world outside the boundary and religion of Islam, notes Bernard Lewis, ‘was inhabited by the infidels and barbarians. Some of these were recognized as possessing some form of religion and a tincture of civilization. The remainder, polytheists and idolaters, were seen primarily as sources of slaves.’ Muslims captured slaves in such great numbers that slave-trade became a booming business enterprise; markets across the Muslim world became teeming with slaves. Accordingly, ‘it goes to the credit of Islam to create slave trade on a large scale, and run it for profit like any other business,’ writes Lal.
(Complete bibliography will be posted in the last part)
. Farrakhan L, What does America and Europe Owe?, Final CalL, 2 June 2008
. ABC Radio, Aboriginal Da’wah - "Call to Islam", 22 March 2006; http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s1597410.htm
. Famous scholar Abu Ala Maududi in his interpretation of this verse notes: “When you do not make your own slaves partners in your wealth, how do you think and believe that Allah will make His creatures partner in His Godhead?” [Maududi AA, Towards Understanding the Quran, Markazi Muktaba Islami Publishers, New Delhi, Vol. VIII]. In other words, associating partners with Allah, which is the most abhorrent thing to do in Islam, is tantamount for a man to take his slaves as equal partner.
. Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, Oxford University Press, Karachi, p. 461-70
. Lewis B (1966) The Arabs in History, Oxford University Press, New York p. 42
. Lal KS (1994) Muslim Slave System in Medieval India, Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi, p. 6
written by Cyril Methodius , September 04, 2011
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POSTED: Friday, February 24, 2012 - 11:39am
UPDATED: Thursday, March 1, 2012 - 9:21am
BROWNSVILLE — Is it a kid being a kid? Or is it something more? A child may be easily distracted, has trouble staying on task, and even talks out of turn, things that just about every kid experiences at one time or another, but these are also just a few signs of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. So when does this behavior cross over from being a normal kid to being a child that's suffering from a neurological disorder?
“Parents come in under a tremendous amount of pressure; it's not unusual for the parent to say, "The teacher can't take it anymore," says pediatrician, Dr. Carmen Rocco.
The Center for Disease Control reports that over five million children have been diagnosed with ADHD. To put that into perspective, that's about one in every ten school aged children; kids between the ages of four and seventeen.
"It's a neurological deficit. It's an area of the brain that is impacted. It's not able to function correctly, so it's like that area of the brain, from my understanding, shuts down," says BISD Special Services School Psychology Specialist, Cyndi Trevino.
This impairment prevents a child from paying attention, causes him or her to be hyperactive, and very impulsive.
Here’s a list of some of the common characteristics of a child suffering from ADHD, this list is directly from the Center for Disease Control:
-squirms and fidgets
-talks too much
-does not play quietly
-acts and speaks without thinking
-has trouble taking turns
Cyndi Trevino, who works for BISD Special Services, accesses children who are referred to her, by either parents or teachers, for these characteristics.
“This is something that is within the brain, it's neurological, it will never go away. It will be with this child all the way through adulthood. The responsibility placed on the child's shoulders, the parents shoulders and on the teachers shoulders is how we can help the child learn to compensate and be successful," says Trevino.
While Trevino does not diagnose, she simply helps in making recommendations on whether a child could benefit from further services or what changes can be made in the classroom and even at home to provide structure for the child.
The diagnosis comes from a psychologist or a pediatrician, but a proper diagnosis takes time. Dr. Rocco says several factors need to be met to truly diagnose a child with ADHD. The American Academy of Pediatrics clearly states which factors must be present. For one, a child must exhibit ADHD characteristics before the age of seven and two, the behavior must be present in multiple settings, not just the classroom. She says in many cases, parents and or teachers are quick to think a kid needs to be medicated.
"I always feel like we need to give a child a full benefit, they deserve that and so I often tell parents, "Don't be disappointed, but you're a not going to walk out of here with medication today. I can give you a letter that outlines what our plans are going to be, but we're not going to give a medication until we're certain that this is going to help your child," says Dr. Rocco.
She adds if a child is accurately diagnosed, medication in combination with counseling is necessary. Ultimately a child needs to learn coping skills so they can grow into productive adults.
Unfortunately, Dr. Rocco says that mental health services are limited in the valley, which can be particularly concerning, especially since the number of Hispanic children diagnosed with ADHD is on the rise.
But there is help; it may just take a little longer to get it. Dr. Rocco says on average, getting into see this type of mental health professional may take four to six weeks, but she leaves parents with this message of motivation....
"There is no reason why a child with ADHD will not come out a very successful adult. We've seen it. It takes, like everything else in childhood, a village, the school, the parents, the community to understand them and help them along the way."
For more information on ADHD and resources click on the link below:
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According to the Environmental Working Group: "We found that consumers using sunscreens without zinc and titanium would be exposed to an average of 20% more UVA radiation — with increased risks for UVA-induced skin damage, premature aging, wrinkling, and UV-induced immune system damage — than consumers using zinc- and titanium-based products"
The common complaint by users of sunscreen products containing zinc has been regarding the white coating it leaves on the skin. This is where nanoparticles come in - particles that are smaller than 100 nanometers (or "nm" — a nanometer is roughly half the size of a strand of DNA). Zinc is shrunk into tiny particles measuring under 100nm, providing better protection and eliminating the white cast.
Nanoparticles have come under close scrutiny by some watchdog groups concerned over the possible health effects of nanoparticles entering the deep tissues, blood or lungs. Research on the subject to date has had varied outcomes. The level of nano-scale zinc found in the body has ranged from zero to little, or greater amounts, dependant on how it is introduced to the system and its size. In their most recent sunscreen guide, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) writes:
In 15 peer-reviewed studies, nanosize zinc and titanium were shown not to penetrate through unbroken skin at concentrations exceeding 1.5%. A recent review for the EU decision-making body found that, "There is currently little evidence from skin penetration studies that dermal applications of metal oxide nanoparticles used in sunscreens Lead to systemic exposure" (Börm 2006).
The majority of sunscreens available for purchase in the US include nanoscale zinc, typically 30 to 200 nm in size. And because labeling laws are unclear where nanoparticles are concerned, it can be difficult to know if you are purchasing a product that contains nanoparticle ingredients or not. The FDA has not yet set standards for nanoparticle claims or defined the minimum size of a nanoparticle. This has caused some individuals and groups to recommend consumers avoid zinc and titanium-based sunscreens altogether.
But this recommendation is not necessarily the safest option. A study by the EWG shows that those using chemical sunscreens are exposed to both greater UV radiation and more hazardous ingredients. Micronized zinc is shown to provide safer protection than either chemical sunscreens or unprotected sun exposure.
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Build any Major Scale
Building A Major Scale
Just like with building triads, building a major scale is about understanding the intervals between each note of the scale. If you understand this, you can build any major scale.
All major scales follow this pattern:
(W = Whole Step, H = Half Step)
W - W - H - W - W - W - H
So let's look at the notes of a C major scale. They are shown below with the interval between each note in parenthesis:
C (W) D (W) E (H) F (W) G (W) A (W) B (H) C
A good way to practice is to just pick a random note on the keyboard and then build your major scale. Learning your scales this way will make sure you don't ever forget the notes in a major scale.
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What is cardiology?
Cardiology is the science and study of the cardiac (heart) system. It pertains to heart disorders, including diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart defects, coronary artery disease, electrophysiology, heart failure and valvular heart disease. It is a subspecialty of internal medicine.Who are cardiologists and what do they do?
Cardiologists diagnose and treat patients of all ages who may have heart defects, heart failure, coronary artery disease or other heart conditions. Some cardiologists distinguish themselves as interventional cardiologists and perform invasive procedures such as cardiac catheterization and coronary artery stent placement. However, they usually do not perform major surgeries such as open heart surgery and coronary artery bypass grafting; those are performed by cardio-thoracic surgeons. Cardiologists may work in private practice or at a hospital.
Cardiologists are doctors trained in internal medicine, with four years of medical school and three years of internal medicine residency followed by 2-3 years of additional training in a cardiology fellowship.What are the different types of cardiologists?
There are two types of cardiologists: noninvasive or invasive.
Noninvasive cardiologists diagnose patients’ heart disorders and focus on preventing and managing potential heart conditions. They may recommend and perform tests to detect and help diagnose heart disorders, such as ECHOs, electrocardiograms (EKGs) and stress tests. A new development in treatment is nuclear cardiology, in which a nuclear camera is used to take photographs of the heart.
Invasive cardiologists are similar to noninvasive cardiologists and can perform all the same functions, tests and diagnostic procedures, but also have training in cardiac catherization, a process that helps locate blockages in the arteries. The invasive cardiologist would then perform an angioplasty or other necessary procedure.What are the most common symptoms and conditions that concern a cardiologist?
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- Abnormal heart rhythm – An irregular heartbeat or “arrhythmia”; either a slow, rapid or irregular heartbeat.
- Atrial fibrillation – Abnormal heartbeats due to fibrillating (quivering) atria heart muscles, diagnosed when an irregular pulse is taken.
- Chest pains – A symptom of various conditions ranging from nonserious to life-threatening, chest pains are generally considered a medical emergency that need immediate medical attention.
- Congestive heart failure – The heart can’t pump blood normally (heart failure), leaving the body without enough oxygen or blood flow, resulting in backed-up fluid in the lungs (congestion).
- Heart defects – Abnormal conditions or disease affecting the heart, present at birth or that develop later in life.
- Heart disease – Diseases affecting the heart – the leading cause of death in the United States.
- Heart failure – The heart can’t pump blood normally, depriving the body of the blood flow and oxygen it needs, sometimes leading to congestive heart failure.
- Myocarditis – Inflammation, mainly secondary to infection, of the heart muscle that may weaken the pumping function of the heart.
- Pericarditis – Inflammation of the membrane around the heart, usually secondary to infection, but may be caused by other chronic health problems. Sharp chest pain may occur when the inflamed pericardium rubs against the heart muscle (myocardium) itself.
- Pulmonary hypertension – An increase in blood pressure in the pulmonary artery, vein or capillaries that results in shortness of breath and significant strain on the heart.
- Shortness of breath – A symptom of a wide variety of heart disorders, ranging from non-serious to life threatening, such as heart attack or congestive heart failure.
| 3.254915 |
What is general surgery?
Despite its name, general surgery typically refers to surgery on abdominal organs rather than other areas of the body. This specialty focuses on the intestines, including esophagus, stomach, small bowel, colon, liver, pancreas, gallbladder and bile duct, thyroid glands, hernias and sometimes diseases of the skin and breast.What is a general surgeon and what do they do?
With the trend for physicians and surgeons to develop a specialty through additional medical training, general surgery has lost much of its former scope. However, it continues to be a competitive field with many subspecialties that continue to increase, including trauma surgery, cardiothoracic surgery, vascular surgery, plastic surgery, laparoscopic
(minimally invasive) surgery, breast surgery (including lumpectomy
), endocrine (thyroid) surgery and dermatological (skin) surgery.Where do general surgeons work?
General surgeons perform surgery in hospital operating rooms. They may also work out of a clinic to consult with potential patients, current patients, or follow up with patients post-surgery. They may work in surgery centers performing outpatient surgeries. General surgeons are also on call for the emergency room (ER) for patients with emergent surgical problems. General surgeons are on call to the ER along with other specialists, including those in neurosurgery, cardiology, urology and more. For example, a general surgeon will be called by the ER for consultation when a patient is diagnosed with problems, such as (but not limited to) appendicitis, bowel obstruction or cholecystitis. The general surgeon will then admit the patient to the hospital and arrange for the operating room. What are the most common conditions general surgeons treat?
Related Articles: How Safe Is Outpatient Surgery? Surgery Support
- Appendicitis - A surgical emergency involving an infected and inflamed appendix. Current literature supports surgical removal due to risk of rupture and its associated complications.
- Adhesions – Internal scar tissue that creates strands, usually throughout the abdomen, which can entangle loops of bowel and lead to obstruction. They are often the result of a previous surgical procedure or intra-abdominal infection.
- Cancer – General surgeons perform surgery on many types of cancer, including breast, skin, colorectal and gastrointestinal cancers.
- Colon cancer – Cancer of the colon or rectum occurs when intestinal cells mutate to create a tumor. These tumors can spread throughout the body.
- Diaphragmatic hernia – A congenital condition in which there is an abnormal opening in the diaphragm, allowing abdominal organs to translocate into the chest cavity, causing breathing difficulty.
- Gallbladder problem – Gallbladder problems sometimes stem from gallstones if they block the flow of bile out of the gallbladder. Sometimes, even without gallstones, the gallbladder can become infected, resulting in abdominal pain, vomiting, indigestion and fever. Depending on the nature of the gallbladder problem, either conservative treatment with pain medications or surgical removal of the gallbladder will be employed by your physician.
- Hernia – A protrusion of an organ through the muscular or fascial wall within which it is normally contained.
- Hiatal hernia – A protrusion of all or part of the stomach into the chest cavity via a defect in the muscles called the “crus of the diaphragm,” which usually keep it contained with the abdomen.
- Inflammatory bowel diseases – A group of inflammatory conditions of the gastrointestinal system, including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
- Inguinal hernia – A protrusion of organs in the lower abdominal cavity through the inguinal canal in the groin.
- Intestinal hernia – A protrusion of the intestines through the abdominal wall.
- Intestinal obstruction – A partial or complete blockage of the bowel.
- Pyloric stenosis – A condition that causes projectile vomiting in infants during the first months of life due to a narrowing of the opening from the stomach to the intestines. Pyloric stenosis occurs in adults due to a narrowed pyloris.
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Ancient Ichthyosaur Mother Did Not Explode, Scientists Say
An ichthyosaur female with embryos scattered outside her body.
It is unlikely that the body of a mother ichthyosaur exploded, say researchers who offer another explanation for the scattered remains of embryos found around her in rock that was once deep underwater.
Rather, the scattering of the embryos was probably caused by minor sea currents after the expectant mother died and her body decayed some 182 million years ago, the researchers propose.
If this scenario sounds confusing, it is important to know that ichthyosaurs, extinct marine reptiles that lived at the same time as the dinosaurs, did not lay eggs but rather carried their young in their bodies until they gave birth. Ichthyosaurs resembled fish but, unlike most fish, breathed air through lungs.
The nearly intact skeleton of the female ichthyosaur in question was found in Holzmaden, Germany. But the remains of most of the approximately 10 embryos were scattered far outside her body it. Other fossilized ichthyosaur remains have been found in similarly strange arrangements, with skeletons usually complete but jumbled to some degree.
A Swiss and German research team set out to examine the idea that after death, such large-lunged marine creatures floated on the surface, with putrefaction gases building up inside them, until the gases escaped, often by bursting. Such explosions would jumble the bones.
The researchers examined the decay and preservation of ichthyosaur skeletons and compared this information with that of modern animals, particularly marine mammals. To get an idea of the amount of pressure that builds up after death during different stages of bloating, they looked at measurements from the abdomens of 100 human corpses.
"Our data and a review of the literature demonstrate that carcasses sink and do not explode (and spread skeletal elements)," the researchers wrote online Feb. 1 in the journal Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments.
Generally, carcasses of ichthyosaurs would have sunk to the seafloor and broken down completely. Only under specific circumstances — including in warmer water less than 164 feet (50 meters) deep — would gas inside the body have brought the remains to the surface, said the researchers, led by Achim Reisdorf of the University of Basel in Switzerland. When this happened, the carcass would decompose slowly, scattering bones over a wide area.
Ichthyosaurs' remains stayed neatly in place only under specific conditions, according to the research team: The water pressure had to be great enough to prevent them from floating, scavengers did not pick them over, and strong currents did not disturb them.
The female ichthyosaur died in water about 492 feet (150 m) deep. Decomposition of the body released the embryo skeletons, and minor currents along the seafloor distributed them around her body, the researchers speculate.
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New Smell Discovered
A newly discovered smell is the olfactory equivalent of white noise, scientists report in the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Science
CREDIT: MrGarry, Shutterstock
Scientists have discovered a new smell, but you may have to go to a laboratory to experience it yourself.
The smell is dubbed "olfactory white," because it is the nasal equivalent of white noise, researchers report today (Nov. 19) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Just as white noise is a mixture of many different sound frequencies and white light is a mixture of many different wavelengths, olfactory white is a mixture of many different smelly compounds.
In fact, the key to olfactory white is not the compounds themselves, researchers found, but the fact that there are a lot of them.
"[T]he more components there were in each of two mixtures, the more similar the smell of those two mixtures became, even though the mixtures had no components in common," they wrote.
Almost any given smell in the real world comes from a mixture of compounds. Humans are good at telling these mixtures apart (it's hard to mix up the smell of coffee with the smell of roses, for example), but we're bad at picking individual components out of those mixtures. (Quick, sniff your coffee mug and report back all the individual compounds that make that roasted smell. Not so easy, huh?)
Mixing multiple wavelegths that span the human visual range equally makes white light; mixing multiple frequencies that span the range of human hearing equally makes the whooshing hum of white noise. Neurobiologist Noam Sobel from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and his colleagues wanted to find out whether a similar phenomenon happens with smelling. [7 New Flavors Your Tongue May Taste]
In a series of experiments, they exposed participants to hundreds of equally mixed smells, some containing as few as one compound and others containing up to 43 components. They first had 56 participants compare mixtures of the same number of compounds with one another. For example, a person might compare a 40-compound mixture with a 40-compound mixture, neither of which had any components in common.
This experiment revealed that the more components in a mixture, the worse participants were at telling them apart. A four-component mixture smells less similar to other four-component mixtures than a 43-component mixture smells to other 43-component mixtures.
The researchers seemed on track to finding the olfactory version of white noise. They set up a new experiment to confirm the find. In this experiment, they first created four 40-component mixtures. Twelve participants were then given one of the mixtures to sniff and told that it was called "Laurax," a made-up word. Three of the participants were told compound 1 was Laurax, three were told it was compound 2, three were told it was compound 3, and the rest were told it was compound 4.
After three days of sniffing their version of Laurax in the lab, the participants were given four new scents and four scent labels, one of which was Laurax. They were asked to label each scent with the most appropriate label.
The researchers found that the label "Laurax" was most popular for scents with more compounds. In fact, the more compounds in a mixture, the more likely participants were to call it Laurax. The label went to mixtures with more than 40 compounds 57.1 percent of the time.
Another experiment replicated the first, except that it allowed for participants to label one of the scents "other," a way to ensure "Laurax" wasn't just a catch-all. Again, scents with more compounds were more likely to get the Laurax label.
The meaning of these results, the researchers wrote, is that olfactory white is a distinct smell, caused not by specific compounds but by certain mixes of compounds. The key is that the compounds are all of equal intensity and that they span the full range of human smells. That's why roses and coffee, both of which have many smell compounds, don't smell anything alike: Their compounds are unequally mixed and don't span a large range of smells.
In other words, our brains treat smells as a single unit, not as a mixture of compounds to break down, analyze and put back together again. If they didn't, they'd never see mixtures of completely different compounds as smelling the same.
Perhaps the next burning question is: What does olfactory white smell like? Unfortunately, the scent is so bland as to defy description. Participants rated it right in the middle of the scale for both pleasantness and edibility.
"The best way to appreciate the qualities of olfactory white is to smell it," the researchers wrote.
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