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Definition of 'intervention'
Video: pronunciation of 'intervention'
Example sentences containing 'intervention'
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So early intervention may yet pay dividends. The Sun (2016)Opposition politicians have accused the government of seeking to camouflage a military intervention. Times, Sunday Times (2016)He really did need some divine intervention. Times, Sunday Times (2016)Their intervention comes at a critical time. Times, Sunday Times (2016)His intervention comes at the right time. Times, Sunday Times (2016)Partly in ruins following anti-government protests and Russian military intervention. The Sun (2017)What is not in dispute is the benefit to the individual, and to society at large, of early intervention. Times, Sunday Times (2016)But this lifting did not feel like divine intervention, let alone a result of effort, but more like a natural process of revisiting and healing and recovering. Times, Sunday Times (2016)The survey in question was about medical interventions not educational ones. Times, Sunday Times (2013)Yet direct intervention is not required for mutual influence. Red Hunting in the Promised Land: Anticommunism and the Making of America (1994)Yet so far there is no evidence of an appetite for foreign intervention. Times, Sunday Times (2012)This sort of early intervention has shown very positive results. Times, Sunday Times (2010)This is precisely why international intervention was not only warranted but also necessary. Times, Sunday Times (2011)The arguments against military intervention are easy to predict. Times, Sunday Times (2009)Sounds like a bit of divine intervention to me. The Sun (2014)His reluctance to act comes after police interventions this spring ended in failure. Times, Sunday Times (2014)His one intervention helped to set up the first try. Times, Sunday Times (2007)There are many things said and written about the legality of intervention in foreign countries. Times, Sunday Times (2012)The key to effective treatment is early intervention. Times, Sunday Times (2016)He made clear that there was no prospect of international military intervention. Times, Sunday Times (2011)All are facts that may come in handy should direct intervention prove necessary. Christianity Today (2000)Such a huge country stood the risk of partition and foreign intervention. DEVASTATING EDEN: The Search for Utopia in America (2004)Early diagnosis is of value only where earlier intervention improves outcome. Times, Sunday Times (2015)One prayer group offered its services to a force that requested divine intervention in capturing a persistent thief. Times, Sunday Times (2006) Currency intervention cannot be an acceptable policy for those without large fiscal deficits and unacceptable for those with them. Times, Sunday Times (2012)When the public is this opposed to military intervention a president would be criminally irresponsible if he committed military resources anyway. Times, Sunday Times (2013)Following my intervention, the bank did some proper searching. Times, Sunday Times (2009)One is set aside for currency interventions, another for loan investment. Times, Sunday Times (2010)His intervention comes amid a whispering campaign against the Chancellor in some circles of the party. Times, Sunday Times (2013)The professor's intervention is one of a growing number from weighty voices in the field. Times, Sunday Times (2011)Although the reaction of some was to say this was an intervention to keep their tax bills down, it was an important moment. Times, Sunday Times (2015)They are completely distorted by central bank interventions like QE. Times, Sunday Times (2013)
Trends of 'intervention'
Very Common. intervention is one of the 4000 most commonly used words in the Collins dictionary
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Translations for 'intervention'
British English: intervention NOUN
Intervention is the act of intervening in a situation.
...the country's intervention in the internal affairs of many other countries.
Nearby words of 'intervention'
Definition of intervention from the Collins English Dictionary
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Catch up on the latest words in the news this July with Robert Groves.
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All the latest wordy news, linguistic insights, offers and competitions every month. | <urn:uuid:43bb96df-51a3-486b-be78-794340b6f632> | CC-MAIN-2018-39 | https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/intervention | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-39/segments/1537267160145.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20180924050917-20180924071317-00052.warc.gz | en | 0.910222 | 917 | 2.796875 | 3 | 2.548717 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Literature |
Year 5 Curriculum
At Scotch Orchard Primary School we believe that a quality English curriculum should develop children’s love of reading, writing and discussion. We are passionate about ensuring all children become confident and enthusiastic readers and writers. Within our English lessons, we ensure that children ‘write for a purpose’ and focus on one writing genre each half term.
We have a book-led English curriculum with challenging and engaging texts used in all Key Stages. This includes fiction, non-fiction and poetry. In addition, throughout the school year the importance of reading is enhanced through World Book Day and book fairs to further enrich our English curriculum. We also have Reading Cafe sessions throughout the year for our KS2 pupils.
In Key Stage 2, Scholastic Reading Pro is used to ensure children are reading a range of books appropriate to their individual lexile level. Shared reading takes place within English lessons to provide enriching experiences through more challenging texts. Teachers also regularly share stories with the class, displaying an enthusiasm for reading and setting a positive example as a reader.
At Scotch Orchard, we believe that every child should have access to high-quality maths education through a ‘teaching for mastery’ approach. The phrase ‘teaching for mastery’ describes the elements of classroom practice and school coherence that combine to give pupils the best chances of mastering Maths. Our aim is to develop confident mathematicians who acquire a deep, long-term, secure and adaptable understanding of the subject.
We use ‘Power Maths’ to support us in ensuring children are proficient in their ability to fluently recall facts and prior knowledge, reason confidently and problem-solve independently. Children spend time becoming true masters of content: applying and justifying their knowledge in multiple ways. Please click here for an overview for Year 5.
|Science||Earth & SpaceForces||Properties and changes of Materials||Living Things & their HabitatsAnimals, including Humans|
|History||Why was the ‘Golden Age of Islam’ golden?Black History Month:Katherine Johnson||How significant was the Tudor period in British History?||How has crime and punishment changed over time?Local History Study:Why was Edward Wrightman burned at the stake in St Mary’s Square, Lichfield?|
|Geography||North America: Human & Physical characteristicsClimate Zones||Rivers: Brazil||Environmental Sustainability|
Flat file database
Selection in quizzes
|P.E||HockeyNetball||GymnasticsOutdoor Adventurous Activities||AthleticsRounders|
|RE||Explore a variety of sacred books and investigate a range of religious teachings|
Explore the symbolic use of a wide range of objects, sounds, gestures and make suggestions to intended meanings
|Explore diversity of a range of traditions and reflect on similarities and differences|
Investigate and reflect on a range of responses to suffering, hardship and death
|Explore the origins of sacred writings and consider their importance to believers today|
Investigate the life of a person who has been inspired by their faith and make links between belief and action
|Music||Whole class guitar|
BBC ten pieces: Holst – Mars
|Whole class guitar||How does music connect us to our past?|
BBC ten pieces – Heitor Villa Lobos
|MFL||Sport and hobbies|
Y5 mastery of conversation
|Family||Describing other people|
|Art||Printing inspired by textiles||Drawing movement and reflections||Sculpture from existing forms|
|DT||Structures: frame structures||Food: celebrating culture and seasonality||Electrical systems: monitoring and control of switches, and circuits| | <urn:uuid:f7b9457c-bec7-499f-91a5-13de70d4be7c> | CC-MAIN-2022-27 | https://scotchorchard.staffs.sch.uk/our-curriculum/year-5-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-27/segments/1656104364750.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20220704080332-20220704110332-00135.warc.gz | en | 0.90287 | 823 | 3.53125 | 4 | 2.514892 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Education & Jobs |
Crisis Chronicles: The South Sea Bubble of 1720—Repackaging Debt and the Current Reach for Yield
In 1720, the South Sea Company offered to pay the British government for the right to buy the national debt from debtholders in exchange for shares backed by dividends to be paid from the company’s debt holdings and South Sea trade profits. The Bank of England countered the proposal and the two then competed for the right to buy the debt, with South Sea ultimately winning through bribes to the government. Later that year, the government moved to divert more capital to South Sea shares by hampering investment opportunities for rival companies in what became known as the Bubble Act, and public confidence was shaken. In this edition of the Crisis Chronicles, we explore the rise and fall of the South Sea Company and offer a cautionary look at the current reach for yield.
Two key events predate the South Sea Bubble. First, around 1710, the Sword Blade Bank offered to exchange unsecured government debt issued by army paymasters for Sword Blade shares. But it did so only after having secretly amassed large holdings of the debt, which traded at a deep discount given investor uncertainty that Britain could pay its debts. Knowing the price of the debt would rise with the announcement of the debt-to-shares exchange, the Sword Blade Bank made a significant profit on its debt holdings in what would today be called insider trading.The second key event was the formation of the South Sea Company in 1711, for the purpose of rivaling the East India Company in trade. But a unique feature included in the formation of the company was the exchange of shares for government debt, no doubt influenced by the prior Sword Blade Bank deal; five of the directors of the South Sea Company were from the Sword Blade Bank. By 1713, the peace treaty at Utrecht brought an end to war with Spain, but the British gained only limited access to trading stations in the Americas. Consequently, the trading operations never proved profitable and the South Sea Company became a financial enterprise by default. In 1715, and then again in 1719, the South Sea Company was allowed to convert additional government debt into shares. In April 1720, South Sea won approval to buy the remaining government debt and to issue stock in exchange. The once-burdensome debt had been cleverly repackaged into a valuable commodity.Then Pay Bribes . . .
Investors in South Sea shares now anticipated both a 5 percent annual dividend payment in addition to the hope of lucrative profits from trade with the Americas. But on the announcement of approval to buy the remaining government debt on April 7, 1720, the South Sea share price fell from £310 to £290 overnight. South Sea directors were eager to pump up the stock price and spread rumors of even greater riches to be earned from South Sea trade. Later that month, South Sea offered to new investors its First Money Subscription of £2 million in stock at £300 a share with 20 percent down and the remaining payments to be made every two months. So successful was the first offer that a Second Money Subscription followed later that same April with equally generous terms that allowed participants to borrow up to £3,000 each. Nearly 200 new ventures were launched that year under similar schemes, increasing the competition for investor capital. In the short term, shares soared across most companies. But South Sea stock sale proceeds were needed to pay dividends and bribes to the government for favorable treatment, as well as to buy its own shares to support its stock price. Consequently, a Third Money Subscription was launched later that year with even more generous terms at just 10 percent down with installment payments over four years and the second payment not due for a year.
. . . And Ban Rivals
Later that summer, the government moved to ban the new ventures—South Sea’s rivals for investor capital—in passing the “so-called” Bubble Act, which jolted public confidence. Companies impacted by the ban saw their stock prices plummet and leveraged investors were forced to sell South Sea shares to pay off debts, which put downward pressure on South Sea’s stock price as well. To prop up the company, South Sea launched the Fourth Money Subscription in August with a promise of a 30 percent year-end dividend and an annual dividend of 50 percent for ten years. But the market didn’t view the offer as credible and the South Sea share price continued to fall through mid-September. Liquidity constraints in London were further compounded by the concurrent Mississippi Bubble and bust in Paris, which we’ll cover in our next post. The South Sea Company was forced to turn to the Bank of England for help with the Bank ultimately agreeing to support the company but not its banker, the Sword Blade Bank.
Recall from our last post on the “not so great” re-coinage of 1696 that after the re-coinage, silver continued to flow out of Britain to Amsterdam, where bankers and merchants exchanged the silver coin in the commodity markets, issuing promissory notes in return. The promissory notes in effect served as a form of paper currency and paved the way for banknotes to circulate widely in Britain. So when panicked depositors flocked to exchange banknotes for gold coin from the Sword Blade Bank (the South Sea Company’s bank), the bank was unable to meet demand and closed its doors on September 24. The panic turned to contagion and spread to other banks, many of which also failed.
The Return of Repackaged Debt
As we’ll see in upcoming posts, financial innovation—in this case the repackaging of debt—is a recurring theme in our review of historic crises. In this case, the South Sea Company structured the national debt in a way that was initially attractive to investors, but the scheme to finance the debt-for-equity swap ultimately proved to be noncredible and the market collapsed. Now fast-forward to 2013 and the five-year anniversary in September of Lehman Brothers’ failure. As Fed Governor Jeremy Stein pointed out in a recent speech, a combination of factors such as financial innovation, regulation, and a change in the economic environment, can sometimes contribute to an overheating of credit markets. Asset-backed securitization and collateralized debt obligations have returned with a bang—or perhaps a boom—and are on pace to exceed pre-crisis levels, perhaps fueled by investors’ reach for yield. And remember from our introduction to the Crisis Chronicles series that “lessons learned often last only a lifetime and are easily forgotten.” So, will the current reach for yield lead to ever more complex, leveraged investments and the next credit market bubble? Or will the lessons from the Great Recession last at least a lifetime? Tell us what you think.
The views expressed in this post are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the authors.
David Skeie is a senior economist in the Bank’s Research and Statistics Group.
Posted by Blog Author at 07:00:00 AM in Crisis Chronicles
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous. | <urn:uuid:23f13c58-9421-4486-aca9-cb69b3a4318c> | CC-MAIN-2015-32 | http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/11/the-south-sea-bubble-of-1720-repackaging-debt-and-the-current-reach-for-yield/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-32/segments/1438044160065.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20150728004240-00216-ip-10-236-191-2.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961452 | 1,563 | 2.84375 | 3 | 3.075965 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Finance & Business |
The most important task of reforming education in Ukraine is the training of an educated, creative person, ready to provide the needs of society in professional activities both at the national and international levels. This is facilitated by the introduction of a competency-based approach to modern higher education and the formation of professional competence of future specialists as an indicator of quality of received education . Ukrainian scientists consider elaborating and applying of modern pedagogical technologies as one of the main conditions necessary for the development of a future specialist . Their implementation is supposed to be one of the most important tasks of modern education which can facilitate the management of the learning process . Current requirements demand from university teachers to reach a whole new level of educational material presentation; therefore, in addition to traditional technologies, they are ready to introduce modern pedagogical ones. It occurs due to the reforming of the higher education and the labor market requirements that are set to graduates and encourage them to move from accumulation of knowledge to the ability of operating them effectively, from “education for the rest of the life” to a continuous learning, from collective learning organization to the individual one. This leads to a renovation of professional training and is it is closely interconnected to the fundamental changes in education in the context of a competency-based approach that take place in near and far abroad . In addition, teachers of specialized subjects increasingly feel the need to put into effect such technologies that would help to implement a personal approach to the student, since it is an essential component of developing future dentists’ professional competence. Mentioned above tendencies in the development of modern professional training update further researches on new pedagogical technologies introduction into different fields of education, particularly into the medical branch .
Taking into consideration all mentioned above, the purpose of the article is to consider the modern pedagogical technologies applied to form critical and as a result―clinical thinking, which is the crucial part of the future specialists’ professional competence formation in medical universities and to substantiate the feasibility of their application in dental education.
2. Overview of Scientific Sources Related to the Issue of Innovative Pedagogical Technologies
The development and use of modern pedagogical technologies are considered as one of the main conditions for facilitating the effectiveness of students’ training for their future professional activity . The perfect model of learning material acquisition is based on the systematic effective interaction of participants in the pedagogical process. Its ultimate goal is to master all aspects of training, which are defined as the competencies that provide further effective self-development and self-improvement throughout the period of professional activity . However, it is obvious that there is an industrial priority in the choice of pedagogical technologies. It is also related to the medical field, taking into account the specificity of teaching, which combines the theoretical and practical components of the educational process in the clinical sector of subjects during bedside teaching in the medical institution.
A thorough and comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon and the concept of “pedagogical technology” reveals that the conditions for the development of intelligence and creative skills of the individual, preparation for life in an open society, independent interaction with the dynamic world of professional activity depend not only on the content of education but on the educational technologies used in the process of learning . But comprehensive understanding of their meaning is impossible without comparative analysis of the traditional technologies and theoretical substantiating of necessity to update the content. The term “pedagogical technology” has become extremely widespread in the system of higher education. However, there is no definite interpretation of this concept in pedagogical theory and practice. At the same time, there are dozens of approaches to the definition of “pedagogical technology”. Such diversity of opinions caused by complexity and versatility of the outlined issue. Besides, there are some peculiarities of pedagogical technologies choice for different levels of education .
Pedagogical technology should meet such basic methodological requirements (technological criteria):
1) Conceptuality consists in relying on a scientific concept that justifies the achievement of educational goals from the philosophical, psychological, didactic, socio-pedagogical points of view.
2) Systematicity is confirmation of the system’s signs: the logic of the process, the interconnection of all components, integrity. It provides diagnostic purpose-setting, planning, design, variability of methods and tools for correction of results.
3) Effectiveness is guaranteeing the achievement of the corresponding result of training at the optimal spend .
There are four levels in the structure of pedagogical technologies: 1) conceptual (theoretical); 2) technological (organization of the educational process); 3) procedural (particular actions); 4) technical (available means of training, in particular, technical ones) . At the same time regardless the choice, pedagogical technologies must meet the following requirements: the setting of a cognitive task; ensuring of training material content presentation; assessing academic achievements due to technology use; implementing already acquired initial knowledge in order to form a higher level of scientific knowledge; providing the basis for further progressive development. Consequently, technology, unlike method, does not assume variability, any element cannot be missed. Constant feedback, correction and changes in future activities are mandatory for technologic training. It requires constant control of the students’ approach to planned goals; monitoring students’ work implies an appropriate correction of the learning process. In addition, the peculiarity of pedagogical technology consists in assisting of the educational process construction which guarantees the achievement of the set goals. The success of pedagogical technology implementation depends on the effective interaction of the participants in the pedagogical process and, in a greater degree, on the teacher's pedagogical excellence .
In the theory of pedagogy, there are different traditional teaching technologies (explanatory-illustrative, problem based learning, programmed-differentiated and combined ones) which, in the opinion of scientists, do not contribute to the development of thinking, logical and creative skills and innovative . Although, it is obvious that the established path of direct transfer of knowledge on professional activity provided its successful acquisition, the fast-moving changes in modern society require other approaches oriented towards the result of the received education which is expressed in the competences (constituents of the professional competence of future specialists). In pedagogical science newly appeared phenomena like “modern innovations”, “innovative technologies”, “new technologies of learning”, “interactive methods of teaching” require a detailed study . The essence of these innovations demands the rejection of established stamps, stereotypes in teaching, education and personality development. This contributes to their widespread introduction because of the educational paradigm change from the knowledge productive to effective. The main objective of innovative education is assumed in provision of well-rounded human development. Innovation is introduced through interactive teaching methods that provide the following logic and sequence of learning activities: motivation, formation of new experience, its awareness through application, reflection .
The following types of the innovative learning technologies can be distinguished:
1) information technologies which aimed at the development of knowledge, abilities and skills;
2) operational technologies which form the ways of mental activity;
3) emotional and artistic and emotional-moral technologies which improve the spheres of aesthetic and moral relations;
4) self-development technologies form self-managing mechanisms of personality;
5) heuristic technologies develop creative abilities;
6) applied technologies help develop a practical sphere .
Thus, the analysis of scientific sources has evidenced about the existence of a variety of innovative technologies and the means of their implementation into higher education. However, technologies that characterize the industrial features of this process have not been considered yet. Consequently this issue requires thorough research in the context of future professionals competence formation.
3. Innovative Technologies That Contribute to Future Dentists’ Professional Competence Formation in Medical Universities
Various types of innovative teaching technologies are described and investigated in higher education , , . Analysis of scientific sources and own pedagogical experience allows to identify those pedagogical technologies which contribute greatly to the future dentists’ professional competence formation.
1) Personally oriented (anthropocentric) technology is a scientifically substantiated influence on a student in order to maximize the comfortable conditions for the personal fulfillment and comprehensive development of his personality aimed at forming self-identification, self-determination, self-realization, solution of problems on his own, both in the typical and non-typical professional situations. This technology promotes the formation of competences like self-guided work; problem solving.
2) Developing technology is based on the principles of purposefulness in determining the ways of the problem solving. Particularly in medicine, it induces self-research activity to find the best methods of examination, treatment of the patient with the involvement of all possible sources. It provides development of competencies like analysis and synthesis of information; self-guided work.
3) Group technology is applied through the use of situational role plays. In medical field, one of the examples is a role play “doctor-patient” where a part of the students represents the patient; the other ones represent the doctor in the process of their relationship. Another variation of this role-play is an activity―“rescue team”.
“Rescue team” is students’ performance where the group of three persons is organized in emergency medical situation for immediate help and care. There is one leader and two participants―the leader gives instructions to the participants, after that they change their roles. It is extremely important according to Tuning project which states that the students have to be practically and psychologically prepared for their future roles in society, especially in nontypical situations . By conducting such kind of activity, students are involved during the class in simulating tense professional situations where they can start applying both vocabulary and professional knowledge. In this way it is possible to form not only professional competence but foreign language one as well. Moreover, the activity is designed to form students’ leadership competence which is vitally important for a future doctor as it is considered as maturity to take responsibility for themselves and for the whole group of people; that is why, the role of ability to work in a team, especially in international one, increases . And vice versa, the absence or poor level of confidence may lead to the number of negative phenomena: psychological disorders such as anxiety, lack of self-confidence, frustration, depression, inferiority complex, tension inside the community, decrease of working capacity . Such activities help form the competencies of interpersonal communication and teamwork.
4) Formation of a creative personality deals with implanting future specialists to use elements of creativity in the problem solving: the search for similar situations, the ability to compare, express their own assumptions and analyze them, etc. This technology encourages inducing new ideas.
5) Learning through research is especially effective in the study of natural sciences, in particular medical one, because they have many objects and phenomena that can be investigated. It develops the critical thinking that becomes the basis for clinical thinking formation in medical education. Acquisition of research competence occurs through experiments conducting, processing of results, etc. to educational-cognitive, scientific-cognitive and research work.
6) Brainstorming/Synectics technology consists in solution of particular problems by a group with the help of metamorphic thinking, brave hypotheses, intuitive solutions, “false” ideas. This technology of brainstorming has existed since 1960. It allows expressing new ideas without being criticized. This technique is usually successfully applied during different games that can be elaborated for professional vocabulary competence formation in future dentists. Professional vocabulary competence plays a key role in professional English competence formation. Vast majority of professional vocabulary is medical terminology which is necessary to be mastered by future dentists. The game technology, based on Cambridge methods of English language teaching, allows to apply new methods taking into consideration the peculiarities of professional terminology and process of new words remembering. Thus, offered technology provides opportunities for dental students not only to memorize new terms and professional related vocabulary, but also use them in appropriate context. It can help dental students in developing professional speaking skills .
At the dental department of Bogomolets National Medical University, brainstorming is successfully applied in the form of “Brain-ring”. Analysis of the experience of educational process organization shows that this technology is successfully implemented in the form of a “brain-ring” at the dental faculty of Bogomolets National Medical University, where students are offered complex tasks that require the application of knowledge from different branches of medicine. During this game each student has an opportunity to express personal vision of his solution, to listen to the ideas of others, to discuss their shortcomings and advantages. It stimulates future dentists to in-depth study of material, its reviewing, systematizing and integrating. This technology helps develop the students' ability to support their own ideas, listen to the proposals of others, criticize the wrong approaches to tasks solving and take up an active position in life which is especially important for future doctors. Every experienced physician, especially surgeon, is familiar with the situation where neither knowledge nor experience help in a difficult and even critical situation, and only the intensity of intelligence, a quick response in the form of an integrative combination of all once and somewhere heard and seen professional nuances in the background of the developed intuition provide an opportunity to make the only right decision. Thus, the pedagogical skills of teachers who use this technology in the educational process provide tremendous effect for future professional activity. This technology activates the development of critical thinking competence.
7) The project method involves searching for the necessary information, its integrating, structuring and manufacturing of a new information product, promotes the development of skills to work with intensive information streams, choosing the main idea from them. This technology can be applied as an impetus for creative self-realization of the personality.
Own pedagogical experience suggests the necessity of using the next stages: initiation, execution, presentation delivery, project close.
Initiation: at this stage a teacher presents the idea of the project work, provides brief information about the overall project goals and assigns the tasks to the groups.
Execution: after students received instructions, the teams can begin executing the project according their assigned tasks. It is the stage where everyone actually starts doing the work: looking for necessary information and the ways to present it. Presentation delivery: this stage is devoted to the oral presenting information. The way, the learners present information, is chosen by the students. The focus is on the content of the information and the way the students support it. Students are free to choose different forms of material presentation: power point presentations, presentations with the pictures, making posters, usual reports.
Project Close: once all the details and tasks of project are complete and everybody agreed on discussed items, teacher can finally close the project work by brief summarizing the most important information and praising students.Encouraging students is very important and motivated technique, as project work is quite challenging task for the students, especially those who are usually shy .
Cooperation of students with teachers in creating projects leads to the implementation of technology cooperation and the ability to act in accordance with their interests and abilities. Besides, project work is successfully used for providing an opportunity for the students to discuss possible methods of patients’ examination and treatment at the universities’ clinics. In this way it contributes to the formation of such competencies as analysis and synthesis, initiative, development and project management.
8) Problematic discussions: round table, panel discussion (expert group meeting), forum, debate, etc. This technology provides opportunities for students to express their thoughts even if they are false. At the same time the teacher is supposed to guide them to the right direction. This concerns both the consideration of particular patients’ problem during practical classes and thematic lectures where the teacher should encourage the students to express opinions on the topic of discussion. Since students understand the “impunity” of their mistakes in the lecture hall, they are more boldly involved in the dialogue transforming the lecture into the creative process of learning new material. It facilitates the development of different competencies like teamwork, interdisciplinary team, decision-making, problem solving.
9) Information technologies suppose the use of all possible sources of information (literature, electronic, Internet, etc.) to solve a learning problem that requires computer skills, knowledge of foreign languages. The subject of research becomes more understandable, accessible and even visualized. In addition, there is access to the polar points of view, which are not always emphasized in the university, and the possibility of personal perception which can lead to further group discussions with students and the teacher. It develops basic computer skills, informational, foreign language competencies.
10) Telemedical technologies provide the development of skills for accessing the diagnostic and counseling base of any medical institution at any time and expands the physician's ability to establish the diagnosis correctly, in time and provide adequate assistance . Future doctors are aware of the possibility of feedback from their supervisors and colleagues in the future. Especially important contacts are those with other specialists, the ability to apply simulation and reconstruction of the treatment results. This technology helps facilitate the formation of competencies to manage information, basic computer skills, teamwork.
11) Distant learning is a fast, convenient, affordable and economical way of obtaining information . It is successful in almost all areas, but there are a lot of discussions over its implementation in the medical field, due to concerns about deterioration in the quality of training . Nevertheless, it is successfully used abroad. Research, conducted by American scientists, has confirmed that distant education can significantly enhance the theoretical aspects in addition to the traditional training of doctors . The high price for providing the process and inexperienced staff are highlighted as major shortcomings of this technology . Still, it is useful while forming the competence of basic computer skills and information management.
12) “Case” technology is the practice of using “cases” as means of training in the fields of law, business, medicine, education. Therefore, it is becoming popular and is promoted by foreign medical colleagues. “Cases” are very detailed, contextual, descriptive reports on teaching and learning. They are used to help future physician in understanding the specifics of clinical situations and developing skills in problem solving, filling in patients’ clinical records. It is valuable to train students in establishing diagnosis. This technology is traditionally applied for teaching medical students at the universities’ clinics in order to prepare them for future professional activity. They promote formation of competence in problem solving and decision-making . Besides, “case” technology provides the opportunity for teachers to check dental students’ level of professional competence.
13) European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) is mastering the educational material in thematically interconnected blocks (modules) which provide the possibility of final control over certain knowledge, skills and abilities, volume of theoretical and practical material. In dental education, each component is assessed through control in different forms: tests, theoretical surveys, the implementation of relevant practical tasks, analysis of additional methods of examination, knowledge of the toolkit and writing patients’ clinical records. Such performance evaluation motivates students to improve their skills and in this way such competencies as general and professional knowledge and skills possession, application of knowledge in practice are formed.
In fact, technologies like “rescue team”, “case”, learning through research, project method and problematic discussions have been widely applied to the educational process of medical students since the middle of XX century, but they acquired another value with the implementation of Internet into all scientific branches.
The analysis of the influence of innovative pedagogical technologies on the development of general competencies was conducted. Future dentists (221 graduates from Bogomolets National Medical University in 2017-2018) assessed the importance of general competencies formation. The results are presented in the Table 1.
Table 1. The influence of innovative pedagogical technologies on future dentists’ general competencies formation.
Having conducted the research, it is obvious that future dentists realize the importance of critical/clinical thinking (96.8%) but the important competencies like research work, initiative, development and project management are underestimated according to the results of the research: 24%, 31.2%, 21.7% correspondingly.
The data of the conducted research indicate that analyzed innovative technologies that influence substantially the large part of the general and specific competencies formation, are considered vitally important by European specialists for acquiring professional competence.
Conducted research allows to make a conclusion that the level of an educational institution is determined by the quality of innovative technologies that are effectively used in it. For higher dental education, the possibility of introducing and integrating all the innovative pedagogical technologies, mentioned above, is confirmed on the basis of the conducted research. The effectiveness of their application depends on the interaction of factors that provide the pedagogical process:
1) Competent teachers who apply innovative teaching technologies in their practice at a high level.
2) Motivation and sufficient basic training of future specialists.
3) Organizational and methodological support of the technologies introduction process.
4) Effective combination of all types and levels of pedagogical technologies.
Thus, the introduction of innovative technologies in future dentists’ training will enhance the effectiveness of their professional competence formation through the development of individual competencies that can be attributed to both general and specific ones, particularly: self-guided work, creativity, research, foreign language, interpersonal communication, teamwork and interdisciplinary teamwork, analysis and synthesis, problem solving, decision making.
Summarizing the essential features of innovative pedagogical technologies, analyzed in the article and the predicted results of their implementation, allows to conclude that it is not appropriate to be limited to the one technology in order to form professional competence of the future dentist as a well-educated, creative person. In teaching during clinical period special attention is paid to critical thinking formation as it is the base for clinical thinking. Introduction of innovative pedagogical technologies can provide great impact upon this process. Integrated output can be achieved through the whole system, the components of which, is a set of advanced technologies aimed at the developing the personality of a future doctor. Thus, mentioned above technologies are necessary to apply into the educational process at universities’ clinics in order to facilitate the future dentists’ professional competence formation. | <urn:uuid:e858b7a7-cd3c-419d-aabc-c816f39af289> | CC-MAIN-2019-51 | https://m.scirp.org/papers/91081 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-51/segments/1575540525781.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20191210013645-20191210041645-00300.warc.gz | en | 0.938293 | 4,567 | 2.671875 | 3 | 2.979911 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Education & Jobs |
Could satellite images predict rates of cancer? Artificial light at night 'increases the risk of diseases including breast cancer and obesity'
- Artificial light-at-night increases the risk of obesity and breast cancer
- Researchers in Israel studied satellite images as part of new study
- Then compared data to incidence rates of obesity and being overweight
- Experts believe artificial light interrupts the production of melatonin
- Disrupting melatonin levels disrupts the body clock, experts say
- Their past research found links with breast cancer and artificial light
Satellite images could predict areas of the world where obesity and some forms of cancer are more prevalent, experts believe.
A new piece of research, which has yet to be published, highlights the link between artificial light-at-night, and diseases including breast cancer and obesity.
Researchers in Israel found a significant link between the strength of artificial light, and areas where people were overweight or obese, Haaretz reports.
To arrive at their conclusions, researchers at the University of Haifa, led by doctoral candidate Nataliya Rybnikova, examined satellite images and compared them to health data from the World Health Organization.
Artificial light-at-night increases the risk of being overweight or obese, researchers at the University of Haifa in Israel have concluded, in a new study
Researchers studied satellite images from the US Defense Meterological Satellite Program. They then combined that data with country-level data on female and male overweight and obesity prevalence rates, from the WHO to arrive at their conclusions
The theory is that artificial light impacts on the body's production of melatonin - a hormone that anticipates the daily onset of darkness.
Typically levels of melatonin change throughout the day, reaching a peak in the evening, while falling off during daytime hours.
Past studies have linked artificial light to obesity.
Last year scientists at Leiden University found, after conducting experiments on mice, that animals exposed to light 24 hours a day for five weeks put on 50 per cent more fat than creatures who kept more normal hours.
This was despite the animals eating the same amount of food, and doing the same level of exercise.
Tests revealed constant light disrupted their body clock and slowed down a vital calorie-burning process.
Worldwide overweight and obesity rates are on the rise, with an estimated 1,900 billion adults being defined as overweight and another 600 million adults being defined as obese, by the World Health Organization.
The study states: 'Increasing exposure to artificial light-at-night (ALAN) may influence body mass, by suppression of melatonin production and disruption of daily rhythms, resulting in physiological or behavioral changes in the human body, and may thus become a driving force behind worldwide overweight and obeseity pandemic.'
A number of studies have linked artificial light to obesity, tests have revealed light disrupts the body clock and slows down the body's metabolism, a vital process in burning calories
Dr Rybnikova and her team examined most recent satellite images of night time illumination from the US Defense Meterological Satellite Program.
They then combined that data with country-level data on female and male overweight and obesity prevalence rates, from the WHO.
They found 'artifical light-at-night emerged as a statistically significant and positive predictor of overweight and obesity'.
Past research by Dr Rybinkova and her team, published in the Journal Chronobiology International, reported links between artifical light-at-night and breast cancer rates.
Researchers analyzed links in 180 countries, taking account of other factors which could have an influence, including birth rates.
They noted a 'statistically significant' positive association between breast cancer and artificial light-at-night.
They added countries in Western Europe showed the highest levels of association, while those in Southeast Asia and the Gulf States exhibited 'relatively low breast cancer rates against a backdrop of relatively high artificial light-at-night levels'.
The recent study is set to be published in The International Journal of Obesity.
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- Camilla slaps Prince William in King Charles III drama | <urn:uuid:b1624361-f603-439e-bc15-2de5887c3d15> | CC-MAIN-2017-17 | http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3448611/Could-satellite-images-predict-rates-cancer-Artificial-light-night-increases-risk-diseases-including-breast-cancer-obesity.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917125881.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031205-00416-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924687 | 991 | 2.796875 | 3 | 3.016241 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Health |
(a)The act means the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
(b) The definitions of terms in section 201 of the act (21 U.S.C. 321) apply when the terms are used in this subpart, unless defined in this section.
(1)Calendar day means every day shown on the calendar.
(2)Country from which the article originates means FDA Country of Production.
(3)Country from which the article is shipped means the country in which the article of food is loaded onto the conveyance that brings it to the United States or, in the case of food sent by international mail, the country from which the article is mailed.
(4)FDA Country of Production means: (i) For an article of food that is in its natural state, the country where the article of food was grown, including harvested or collected and readied for shipment to the United States. If an article of food is wild fish, including seafood that was caught or harvested outside the waters of the United States by a vessel that is not registered in the United States, the FDA Country of Production is the country in which the vessel is registered. If an article of food that is in its natural state was grown, including harvested or collected and readied for shipment, in a Territory, the FDA Country of Production is the United States.
(ii) For an article of food that is no longer in its natural state, the country where the article was made; except that, if an article of food is made from wild fish, including seafood, aboard a vessel, the FDA Country of Production is the country in which the vessel is registered. If an article of food that is no longer in its natural state was made in a Territory, the FDA Country of Production is the United States.
(5)Food has the meaning given in section 201(f) of the act, except as provided in paragraph (b)(5)(i) of this section.
(i) For purposes of this subpart, food does not include:
(A) Food contact substances as defined in section 409(h)(6) of the act (21 U.S.C. 348(h)(6)); or
(ii) Examples of food include fruits, vegetables, fish, including seafood, dairy products, eggs, raw agricultural commodities for use as food or as components of food, animal feed (including pet food), food and feed ingredients, food and feed additives, dietary supplements and dietary ingredients, infant formula, beverages (including alcoholic beverages and bottled water), live food animals, bakery goods, snack foods, candy, and canned foods.
(6)Full address means the facility's street name and number; suite/unit number, as appropriate; city; Province or State as appropriate; mail code as appropriate; and country.
(7)Grower means a person who engages in growing and harvesting or collecting crops (including botanicals), raising animals (including fish, which includes seafood), or both.
(8)International mail means foreign national mail services. International mail does not include express consignment operators or carriers or other private delivery services unless such service is operating under contract as an agent or extension of a foreign mail service.
(9)Manufacturer means the last facility, as that word is defined in § 1.227(b)(2), that manufactured/processed the food. A facility is considered the last facility even if the food undergoes further manufacturing/processing that consists of adding labeling or any similar activity of a de minimis nature. If the food undergoes further manufacturing/processing that exceeds an activity of a de minimis nature, then the subsequent facility that performed the additional manufacturing/processing is considered the manufacturer.
(10)No longer in its natural state means that an article of food has been made from one or more ingredients or synthesized, prepared, treated, modified, or manipulated. Examples of activities that render food no longer in its natural state are cutting, peeling, trimming, washing, waxing, eviscerating, rendering, cooking, baking, freezing, cooling, pasteurizing, homogenizing, mixing, formulating, bottling, milling, grinding, extracting juice, distilling, labeling, or packaging. Crops that have been cleaned (e.g., dusted, washed), trimmed, or cooled attendant to harvest or collection or treated against pests, or polished are still in their natural state for purposes of this subpart. Whole fish headed, eviscerated, or frozen attendant to harvest are still in their natural state for purposes of this subpart.
(11)Port of arrival means the water, air, or land port at which the article of food is imported or offered for import into the United States. For an article of food arriving by water or air, this is the port of unloading. For an article of food arriving by land, this is the port where the article of food first crosses the border into the United States. The port of arrival may be different than the port where consumption or warehouse entry or foreign trade zone admission documentation is presented to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
(12)Port of entry, in section 801(m) and (l) of the act (21 U.S.C. 381(m) and (l)), means the port of entry as defined in 19 CFR 101.1.
(13)Registration number means the registration number assigned to a facility by FDA under section 415 of the act (21 U.S.C. 350d) and subpart H of this part.
(14)Shipper means the owner or exporter of the article of food who consigns and ships the article from a foreign country or the person who sends an article of food by international mail or express consignment operators or carriers or other private delivery service to the United States.
(15)United States means the Customs territory of the United States (i.e., the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico), but not the Territories.
(16)You means the person submitting the prior notice, i.e., the submitter or the transmitter, if any.
Title 21 published on 2013-04-01
The following are only the Rules published in the Federal Register after the published date of Title 21.
For a complete list of all Rules, Proposed Rules, and Notices view the Rulemaking tab.
This is a list of United States Code sections, Statutes at Large, Public Laws, and Presidential Documents, which provide rulemaking authority for this CFR Part. | <urn:uuid:4e1de33d-c422-4581-ad00-292246099d28> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/1.276 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011134261/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091854-00000-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94951 | 1,371 | 2.765625 | 3 | 1.44681 | 1 | Basic reasoning | Crime & Law |
Making a video is really hard work
Recently I shot a four-minute video with my group mates as part of our holiday homework.
We gathered outside my friend's home one afternoon and started shooting the video.
We decided to film it scene by scene. Although each scene was very short, we had to redo them many times. Some of us, including me, forgot our lines.
We used a mobile phone to shoot the video so the quality wasn't that good and the sound was blurred. But the biggest problem was that we had no idea how to edit the video.
It took us three hours to make a four-minute video.
We were all exhausted by the end of it. Even though we worked well together, I realised that making a video is not an easy job.
Jessica Yu, Tsuen Wan Public Ho Chuen Yiu Memorial College
Healthy lifestyle will help studies
Performing well in school is high on the agenda of Hong Kong students. So let me give you some tips about how to study more effectively.
First of all, you should learn to manage your time well. Planning ahead is important. Setting goals helps you keep your focus. That way, you can avoid letting things fall into a mess.
You should have a clear schedule showing how much time you want to spend studying, playing and resting. You should do each with proper care and dedication. A clear plan will help you in this.
Second, a healthy diet and regular exercise are also essential if you hope to improve your performance in school.
A healthy body is vital for a healthy mind. Keeping fit, meanwhile, helps us remain strong and resolute. Sticking to a healthy lifestyle also teaches you about self-discipline.
Make sure to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables and have a balanced diet rich in nutrients. You should also allocate time for regular exercise. Being healthy in mind and body will help you concentrate better in school.
Third, we need to stay alert and remain prepared all the time. By making sure to keep abreast of our studies, we can reach a higher level of knowledge. That can benefit us before exams and reduce some of the pressure on us.
We can do that by always paying attention in class, by following lesson plans and by doing our homework.
You should take each test seriously and prepare for them as if they were major exams. That will keep you sharp and up to date with your studies.
Christie Lam Man-ting, Pooi To Middle School
Education system is a burden on us
In recent decades, our city's education system has been modified and modified again.
Several new curriculums and study systems have been introduced over the years. That has meant that both students and teachers have needed to make regular adjustments. One effect of the changes has been the creation of an examination-oriented learning atmosphere. Students need to spend a great deal of time preparing for a variety of subjects.
Many simply cannot cope on their own and have to attend tutorials in the hopes of doing better in school. They hardly have time for anything else outside their studies.
This also means that often students care less about actually learning a subject well than about simply doing well in it in exams. Many of them have completely lost their interest in studies.
The education system should encourage students to value knowledge, not just turn them ito drones.
Sy Fung-yee, Hang Seng School of Commerce
Gender stereotyping needs further work
'Boys are strong. Girls are weak.'
We all encounter statements like this regularly. Such stereotypes are far from harmless. They imply that women are inferior to men and are incapable of doing certain jobs.
Gender stereotyping in Hong Kong is less common than in many other places. There are female chief executives and male nurses here, and Hongkongers are trying to break down gender barriers.
Yet we should not rest on our laurels.
We need to work harder to erase gender stereotypes from our lives so we can live in a world where men and women are equal.
Susan Cheng, Christian Alliance SC Chan Memorial College | <urn:uuid:ea4c82b3-ea3d-419c-9e93-fe0949ef9ce0> | CC-MAIN-2015-27 | http://www.scmp.com/article/978130/letters | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-27/segments/1435375102712.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20150627031822-00158-ip-10-179-60-89.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974844 | 843 | 2.71875 | 3 | 2.375987 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Education & Jobs |
A global study, involving hundreds of researchers and published in The Lancet, one of the world’s oldest general medical journals, shows that in 2019, the 19-year-old boys who were on average the tallest in the world, lived in the Netherlands, Montenegro and Estonia.
The scientists behind the study pooled over 2,000 population-based measurement surveys and studies, with anthropometric measurements on 50 million people aged 5–19 years and 15 million people aged 20–30 years.
The researchers used at least one data source for 193 of 200 countries and territories for which estimates were made, covering 98.7% of the world’s population in 2019 and at least two data sources for 177 countries, covering 98.0% of the world’s population.
Accordingly, in 2019, the 19-year-olds who were on average the tallest in the world lived in northwestern and central European countries: the Netherlands (mean height 183.8 cm), followed by Montenegro, Estonia (183.1 cm) and Bosnia and Herzegovina for boys; and the Netherlands (170.4 cm), Montenegro, Denmark and Iceland for girls. The average height of Estonian 19-year-old girls in 2019 was 168.8 cm.
The 19-year-olds who were on average the shortest in 2019 lived in south and southeast Asia, Latin America, and east Africa: Timor-Leste (160.1 cm), followed by Laos, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea for boys; and Guatemala (150.9 cm), Bangladesh, Nepal and Timor-Leste for girls.
The largest gains in height now in China and South Korea
The study said that although northwestern European children and adolescents were on average the tallest in the world in 2019, much of this advantage was achieved before the late 20th century, and many of these countries had below median height change from 1985 to 2019.
“By contrast, central European countries such as Montenegro and Poland achieved a substantial part of their height advantage since 1985, especially in boys,” the study said. “However, the largest gains in height over the past three and a half decades were those in some emerging economies, including China (largest gain for boys and third largest for girls) and South Korea (third largest for boys and second largest for girls), and through parts of southeast Asia, the Middle East and north Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean”.
The Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal, with editorial offices in London, New York and Beijing. It is among the world’s oldest and best-known general medical journals. It was founded in 1823 by Thomas Wakley, an English surgeon who named it after the surgical instrument called a lancet (scalpel), as well as after the architectural term lancet window, a window with a sharp pointed arch, to indicate the “light of wisdom” or “to let in light”.
Cover: A group of Estonian male students. The image is illustrative. Photo by Erlend Štaub. | <urn:uuid:8236523c-75ea-4923-a7cc-df02d44bc61e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://estonianworld.com/knowledge/global-study-estonian-boys-the-third-tallest-in-the-world/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570793.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808092125-20220808122125-00783.warc.gz | en | 0.967068 | 643 | 2.921875 | 3 | 2.606711 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Health |
Python,Flask Framework And Django Course For Beginners
What you'll learn
- Python Programming Beginner To Advanced, Flask Framework And Django Framework With Building Project
- Write scripts for general productivity tasks Read and comprehend Python code Gain knowledge in regard to general programming concepts
- Use variables to store, retrieve and calculate information
- Utilize core programming tools such as functions and loops
- Use of Django and Flask Frameworks with Projects.
- Only the very basic computer skills are needed
- A computer, Access to the internet, An interest in learning Python
Learn Python From Beginner To Advanced Level, Flask Framework From Beginning, Django Framework From Beginning, And Build A Project Using Django.
I’ve created thorough, extensive, but easy to follow content which you’ll easily understand and absorb.
The course starts with the basics, including Python fundamentals, programming, and user interaction.
The curriculum is going to be very hands-on as we walk you from start to finish becoming a professional Python developer. We will start from the very beginning by teaching you Python basics and programming fundamentals, and then going into advanced topics and different career fields in Python so you can get real-life practice and be ready for the real world.
The topics covered in this course are:
* Beginner to Expert Python contents:
Keywords and Identifiers
Object-Oriented Programming with Python
Functional Programming with Python
Testing in Python
Flask Web Framework, In this course, you will learn the fundamentals of web applications .so that you can start building API and develop web applications using Python Flask Web Framework.
How to build Python web apps with Flask
How to use the Jinja template language to create the look of your apps
How to use the SQLite database to start development
How to use other databases with Flask by using Flask-SQLAlchemy
Using Flask to process incoming request data.
*Django Framework With Building Projects:
Django Web Framework, you will learn the fundamentals of web applications. web applications using Python Django Web Framework.
Build website and web applications
HTML and CSS for front end web development
Bootstrap for responsive web design
Django for creating robust websites and web apps
* BUILD A WEB APPLICATION USING DJANGO FRAMEWORK:
See you inside the course!
Who this course is for:
- For Complete Programming Beginners
- For People New to Python,Django And Flask
- For People Who want to learn Python Fundamentals and later transition into Data Science or Web Development
HELLO, WELCOME TO HORIZON TECH
We are a great team of Developers from Horizon Tech Company who creates great courses with valuable content. a programming learning resource designed particularly for people with no previous programming experience. Try out one of our courses and you will be on for a very interesting ride.
We are a great team of teachers from Horizon institute who creates great courses with valuable content. We will teach you how you can use Programming Languages just like We do. we take care to explain the programming concepts assuming our students don't have a computer science background. Indeed, you don't need a computer science degree to become a programmer.
To sum up, we are absolutely and utterly passionate about Programming languages and we looking forward to sharing our passion and knowledge with you!
So let's do this. | <urn:uuid:b3df3b73-7665-43b1-ac1d-1b40cc4d4e51> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://www.udemy.com/course/python-and-flask-and-django-course-for-beginners/?awc=6554_1655876747_07b5832ea83b963cbb085f5171d80789&utm_source=Growth-Affiliate&utm_medium=Affiliate-Window&utm_campaign=Campaign-Name&utm_term=330563&utm_content=Placement&couponCode=E8E898A5148CE148BC37 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233506421.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20230922170343-20230922200343-00264.warc.gz | en | 0.841146 | 770 | 2.9375 | 3 | 1.548398 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Software Dev. |
Marketing the Moon: How NASA Sold Space to Earth
When the mission became the message and NASA undertook the monumental task of explaining rocket science to an audience looking to the stars.
By Michelle Legro
It wasn’t until the soft beep…beep…beep of the Sputnik satellite reached Earth on October 4, 1957 that the Soviet Union could declare the first unequivocal success of their space program. The Soviets had launched Sputnik in secret, and the news took the United States by surprise. It was Soviet policy that every launch would be kept secret unless it was successful, and that its public would only be fed propaganda. The Soviet government would deny ever having attempted a manned lunar landing until 1990, and cosmonauts who died in the line of duty were erased from the public record. (The details of the training-accident death of Yuri Gagarin, the first cosmonaut to orbit the earth, were covered up until 2013.)
One year after the surprise launch of Sputnik, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was founded. The U.S. space program was determined to be markedly different from the Soviets — it would be an “open program” in which facts and data would flow freely between the agency and the public using an extensive public relations program, explain authors David Meerman Scott and Richard Jurek in Marketing the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program (public library). It was a radical proposition: NASA, not the military, would release information and information would be released before, not after, a mission — an antithesis to the typical military strategy of confidentially. Tragedy would be reported alongside success.
Despite the somewhat cynical title, Marketing the Moon is not simply a story of the “selling” of the space program or the “spinning” of the NASA public relations machine — rather, it’s a rigorous and unvarnished look at one of the largest and most successful disseminations of science education in the twentieth century.
How could rocket physics, geology, astronomy, and more be explained to the lay person? How could the chain of information — from the lab to the Public Affairs Office to the TV producer to the host to the viewer at home — retain accuracy and clarity? Using rare press materials from the early days of NASA as well as the Apollo program — press releases, reference material, news bulletins, and photographs of reporters at work — Scott and Jurek show that the launch of a fact was as precarious as the launch of a missile: both could spectacularly fail to reach their targets.
The Public Affairs Office would control the consistency of the information, not its message. From the beginning, the office hired ex-newsmen to work as reporters inside the agency, determining which stories the public should know and in language that would be accessible — reporters knew what reporters would need. It was a move that today might be labeled “brand journalism,” but at the time was a revolutionary step for a government agency that needed its story told accurately and efficiently.
Control, however, became the topic of one of the most controversial media relationships set up by NASA: the LIFE magazine / World Book contracts, which paid $500,000 to the Mercury 7 astronauts and their wives in 1959 (because then, decades before women took to the stars, women’s role in space exploration amounted to being astronaut wives), as well as a $100,000 life insurance policy that wasn’t provided by the government. It was easy to see the contract as “cashing in” on a project funded by taxpayers, but NASA had perhaps naively understood the contract as protecting the astronauts from being hounded or exploited by the media. The astronauts could only talk about their personal lives, not the missions.
NASA created materials that addressed reporters’ needs in press releases, bylined articles, background materials, sponsored media symposiums, television newsreels, and fully produced radio broadcasts complete with interviews and sound effects. Every mission was explained pre-launch by the Public Affairs Office and reported with text and visuals far more elaborate than any press kit.
Before the Apollo 11 launch, journalists received The Apollo Spacecraft News Reference, a thick, three-ring binder with tabbed pages for easy thumbing. It included detailed diagrams of the command module, oxygen tanks, the spacesuit, and much more. It was an encyclopedia of technical information that would have been considered high-treason to release under the Soviets, but NASA considered the reference book an essential “classroom handout” for a proverbial public of fascinated students.
Any advertisement that mentioned the space program had to be submitted to NASA in order to both maintain both factual accuracy and ensure that no product was directly endorsed. Contractors could advertise that their product had traveled to the moon, but not that it had been used. No astronauts could be shown in an ad, only their anonymous suited counterparts. Photographs taken in space were government-produced and therefore were in the public domain.
Television proved to be one of the hardest and most important outlets for NASA to tell its story. The Public Affairs Office made sure that the producers had access to model spacecraft, maps, graphs, charts, as well as interviews with scientists and guidance about the right questions to ask. The mission was the message; the concept was easy to explain, the execution much harder. Walter Cronkite, who would propel CBS into the pole position during the Apollo 11 broadcast, relied on information from the Public Affairs Office as a much-needed crash course:
Covering the space program presented a challenge to us all… There was a great deal we had to learn about the mechanics of space flight and the idiosyncrasies of the physics of moving bodies in the weightlessness and atmosphere-free environment of space.
The Public Affairs Office considered itself a champion of accurate scientific information, created to “furnish Congress and the media with the facts — unvarnished facts — about the progress of NASA programs,” explained its founder in 1959. Congress was just as important an audience, and it is an unfortunate reality that space education falls in and out of fashion with the budget of each new session. Public affairs was more than a perception, it was the life and death of the space program. When the lunar module of Apollo 11 began its fifty state tour, public relations was taken over by local affiliates, and the effect was more sideshow than science fair.
However, this is only the story of the public perception of NASA and the space program, not the public’s appetite for space, which has thrived for decades on the ecstatic visions of Carl Sagan, and has been reinvigorated with Neil deGrasse Tyson’s relaunch, and loving tribute, to Sagan’s Cosmos. With his clear yet poetic communication of complex scientific ideas, Tyson has championed science on all platforms and has mastered the art of the soundbite:
A soundbite is useful because it triggers interest in someone, who then goes and puts in the effort to learn more…
Communication of the work is as important as the work itself, something that Wernher von Braun knew as he stood to address the reporters at NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center after the Apollo 11 astronauts were headed back to earth aboard the command module Columbia:
I would like to thank all of you for the fine support you have always given the program. Because without public relations and good presentations of these programs to the public, we would have been unable to do it.
For a bittersweet complement to Marketing the Moon, see Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier, Neil deGrasse Tyson’s urgent and poetic antidote to the precarious fate of space exploration today.
Published March 18, 2014 | <urn:uuid:50dda97c-dc93-4e1e-9355-0660c78987d1> | CC-MAIN-2016-30 | https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/03/18/marketing-the-moon/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-30/segments/1469257826908.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160723071026-00230-ip-10-185-27-174.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9675 | 1,606 | 3.078125 | 3 | 3.01025 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Science & Tech. |
What is Open Window Thoracostomy?
Conclusions: Currently, open window thoracostomy is used to treat complex empyema incurred from pulmonary resection, cancer and/or infection in patients that cannot be managed by more conservative strategies. Overall mortality and morbidity rates are acceptable in this debilitated patient group.
What is an Eloesser flap procedure?
Eloesser flap is a single-stage procedure for the treatment of severe pleural empyema, and involves a U-shaped incision and the resection of a number of subjacent posterolateral ribs. The U-shaped flap is then folded into the pleural space creating a permanent communication.
What is decortication surgery?
Decortication is a type of surgical procedure performed to remove a fibrous tissue that has abnormally formed on the surface of the lung, chest wall or diaphragm. Generally, there is a space (called pleural space) in between the lungs and the chest wall, which is lined with a very thin fluid layer for lubrication.
What seals the lungs to the chest wall?
Thin membranes, called pleura, cover the outside of the lungs and the inside of the chest cavity. There’s always a small amount of liquid within this lining to help lubricate the lungs as they expand within the chest during breathing.
What is a Eloesser window?
In contrast, the Eloesser flap is intended to create a permanent drainage window into the pleural space. Although potentially lifesaving, the Eloesser flap window commits the patient to a prolonged period of dressing changes and frequent annoyances with soiling of clothes and bed linens.
How Bronchopleural fistula is formed?
A bronchopleural fistula may be caused by: (1) rupture of a lung abscess, bronchus, bulla, cyst, or parenchymal tissue into the pleural space; (2) the erosion of a bronchus by carcinoma or chronic inflammatory disease; or (3) stump dehiscence of a bronchial suture line after pulmonary resection.
Is thoracotomy open heart surgery?
A thoracotomy is an open surgical procedure. It involves making a large (8 to 10 inch) incision in your chest. Open surgery incision allows your surgeon to directly view and access the surgical area.
How do you install a chest drain?
Inserting the drain This area is commonly known as the “safe triangle”, bordered by the anterior border of latissimus dorsi, the lateral border of the pectoralis major, a line superior to the horizontal level of the nipple and an apex below the axilla. The drain should be inserted just above the rib.
What is empyema Necessitans?
Empyema necessitans is a rare long-term complication of poorly or uncontrolled empyema thoracis characterized by the dissection of pus through the soft tissues and skin of the chest wall . The pus collection bursts and communicates with the exterior, forming a fistula between the pleural cavity and the skin .
How do you fix a Bronchopleural fistula?
BPFs do not typically spontaneously undergo closure and almost always require some surgical or bronchoscopic intervention. All patients with a BPF should have a chest tube placed to drain air. In cases of an empyema, infected pleural fluid should be drained, and antibiotics should be initiated.
What causes a Bronchopleural fistula?
What is a Clagett open-window thoracostomy?
Care of the patient with Clagett open-window thoracostomy. Academic anxiety? The Clagett open-window thoracostomy is performed to give patients with empyema improved quality of life and other outcomes.
What is Clagett thoracotomy for empyema?
Clagett thoracotomy. A Clagett thoracotomy is a three stage procedure performed for treatment severe empyema and involves the resection of a posterolateral lower rib and the formation of an open window in the lateral aspect of the chest to allow continuous drainage and irrigation of the cavity with antibiotic solution 2-3.
What is the Clagett and Geraci procedure for pneumonectomy?
In 1963, Clagett and Geraci described a two-stage method for treating the infected pneumonectomy space. The first stage involved creating an open-window thoracostomy by resecting parts of ribs to create an opening into the thorax to allow for drainage and antiseptic irrigation of the space.
What is an open window thoracostomy for bronchopleural fistula?
Open Window Thoracostomy in a Patient With Broncopleural Fistula After Left Pneumonectomy. February 2018. doi:10.25373/ctsnet.5845686. Dr Oscar Clagett described the open window thoracostomy in 1963 for treating postpneumonectomy empyema. This technique is still used in the management of bronchopleural fistula after lung resection. | <urn:uuid:10b4329a-7dbe-4ac8-ad41-e433e7d8af51> | CC-MAIN-2023-50 | https://locke-movie.com/2022/09/26/what-is-open-window-thoracostomy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100381.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20231202073445-20231202103445-00832.warc.gz | en | 0.888794 | 1,074 | 3.34375 | 3 | 2.126775 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Health |
Winter operations 1914–1915
Winter operations 1914–1915 is the name given to military operations during the First World War from 23 November 1914 – 6 February 1915, on the part of the Western Front held by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), in French and Belgian Flanders. Both sides had tried to advance in Flanders after the northern flank had disappeared during the Race to the Sea in late 1914. Franco-British attacks towards Lille in October were followed by attacks by the BEF, Belgians and a new French Eighth Army (Général Victor d'Urbal). A German offensive began on 21 October but the 4th Army (Generaloberst Albrecht, Duke of Württemberg) and 6th Army (Generaloberst Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria) were only able to take small amounts of ground, at great cost to both sides, at the Battle of the Yser (16–31 October) and further south in the First Battle of Ypres (19 October – 22 November).
By 8 November, the Germans realised that the advance along the coast had failed and that taking Ypres was impossible. Attacks by both sides had quickly been defeated and the opposing armies had improvised field defences, against which attacks were repulsed with many casualties. By the end of the First Battle of Ypres in November 1914, both sides were exhausted, short of ammunition and suffering from collapses in morale; some infantry units refused orders. The mutual defeat of the First Battle of Flanders was followed by trench warfare, in which both sides tried to improve their positions as far as the winter weather, mutual exhaustion and chronic equipment and ammunition shortages allowed.
- 1 Background
- 2 Prelude
- 3 Winter operations
- 4 Aftermath
- 5 Notes
- 6 Footnotes
- 7 References
- 8 Further reading
- 9 External links
Race to the Sea
From 17 September – 17 October 1914, the belligerents had made reciprocal attempts to turn the northern flank of their opponent. Joffre ordered the French Second Army to move to the north of the French Sixth Army, by moving from eastern France from 2–9 September and Falkenhayn ordered the German 6th Army to move from the German-French border to the northern flank on 17 September. By the next day French attacks north of the Aisne, led to Falkenhayn ordering the 6th Army to repulse French forces to secure the flank. When the French Second Army advanced, it met a German attack rather than an open flank on 24 September and by 29 September, the Second Army had been reinforced to eight corps but was still opposed by German forces near Lille, rather than advancing around the German northern flank. The German 6th Army had also found that on arrival in the north, that it was forced to oppose the French attack, rather than advance around the flank; the secondary objective of protecting the northern flank of the German armies in France had become the main task. By 6 October, the French needed British reinforcements to withstand German attacks around Lille. The BEF had begun to move from the Aisne to Flanders on 5 October and with reinforcements from England, assembled on the left flank of the Tenth Army, which had been formed from the left flank units of the Second Army on 4 October.
In October 1914 French and British artillery commanders met to discuss means for supporting infantry attacks, the British practice having been to keep the artillery silent until targets were identified, the French artillery fired a rafale, which ceased as the infantry began the assault. A moving barrage of fire was proposed as a combination of both methods and became a standard practice, when guns and ammunition were accumulated in sufficient quantity. Falkenhayn issued memoranda on 7 and 25 January 1915, defining a model of defensive warfare to be used on the Western Front, to enable ground to be held with the fewest possible troops. By reducing demand for manpower in the west, a larger number of divisions could be sent to the Eastern Front. The front line was to be fortified, to enable its defence with small numbers of troops indefinitely; areas captured were to be recovered by counter-attacks. A second trench was to be dug behind the front line, to shelter the trench garrison and to have easy access to the front line, through covered communication trenches. Should counter-attacks fail to recover the front trench, a rearward line was to be connected to the remaining parts of the front line, limiting the loss of ground to a bend (Ausbeulung) in the line, rather than a breakthrough. The building of the new defences took until the autumn of 1915 and confronted Franco-British offensives with an evolving system of field fortifications, which was able to absorb the increasing power and sophistication of attempted breakthrough attacks.
During the mobile operations of 1914, armies which operated in enemy territory were forced to rely on wireless communication to a far greater extent than anticipated, having expected to use telegraph, telephones and dispatch riders. None of the armies had established cryptographic systems adequate to protect wireless transmissions from eavesdropping; all of the attacking armies sent messages containing vital information in plain language. From September to November 1914, the British and French intercepted c. 50 German messages, which showed the disorganisation of the German command in mid-September and the gap between the 1st and 2nd armies on the eve of the Battle of the Marne. Similar plain language messages and some decodes of crudely coded German messages, gave warnings to the British of the times, places and strengths of eight attacks of four corps or more, during the Race to the Sea and the subsequent battles in Flanders.
First Battle of Flanders
Both sides tried to advance, after the "open" northern flank had disappeared, Franco-British attacks towards Lille in October were followed by attacks of the BEF, Belgians and a new French Eighth Army. A German offensive began on 21 October but the 4th and 6th armies were only able to take small amounts of ground, at great cost to both sides, at the Battle of the Yser (16–31 October) and further south at Ypres. Falkenhayn then attempted to achieve the limited goal of capturing Ypres and Mount Kemmel, from (19 October – 22 November). By 8 November, Falkenhayn accepted that the advance along the coast had failed and that taking Ypres was impossible. The French and Germans had failed to assemble forces near the northern flank swiftly enough to obtain a decisive advantage. Attacks had quickly been stopped and the armies had then improvised field defences, against which attacks were repulsed with many more casualties. By the end of the First Battle of Ypres, both sides were exhausted, short of ammunition and suffering from collapses in morale; some infantry units refused orders.
The mutual failure in Flanders, led both sides to elaborate the improvised field fortifications of 1914, which made a return to mobile warfare even less likely. In November, Falkenhayn reconsidered German strategy, because the failures on the Yser and at Ypres, showed that Germany lacked the forces in the west to obtain a decisive victory; Vernichtungsstrategie and a dictated peace were beyond German resources. Falkenhayn doubted that victory was possible on the eastern front either, although advocated by Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, because the Russian armies could retreat at will into the vastness of Russia, as they had done during the French invasion of Russia in 1812. On 18 November, Falkenhayn took the unprecedented step of asking the Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, to negotiate a separate peace with Russia. Falkenhayn intended to detach Russia or France from the Allied coalition, by diplomatic as well as military action. A strategy of attrition (Ermattungsstrategie) would make the cost of the war was too great for the Allies to bear, until one enemy negotiated an end to the war on mutually acceptable terms. The remaining belligerents would have to negotiate or face the German army concentrated on the remaining front, which would be sufficient to obtain a decisive victory.
Defence of Festubert
A reorganisation of the defence of Flanders was carried out by the Franco-British from 15–22 November, which left the BEF holding a homogeneous front from Givenchy to Wytschaete, 21 mi (34 km) to the north. The Indian Corps on the right flank, held a 2 mi (3.2 km) front. During three weeks of bad weather, both sides shelled, sniped and raided, the British making several night raids late in November. On 23 November, the German Infantry Regiment 112 captured 800 yd (730 m) of trench east of Festubert, which were then recaptured by a counter-attack by the Meerut Division during the night, at a cost of 919 Indian Corps casualties.
Attack on Wytschaete
Joffre arranged for a series of attacks on the Western Front, after receiving information that German divisions were moving to the Russian Front. The Eighth Army was ordered to attack in Flanders and French was asked to participate with the BEF on 14 December. Joffre wanted the British to attack all along the BEF front, especially from Warneton to Messines, as the French attacked from Wytschaete to Hollebeke. French gave orders to attack from the Lys to Warneton and Hollebeke with II and III Corps, as IV Corps and the Indian Corps conducted local operations, to fix the Germans to their front. French emphasised that the attack would begin on the left flank, next to the French and that units must not move ahead of each other. The French and the 3rd Division were to capture Wytschaete and Petit Bois, then Spanbroekmolen was to be taken by II Corps, by an attack from the west and by III Corps with an attack from the south, with only the 3rd Division making a maximum effort. On the right, the 5th Division was to simulate an attack and III Corps was to make demonstrations, as the corps was holding a 10-mile (16 km) front and could do no more.
On the left, the French XVI Corps failed to reach its objectives and the 3rd Division got to within 50 yd (46 m) of the German line and found uncut wire. One battalion captured 200 yd (180 m) of the German front trench and took 42 prisoners. The failure of the attack on Wytschaete, resulted in the attack further south being cancelled but German artillery retaliation was much heavier than the British bombardment. Desultory attacks were made from 15–16 December, which against intact German defences and deep mud, made no impression. On 17 December, XVI and II corps did not attack, the French IX Corps sapped forward a short distance down the Menin road and small gains were made at Klein Zillebeke and Bixschoote. Joffre ended attacks in the north, except for operations at Arras and requested support from French, who ordered attacks on 18 December along the British front, then restricted the attacks to the support of XVI Corps by II Corps and demonstrations by II Corps and the Indian Corps. Fog impeded the Arras attack and a German counter-attack against XVI Corps, led II Corps to cancel its supporting attack. Six small attacks were made by the 8th, 7th 4th and Indian divisions, which captured little ground, all of which was untenable due to mud and waterlogged ground. Franco-British attacks in Flanders were stopped.
Defence of Givenchy
At dawn on 20 December, the front of the Indian Corps with the Lahore and Meerut divisions was bombarded by heavy artillery and mortars. At 9:00 a.m., ten mines of 50 kilograms (110 lb) each, were exploded under the British lines at Givenchy, which were followed up by infantry attacks on the village and northwards to La Quinque Rue. The trenches either side of Givenchy were captured and east of Festubert, German troops advanced for 300 yd (270 m). During the afternoon, a brigade of the 1st Division of I Corps was sent forward as reinforcement, followed by another brigade at 3:17 p.m. Next day, both brigades rested until noon and then attacked towards Givenchy and the break-in near Festubert. The third 1st Division brigade arrived during the afternoon and was sent forward to recapture "the Orchard" 1-mile (1.6 km) north-east of Festubert, which had been captured during the morning. Waterlogged ground and German machine-gun fire delayed the advance, which only reached Givenchy after dark, just after the garrison had retired. The 1st Guards Brigade and French Territorial troops retook the village but the disruption of the counter-attack, left a small amount of ground near Festubert on the northern flank in German hands. The 1st Division brigades were isolated in the dark and the Indian Corps commander, reported that the troops were exhausted and must be relieved. It was arranged through General Headquarters, that I Corps would relieve the Indian Corps on 21 December, which was completed on 22 December.
First Action of Givenchy
A German soldier deserted on 25 January and disclosed that a German attack was due against Cuinchy, French positions to the south and against Givenchy to the north. About ninety minutes later, units of the German 79th Brigade of VII Corps, attacked on the north bank of the canal. Near Givenchy, German infantry reached strongpoints behind the support line but could not advance further. A hasty counter-attack by the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Division, which had two companies per battalion in the line, one in local reserve and one in brigade reserve, drove the Germans back and re-captured the British trenches, taking 72 prisoners and killing 135 German soldiers.
Affairs of Cuinchy
In January 1915, rain, snow and floods added to the dangers of sniping and artillery-fire during the day and at night both sides concentrated on repairing trenches. The area from the old La Bassée battlefield, to Kemmel 20 miles (32 km) to the north, was mainly flat low-lying meadows, in the basin of the Lys (Leie) river. Clay sub-soil stopped water soaking more than 2 ft (0.61 m) down, which left trenches waterlogged. The Lys rose 7 ft (2.1 m), spread out by more than 100 ft (30 m) and some trenches were abandoned. In other places trenches were blocked at both ends and continuously bailed out, the intervening ground being covered by crossfire from the "islands". Many men stood knee-deep in water and were relieved twice a day. In January, First Army sick leave averaged 2,144 men per day.
On 1 January, a German attack captured several British posts on a railway embankment at the brick stacks, near La Bassée Canal in the vicinity of Cuinchy, held by the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Division. A battalion counter-attack at 10:00 p.m. failed and a second attempt at 4:00 a.m. on 2 January, was eventually repulsed. A bigger British attack on 10 January, recaptured the posts and defeated three German counter-attacks but then lost the posts in a German attack on 12 January. A German soldier deserted on 25 January and disclosed that a larger German attack was due against Cuinchy, French positions to the south and against Givenchy to the north. About ninety minutes later, units of the German 84th and 79th brigades attacked on either side of the canal. The German infantry reached the Allied strong-points behind the support line but could not advance further.
On the south bank, a counter-attack began after a delay and was repulsed, which left the British line south of the canal in a re-entrant. On 29 January, there were two more German attacks, which were repulsed by two 2nd Brigade battalions. Another attack on 1 February, took a post on the railway embankment, which was recovered by a counter-attack and 32 German prisoners were taken. The 2nd Division relieved the 1st Division on 4 February; on 6 February, the 4th (Guards) Brigade crossed no man's land in the dark and then attacked to push forward the line on the flanks. The attack captured the brick stacks and improved the line at the junction with the French.[a] German counter-attacks including a deception failed, when a group of Germans approached the British line, calling out "Don't shoot, we are engineers!". J. E. Edmonds, the British official historian, called this a legitimate ruse, since an alert defender could be expected to challenge the party and allow only one man to approach.
After the war, the Reichsarchiv historians wrote that the Franco-British armies conducted attacks from 17 December, between Arras and Armentières. By 20 December, Allied attacks had been contained but skirmishing continued around Carency, Ecurie, Neuve Chapelle and La Bassée. On 1 January 1915, the 6th Army near Arras, was ordered to capture the chapel on the Lorette Spur with the XIV Corps, after which VII Corps would join the attack on either side of La Bassée Canal, from Givenchy to Cuinchy but lack of resources led to a costly stalemate by February 1915.
At 7:30 a.m. on 10 March, the British began a thirty-five minute artillery bombardment by 90 18-pounder field guns of the Indian Corps and IV Corps, on the German wire around the village of Neuve Chapelle, which was destroyed within ten minutes. The remaining fifteen 18-pounder batteries, six 6-inch howitzer siege batteries and six QF 4.5-inch howitzer batteries, fired on the German front-line trenches which were 3 ft (0.91 m) deep, with breastworks 4 ft (1.2 m) high. The German fortifications were demolished by the howitzer bombardment, which was followed by an infantry assault at 8:05 a.m. German defences in the centre were quickly overrun on a 1,600 yd (1,500 m) front and Neuve Chapelle village was captured by 10:00 a.m.
On the left of the attack, two companies of the German Jäger Battalion 11 with c. 200 men and a machine-gun, delayed the advance for more than six hours until forced to retreat, which stopped the advance. Although aerial photography had been useful, it was unable to efficiently identify the enemy's strong defensive points. Primitive communications also meant that the British commanders had been unable to keep in touch with each other and the attack became disorganised which disrupted the delivery of supplies. On 12 March, German forces commanded by Crown Prince Rupprecht, launched a counter-attack which failed but forced the British to use most of their artillery ammunition; the British offensive was postponed on 13 March and abandoned two days later.
- Experiments with photography from aeroplanes to map the German front line, had been conducted during the winter. 3 Squadron Royal Flying Corps (RFC), photographed the Cuinchy area and found a new German trench, which led to the plan being amended and the junction of the Anglo-French boundary being defined with precision.
- Foley 2005, p. 101.
- Doughty 2005, pp. 98–100.
- Farndale 1986, p. 71.
- Wynne 1976, pp. 15–17.
- Ferris 1992, pp. 4–5.
- War Office 1922, p. 253.
- Doughty 2005, pp. 103–104.
- Foley 2005, pp. 102–103.
- Foley 2005, p. 104.
- Foley 2005, p. 105.
- Foley 2005, pp. 105–107.
- Edmonds & Wynne 1995, p. 4.
- Edmonds & Wynne 1995, pp. 16–17.
- Edmonds & Wynne 1995, pp. 18–20.
- Edmonds & Wynne 1995, pp. 20–22.
- Edmonds & Wynne 1995, pp. 29–30.
- Edmonds & Wynne 1995, pp. 27–28.
- Edmonds & Wynne 1995, pp. 28–29.
- Jones 2002, p. 89.
- Edmonds & Wynne 1995, p. 30.
- Humphries & Maker 2010, p. 27.
- Edmonds & Wynne 1995, p. 91.
- Edmonds & Wynne 1995, p. 98.
- Edmonds & Wynne 1995, p. 105.
- Strachan 2003, p. 176.
- Edmonds & Wynne 1995, pp. 147–149.
- Doughty, R. A. (2005). Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01880-8.
- Edmonds, J. E.; Wynne, G. C. (1995) . Military Operations France and Belgium, 1915: Winter 1915: Battle of Neuve Chapelle: Battles of Ypres. History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. I (Imperial War Museum and Battery Press ed.). London: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-89839-218-0.
- Farndale, M. (1986). Western Front 1914–18. History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery. London: Royal Artillery Institution. ISBN 978-1-870114-00-4.
- Ferris, J. (1992). The British Army and Signals Intelligence during the First World War. Publications of the Army Records Society. VIII. Stroud: Alan Sutton. ISBN 978-0-7509-0247-2.
- Foley, R. T. (2007) . German Strategy and the Path to Verdun: Erich Von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870–1916. Cambridge: CUP. ISBN 978-0-521-04436-3.
- Humphries, M. O.; Maker, J. (2010). Germany's Western Front: 1915, Translations from the German Official History of the Great War. II. Waterloo Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. ISBN 978-1-55458-259-4.
- Jones, H. A. (2002) . The War in the Air, Being the Story of the Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force. II (Imperial War Museum and Naval & Military Press ed.). London: Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-1-84342-413-0. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
- Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War, 1914–1920. London: HMSO. 1922. OCLC 610661991. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
- Strachan, H. (2003). The First World War: To Arms. I. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-014303-518-3.
- Wynne, G. C. (1976) . If Germany Attacks: The Battle in Depth in the West (Greenwood Press, NY ed.). London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-8371-5029-1.
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Winter operations 1914–1915.| | <urn:uuid:d2d25750-e301-4d08-8502-cd52e2747207> | CC-MAIN-2019-09 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_operations_1914%E2%80%931915 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550247511174.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20190221213219-20190221235219-00052.warc.gz | en | 0.96713 | 4,890 | 3.484375 | 3 | 3.092907 | 3 | Strong reasoning | History |
This is an interesting time in Arkansas agriculture as new technologies are on the horizon in many crops and resistant weeds are becoming more prevalent in all crops and across multiple modes of action. We have screened multiple samples of barnyardgrass that contain 3-way resistance to Propanil, Facet, and Newpath (ALS) chemistry. Also annual and yellow nutsedge populations have been documented as having resistance to ALS herbicides. New technologies for glyphosate-resistant pigweed will be available in 2015 (pending approval) and already there has been resistance documented to these herbicides in the U.S. Due to these issues, producers and commercial applicators need to place more focus on appropriate application methods to ensure that the proper herbicide rate is delivered to maximize control of these problem weeds. Herbicide drift or off-target movement of herbicides is the main focus of most sprayer setups or configurations and calibrations. Although drift is one of the main concerns, focus should also be on delivering the appropriate rate to control the target whether it is an insect, disease, or weed. Ideal applications are those that deliver the appropriate rate of chemical to effectively control the pest while minimizing crop injury and drift.
There are several factors that affect spray coverage, drift, and effectiveness of pesticide applications. Nozzle selection, spray volume, and pressure can all affect spray coverage, drift, and ultimately control of the pest in question.
Proper nozzle selection can vary based on the goals of the application, the pest targeted, and the chemical used. Nozzles are classified by average droplet size. The size of spray droplets has a direct effect on spray coverage, pest control, and drift potential. In general, the larger the spray droplet, the less likely that it will drift, while small droplets (<150 microns) fall at slower rates and have highest potential to drift with wind currents. Spray droplet size can affect coverage and control especially with weeds. On grass species, past research suggests that smaller droplet sizes provide increased control over larger droplet sizes, especially for contact herbicides because the larger droplets tended to bounce off of the leaf and droplet retention is decreased. Small droplets will also provide increased surface area coverage than large droplets across multiple spray volumes. On average, the recommended droplet range for maximum weed control across most herbicide labels is between 300 and 400 microns. The British Crop Protection Council and the American Society of Agriculture and Biological Engineers (ASABE) developed a droplet size classification system with categories ranging from extra fine (XF) to ultra course (UC) based on volumetric mean diameter (VMD) measured in microns (Table 1). Herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and other additives such as surfactants, crop oils, drift retardants, buffers etc. can also have an effect on spray droplet size.
Spray volume is a crucial component to successful weed control applications. In regard to herbicide applications, spray volume can mean the difference between one, two, or possibly three applications needed for maximum weed control. Recommended spray volume can vary greatly depending on the herbicide that is applied. In fact, many issues with droplet size can be overcome with increased spray volume. Figure 1 contains results from a nozzle study conducted by the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture with Liberty herbicide. In this study, Liberty was sprayed at 29 oz/A on 6 in and 12 in pigweed and barnyardgrass. Once the spray volume was increased to 12 gallons per acre (GPA), there were no significant differences in nozzle performance in regard to 6 in pigweed control. Pigweed that is 12 in tall is way too big to kill with Liberty or any other herbicide regardless of nozzle configuration or spray volume but differences were observed. There was also a significant difference (70-92%) in percent control of barnyardgrass when GPA was doubled and AI nozzles were used. The key point here is to understand the herbicide being used and match the nozzle and spray volume to allow for maximum control from the application.
Roundup Powermax (glyphosate) has one of the broadest spray volume recommendations of any labeled herbicide. According to the label, Roundup should be applied from 3 to 15 GPA. Several studies and published research have found that Roundup (glyophosate) actually provides better control when sprayed at a lower GPA with larger droplet size. This has a lot to do with glyphosate’s systemic activity but also has much to do with glyphosate molecules and their interaction with water. However, this is not true for most herbicides. Contact herbicides such as Liberty or Flexstar all recommend a minimum of 10-15 GPA on their respective labels. In fact, other systemic herbicide labels such as Newpath, Ricestar, and Clincher all recommend a minimum of 10 GPA on the label. Some labels go as far as to recommend the droplet size required for maximum control.
The bottom line is, herbicide applications that do not deliver the appropriate rate needed for control will result in a means for that weed to become resistant to the herbicide. One thing is for sure, there are no new herbicide modes of action that will be commercialized in the near future. We must come together as an industry and do what is necessary to protect the herbicides and pesticides that work, and a large portion of this responsibility falls on the applicator. Over the last 10 years, we have outfitted our spray equipment to deliver reduced spray volume, mostly around the Roundup Ready system or glyphosate herbicide. We need to re-evaluate our spray configurations to match the current systems for pest control and in most cases this involves an increase in spray volume. | <urn:uuid:9c70ee0d-e65a-47f3-beb4-0bf2a4ca36d4> | CC-MAIN-2017-47 | http://www.arkansas-crops.com/2014/04/01/maximizing-herbicide-application/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-47/segments/1510934806586.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20171122122605-20171122142605-00636.warc.gz | en | 0.938066 | 1,160 | 2.734375 | 3 | 3.016044 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Industrial |
Four Pillars of Emergency Management
The four pillars of Emergency Management are phases of planning and action undertaken by the Department of Emergency Management to ensure Upstate University Hospital maintains a comprehensive approach to Emergency Management, while maximizing the safety of staff and patients. The four phases are:
Mitigation is the most cost-efficient method for reducing the impact of hazards. A precursor activity to mitigation is the identification of risks. Physical risk assessment refers to the process of identifying and evaluating hazards. The higher the risk, the more urgent the need is to target hazard specific vulnerabilities through mitigation efforts. One example of mitigation at University Hospital is the 96 Hour Business Continuity Plan, which includes mitigation strategies and plans that have been developed to ensure continuity of operations in areas such as utilities, communications, food, water, medication, staffing, and medical supplies when the community is unable to support the hospital due to an external disaster scenario.
Preparedness is a continuous cycle of planning, organizing, training, equipping, exercising, evaluation, and improvement activities that allows Upstate University Hospital to ensure effective coordination and the enhancement of capabilities to prevent, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate against disaster events that have been identified within the hospital's Hazard Vulnerability Analysis (HVA).
In the preparedness phase, the Emergency Management Department develops plans of action to manage and counter risks and takes action to build the necessary capabilities needed to implement such plans.
The Response phase includes the mobilization of the identified emergency staff, including first responders, to an internal or external event which could have an impact on patient care operations. Response procedures are pre-determined by the hospital, and are detailed in disaster plans during the Preparedness phase. Response to an internal or external event in the hospital is directed through the Incident Command System (ICS). Response plans remain flexible in nature due to the varying members of staff available in the hospital at any given time.
Response procedures and plans are constantly evaluated and changed based on improvements identified during After Action Reviews (AARs) which are held after disaster events. Response is also evaluated regularly by the hospital through drills, exercises, tracers, and live events.
The aim of the Recovery phase is to restore the affected area to its previous state. It differs from the Response phase in its focus: recovery efforts are concerned with issues and decisions that must be made after immediate needs are addressed. Recovery efforts are primarily concerned with actions that involve rebuilding destroyed property, re-employment, the repair of other essential infrastructure, as well as the re-opening of essential services in the hospital.
Recovery operations are an extremely important phase in the Emergency Management continuum and yet one that is often overlooked. The Incident Command System team is responsible for the implementation of the Recovery phase.
Hazard Vulnerability Analysis
The basis of the "All Hazards" approach starts with University Hospital's Hazard Vulnerability Analysis (HVA). The HVA identifies disasters and other events from a technological, natural, man-made and hazardous materials perspective which are most prevalent for the region. These events are ranked in order of severity and greatest impact to University Hospital and patient care operations. A risk factor is obtained for each identified hazard by ranking probability, human impact, property impact, business impact, and overall preparedness from an internal and external response entity.
The Hazard Vulnerability Analysis is reviewed annually, or as required by hospital leadership and the Emergency Management Committee. The HVA, including the top five ranked disasters, is shared with community government and emergency response agencies including the Office of Emergency Management, Public Health, Emergency Medical Services (EMS), Police, Fire, and the Medical Examiner's (ME) office. The top five events identified by University Hospital in 2009 were influx of patients (surge), pandemic/epidemic, snowfall, water failure, and internal flood. | <urn:uuid:d9fea264-8bfb-4f5d-802f-2128c6d4bac0> | CC-MAIN-2014-41 | http://upstate.edu/emergencymgt/work/pillars.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-41/segments/1412037663587.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20140930004103-00339-ip-10-234-18-248.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952849 | 777 | 2.765625 | 3 | 2.514959 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Health |
Individual differences |
Methods | Statistics | Clinical | Educational | Industrial | Professional items | World psychology |
A postpartum period (or postnatal period) is the period beginning immediately after the birth of a child and extending for about six weeks. Less frequently used is the term puerperium.
It is the time after birth, a time in which the mother's body, including hormone levels and uterus size, returns to a non-pregnant state. Lochia is post-partum vaginal discharge, containing blood, mucus, and placental tissue.
In scientific literature, the term is commonly abbreviated to PX. So that 'day P5' should be read as 'the fifth day after birth'. This is not to be confused with medical nomenclature that uses G P to stand for number of pregnancy and outcome of pregnancy.
Newborns[edit | edit source]
- Main article: Infant
Upon its entry to the air-breathing world, without the nutrition and oxygenation from the umbilical cord, the newborn must begin to adjust to life outside the uterus. Also starts his/her adaptation to extrauterine life, the most significant physiological transition until death.
Postpartum period in mothers[edit | edit source]
A woman in the Western world delivering in a hospital may leave the hospital as soon as she is medically stable and chooses to leave, which can be as early as a few hours postpartum, though the average for spontaneous vaginal delivery (SVD) is 1–2 days, and the average caesarean section postnatal stay is 3–4 days. During this time, the mother is monitored for bleeding, bowel and bladder function, and baby care. The infant's health is also monitored.
Psychological[edit | edit source]
During this period women can experience:
Early detection and adequate treatment is required. Approximately 25% - 85% of postpartum women will experience the "blues" for a few days. Between 7% and 17% may experience clinical depression, with a higher risk among those women with a history of clinical depression. Rarely, in 1 in 1,000 cases, women experience a psychotic episode, again with a higher risk among those women with pre-existing mental illness. Despite the wide spread myth of hormonal involvement, repeated studies have not linked hormonal changes with postpartum psychological symptoms. Rather, these are symptoms of a pre-existing mental illness, exacerbated by fatigue, changes in schedule and other common parenting stressors.
Postpartum psychosis (also known as puerperal psychosis), is a more severe form of mental illness than postpartum depression, with an incidence of approximately 0.2%.
Physical[edit | edit source]
- Further information: Sex after pregnancy
The mother is assessed for tears, and is sutured if necessary. Also, she may suffer from constipation or hemorrhoids, both of which would be managed. The bladder is also assessed for infection, retention, and any problems in the muscles.
The major focus of postpartum care is ensuring that the mother is healthy and capable of taking care of her newborn, equipped with all the information she needs about breastfeeding, reproductive health and contraception, and the imminent life adjustment.
During the postpartum period, a woman may urinate out up to nine pounds of water. The extra fluid that her body has taken on is no longer needed, so the mother may note that her fluid output is disproportionate to her fluid input.
Cultures[edit | edit source]
East Asia[edit | edit source]
In some East Asian cultures, such as Chinese and Vietnamese, there is a traditional custom of postpartum confinement known in English as doing the month or sitting the month (Mandarin zuò yuèzi 坐月子). Confinement traditionally lasts 30 days. Likewise, women in Japan frequently practice ansei, or peace and quiet, for a period of time after giving birth for the purpose of recuperating. This tradition combines prescribed foods with a number of restrictions on activities considered to be harmful. It is widely believed in many East Asian societies that this custom helps heal injuries to the perineum, promote the contraction of the uterus, and promote lactation.
Greece[edit | edit source]
Traditionally, Greek mothers would spend 40 days confined at home with their infant after giving birth. At the end of the 40 days (the sarántisma, or "fortying"), the child was symbolically taken to church for the first time, where the mother asked for a special blessing on the conclusion of her puerperium. There are many modern theories seeking to justify this traditional practice, including weakness of infant immune systems, unimpeded establishment of breastfeeding, and the need for bonding time between parent and child.
India[edit | edit source]
Most traditional Indians follow the 40-day confinement and recuperation period also known as the 'Jaappa' (in Hindi). A special diet to facilitate milk production and increase hemoglobin levels is followed. Sex is not allowed during this time. In Hindu culture, the puerperium was traditionally considered a period of relative impurity (asaucham) due to the processes of childbirth, and a period of confinement of 10-40 days (known as purudu) was recommended for the mother. During this period, she was exempted from usual household chores and religious rites. The father was purified by a ritual bath before visiting the mother in confinement. In the event of a stillbirth, the period of impurity for both parents was 24 hours.
See also[edit | edit source]
- Parental leave
- Perinatal period
- Pre- and perinatal psychology
References[edit | edit source]
- "With Women, Midwives Experiences: from Shiftwork to Continuity of Care, David Vernon, Australian College of Midwives, Canberra, 2007 ISBN 978-0-9751674-5-8, p17f
- Dobson, V., B. Sales (2000). The Science of Infanticide and Mental Illness. Psychology, Public Policy and Law 6 (4): 1098–1112.
- Effect of Alcohol consumption on Maternal lactation characteristics during ‘doing-the-month’ ritual
- Ayuvedic Postpartum Healing Tips
- Ayurvedic diet for de-stressing postpartum mothers
- Lactogenic Foods and Herbs
- GUIDE TO RITUAL IMPURITY - What to do at the junctions of birth and death
[edit | edit source]
- eMedicine: Normal and Abnormal Puerperium
- Postpartum Social Awareness
- Discovery Health's Postpartum Planning Tool guides you through the mysteries of motherhood and babyhood from birth to 12 weeks.
|This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).| | <urn:uuid:e1e31bb3-3a97-405d-bc9e-e0312fe3b201> | CC-MAIN-2021-25 | https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Postpartum_period | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-25/segments/1623487660269.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20210620084505-20210620114505-00499.warc.gz | en | 0.924628 | 1,444 | 3.140625 | 3 | 2.685357 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Health |
Coating a product with a surface treatment is an excellent way to increase its durability and reduce maintenance costs. The coating provides additional protection from rust, corrosion, and other common problems that can cause a product to fail. It also reduces the risk of damage from water, chemicals, and harsh environments. Coatings can be applied to non-ferrous and ferrous metals. Most commonly, these coatings are applied to steel, aluminium, copper, and brass.
Surface coatings improve the functionality of a product by reducing the friction between two objects. These coatings also reduce the risk of mechanical damage caused by corrosion. Corrosion is a major concern in the industrial world and costs 2.2 trillion dollars annually. The application of a protective coating helps extend a product’s life by protecting it from wear, enhancing lubrication, and increasing structural integrity. For details on the benefits of Plasma Spray coatings, go to www.poeton.co.uk/standard-treatments/plasma-coatings
Choosing a suitable coating is an important step in developing a product. It helps reduce costs, reduce manufacturing time, and improve part performance in the field. Advanced surface chemistries can also create unique properties that help extend the functionality of a product. One such property is softness. This property is particularly valuable when manufacturing products that are susceptible to damage due to temperature and solvents.
As a result, surface treatments are a key part of medical device innovation. When applied correctly, surface treatments can deliver excellent results. With these advantages, OEMs are looking for ways to simplify the manufacturing process and improve patient outcomes. Using low-particulate alternatives and low-particulate coatings, OEMs are finding new ways to streamline the design process.
Surface treatment can also improve wettability. Poor wettability can make a part difficult to bond with another material. Surface treatments can improve the wettability of a material by raising its surface energy, which can improve adhesive properties. Some of the most advanced surface treatments use high-voltage discharge in air, which accelerates free electrons in the gas. Electron avalanching creates bonding sites on the surface and improves adhesion between different materials.
Surface treatment creates a sleek finish on a product while maintaining its integrity. Products coated with surface treatments have multiple uses, from pallet jack handles to guardrails. A coating can also be applied to food items. This type of surface treatment is a great way to protect foods from contamination. In addition, coating can reduce scrap and maximise manufacturability.
Surface treatment is an important process for many industries. For example, medical devices are manufactured using advanced adhesives. In these processes, lubricity is an important factor to improve repeatability and quality. | <urn:uuid:6febb0b9-d28e-409b-bff0-257b552f0a27> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://creativebizservices.org/category/reviews/the-benefits-of-coating-a-product-with-a-surface-treatment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224646181.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20230530230622-20230531020622-00407.warc.gz | en | 0.932957 | 570 | 2.859375 | 3 | 2.025871 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Industrial |
Now based in Montgomery, Alabama, Bryan Stevenson is conducting amazing advocacy for racial justice in many different ways: as an attorney for individuals who have been victimized by the U.S. criminal justice system; as the founder of a non-profit human rights organization (the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI)) devoted to those causes; as an author and speaker; and as the creator of various ways to honor his predecessors who strove for justice and the victims of injustice. Let us review these ways in which Stevenson demonstrates his advocacy after looking at his biography.
He was born in 1959 in Milton, Delaware and grew up in a poor rural community. Attending a “colored school” for his early years, he graduated from a racially integrated public high school and then Eastern College (now Eastern University), a Philadelphia “Christian university dedicated to the preparation of . . . students for thoughtful and productive lives of Christian faith, leadership and service.” He then attended and obtained a J.D. degree from the Harvard Law School; and a Masters in Public Policy degree from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Stevenson is an attorney and the Founder and Executive Director of EJI, which specializes in advocacy for children in adult prisons, death-row inmates, prison and sentencing reform and combating race and poverty (. He also is a Professor of Clinical Law at NYU School of Law.
In 1995 he received a “genius” grant from the MacArthur Foundation, which said that in his “drive to expose biases under which capital punishment is imposed, Stevenson has articulated how its use is linked to race and class discrimination and to systemic defects in criminal procedures.”
In 2000 Stevenson was awarded Sweden’s Olof Palme Prize. The award stated he is “a courageous representative of all the individuals, women and men from the entire world, who have maintained tirelessly that the right to life cannot be controverted, that the death penalty is an ultimate form of torture, and that the state does not have the right to kill its citizens.”
Stevenson, the Attorney
In 2015 EJI attorneys won the release of innocent people on death row or in prison for life. They also were successful in obtaining new trials for people illegally convicted and relief for those unfairly sentenced. They have documented and challenged abusive conditions of confinement in state jails and prisons. They have continued to fight against prosecution of children in adult courts and to obtain new sentences for individuals who have been sentenced to life in prison for crimes committed when they were children.
EJI’s work does not end when a client is released from prison. It provides them with re-entry assistance, including housing, employment, training and support. Its Post-Release Education and Preparation Program has been recognized as a model for such programs by various state officials.
Stevenson The Author
Stevenson’s 2014 best-selling book, “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption,” provides interesting accounts of some of the significant cases in which he and EJI have been involved to provide context for a general discussion of particular problems in the American criminal justice system.
For example, Chapter Sixteen, “The Stonecatchers’ Song of Sorrow,” opens with brief discussions of Stevenson’s 2010 victory in the U.S. Supreme Court, when it decided that it was unconstitutional to impose life sentences without parole on children convicted of non-homicide crimes, and in 2012 when the Court held the same was the case when the crime was homicide. The chapter’s footnotes provide citations to these Supreme Court decisions and other mentioned cases.
Chapter Twelve, “Mother, Mother,” is another example. It recounts the trial and unjust conviction of a mother for murdering her stillborn child and sentenced to life without parole. Stevenson and EJI then entered her case and eventually obtained her release from prison. This case is then used as a platform to discuss the many problems created by incarcerating women with more details in footnotes.
The book also tells of instances in which Stevenson is touched, emotionally and spiritually, by clients who are in prison.
In the Introduction, for instance, Stevenson as a 23-year old law student was panicked and nervous when he visited a Georgia death-row inmate, who was immediately happy to learn that he would not have an execution date the next year and then gently led Stevenson into a three-hour general conversation. When the inmate was being returned to his cell, he started singing a black spiritual hymn: “I’m pressing on, the upward way. New heights I’m gaining, every day. Still praying as, I’m upward bound. Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.” Stevenson confesses that this hymn was “a precious gift” and that the prisoner gave him “an astonishing measure of his humanity” and an altered “understanding of human potential, redemption, and hopefulness.”
This and other experiences with death-row prisoners that summer constituted “proximity to the condemned and incarcerated [that] made the question of each person’s humanity more urgent and meaningful” and led to Stevenson’s being “committed to helping the death row prisoners.”
In addition, the book concludes with the “Author’s Note,” in which Stevenson seeks to recruit others to the cause of racial justice, He says, “there are endless opportunities for you to do something about criminal justice policy or help the incarcerated or formerly incarcerated.” An invitation then is extended for the reader to contact EJI for more information.
Stevenson The Speaker
A prior post mentioned Stevenson’s then forthcoming presentation at Minneapolis’ Westminster Town Hall Forum. I attended this event even though I had never heard of him and thought his presentation would be a legal analysis of the changes needed in the American criminal justice system. Instead it was an emotional, passionate call for such reform and more of a sermon than a legal discussion. At the halfway point, the moderator, Rev. Timothy Hart-Andersen, said that in his many years as the moderator of the Forum he had never heard such a moving presentation.
Nine months later I watched his televised conversation with Charlie Rose. “An Hour with Bryan Stevenson,” Charlie Rose Show (Aug. 19, 2015), when he was just as impressive. Here are some of his pithy, insightful comments:
- “Everyone is more than the worst thing he or she has ever done.”
- “No matter what you’ve done, your life matters or has value.”
- “All lives matter.”
- “All lives have equal value.”
Another example of Stevenson as a speaker is his TED Talk of March 2012,“We need to talk about an injustice.”
EJI’s Other Racial Justice Efforts
Over the last four years EJI has published major reports about the domestic slave trade, Slavery in America; and racial lynchings, Lynching in America; its third report was released in late 2015:The Anti-Civil Rights Movement. Excerpts from all of these reports are provided in EJI’s educational 2016 Calendar. For example, the month of October focuses on “Racial Terror Lynchings” with a large photograph of a crowd watching an 1893 Texas lynching and with this comment on October 5th: “1920: A mob lynches four black men in Macclenny, Florida, seizing three from the county jail and shooting the fourth dead in the woods.” EJI also has produced a film, From Slavery to Mass Incarceration.
In addition, EJI has erected historic markers about the domestic slave trade in its home base in Montgomery, Alabama and is working on a national memorial in the city about American racial inequality and lynchings. Its first historical marker about Lynching in America recently was erected in Brighton, Alabama pursuant to a plan to place such markers at every lynching site in the country.
EJI’s office building in Montgomery is the site of a former slave prison and close to the city’s slave market. In late 2016 it plans to convert part of its building to a museum about the history of racial inequality in America and the connections between slavery and mass incarceration. EJI also uses its building to host programs and presentations about its work and the need for reforming the criminal justice system while similar presentations are made by its staff at colleges, universities, churches, community groups, high schools and conferences.
An insight to such programs has been provided by Jim Wallis, the leader of Sojourners, a Christian social justice organization, who along with 50 other faith leaders attended a two-day program at EJI in December 2015. Stevenson emphasized to this group these preconditions for reforming the American criminal justice system: (1) proximity to those most impacted by the system; (2) changing the narrative; (3) replacing hopelessness with hope; and (4) committing ourselves to uncomfortable things.
These messages were made flesh by the Wallis group’s making pilgrimages to two sites where black men had been lynched, digging up dirt from those sites and placing the dirt in glass jars marked with the individuals’ names, birth and death years and the names of the lynching sites (part of EJI’s Soil Collection Project) and then holding prayer services in memory of the individuals. Another moving experience for the Sojourners group was spending time with Mr. Anthony Ray Hinton, who had spent 30 years in solitary confinement on death row in Alabama for a crime he did not commit. Stevenson’s concluding message for the group: “I have always had to believe in things I haven’t seen.”
What an amazing human being! What amazing efforts for social justice! I give thanks to God for this amazing servant!
EJI, Annual Report 2015.
Wallis, It’s Never Too Late to Do Justice, Sojourners (Dec. 17, 2015) EGI, EGI Hosts Sojourners Faith Table Retreat (Dec. 16, 2015). Willis was a speaker at the Westminster Town Hall Forum in 2010 and will be returning on February 4, 2016 to discuss “America’s Original Sin: Racism and White Privilege,” the title of his book being published today. In a Foreward to the book, Stevenson says , “the mainstream church has been largely silent or worse“ to “our nation’s historical failure to address the legacy of racial inequality, the presumption of guilt and the racial narrative that created it.” Moreover, the church has been complicit in the refusal “to commit ourselves to a process of truth and reconciliation” and the emergence of “new forms of racial subordination.” Indeed, according to Stevenson, “Christianity is directly implicated when we Christians fail to speak more honestly about the legacy of racial inequality.” | <urn:uuid:07656b1d-73f8-4fc9-996c-f2398fe02c3a> | CC-MAIN-2019-47 | https://dwkcommentaries.com/tag/andrew-carnegie-medal-for-excellence/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-47/segments/1573496668716.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20191115222436-20191116010436-00270.warc.gz | en | 0.968902 | 2,311 | 2.75 | 3 | 2.951843 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Politics |
A full symphony orchestra consists of approximately 100 musicians playing string, woodwind, brass and percussion instruments led by a single conductor. Orchestra music is surprisingly prevalent and surrounds everyday life. One can relax to the Mozart symphony playing in a hotel lobby or march along to John Williams’ masterful score while watching the “Star Wars” films. But although many enjoy orchestral music in these specific instances, not many can say they enjoy or regularly attend orchestra concerts. In fact, of those who do attend, they commonly fall asleep or sit uncomfortably, trying not to make a single noise as the orchestra decrescendos to serenity. Quite frankly, it is difficult for most people to sit through hourlong symphonies, watching musicians dressed in black hypnotizingly move their arms back and forth. They pay more than $100 to enjoy the ingenious countermelodies of Brahms or the meticulous markings of Mahler but sometimes end up taking a very expensive nap instead.
Professional orchestras receive revenue through concert tickets, recordings, and broadcasts. With high operating costs, though, orchestras cannot rely solely on these incomes to function and receive most of their funds through private donations and government funding. In the last several years, however, major orchestras in the United States have suffered greatly. In 2011, both the Honolulu Symphony and the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra ceased operations and world-renowned orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Louisville Orchestra filed for bankruptcy. Even though the Philadelphia Orchestra managed to come out of bankruptcy after a 15-month battle, they had to cut musicians and staff, as well as wages by about 15 percent. The Philadelphia Orchestra is considered among the top five symphony orchestras in the nation, known for its distinct sound and work with esteemed music director, Leopold Stokowski, and its premiering of a number of works by famous pianist and composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff. The financial crisis of such a historic and influential orchestra alarmed many in the performing arts industry and still continues to worry future artists today.
In fact, of those who do attend, they commonly fall asleep or sit uncomfortably, trying not to make a single noise as the orchestra decrescendos to serenity. Quite frankly, it is difficult for most people to sit through hourlong symphonies, watching musicians dressed in black hypnotizingly move their arms back and forth.
Many factors contribute to the decline of success in these organizations. On the whole, attendance and subscriptions have been falling through the years. US orchestra ticket sales have been decreasing by an average rate of 2.8 percent per year for more than a decade. With a decline in audience numbers and public interest, contributors are also less likely to donate. This past season, the Philadelphia Orchestra only filled about 76 percent of their capacity and created a deficit of $3 million in ticket sales and contributions.
Not only is the population losing interest, but the government is also cutting back on funds for the arts. At the federal level, the National Endowment for the Arts is currently at $146 million, which is $30 million lower than its peak of $176 million in 1992. Even state governments has made large cuts over the years — Michigan spent $2 million on the arts in 2009 compared to $26 million in 2001. California is renowned for having the lowest per capita arts funding, and even though the budget is expected to improve and reach $11 million this year, that does not even cover half of the peak budget of $30 million in 2001.
With the lack of funding and support, many members of the younger generation categorize classical music and orchestra concerts as traditional and pretentious — dull activities for the elderly. What many people do not know is that in response to the changing times, many orchestras are actually experimenting with new approaches. In May 2011, despite having gone on strike in 2010 over a wage dispute, Detroit Symphony Orchestra streamed performances online, receiving more than half a million views. This new spark of attention increased contributions from donors and raised attendance and subscriptions at concerts. Subscriptions rose by 25 percent in three years, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra received 400,000 audience members for their classical series by the 2013-14 season.
It is also quite common now to see major orchestras perform a live soundtrack to movies. In March, the San Francisco Symphony will be performing John Williams’ live score to Steven Spielberg’s “E.T. The Extra Terrestrial” while projecting the film onto a HD screen at Davies Symphony Hall. Performances like these can be enjoyed by anyone and even offer insight in on all the work that goes into producing music in films that many take for granted. Similar to these type of performances, smaller orchestras have also been gaining lots of attention lately for selling out concerts playing music from video games such as Nintendo’s “The Legend of Zelda.”
What many people do not know is that in response to the changing times, many orchestras are actually experimenting with new approaches.
Because of the continuing financial crises of many orchestras, there are always discussions regarding the death of classical music. It is definitely possible and even expected that more orchestras will struggle in the upcoming years. No artist expects everyone to enjoy their art, but a little appreciation instead of indifference or ignorance can help bolster orchestras and the classical music community. Hundreds of years of classical works will not disappear. Whether it’s by collaborating with different forms of art and media or adhering to tradition, orchestral music will continue to evolve.
Tony Choi is a writer for the Weekender. Contact him at [email protected] | <urn:uuid:afa7e18a-ca87-4411-b655-90f0e117a198> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | http://www.dailycal.org/2016/02/05/composition-crisis-and-continuation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578558125.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20190422155337-20190422181337-00328.warc.gz | en | 0.964756 | 1,155 | 2.59375 | 3 | 2.902197 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Entertainment |
Landline Telehones & 9-1-1
When you dial 9-1-1 from a landline, or a hard-wired telephone, enhanced identification information, provided by your telephone company, is sent with your 9-1-1 call to our Dispatch Center.
This information includes the name of the telephone account owner, the street address and city or township the telephone is located, and an Emergency Service Number (ESN) to determine emergency response areas and jurisdictions.
The 9-1-1 call-taker will ask you to verify this information each time you dial 9-1-1. This is to ensure the information's accuracy. If any of the information is determined to be incorrect, the 9-1-1 call-taker will instruct you to contact your telephone company to correct the information, and will submit a trouble-ticket for correction to the national 9-1-1 database.
Cell Phones & 9-1-1
Calling 9-1-1 from a Cell Phone
In our increasingly wireless society, CCE has seen a dramatic shift in the number of 9-1-1 calls received from cellular phones versus landline telephones. Over __% of calls taken in 2012 were from cell phones.
Cell phones bring new challenges to us all in terms of location when placing 9-1-1 calls. As you read above, when you call from a landline telephone, the telephone is in a fixed location, and therefore the address and your location are known and do not change. With cell phones, the call could be coming from anywhere, and it becomes that much more important for you to know your location!
If don't know exactly where you are, technology can help. Cellular Providers are required to provide location information with outgoing 9-1-1 calls in one of two ways:
- GPS Coordinates
- Triangulation using cellular communication towers
Using this information in conjunction with an enhanced computerized mapping system, in most cases the 9-1-1 call-taker can determine where you are calling from.
Can you TEXT to 9-1-1?
No. Currently, Cellular Providers and 9-1-1 systems are not able to accept text messages. However, this ability is not far off! In some areas of the country, TEXT to 9-1-1 is in the beta testing phase. For more information about the future of 9-1-1, see Next-Gen 9-1-1.
Old Cell Phones & 9-1-1 Only Phones
Did you know that your old cell phones are still capable of dialing 9-1-1? Deactivated cell phones, or phones without a cellular plan are still able to dial 9-1-1. They become what are commonly known as "9-1-1 ONLY Phones." As long as the phone's battery is charged, the phone will place 9-1-1 calls. However, 9-1-1 Only Phones are not able to transmit location information with the outgoing call. Therefore, if you are using an old phone for emergency purposes only, it is extremely important that you know where you are, and are able to clearly communicate your exact location when placing a 9-1-1 call.
With the latest and greatest cell phones hitting the shelves at lightning speed, many consumers replace their current cell phone with the newest models every year or two. Most of us won't need more than one 9-1-1 Only Phone in our Emergency Preparedness kits. So what should you do with your old phones? Many cellular providers offer a recycling program for old phones. In Northern Michigan, old cell phones can also be donated to community service groups like the Women's Resource Center. Furthermore, you should not give your old cell phones to your children as play-toys. This creates problems for 9-1-1 centers when children find that their "toy" actually calls someone; your local 9-1-1 Center. These calls tie up valuable 9-1-1 lines and may prevent someone with an actual emergency from receiving the help they need quickly. | <urn:uuid:1327c5fd-3d73-43e3-9d43-5b4ebd36cc24> | CC-MAIN-2018-43 | http://www.cce911.com/landlines-and-cell-phones-69/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-43/segments/1539583511314.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20181017220358-20181018001858-00400.warc.gz | en | 0.927465 | 847 | 2.546875 | 3 | 2.116422 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Crime & Law |
NASA’s decade-old Mars rover, Opportunity, has found new evidence that life-friendly fresh water once pooled on the red planet’s surface, reinforcing similar discoveries made by newcomer Curiosity on the other side of the planet, scientists said Thursday.
Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit, landed on Mars 10 years ago, both looking for clues of the past existence of water. Both rovers confirmed evidence collected by orbiting spacecraft that Mars, the planet believed to be most like Earth in the solar system, was not always the cold, dry desert that appears today.
A new study published in the journal Science bolsters that evidence, showing the earliest signs of water yet among rocks from the Endeavor Crater, where Opportunity has been exploring.
The Endeavor rocks are about 4 billion years old — the oldest the rover has found — and contain telltale clays that form in the presence of water.
What’s more, the chemical makeup at this site is far less acidic and salty than at previous sites, meaning that it would have been more hospitable to living organisms.
“It’s like drinking water,” Ray Arvidson, planetary scientist at the Washington University in St. Louis and lead author of the study, told Reuters. “This would have been a niche for whatever life at the time existed.”
The finding adds to an emerging picture of a planet that spent its first billion years or so warmer than it is today, with pools of fresh water on its surface, scientists say.
Early discoveries by the Curiosity and Opportunity rovers pointed to a planet that was once tropical and moist. Gradually, water activity declined and what did exist became acidic, scientific findings reveal. About 3 billion years ago, Mars dried up, becoming an environment that would have been too harsh to support microbes.
More recently, Opportunity uncovered geologic evidence of water at Endeavor Crater that’s more suited for drinking — a boon for scientists searching for extraterrestrial places where primitive life could have thrived.
Opportunity made waves earlier this month when it discovered a rock shaped like a jelly doughnut that suddenly appeared in its field of view, probably after its wheel kicked it up. Scientists said it’s unlike any rock they’ve seen on Mars before.
Opportunity is expected eventually to head south toward a ridge on the rim of Endeavour Crater that appears to contain a much richer cache of clay-bearing rocks.
“As long as the rover keeps going, we’ll keep going,” chief scientist Steve Squyres of Cornell University told The Associated Press.
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Guest Post by Albert: Weather is changeable but climate is forever. At least so it seemed, before the global warming began in earnest in the 1980s. The difference between weather and climate is often lost on us: we experience and remember the weather but changes over decades are hidden from us. Nature is different: flowers appear weeks earlier than they used to, in response to a warming we haven’t really noticed. But there are short term fluctuations which we do feel. These happen over six months to a few years, and change the weather notably, but are too brief to affect the climate. In the UK, the exceptionally mild winters of the last two years come to mind, or the three rather colder winters preceding them. In other places it can be years of drought. Often they are local events only: for instance, the last winter was very mild in Europe, very cold in parts of the US, balancing each other out. But sometimes they do trace a real, brief change in global temperatures. There are two main events which affect global temperatures on these time scales. One is the El Nino: it occurs irregularly and releases enough heat from the oceans to make a notable difference, lasting 6-12 months. The other is volcanic eruptions, with Pinatubo, Krakatoa and Tambora well-known examples. Pinatubo depressed global temperatures for up to two years. Tambora gave a larger change lasting a few years. But there are times when temperatures go up or down for a few years without a clear volcanic cause. And there is disagreement on how strong volcanoes need to be notable. I tried to find these effects in the global temperature records. The figure below shows the so-called Annual mean Land-Ocean Temperature Index which I consider the best one to use. (There are other temperature indices: some only measure temperatures on land which is closer to our experience but more prone to weather.) I have split it up over the northern hemisphere (above 24 degrees latitude), the southern hemisphere, and the tropics. Comparing temperature graphs immediately shows that the northern hemisphere, and in particular non-tropical latitudes, are most affected by variations. The southern hemisphere is much more stable. This shows the stabilizing effect of oceans: the southern hemisphere is mostly water, and water has a much higher heat capacity than either land or air. Land can respond quickly to changes, but oceans require a long time to heat up or cool down. The arrows at the bottom indicate larger El Nino’s. The very strong El Nino of 1998 is clearly visible. But how well are volcanic eruptions visible? The figures shows the main eruptions over this time. The largest ones are Krakatoa (1883), Novarupta (1912) (the name ‘Katmai’ is also used), El Chicon (1982), and Pinatubo (1991). I have also added the VE5 eruptions, as shorter lines to distinguish them. Furthermore, colour is used to show whether they erupted in the northern hemisphere (red), tropics (black), or southern hemisphere (blue). Pinatubo is clearly visible in the temperature record, in all three plots. El Chicon is not, but it coincided with a very strong El Nino which may have canceled its effects out. Novarupta had no effect. Krakatoa mainly affected the northern hemisphere. Some of the other volcanic eruptions coincided with a temperature excursion, but it is hard to be sure this was not a coincidence. The ones under suspicion of climate alteration are Tarawera (1886; southern hemisphere only), Bezymianni (1956) and Mount Agung (1963) (but the bad winter of 1962/3 came before this eruption and cannot be blamed on a volcano). The Cerro Azul (1932) eruption came before a cold year, but went off in the wrong hemisphere, so is above suspicion because of a good alibi. Hemisphere is important. It is very difficult for northern eruptions to affect the southern hemisphere and vice versa: the tropics act as a very effective barrier to the spread of stratospheric sulphur. Volcanoes in the tropics have an advantage: they can spread their pollution to both hemisphere. The rule of thumb is one of contrast: for a proper volcanic winter, you need a tropical volcano. Can we go back further in time? The temperature record becomes more difficult: there are too few direct measurements, and you can’t use say the long records from central England as they are far too localized: you would get weather rather than climate. However, there are other methods, such as tree rings, and Greenland ice core records, which can be used. They don’t quite measure temperature the same way and you wouldn’t expect a perfect agreement. But it has been shown to work well enough. The temperature record over the past 2000 years is shown below. The red line overplots the recent accurate measurements for the northern hemisphere. Note that all temperatures are shown against the 1951-1980 global average. The Little Ice Age, from about 1300 to 1800, is easily visible. There are also numerous brief excursions. Are any volcanic? To find out, one needs a list of major volcanic eruptions over the past 2000 years. Amazingly, this does not exist. Most major volcanoes erupted in places without a literate population, or, worse, wiped them out, and people just didn’t think of recording the ‘VE’ number for each eruption. Very inconsiderate. But ice cores come to the rescue. Volcanic ash and sulphur leave their traces in the ice, and can be identified both from Greenland and Antarctica. The years can be a little uncertain (it is not easy to accurately count that many layers), the eruption magnitude cannot be accurately inferred, and the location of the volcano is anyone’s guess. (Although it is possible to infer whether it was a tropical, northern, or southern volcano, depending whether it is seen in Greenland, Antarctica, or both.) A list of eruptions and associated volcanoes is in below. Before 1600 there is considerable uncertainty in date, identification, or both. The Kuwae eruption was possibly the largest of the millennium, exceeding Tambora. The 1808 eruption is unusual, in that a fairly accurate date is known (early Dec 1808) but there is no proposed location. Quite a few of these eruptions coincide with a temperature drop. Before 1452 the dates become more uncertain and you wouldn’t expect to see much of a correlation. The excellent fit in 535AD is a bit misleading, since the temperature decline was used to date the eruption! However, there are enough cases of real agreement to make the case for volcanic winters convincing. But not really winters. The sulphuric haze reduces the strength of the sun light, and this should have more effect on the summer temperatures (when the sun’s effect is strongest) than on the winter. A volcanic winter is typified by snow in summer. Extreme winters can rarely be traced to a volcano. The cause of the winter of 1740, when the Shannon froze over and a quarter of Ireland’s population died, lies out in the Atlantic, and not in sonme distant caldera. Not all weather excursions can be blamed on volcanoes.
|1570||Billy Mitchell||Papua New Guinea||6|
|1482||Mount St Helens||USA||5|
- 1831: The identification with Babuyan seems doubtful. The dust/sulphur is seen only in Greenland, not Antarctica. Also the dry fog reported in Europe that year suggests a northern location, perhaps North America. There may have been two eruptions, one around 1830 and one around 1835.
- Long Island, Papua New Guinea, may be another candidate for the 1640 eruption. It had a large event sometime before 1700.
- The identification of the 1570 dust as from Billy Mitchell is tentative. The eruption itself is not accurately enough dated.
- The Baitoushan eruption has an uncertain date by +- 50 year. | <urn:uuid:e1fbf8b3-161f-49fd-bf13-40f187960834> | CC-MAIN-2017-30 | https://volcanocafe.wordpress.com/2015/05/20/volcanic-winters/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-30/segments/1500549424770.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20170724082331-20170724102331-00149.warc.gz | en | 0.931409 | 1,683 | 3.5625 | 4 | 3.011375 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Science & Tech. |
100 Mile House Free Press, Canada.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006.
Carrying a white cane is a declaration of both blindness and independence. A person must be legally blind to use the symbolic cane, but legal blindness does not mean total blindness. Most people who are legally blind have some usable vision.
That's the case with South Cariboo youth Ben Johnson who can make out objects, which are very close, but the rest of his visual world is a blur. His white cane gives him freedom to go almost anywhere and, while he knows what the cane signifies, Johnson is reminded almost daily how little the general public knows.
"I've had more than a few close calls at crosswalks, with cars not stopping when I try to cross the street," said Johnson. "I don't think they know what I'm saying with my cane."
Legally blind people have the right-of-way at street crossings. Motorists must come to a complete stop when a pedestrian is using a dog guide or white cane.
Many sighted pedestrians are confused when they see a person with a white cane or dog guide, especially if the person seems to have some usable vision, Johnson added.
When in doubt, he suggests fellow pedestrians ask if the person needs assistance, but don't grab the person or his cane.
There are a variety of white canes depending on a person's visual impairment, age, height and specific needs. There are two main types of white canes used by legally blind people.
A white support cane with red at the bottom is designed to identify a person as legally blind but has usable travel vision. This cane is used to assist with depth perception on stairs or curbs.
A long white cane with red at the bottom is for independent travel and to avoid obstacles.
There are a number of do's and don'ts to consider when a motorist comes across a pedestrian with a dog guide or a white cane:
Don't call out "it's O.K. to cross." A motorist may not have considered all the factors before giving the "all clear." For example, you stopped your car but the person passing you in the next lane may not. A blind person listens to all traffic sounds before deciding to cross.
Don't engage a visually impaired traveller in conversation even if you know them. It requires skill and concentration to cross an intersection and a friendly greeting may distract them. Wait until they have crossed the street.
Don't wait too long for a blind pedestrian to cross the street. The sound of an idling engine "waiting" at the intersection puts pressure on the blind people to cross the street when they are not ready. When it becomes evident they aren't going to cross, "creep" slowly through the crossing. If the cane traveller takes a step back and pulls in his cane, it's a definite "go" for the motorist.
Avoid split-second stops at stop signs. They are confusing to those who are dependent on traffic sounds. If you come to a complete stop, you could provide some assistance with the sound of your car's engine. Come to a full stop and allow the blind pedestrian to cross in front of you.
Don't turn right on a red light. In an ideal world that would be true. Take it easy on the right turns and remind yourself to check the intersection before turning.
Don't fail to stop for pedestrians at crosswalks without stop signs. To ensure the safety of all pedestrians always come to a full stop when a pedestrian is anywhere in the crosswalk.
Don't stop in the middle of the crosswalk. This forces a blind pedestrian to go around your car and often into traffic in order to cross the street.
Don't block the sidewalk at driveways. Creative parking solutions often create problems for a cane traveller. In this particular case, a path around the front or back of the car must be chosen, with no guarantees on outcome.
Don't honk. Honking at the blind pedestrian to let them know they can cross usually results in scaring the heck out of them.
Arlene Jongbloets, Free Press staff
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touch ( touches plural & 3rd person present) ( touching present participle) ( touched past tense & past participle )
1 verb If you touch something, you put your hand onto it in order to feel it or to make contact with it.
Her tiny hands gently touched my face... V n
The virus is not passed on through touching or shaking hands. V-ing
Touch is also a noun., n-count usu sing
Sometimes even a light touch on the face is enough to trigger off this pain.
2 v-recip If two things are touching, or if one thing touches another, or if you touch two things, their surfaces come into contact with each other.
Their knees were touching ... pl-n V
A cyclist crashed when he touched wheels with another rider... V pl-n with n
If my arm touches the wall, it has to be washed again... V n
In some countries people stand close enough to touch elbows... V pl-n
He touched the cow's side with his stick. V n with n
3 n-uncount Your sense of touch is your ability to tell what something is like when you feel it with your hands.
The evidence suggests that our sense of touch is programmed to diminish with age.
4 verb To touch something means to strike it, usually quite gently.
As the aeroplane went down the runway the wing touched a pile of rubble. V n
5 verb If something has not been touched, nobody has dealt with it or taken care of it.
usu passive, with brd-neg
When John began to restore the house in the 1960s, nothing had been touched for 40 years. be V-ed
6 verb If you say that you did not touch someone or something, you are emphasizing that you did not attack, harm or destroy them, especially when you have been accused of doing so.
with brd-neg (emphasis)
Pearce remained adamant, saying `I didn't touch him'... V n
I was in the garden. I never touched the sandwiches. V n
7 verb You say that you never touch something or that you have not touched something for a long time to emphasize that you never use it, or you have not used it for a long time.
no passive, with brd-neg (emphasis)
He doesn't drink much and doesn't touch drugs... V n
8 verb If you touch on a particular subject or problem, you mention it or write briefly about it.
The film touches on these issues, but only superficially... V on/upon n
9 verb If something touches you, it affects you in some way for a short time.
...a guilt that in some sense touches everyone... V n
10 verb If something that someone says or does touches you, it affects you emotionally, often because you see that they are suffering a lot or that they are being very kind.
It has touched me deeply to see how these people live... it V n to-inf
Her enthusiasm touched me. V n
touched adj v-link ADJ
I was touched to find that he regards me as engaging...
11 verb If something is touched with a particular quality, it has a certain amount of that quality.
WRITTEN usu passive
His crinkly hair was touched with grey... be V-ed with n
The boy was touched with genius. be V-ed with n
12 verb If you say about someone that nobody can touch him or her for a particular thing, you mean that he or she is much better at it than anyone else.
no cont, no passive, with brd-neg
No one can touch these girls for professionalism. V n for n, Also V n
13 verb To touch a particular level, amount, or score, especially a high one, means to reach it.
(mainly BRIT) no passive
By the third lap Kinkead had touched 289 m.p.h. V n
14 n-count A touch is a detail which is added to something to improve it.
They called the event `a tribute to heroes', which was a nice touch...
15 n-sing If someone has a particular kind of touch, they have a particular way of doing something.
The dishes he produces all have a personal touch...
16 quant A touch of something is a very small amount of it.
QUANT of n-uncount
She thought she just had a touch of flu...
17 You can use a touch to mean slightly or to a small extent, especially in order to make something you say seem less extreme. For example, if you say that something is a touch expensive, you might really think that it is very expensive.
a touch phrase PHR adj/adv/prep (vagueness)
We were all a touch uneasy, I think..., I found it a touch distasteful.
19 You use at the touch of in expressions such as at the touch of a button and at the touch of a key to indicate that something is possible by simply touching a switch or one of the keys of a keyboard.
at the touch of phrase PHR n, usu PHR after v
Staff will be able to trace calls at the touch of a button.
20 If you say that someone has the common touch, you mean that they have the natural ability to have a good relationship with ordinary people and be popular with them.
common touch phrase usu PHR after v (approval)
21 If you get in touchwith someone, you contact them by writing to them or telephoning them. If you are, keep, or stay in touchwith them, you write, phone, or visit each other regularly.
in touch phrase PHR after v, v-link PHR, usu PHR with n
The organisation would be in touch with him tomorrow...
22 If you are in touchwith a subject or situation, or if someone keeps you in touchwith it, you know the latest news or information about it. If you are out of touchwith it, you do not know the latest news or information about it.
in touch/out of touch phrase PHR after v, v-link PHR, usu PHR with n
...keeping the unemployed in touch with the labour market..., Mr Cavazos' problem was that he was out of touch.
23 If you lose touchwith someone, you gradually stop writing, telephoning, or visiting them.
lose touch phrase V inflects, PHR with n, pl-n PHR
In my job one tends to lose touch with friends...
24 If you lose touchwith something, you no longer have the latest news or information about it.
lose touch phrase V inflects, usu PHR with n
Their leaders have lost touch with what is happening in the country.
25 If you say that something is touch and go, you mean that you are uncertain whether it will happen or succeed.
touch and go phrase v-link PHR, oft PHR wh
It was touch and go whether we'd go bankrupt.
26 If you say that someone is a soft touch or an easy touch, you mean that they can easily be persuaded to lend you money or to do things for you.
a soft touch/an easy touch phrase v-link PHR
Pamela was an easy touch when she needed some cash.
would not touch someone or something with a barge pole →
barge pole →
the finishing touch →
touch wood →
wood touch down phrasal verb When an aircraft touches down, it lands.
(=land) Spacecraft Columbia touched down yesterday... V P touch off phrasal verb If something touches off a situation or series of events, it causes it to start happening.
(=spark off) Is the massacre likely to touch off a new round of violence? V P n (not pron), Also V n P
out of touch
1 adj Someone who is out of touchwith a situation is not aware of recent changes in it.
v-link ADJ, oft ADJ with n
Washington politicians are out of touch with the American people...
2 adj If you are out of touch with someone, you have not been in contact with them recently and are not familiar with their present situation.
v-link ADJ, oft ADJ with n
James wasn't invited. We've been out of touch for years.
touch paper , touchpaper
If someone lights the touch paper or lights the blue touch paper, they do something which causes anger or excitement.
light the (blue) touch paper phrase V inflects
This kind of remark is guaranteed to light the blue touch paper with some Labour politicians.
touch-screen ( touch-screens plural ) A touch-screen is a computer screen that allows the user to give commands to the computer by touching parts of the screen rather than by using the keyboard or mouse. (COMPUTING) n-count oft N n
A touch-tone telephone has numbered buttons that make different sounds when you press them. Some automatic telephone services can only be used with this kind of telephone. adj ADJ n | <urn:uuid:ebc3b802-ca97-410f-a010-c571328232a9> | CC-MAIN-2014-15 | http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-cobuild/i'll%20be%20in%20touch%20with%20you | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-15/segments/1398223205137.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20140423032005-00428-ip-10-147-4-33.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954545 | 1,924 | 3.078125 | 3 | 2.21586 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Literature |
Huge gray waves still swept out of the darkness to meet the long steel hull of the ore freighter Champlain, but the worst was over now. Snow and spray no longer rattled like buckshot off the pilot house windows, and the scream of the winds had died almost to a whisper.
First Mate Herbert Dupuie had the watch, thankful that the November gale had almost blown itself out. Lake Erie was still a wild expanse of churning waters, but the 80-mile-an hour winds that had blown the tops off mountainous seas had died away and the heavy snows were past. Dupuie had a more immediate problem, now -- the rocky shallows off Point Abino, and the razor-like ridges of Waverly Shoal near the approaches to Buffalo Harbor.
On the bridge of the Champlain, Dupuie and his look-outs strained to pick out a tiny point of light in the pre-dawn blackness -- a point of light hung from a 30-foot mast on the Buffalo lightship, Light Vessel 82.
Beyond the light, Buffalo Harbor held a promise of shelter and an end to Lake Erie's constant, brutal pounding. And shelter was something badly needed by Great Lakes sailors, on the morning of November 11, 1913.
Unknown to the men of the ore carrier Champlain, in the days before radio communications, the Lakes already had taken a terrible toll in a storm that packed hurricane-force winds; more than a dozen ships and nearly 250 sailors met their end in the great November storm of 1913. Some ships tried to ride out the fury of wind and waves, others ran for shelter -- but there was one ship, near Buffalo, that had nowhere to go.
The beacon on Buffalo's lightship should have been visible for miles, early that dark November morning. But now the beacon was gone.
Concerned, Dupuie ordered the big steel freighter checked down, maintaining just enough steam to creep slowly through the still-turbulent seas. He also sent word to his brother, Captain F.A. Dupuie, and the ship's master joined in the search for the tiny point of light that would tell them just where they were.
They never found the light. The Champlain made port -- but it would take nearly two years and a major salvage effort before Light Vessel 82, driven under by the winds and the waves of a vicious Lake Erie storm, would see harbor again.
Light Vessel 82 was the second lightship in the Lighthouse Service's history to sink on station, and the first to go down with the loss of all hands. Six men died when the lightship was lost, and only one body ever was found.
"When we passed the lightship's charted position it was very dark," Herbert Dupuie reported after the Champlain was safely berthed at the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh coal dock in Buffalo. "The sea was still heavy, but little wind was blowing and it seemed to us the lightship, built expressly for heavy weather, should have ridden out the storm."
"At daylight we looked the lake over carefully with glasses, but the lightship was not in sight." L.V. 82 had vanished almost without a trace. Bits and pieces of wreckage found their way ashore over the next few days -- life preservers, sections of railing, pieces torn from the ship's boats.
And a board, bearing a storm-tossed message from the light-ship captain to his wife ashore: "Good-bye, Nellie, ship is breaking up fast. Williams."
Captain Hugh McClennan Williams of Manistee, Michigan, went down with his ship, on station until the very end. With him went mate Andrew Leahy of Elyria, Ohio; Andrew's brother Cornelius, the assistant engineer; chief engineer Charles Butler of Buffalo, New York; seaman William Jensen of Muskegon, Michigan; and cook Peter Mackey, of Buffalo.
Nearly a year later, the body of chief engineer Butler was found floating in the Niagara River off the foot of Ferry Street, on Buffalo's West Side. Butler's widow, who lived not far away, identified her husband's remains by his heavy black sweater-coat, a gold cuff button and the fact that a finger was missing from one hand; although the chief engineer's body had been in the water for more than 50 weeks and had traveled 13 miles before coming ashore, newspapers of the day reported it "was well preserved, the face and upper portion being petrified."
For a while, waterfront denizens theorized that high winds had shifted the sunken lightship on the lake bed and freed the body, and that more crew members would soon be coming ashore. None ever did, though; Butler's body, taken to Ogdensburg, New York, for burial, was the only one recovered from the waters of Lake Erie or the swift-flowing Niagara.
From the beginning, there was disbelief that the lightship could have gone down. L.V. 82 was a brand-new vessel, built of steel in a Great Lakes yard to weather the fierce onslaughts of gales on the inland seas. She was 95 feet, 1 1/2 inches long, 21 feet wide, and her foredeck was the lakes-bred "whaleback" design to help her shed the steep breaking seas of stormy Lake Erie.
She was built at the Racine Truscott-Shell Co. in Muskegon, Michigan, starting October 17, 1910, and was delivered unfinished to the Lighthouse Service on July 22, 1912 at a cost of $49,595.76. Different sources put her freshwater displacement between 187 and 209 tons, but there was no doubt she was a sturdy vessel.
After adding lanterns, fog signals, anchors and other items, the Service put L.V. 82 on station on August 3, 1912, "temporarily to mark the approaches to Buffalo, New York, pending the construction and completion of Light Vessel No. 96."
Buffalo Harbor was one of the busiest ports in the world during the early years of this century, and there was no doubt the lightship was needed. The steamer tracks through the eastern basin of Lake Erie passed fairly close to the Canadian north shore, and Point Abino stretched a rugged finger southward into the narrowing lake just a few miles from the Niagara River and the Buffalo harbor entrance.
Point Abino's shallows extended well off the tip of the point, and Waverly Shoal waited just beneath the surface a bit closer to Buffalo. The submerged wreck of the steamer W.C. Richardson provided yet another hazard, for the unwary mariner.
Congress had taken the first steps toward establishing a lightship station off Buffalo in 1903, but a decade was to pass before L.V. 82 was to arrive to establish the light 13 miles off Buffalo, about mid-way between Point Abino on the Canadian shore and Sturgeon Point on the American shore. She arrived decked out in a livery of "English vermilion," and powered by an inverted direct-acting high-pressure steam engine that used a 14-inch-diameter cylinder to run a 5-foot cast iron propeller.
Her beacon was a group of three 20-mm lenses on a sliding band mounted on her forward mast, which also carried the daymark; a bell on the rounded foredeck and a six-inch steam whistle on the midship funnel served as fog signals, and a jigger mast aft carried a steadying sail.
There were also a few modem conveniences, like a steam anchor windlass and a sanitary plumbing system, and a drainage system. There were even some touches of luxury -- French plate glass mirrors, a small library, and leather upholstered oak chairs. But literally above all were the lights, 170 candlepower from each lens to light the way safely to Buffalo for a steady procession of grain and ore boats.
"From the bridge of our ship we have never had any difficulty in making her out with the glass at points miles distant from her location," First Mate Dupuie noted after the Champlain reached safety. "Never before had we experienced any difficulty in picking up the light of 82, and the fact that it was not in its place this morning struck me as being so unusual that I made an immediate report of the circumstance to the captain."
Had Dupuie known then of the severity of the November storm throughout the Great Lakes, he may have been less surprised at missing the lightship. Storm forecasting was in its infancy, shipboard radios a thing of the future; the "Great Storm of 1913" would leave a legacy of death unlikely to be equaled. Sweeping from west to east across the 95,000 square miles of the world's greatest freshwater seas, the storm would claim a staggering toll of lives and ships from the time it hit Lake Superior on Friday, November 7, until it delivered a parting blow to the eastern-most lakes on Monday, November 10, the day L.V. 82 disappeared.
A dozen ships vanished with all hands during the Great Storm, eight of them during "Black Sunday" on the wind-whipped waves of Lake Huron. Gone were aging vessels and new steel freighters alike; the storm claimed two oceangoing tramp steamers, as well as bulk freighters up to 550 feet long and 7,862 gross tons in burden. Ore boats were driven ashore on rocky, snow-swept coasts, and overturned hulls floating in mid-lake posed days of anxiety and heartbreak for families waiting ashore. Waves 35 feet high tossed ships like toys, and 51 of the vessels that did manage to survive reported severe damage.
Lake Erie escaped the worst of the storm, a blow that nevertheless paralyzed the shipping center of Cleveland for days, downing telegraph lines and burying roads and railroad tracks under huge drifts of snow. In Buffalo, where the winds were clocked at 80 mph, the storm was considered "no record-breaker" and most of the shipping had heeded weather warnings and stayed safely in port.
Shallower than the other inland seas, only 210 feet at its deepest point, Lake Erie is known for its mercurial moods and a frightening ability to quickly build steep, high seas that hit vessels in rapid, pounding succession. But in the Great Storm, the lake was content with only one victim -- the lonely lightship, anchored far offshore.
The morning after the blow, the Champlain was one of four downbound freighters to miss spotting the friendly glimmer of the lightship. As the gray day dawned, other reports filtered in -- bits of wreckage on the beach at the foot of Michigan Avenue included life preservers marked "United States L.V. 82."
Out on Point Abino, Elman Boughman borrowed the strongest telescope he could find and scanned the waves for the light vessel.
"The surf was running high along shore, but the lake was less turbulent, the wind having died down," he told a reporter for The Buffalo Evening News. "With this glass I can pick out a rowboat several miles distant, but I cannot find even a speck which might be the lightship." The Lighthouse Service, in fact, got word of its loss in a call from the newspaper. Roscoe House, veteran superintendent of the Tenth District, sent the tender Crocus out to search for L.V. 82, but found it hard to believe the new steel lightship was gone; "The lightship ought to weather any gale, as it has its own power and is a staunch steel boat," he said. "The fact that life preservers, and parts of railing or small doors were picked up on the beach near Michigan Street is not seriously significant, for the upper works might be washed off and everything on the upper part of the lightship, yet the boat would weather the gale."
By noon, when the assistant district superintendent had boarded the tug Yale to join the fruitless search and the crews of the Life Saving Service station were patrolling the beaches along Buffalo's shores, House may have begun to lose hope. L.V. 82 had vanished. There would be no survivors.
Wreckage continued to come ashore, but most proved to have come from a wooden freighter that had been wrecked a few weeks earlier on Long Point. From L.V. 82 came a drawer from the ship's galley, the capsized and mast-less small wooden sailboat carried by the lightship, a board from the ship's powerboat containing the brass cover to the gasoline tank -- and a mystery.
A fisherman walking along a beach days later found a board, apparently a piece of ship's cabinetry, with a message scrawled in pencil. "Good-bye, Nellie," the message read, "ship is breaking up fast. Williams."
Was it a last, desperate message from the lightship's captain to his wife ashore? Or was it just a cruel, heartless hoax perpetrated, as one newspaper account suggests, by the small boys who lived in the seawall shanty town?
There was debate from the beginning. Captain Williams' wife was Mary Williams, not Nellie -- and would a loving husband have signed such a message with only his last name?
Williams had promised to leave his wife such a message, if disaster overtook him; the wood, compared to other drawers from the doomed lightship, appeared authentic. During the summer or 1912, Williams had stayed with the family of Horseshoe Reef lightkeeper Thomas Joseph in Buffalo, and Mrs. Joseph said she had heard the captain addressing his wife as Nellie -- a claim Mrs. Williams herself, arriving in Buffalo with her brother at mid-week to join in the search, would deny.
Mary Williams, who would mount her own sorrowful vigil on the rolling decks of the Crocus as it spent two days searching for the lightship and its crew, had no doubt the message was real.
Her daughter-in-law, Angel M. Williams of Manistee, recalled years later that Mary Williams felt her husband was so near death that he had someone else write the hurried words for him. The message was not in her husband's handwriting, Mrs. Williams said, and the "Nellie" could have been written in error, Angel Williams found evidence of haste and impending doom in the fact that "the 'S' in Williams was a scrawled line as if the ship had given a mighty lurch at that moment."
Real or not, the message was only part of the puzzle facing the Lighthouse Service. Of paramount importance was finding the missing ship itself, to solve the greatest mystery of all -- the question of how a new steel vessel, built expressly to weather severe lake gales, could be lost. L.V. 82, though, proved an elusive quarry.
After the initial searches by the tender Crocus, a revenue cutter and Buffalo-based tugs proved unsuccessful, the Lighthouse Service dispatched Captain E.M. Trott from Washington, D.C. to supervise the hunt for the sunken lightship. Captain Trott arrived on Thursday, November 13, and had a large acetylene gas buoy and a set of grappling hooks loaded aboard the Crocus, intending to drag the bottom to locate and mark the wreck site. The effort ended, again, in failure -- at the lightship station, seas still were running too high for the work.
By the next day, however, the seas had calmed enough to let the crews anchor the lighted buoy on the lightship station, to finish out the navigation season on Lake Erie. The Crocus had no luck finding the wreck, though, and by late November the search was being handled by the United States Lake Survey office in Detroit.
Winter came, icing over the eastern basin of Lake Erie before L.V. 82 could be found. Investigators meanwhile concluded that the ship had been lost sometime between the last sighting of its beacon at about 4:45 a.m. Monday, November 10, and the Champlain's passage about 24 hours later. Whatever its doom, L.V. 82 had probably met its end sometime during the height of the storm that dark Monday.
Inspector House duly wrote off the vessel as November neared its end, and -- following Service regulations -- recommended to Washington that the crew posts be discontinued. The Secretary of Commerce duly lined out the jobs and the salaries -- $900 per year for the captain, $840 for the chief engineer, $660 for the mate and the assistant engineer, $40 per month for the cook and $37.50 per month for the seaman.
It would be the next May, when Lake Erie's ice had melted or disappeared down the mighty Niagara, before L.V. 82 was found. The search ship Surveyor came across the wreckage in 62 feet of water, nearly two miles off station.
There was hope, then, that the bodies of the men would at last be recovered. Dave Beaudrey, a Detroit diver working for the Lake Survey, made a thorough search of the wreck, but no trace of the crew was found.
"It was thought that the bodies would be found in the fire hold because it was said the crew always went there in a severe storm," Captain Williams' hometown newspaper in Manistee reported. "It was believed they were trapped between decks with locked doors..."
The Surveyor left a buoy to mark the wreck, and the government turned the job of raising the ship over to commercial salvers. Two companies tried to bring her up, but L.V. 82 had taken on a heavy cargo of lake bottom sand and the efforts failed. Finally, the Reid Wrecking and Towing Company brought L.V. 82 back to the surface on September 16, 1915 at a cost of $36,000.
She had been on the bottom for nearly two years, but the wreckage still bore testimony to the violence of the November 1913 storm. And it provided the answer to the final puzzle.
Steep, towering seas had come out of the wall of wind and snow in rapid succession, battering the tiny lightship unmercifully. Mountains of water broke across the turtleback-style foredeck, but the seas were so high they swept still farther aft to pound against the wooden superstructure.
Held in place by its huge mushroom anchor, L.V. 82 took a tremendous beating. Seas smashed in the lantern room, splintered windows and doors, crushed hatches and ventilators. L.V. 82's crew had sealed the vessel against the storm as well as they could, choosing to stay on station rather than run for shelter, but the Lighthouse Service's brand-new "staunch steel ship" had literally been pounded to death by the fury of the storm.
Darkness and storms, after all, are what lightships were for. L.V. 82 had nowhere to go, that snow-shrouded day -- and, perhaps, just time enough for one hastily-penciled message.
The wreckers brought the shattered hulk back to shore, beaching the vessel at Buffalo. Eventually, the hull was re-floated and towed the length of Lake Erie to Detroit, for re-building and fitting out as a relief lightship.
Diver Beudrey's report proved correct. The hull was intact, but seas that poured in and caused the vessel to founder had wrecked the interior. At the Detroit depot, the oil lamps were replaced by new acetylene beacons, and a 10-inch steam whistle and submarine bell were installed.
Incredibly, the lightship that had been pounded under by the Great Storm saw duty again on the Great Lakes. L.V. 82 served in a relief role from 1916 to 1925, working throughout the Tenth District. From 1926 to 1935, she marked Eleven Foot Shoal, until that lightship station was replaced by a lighthouse for the 1936 season.
Laid up as a relief vessel, L.V. 82 found still another odd change in course in her future. Rep. John W. McCormack of Massachusetts sponsored an act of Congress that, when signed by President Franklin Roosevelt, turned the little lightship over to newly-formed U.S.S. Constitution Post 3339, Veterans of Foreign Wars -- a Boston VFW post of ex-Navy men who used the docked lightship as summer quarters from 1936 until 1945.
In the end, vandals did what not even a vicious Great Lakes gale could do -- they drove L.V. 82 under for good, sinking her at her dock. According to the late New England historian Edgar Rowe Snow, the wreckage was finally scrapped. Even the Buffalo lightship station had faded into history, by that time.
The station was marked in 1914 by L.V. 96, a larger lightship that had just been launched in Michigan by the same yard that had built L.V. 82. The assignment was temporary, an emergency measure occasioned by the loss of L.V. 82 a few months before, and the new ship was moved to Poe Reef off Michigan the next season.
Her place was taken in 1915 by a sister ship, L.V. 98, which marked the station until 1918. That was the last year for a Buffalo lightship -- in 1917, Canada opened its powerful new Point Abino Light. The lighthouse, and buoys on the shoals near Buffalo Harbor, made a lightship station unnecessary.
The tragedy of Light Vessel 82 slowly faded from memory in the Buffalo area. Back in Manistee, Mary Williams received a final memento -- her husband's pilot's license, faded from its long sojourn at the bottom of the lake, was taken from the wreckage of his cabin and sent to the widow two years after the sinking. In a cemetary at Onekama, nearby, stands a monument to "Captain Hugh M. Williams, Lost at Sea." | <urn:uuid:fa509ad2-cc2d-4b7e-a70e-a3e47f749495> | CC-MAIN-2015-48 | http://www.buffalohistoryworks.com/light/light-vessel.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-48/segments/1448398461113.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20151124205421-00080-ip-10-71-132-137.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978896 | 4,551 | 3.0625 | 3 | 2.990273 | 3 | Strong reasoning | History |
Have you heard that our body is mainly composed of 70% water? Although true, the percentage varies from 55% of water in adult women, all the way up to 78% in babies, with the percentage for adult men somewhere in between. This is also true for animals, where some — like the jellyfish — have even 90% of their body composed of water. With this in mind, why don’t animals, including us, look like a soup? How can animals have a defined 3D structure?
Animals are made out of cells, the building blocks of our organs and tissues. But cells are basically a bag of water and chemicals; so again, why don’t animals look like giant bags of chemicals? The most obvious reason is that animals have bones that give structure to the rest of the body. But even bones are 31% water, and organs with no bones, such as hearts, still have a unique 3D form. Hearts have defined chambers (see the elephant heart below); they’re not just a mush of cells. The answer lies not in the cells themselves but in what surrounds them.
Cells are engulfed by the extracellular matrix (ECM) which is mainly composed of proteins. This matrix encompasses the space in-between cells, gives them structural support and acts like a scaffold. It can also act as a pathway for cells to migrate along and it gives out chemical and physical cues that cells respond to. The ECM varies from organ to organ. The brain, for example, is mainly composed of cells with an ECM of only 20% of the total mass. In contrast, cartilage has fewer cells and around 70% of its mass is ECM. Every cell type is surrounded by a specific matrix that will affect its function. Studying this extracellular environment is important to understand how cells develop, how they interact with each other, and how they react to disease.
At the same time, by studying the ECM, researchers can get an idea of how an organ or tissue is structured and how to replicate its intricate architecture. Scientists that work in tissue engineering use a technique which consists of washing away the cells of an organ, literally. By using detergents, the cells are washed away in cycles until just the extracellular matrix is left. In this manner, they can analyse its composition and experiment with the matrix with the end goal of growing an organ in the lab. Therefore, one day we could replace diseased or aged organs with new ones without the need for transplantation. The unique composition of the ECM provides cells with the support they need to survive, and at the same time, gives animals and their organs a defined 3D structure. | <urn:uuid:3a38a29d-bd14-4d17-9a2e-02d51ccb8331> | CC-MAIN-2022-27 | https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/researchers-in-museums/tag/organs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-27/segments/1656103947269.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20220701220150-20220702010150-00014.warc.gz | en | 0.96975 | 574 | 3.90625 | 4 | 2.542835 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Science & Tech. |
A New and Better Economic Future
Suggested Citation: Kerr, Andy. 2000. Oregon Desert Guide: 70 Hikes. Seattle: The Mountaineers Books. pp. 85-88.
Everyone is for change in general, but they're scared of it in particular
Most local sentiment in the West has always fought conservation, from Yellowstone National Park in 1872 through the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument in 1996. It is because people fear change.
During consideration of the Oregon Wilderness Act of 1984, the chambers of commerce in Union (La Grande) and Douglas (Roseburg) Counties voiced strong opposition to the legislation. Today, both market themselves as "wilderness" counties.
The choice facing Oregon Desert communities is not one of continuing with the status quo, but whether to embrace and make change work or to begrudge inevitable change at every step.
Accurate information is the foundation for good choices. It must be understood that:
1. The past is not sustainable in the future.
2. While socially significant, grazing is not economically significant.
3. The economy of the Oregon Desert has changed and will continue to change.
4. If locals choose to, they can move toward a better economic future.
5. Change is always a bitch.
Livestock grazing on the public lands is not ecologically sustainable (see "Domestic Livestock: Scourge of the West" earlier). Nor is it economically sustainable (see "Ending Public Land Grazing Fair and Square" later). Public land ranchers will continue to lose money and fail, irrespective of pressures from conservation organizations.
Statewide, the contribution of livestock grazing to the economy is insignificant. This is the case locally as well, especially for public land livestock grazing. If all the grazing on the 7.2 million acres addressed in the Oregon Desert Conservation Act were to end immediately, it would amount to perhaps one hundred full-time jobs lost to owners, operators, and ranch hands. (Grazing would continue on private lands, where most of the forage is.) This is a small number of jobs even in the sparsely settled Oregon Desert.
Unless it is your job. The consequences are little different whether you lose your job through an act of Congress or through inevitable market changes. Society has a moral obligation to help those in transition, even though the overall number is politically insignificant. It doesn't matter whether this change is due to the globalization of the economy, changing market preferences for goods and services, or government policies (interest rates, zoning, or grazing reductions).
The Oregon Desert Conservation Act would provide for (a) economic development aid for affected counties and (b) economic transition assistance to affected workers in the livestock industry.
Conservationists also support decoupling federal revenues to counties from resource extraction. Instead federal payments to counties should be based on a fair payment in lieu of the property taxes that would be paid if the federal land were private land.
Local government income that now comes from a portion of the revenues generated by exploitive and unsustainable activities on public lands should be switched to new and more stable sources. Most jurisdictions in the desert, for example, don't yet have a lodging room tax, and the few that do tax at a fraction of what most cities charge. A room tax is a politician's perfect tax: their voters don't pay for it.
Livestock grazing, while economically insignificant, is socially significant in the Oregon Desert. Far more people play cowboy (all hat and truck—no cows and calves), than are cowboys. They view themselves as part of cattle culture, though not economically dependent upon it.
The economy of the Oregon Desert has changed, however, and will continue to change. Espresso sales are up; barbed wire sales are down. The largest employer is still government, which will not likely change. Communities are transitioning from agriculture (including public land grazing) to modified service-based economies (and that doesn't mean everyone is flipping burgers or cleaning toilets). The largest economic activity is transfer payments (Social Security payments, retirement payments, nonlocal government salaries, and so forth), and it continues to grow. Few small towns of the desert are actually dying (unless you consider change death). Diversification brings uncertainty, while refusing to change brings certain death.
Though we live in a global economy, local citizens can choose their future. Will the local-economic-booster mentality lead communities to simply seek the next boom (with its inevitable bust)? Yes, if history is any guide.
Will communities change? Yes. Will they like it or, at least, be the better for it? It depends.
It is hard for most public land grazing permittees to change. A few have converted, and more will, to bed-and-breakfast operations. Some will convert to horse and llama operations hauling tourists into the backcountry (still get to wear the hat and drive the truck). Some will reconfigure their grazing operations solely to private lands. Some will not change.
Some people would rather die than change. For example, there is more money in raising domesticated bison than in cattle, yet few ranchers have made the switch. It is not what their daddy did. Resistance to change is not limited to ranchers. Most restaurants don't change their cuisine without also changing owners.
If you talk with many of the Oregon Desert "old guard" generation who fear change the most, you'll find that many have siblings who have long since moved to the city for economic advancement. The same is true of their aunts and uncles and great-aunts and uncles. Socially—if not genetically—selected, those left are often the least inclined to accept change, especially now, when change is visiting rural areas at a pace never before experienced.
In the range of the northern spotted owl, ten thousand timber jobs were lost when the government reduced timber cutting. Because of the controversy, $1.2 billion is being spent on economic transition. Unfortunately, most of this money is sucked up by bureaucracy or benefits mill owners more than mill workers.
Losing one's job to federal grazing reductions is no different and deserves no less attention. This time, let's spend the $120,000 per dislocated worker differently One-third should go to range restoration projects (breaching cattle reservoirs, unchannelizing streams, fighting weeds, removing roads, and so on) that create temporary transition jobs; one-third should go to the affected county to spend as it—not the federal government—sees fit (mitigating transition effects or investing in the future); and one-third should go directly to the dislocated workers to spend as they see fit (coasting into retirement, paying off the place, going back to school, starting a new business, moving elsewhere, partying one's way through denial, and so on).
In the end, we must remember that this harsh land will never support very many people. History has shown us this time and again. We must also never forget that most of the Oregon Desert belongs to all Americans and shouldn't be exploited just to benefit a few locals or absentee corporations.
Those whom the land does support will exploit location more than resources. Burns is so unprone to earthquakes that it markets itself as the best place for data storage. Lakeview is specializing in tourism from hang-gliding. Done carefully, tourism and recreation hold more money and future for the Oregon Desert than does anything else.
The necessary shift in attitude is occurring, though not without stress. Increasingly, more are seeing the future in tourism or whatever, but certainly not in livestock and timber. An old guard, when it doesn't get its way as it used to, usually reacts by doing the same thing it always has, only louder and harder. This works for a while—as it intimidates those who would change—but in the end, such behavior is futile.
A friend was recently at the Safeway in Burns. By his outfit, he was marked as an outsider/westsider/touristibirder/conservationist (amazingly, many locals don't distinguish any difference). Two cowboys (also marked by their outfits) approached, and one said: "Spend your money and go home." At least they recognize where the money is coming from. As American writer Bernard Devoto noted in the mid-twentieth century: "The average local response in the West to the federal government: give us more money and leave us alone."
Economists have documented the "designation effect" of increased tourism on designation of wilderness and other special management areas. To the degree that livestock are removed from the public land, the hunting, fishing, and hiking will greatly improve and attract more visitors (which will create more outfitting and other jobs). All will infuse money into the local economy.
Successful communities will be those that drive forward by looking through the windshield and not in the rearview mirror. | <urn:uuid:253183e4-b751-4e99-9cfe-0397ebc5634c> | CC-MAIN-2018-05 | http://www.andykerr.net/odg-economic-future | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-05/segments/1516084888302.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20180119224212-20180120004212-00196.warc.gz | en | 0.956208 | 1,843 | 2.671875 | 3 | 2.978507 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Politics |
Depression doesn’t always “present” as it should. Prolonged sadness, lack of hope, or loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities are the most commonly mentioned symptoms on mental health websites and in antidepressant ads, and they can certainly be the most affecting. But sometimes the disorder is subtler, and harder to identify, since it can make itself known in stranger ways than we’d like. Below are some of the less obvious, but nonetheless important, symptoms of depression – those you should be aware of (and which you should make your psychologist/psychiatrist aware of, if you’re seeing one). Knowing that depression can play out in counterintuitive ways is important, since knowing that you’re depressed is the first step in seeking help for it.
Depression can poke through in unexpected ways, both physical and behavioral – it’s kind of like depression is finding a way out, if it isn’t being acknowledged otherwise. “Some people, particularly men, are more likely to externalize their depression,” says psychologist and author of When Depression Hurts Your Relationship, Shannon Kolakowski, PsyD. “Depression symptoms come out through excessively drinking alcohol, seeking out an affair outside of the relationship, becoming aggressive, or withdrawing from those you love. Similarly, physical symptoms like backaches or low sexual desire are less recognized as depression because they're externalized.” Extreme fatigue – both mental and physical – is a common symptom (of course it can be indicative of other things, so it’s important to get checked out), as are changes in eating habits (not eating, or conversely, overeating) or sleep patterns.
This is an extension of the one above, but worth highlighting, since it’s more specific, and may actually indicate a more severe form of depression. Sometimes the disorder can emerge as irritability or anger – when some part of you is at a loss internally or feeling helpless or hopeless, it’s easy to lash out. “Experiencing irritability, hostility, anger, and being sensitive to rejection are all common symptoms when depressed,” says Kolakowski. “Less well known is the fact that not only is irritability a sign of depression, but that it often signals a more severe level of depression. Hostility and irritability are also linked to a higher likelihood of having other mental illness, like anxiety. Other emotions such as sadness, shame, or helplessness often underlie the irritability, but irritability is what shows up on the surface.” If you’re noticing that you’re very short-tempered, or yelling at your spouse or kids a lot, or otherwise lashing out, take some time to think about what might emotion/s might be driving that behavior.
Perfectionism and depression have been long connected to each other, and research studies have underlined the association for years. “Having all-or-nothing, rigid, and exceptionally high or unrealistic expectations are all symptoms of perfectionism, and can all contribute to depression,” says Kolakowski. “Perfectionism in depression tends to belie the idea that others will only love and accept someone if they're perfect.” Self-esteem is what seems to mediate the link between perfectionism and depression, since perfectionists often think that they must be “perfect” to be acceptable, both to peers and themselves. “To perfectionists, to make a mistake is a sign of a personal defect or flaw, rather than the fact that it's human to make mistakes, and that we all make mistakes. To counter the self-blame, fear of failure, and shame that comes with this, practicing self-acceptance and compassion are essential.” That may be very hard to learn to do on your own, so might need the help of a capable psychologist.
Inability to Concentrate
Everyone has problems concentrating from time to time, especially if something specific is on your mind. But pronounced concentration issues – so much that they affect your work or relationships – can also be a sign of underlying depression. “Concentration difficulties are a common symptom of depression, yet one that people may not associate with depression (think ADHD),” says psychologist Jon Rottenberg, PhD, author of The Depths: The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression Epidemic. “Many of the symptoms of depression are private experiences like sadness or feeling worthless, problems that people can conceal from others. What’s striking about concentration difficulties is that they directly impair functioning – these difficulties make it harder to work or go to school. Concentration problems can make people miss assignments or deadlines.”
He adds that it’s often these issues that prompt a person to get help in the end, since they’re less easy to hide from one’s coworkers, boss, or family. Concentration may be compromised because of another serious symptom of depression – rumination – in which a person turns certain topics over and over again in one’s head (past regrets, future worries), which can be time-consuming, futile, and depressogenic itself. And it can severely compromise one’s ability to concentrate on the present.
Extreme Guilt (about Ridiculous Stuff)
Guilt is obviously a natural sensation at times, but sometimes a deep feeling of guilt about many or most areas in your life can signal depression. Rottenberg calls it "pathological guilt," and says, “what’s different for the depressed person is that the guilt can become all-consuming. He or she scans the past and sees only a series of failings. Sometimes the guilty thinking can become quite fanciful. The depressed person can feel guilty for being born, guilty for having had depression, and be unable to think of any major life role (friend, son or daughter, parent) without being consumed by feelings of regret.”
You Don’t See ‘Smiley Faces’
Being a “Debbie Downer” is sort of a funny joke, but there’s a much more macabre side to it: When you immediately pick out every negative element of a situation, and roundly ignore the positive, this pattern can escalate till it’s sabotaging. Humans are primed to pick up on negative cues, because they might indicate that action is required in the face of danger. So in a sense, negativity is an occupational hazard of being human – but when finding the negative colors your entire life, it starts to blur into depression. “It is striking that recent research suggests that someone with depression is less likely to visually focus on happy faces than a non-depressed person,” says psychologist Suzanne Roff-Wexler, PhD, founder of CompassPoint Consulting. “If we observed carefully, could we notice how a depressed person avoids happy faces or situations while being more ‘comfortable’ with the opposite? I wonder if someone with depression is even aware of this visual bias toward the negative.”
Being a “realist” can subtly shift into being pessimistic which can subtly shift into being negative and even feeling “at home” with depression. Watch yourself for how you react to neutral or even good news – does it seem good, or do you immediately discount it because it will surely turn out poorly in your mind?
This is a critical one, because the “toggle” can be a big clue that something more serious is going on. When you’re depressed, a happy event can take you out of it, and things can seem fine, for a little while – but the depression typically returns once you acclimate to the event. “An interesting ‘symptom’ of depression that may not be well known,” says Roff-Wexler, “is when someone with depression is temporarily lifted out of that state due to a positive event, opportunity, or interpersonal connection. The depression is real and does not go away with a positive experience but it seems briefly alleviated, later to return. Think of it as toggling between being depressed and then not feeling depressed given outside circumstances.”
This is not such a subtle symptom, but is definitely worth mentioning. Depression often carries with it the comorbidity of addiction – people with depression are more likely to drink alcohol heavily, smoke, have eating disorders, and have other dependencies and addictions. After all, when you’re depressed, it’s natural to want to use the tools at your disposal to cope with it – the problem is that we’re not very good at picking healthy tools. It's much easier to smoke and drink than to go to therapy and exercise. Of course, the former methods will ultimately make the depression worse, while the latter two will put you on track for recovery. If you notice that you’re engaging in any kind of substance or behavior more than you used to, or so much that it’s messing up your life in other ways, think seriously about talking to someone about it.
* * *
The subtler symptoms of depression definitely deserve attention if you’re experiencing any (or several) of them. Talk to a friend, or even better, reach out to a psychologist if you think you might be depressed. There’s no magic bullet for depression, but there are certainly treatments that are effective. It’s often just a matter of finding the right one, or the right combination. And remember you’re not alone: Lots of people deal with and recover from depression – and the more people talk about it, the easier the road to recovery becomes.
Also on Forbes:
I fell into writing about health shortly after grad school, where I realized I didn't want to work in a lab for the rest of my life! My main areas of interest are the brain and behavior, as well as what influences the decisions we make about our health, and how we can change...MORE | <urn:uuid:7b77484b-8683-489b-b42e-416f62b585dd> | CC-MAIN-2018-51 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2015/02/17/the-subtle-symptoms-of-depression/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-51/segments/1544376829568.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20181218184418-20181218210418-00341.warc.gz | en | 0.956567 | 2,079 | 2.78125 | 3 | 2.882432 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Health |
The Supreme Court has upheld the affirmative action admission policy of University of Texas. Abigail Fisher, a white woman, applied to the University of Texas at Austin in 2008. She sued the university after she was denied admission on the grounds that the university's race-conscious admissions policy, violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
On Thursday, June 23, the Supreme Court ruled that the race-conscious admissions program was constitutional - a decision that the three scholars on our panel welcome. They tell us why existing educational inequalities need considerations of race and ethnicity in admissions.
How else do you eliminate inequality?
Richard J. Reddick is an associate professor in educational administration at University of Texas at Austin.
UT Austin's history on legal decisions about race in higher education goes back to Sweatt v. Painter (1950), a case that successfully challenged the "separate but equal" doctrine articulated in Plessy v. Ferguson (1898). The landmark case helped pave the way for Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which outlawed racial segregation in education.
The next test, in the Hopwood v. Texas (1996) case, came from the other direction. Cheryl Hopwood was a white applicant who was denied admission. She challenged UT Austin's use of race in its admissions decisions as unconstitutional. The Fifth Federal Circuit Court of Appeals eliminated the consideration of affirmative action in universities and colleges in Texas. This decision was overruled in 2003.
Fisher, then, was another challenge to the university's renewed efforts to provide educational opportunity and access to underrepresented students at predominantly white institutions.
Opponents of affirmative action often argue that metrics, such as test scores and class rank, that appear to be neutral, should be the method by which to admit students.
These arguments fail to consider the real impact that racial and socioeconomic discrimination has on educational opportunity. School resources and teacher quality differ significantly, and intangibles such as leadership opportunities often depend on subjective criteria such as teacher recommendations.
In other words, these "neutral" measures actually reinforce social inequities.
The most selective institutions of higher education in the nation no longer rely solely on these metrics. They seek out students with a variety of experiences - factors that may not always correspond to test scores and class ranking.
Today's ruling is a reassurance, as fleeting as it might be, that the massive task of eliminating educational inequality - which correlates to many other forms of inequality - can be supplemented by approaches in college admissions that consider race and ethnicity.
It does not minimize the importance of eradicating racial discrimination in all walks of life: in the words of UT Austin president Greg Fenves, "race continues to matter in American life."
However, emphasizing the significance of careful, narrowly tailored approaches to enhancing diversity at predominantly white institutions is a victory for the scholars, researchers, administrators and families who have demonstrated how diversity provides significant educational benefits for all students and American society.
What are the implications for other colleges?
Stacy Hawkins is an associate professor at Rutgers University, where she teaches courses in Employment Law and Diversity in the Law.
The Supreme Court's decision is cause for both celebration and circumspection.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court's moderate swing justice, whose opinion was rightly predicted to be the key to the decision, undoubtedly shocked many by voting for the first time to uphold a race-conscious admissions policy.
However, the decision is more consistent with Justice Kennedy's prior decisions, notwithstanding the difference in outcome, than might appear at first blush.
On the one hand, Justice Kennedy reaffirmed his commitment to diversity as a compelling educational interest in 21st-century America (a view he expressed in prior cases on diversity in higher education, as well as in primary and secondary schools).
On the other hand, however, Justice Kennedy also reaffirmed his long-standing belief that, notwithstanding this interest, race may play no more a role than is absolutely necessary to achieve the educational benefits of diversity.
In striking this delicate balance, Justice Kennedy sanctioned the University of Texas' race-conscious admissions policy today, but gave fair warning that the future of this policy is by no means secure.
More important perhaps than the implications of this decision for the University of Texas is what, if any, implications this decision may have for other colleges and universities?
As Justice Kennedy acknowledged, the University of Texas is unique in its use of race to narrowly supplement a plan that admits the overwhelming majority of students (at least 75 percent) on the sole basis of high school class rank without regard to race, a feature that was critical to Justice Kennedy's approval of the policy.
Thus, the vast majority of colleges and universities may still be left to wonder about the constitutionality of their own race-conscious admissions policies that operate more widely than Texas' does.
With a similar case against Harvard University currently winding its way through the federal courts, the answer may not be far off.
Affirmative action bans exist in many states
Stella M. Flores is an associate professor of higher education at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University.
Demography, economy and diversity are key issues facing the nation's colleges and universities and should also be a part of their policy design.
In Fisher v. Texas today, Justice Kennedy's opinion clearly states two outcomes. The first is that the university's deliberation that race-neutral programs had not achieved their goals was supported by significant statistical and anecdotal evidence.
The second is that universities have the obligation to periodically reassess their admissions programming using data to ensure that a plan is narrowly tailored so that race plays no greater role than is necessary to meet its compelling interests. This is in essence an accountability mechanism for universities to follow using data and research.
Admissions policies at universities play an important role in the ability to diversify key fields relevant to the nation's economy, including law, medicine, STEM, education and public policy, so that they can appropriately reflect and serve the unprecedented demographic expansion facing our country.
The decision ensures that pathways to the nation's most critical educational and employment fields will stay open.
But there are other considerations and realities that include the following. First, some of the nation's most racially diverse states will still operate under affirmative bans due to state legislation and referenda. These include California, Florida, Michigan, Arizona and Oklahoma.
Second, there is still a clear need for additional effective policies and efforts beyond a consideration of race in college admissions to address the disconnect between the demographics of the nation and its public K-12 schools and who is represented at selective colleges and universities.
Retracting the use of race nationally would have been a step toward increasing racial and ethnic inequality in schools and society. But we're in a time where race really matters in this country and in how we learn together as a diverse society in our classrooms. This decision reflects this reality.
Richard J. Reddick, Associate Professor in Educational Administration, University of Texas at Austin; Stacy Hawkins, Associate Professor, Rutgers University, and Stella M Flores, Associate Professor of Higher Education, New York University | <urn:uuid:edca2991-dcad-4dbd-bee6-b7a25587950e> | CC-MAIN-2018-51 | https://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-conversation-us/eliminating-inequalities_b_10658552.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-51/segments/1544376825512.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20181214092734-20181214114234-00010.warc.gz | en | 0.957244 | 1,448 | 2.65625 | 3 | 3.015012 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Education & Jobs |
Some historians claim that the American Civil War (1861-1865) was a struggle between the rising industrial North, primarily the industry in the Connecticut River valley, and the rural, agricultural South.
The industrial economy in the North was teetering on the brink of exponential growth, according to these historians. Further, the North was able to economically strangle the South by legislative legerdemain. According to this narrative, the North enacted many, protective tariffs which made British goods more expensive and essentially financed the capital expansion of Northern industry at the expense of the Southern economy.
I propose a slightly different perspective of the Civil War's influence on the industrialization of the North.
The Union Army as a cultural melting pot
Let's take a quick look at Michigan's contribution to the Union Army.
Michigan's population was 750,000 in 1860. Approximately 90,000 soldiers were from Michigan. Based on a 1840 population of 212,000 and a birthrate of 3% then the ten year "slice" of young men who were native born Michiganders was approximately 32,000 of the 90,000 soldiers.
Where did the other 68,000 soldiers come from? 20% of Michigan's population in 1860 were immigrants from other countries, primarily Ireland. It is reasonable to assume that they enlisted at the same rates as natives so they probably accounted for an additional 20,000 soldiers.
Most of the remaining soldiers were probably born in New York's Hudson River Valley. The Erie Canal was completed in 1825 just as much of the fertile soil in the lower Hudson River Valley was "playing out".
The companies that Michigan sent to the Civil War were extremely heterogeneous.
The culture of the Union Army
Much attention has been paid to the long shadow thrown by the Scotch-Irish in the Confederate Army and the resultant influence on "Southern" culture. Less attention has been paid to how the culture of the Union Army influenced the North.
I propose that the discipline of Army life baselined a generation of young men and prepared them for their future roles in the upcoming Industrial Revolution.
The Union Army was a hierarchy magnitudes larger than any other ever seen in the United States. As a hierarchy it conditioned those in the army to accept fragmented tasks, unquestioning acceptance of authority and become comfortable with extreme specialization.
The picture of the North teetering on the brink of the industrial revolution only makes sense with the information that only comes from hindsight. What if the industrial revolution "took off" in the United States because of the Civil War rather than simply being one of the stresses that precipitated it?
Irish, German, French-Canadian, Michigan and New York boys enlisted into Michigan companies. Men, US citizens, inured to stupidity mustered out. This is the fodder that caused the industrial revolution to explode across the north...including Michigan; the human capital spawned by the US Civil War.
Why not the south?
It is fair to challenge the perspective because the soldiers of the South faced many of the same environmental factors that the Union soldiers faced, and yet the Industrial Revolution pass the South by for half a century.
Part of the reason is due to the devastation the Northern armies and subsequent occupation had on Southern industrial centers and rail transportation.
Another reason is that the North was more favored with the proximal location of basic resources like iron ore, coal and limestone.
|J.E.B. Stuart exemplified the mobile commander who exploited short-lived opportunity.|
A softer reason is that Southern military groups were more autonomous. They were the consummate welterweight boxer darting in-and-out peppering the heavyweight with flurries of jabs.
The Northern military was the bear seeking to trap the welterweight in the corner where it could immobilize his opponent and pummel him into submission. The Union army was a meat grinder and brooked little autonomy in its commanders or soldiers.
Footnote of history?
This essay might seem to be little more than a whimsical footnote of history except that we are currently facing similar challenges of assimilation.
It is too cynical to think that the Civil War was initiated to homogenize the population and optimize it for the Industrial Revolution. People are just not that smart. But it is not too cynical to think that diplomatic solutions would have hammered out if the participants suspected that the soldiers who would muster out afterward would have poisoned the Industrial Revolution.
It is risky to attempt to describe the "perfect citizen" of 2035 and even more risky to propose homogenizing events that would foster that kind of citizen. Fun to think about, but risky. | <urn:uuid:f95f7c9e-47df-4a3d-933e-15294483dfe4> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | https://eatonrapidsjoe.blogspot.com/2017/11/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764494852.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20230127001911-20230127031911-00176.warc.gz | en | 0.966763 | 956 | 3.515625 | 4 | 2.989875 | 3 | Strong reasoning | History |
2018 World Safety Day: Young Worker Safety
“Generation Safe and Healthy” is the Australian theme for the April 28, 2018 “World Day for Safety and Health at Work and Workers’ Memorial Day”.
The focus of the day is to “highlight the importance of improving safety and healthy for young workers and our generations to come” according to Safe Work Australia.
As part of the day, the safety body has launched a webpage specifically for young workers – classified as 15-24 year-olds – which has a range of information around keeping young workers safe, including codes, guides, videos, seminars and podcasts.
Safe Work Australia also have a World Safety Day resources page offering posters, social media images, infographics and more.
Young workers’ unique risk profile: Intellectual, physical, social
Young workers can bring energy, new ideas and a fresh perspective to a workplace however they face the greatest risk of workplace injury due to their inexperience, limited awareness of work-related hazards, and a lack of bargaining power that can lead them to accept dangerous tasks or jobs, according to the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) page on World Safety Day.
Australian statistics reflect that. Young workers are 17 per cent more likely to suffer a work-related injury and 21 per cent more likely to be hospitalised than the average across all ages.
This is partly to do with developmental factors, with young workers often having reduced risk perception, being less likely to ask questions or raise safety concerns and often overestimating their capabilities.
These same workers may also not yet be physically capable enough to perform their jobs comfortably and are at risk of potentially lifelong injuries unless appropriate pre-employment functional testing is performed and workers conditioned to their jobs.
Apprentice bullying three times national average
Australian apprentices suffer bullying at a rate of three times the national average, according to a survey of 797 apprentices cited in a 2012 parliamentary inquiry into workplace bullying. Cyber bullying is also on the increase.
Young people transitioning into the workforce are already most at risk of mental health difficulties, and bullying can potentially lead to increased mental health issues and even suicide.
How to protect young workers:
Effective induction, training, supervision, feedback and mentoring is critical to ensuring young workers work in a safe and healthy environment.
Training should include interactive, hands-on and self-directed learning from a range of sources. Tasks should be designed to focus on developing skills and experience, not just around harm minimisation.
Good leadership from employers, supervisors, managers and senior staff is crucial to keeping young workers safe and a positive workplace culture is also essential to provide workers with the support they need and to minimise the occurrence of bullying.
Safe Work Australia’s Young Workers page calls for employers to:
- provide the right tools, training and supervision to complete their work safely
- educate them about their WHS rights and responsibilities
- empower them to have the confidence to speak up about health and safety in the workplace
- foster a positive workplace culture that engages young workers in WHS.
More on young worker safety from ProChoice:
Young Workers Protection Guide
Onboarding and training young workers
25% of apprentices suffer bullying | <urn:uuid:ca6e38aa-68e4-4335-b312-f31ecbf181cd> | CC-MAIN-2023-14 | https://prochoicesafetygear.com/ppe/blog/workplace-health-and-safety/2018-world-safety-day-young-workers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296949093.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20230330004340-20230330034340-00427.warc.gz | en | 0.95774 | 666 | 3.125 | 3 | 2.71912 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Education & Jobs |
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Definition of Septic Shock
When bacteremia causes changes in circulation so tissue perfusion is critically reduced. Usually caused by gram negative organisms, staphylococci, or meningococci.
What is Septic Shock Characterized By?
- Acute circulatory failurefollowed by hypotension & multi-organ failure
- skin warm
- urine reduced
- pt confused & less alert
- lung, kidneys, & liver failure
Etiology (cause) of Septic Shock
- *Nosocomial infection with gram negative bacilli
- *In 1/3 by gram positive cocci & candida organisms
Who does Septic Shock OCCUR in?
- Immunocompromised pts.
- Pts. with chronic disease
- Patients under 35
- Pregnant women
Risk Factors for Septic Shock
- Cirrhosis: lead to liver cancer, hits kidneys & liver
- Leukocytopenia: decreased white blood cells-can't fight
- Infection in urinary, biliary or GI tracts
- Invasive devices: catheters & drains
Pathogenesis of Septic Shock
- Release toxins
- Vasodilation of arteries and arterioles occurs--> Decrease systemic vascular resistnace
- Later decrease C.O. ---> higher peripheral resistance
- Blood flow impaired: O2 and CO2 transport affected
Signs & Symptoms of Septic Shock
- Altered mental: earlies sign
- Hypotension: blood pressure drop
- Warm skin
- Oligurea: urine production output drops off
- Cool, pale extremities with peripheral cyanosis and mottling: blue arms & legs
- Multi-organ fail: kidneys, lungs, liver & heart- late sign
Diagnosis of Septic Shock
- Hypovolemic shock responds to volume repletion
- Cardiogenic shock associated with MIembolization
- Obstructive shock: complication of PA obstruction from
What's the C.O. of Septic Shock?
NL or increased with decreased systemic vascular resistance and warm dry skin
What's the C.O. of a LATE sign of septic shock?
Decresed C.O. with increased pulmonary vascular resistance
What Helps Diagnose Septic Shock?
Pulmonary Artery Catheter: to exclude nonseptic causes of shock
ABGs of Septic Shock
- Early: Respiratory alkalosis
- Progressive: Metabolic acidosis
- Early respiratory failure leads to hypoxemia
Mortality with septic shock is:
- 25-90% If adequate treatment not started, higher mortality.
- Once severe lactic acidosis occurs with multi-organ fail: septic shock irreversible
Treatment with Septic Shock
- In ICU: monitor BP, arterial & venous pH, ABGs, blood lactate levels, renal function, and electrolytes
- Support with ventilation with nasal O2, intubatation or tracheostomy, and ventilator as needed.
- Antibiotics after culture & early
- DON'T GIVE VASOPRESSORS: high risk for vasoconstriction
What Should be Measured with Septic Shock?
- Measure: central venous pressure or pulmonary artery pressure.
- Give fluid replacement until CVP reaches 10-12 cm H2O or till the PCWP reaches 12-15 mm Hg
The Septic Shock Patient is Still Hypotensive After Volume Has Raised the PCWP to 15-18?
Give dopamine to increase BP to less than or equal to 60
What Do You Give For Diuresis of Septic Shock Pts.?
Mannitol or furosemide
What do you give for Pts. in Heart Failure or in DIC with Septeci Shock?
Digitalis or Heparin | <urn:uuid:bfd6f3ce-486c-429a-a925-05ad1fb6c674> | CC-MAIN-2017-13 | https://www.freezingblue.com/flashcards/print_preview.cgi?cardsetID=183483 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-13/segments/1490218187193.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20170322212947-00638-ip-10-233-31-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.788858 | 837 | 3.25 | 3 | 1.903087 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Health |
versión impresa ISSN 0716-0720
Parasitol. día v.23 n.1-2 Santiago ene. 1999
PREVALENCE OF Trichomonas gallinae FROM
THE UPPER DIGESTIVE TRACT OF THE COMMON
PIGEON, Columba livia IN THE SOUTHERN BRAZILIAN
STATE, RIO GRANDE DO SUL
Tiana Tasca*and Geraldo A De Carli**+
*Instituto d e Biociências, Curso de Pós-Graduação em Biociências-Zoologia, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (IBC-PUCRS), Av. Ipiranga, 6681, Porto Alegre 90619-900 RS, Brazil
**Departamento de Análises Clínicas, Faculdade de Farmácia, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Av. Ipiranga, 6681, Porto Alegre 90619-900 RS, Brazil. E-mail: [email protected] - + Corresponding author.
Trichomonas gallinae (Rivolta, 1878) is a parasitic protozoan of the upper digestive tract and various organs of different avian groups, being common among the Columbids, was isolated described and its prevalence studies in the Southern Brazilian State, Rio Grande do Sul. The morphology study of the live specimens done by examination of fresh and stained specimens, showed that the T. gallinae isolated has the same morphological characteristics as the upper digestive tract trichomonads previously described by other authors.
Key-words: Trichomonas gallinae, Columba livia, columbiformes, domestic pigeon, isolation, upper digestive tract, in vitro cultivation
Trichomonas gallinae (Rivolta) occurs in the upper digestive tract and various organs of different avian groups, but it is particularly common in Columbiformes (doves and pigeons). The domestic pigeon, Columba livia, is the primary host of this flagellate. Other columbiform hosts have been found to harbor it, as have also galliform birds (especially turkeys), Java sparrows, various raptors, and sea gulls. The organism cause serious losses among these birds1. The morphology of the flagellate has been described by several investigators; however, the most significant contributions to the understanding of its structure were made by Stabler,2-4 and by Abraham and Honigberg.5 The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of T. gallinae in domestic pigeons in the Southern Brazilian State, Rio Grande do Sul.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
In the present study the observations were made on the samples collected from the upper digestive tract of domestic pigeons, C. livia. The throats of pigeons were swabbed and the swabbings inoculated into trypticase-yeast extract-maltose (TYM) medium,6 for incubation. Samples were cultured axenically in vitro, without antibiotics,4 in a TYM medium without agar, pH 7.2, supplemented with 10% (v/v) heat inactivated horse serum, in air, at a temperature of 37°C (± 0.5). Some cultures were established without the use of antibiotics, others were isolated with 5,000 units of penicillin and 1,000 mg of dihydrostreptomycin per ml of the original culture. In no instance were antibiotics used in the subsequent serial transfers. Certain samples of the original isolations were frozen and maintained at -196°C with 5% (v/v) of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as previously described.7 Material for the stained smears was obtained from parasites harvested (250 x g for 20 min) from a 24 hr culture in TYM medium, and stained by the Giemsa method.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Prevalence: T. gallinae was found in 18 of 68 cultures of throats swabbed, representing a prevalence of 26.47% in pigeons. The present work is apparently the second report of the occurrence of a trichomonads in the upper digestive tract of pigeons in the Southern Brazilian State, Rio Grande do Sul. In other paper, the authors8 reported that 62.3% of 167 cultures of throats swabbed of pigeons from different areas of Southern Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, harbored trichomonads in the upper digestive tract.
Light Microscopy: Direct microscopic examination of wet smears from the throats (mouth and the oropharyngeal area) revealed vast numbers of actively motile flagellate protozoa. These were classified as trichomonads because of their elongate ellipsoid shape, the presence of an obvious undulating membrane associated with four free anterior flagella which could be accurately counted only when the trichomonads had slowed down or stopped moving. The body is very plastic, but not particularly ameboid. Most of these morphological features could be recognized in-air-dried smears of throats swabbed , fixed in methanol and stained with Giemsa.
Cultivation: Examination of the cultures after incubation at 37°C for 48 to 72 hr revealed a heavy growth of flagellates. Trichomonads in the logarithmic phase of growth, and subcultured every 48 hr exhibited more than 95% of mobility and a normal morphology. The cultures were routinely maintained in TYM medium at 37°C and transferred three times per week (every 48 to 72 hr).
Morphology: The measurement of our material were compared with those results of others3,5,8,9 with the intent to identify possible variation. In the present investigation, it was observed that the T. gallinae found in the mouth and the oropharyngeal area of pigeons has the same morphological characteristics as those in the upper digestive tract of pigeons previously described by other authors.
1.- BON DURANT H, HONIGBERG B M. Trichomonas of Veterinary Importance In: Kreier J P (ed.) Parasitic protozoa, 2end edition, Academic Press, New York, Vol 9, p. 112-188, 1994. [ Links ]
2.- STABLER R M. Effect of Trichomonas gallinae from disease mourning doves on clean domestic pigeons. J Parasitol. 37 : 473-478, 1951. [ Links ]
3.- STABLER R M. Trichomonas gallinae: A review. Exp Parasitol 3: 368-402, 1954. [ Links ]
4.- STABLER R M, HONIGBERG B M, KING V M. Effect of certain laboratory procedures on virulence of the Jone`s strain of Trichomonas gallinae for pigeons. J Parasitol 50: 36-41, 1964. [ Links ]
5.- ABRAHAM R, HONIGBERG, B M. Structure of Trichomonas gallinae (Rivolta). J Parasitol 50: 608-619, 1964. [ Links ]
6.- DIAMOND, L S. The establishment of various trichomonads of animals and man in axenic cultures. J Parasitol 43: 488-490, 1957. [ Links ]
7.- HONIGBERG, B. M, FARIS, V K LIVINGSTON M C. Preservation of Trichomonas vaginalis and Trichomonas gallinae in liquid nitrogen. Prog. Protozool., Int. Conf. Protozool., 2nd Excerpta Mod Found Int Congr Ser N° 91, p. 199, 1965. [ Links ]
8.- DE CARLI, G A, PANSERA, M C G, GUERRERO J. Trichomonas gallinae (Rivolta, 1878) Stabler, 1938, no trato digestivo superior de pombos domésticos, Columba livia, no Rio Grande do Sul Primeiro Registro. Acta Biol Leopoldensia 1:85-95, 1979. [ Links ] | <urn:uuid:e20d0291-6551-4c58-a2dc-9c3e2a18156d> | CC-MAIN-2014-52 | http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0716-07201999000100007&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-52/segments/1418802770130.120/warc/CC-MAIN-20141217075250-00025-ip-10-231-17-201.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.860679 | 1,792 | 2.6875 | 3 | 2.944399 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Science & Tech. |
This Scroll of Psalms was written with a quill and iron gall ink on velum in Israel prior to 1985. It was used in a small Synagogue in Jerusalem for several years. To complete the set of 16 Scrolls that make up the TaNaKh (Hebrew Scriptures) the Synagogue sold the Scroll to the Scriptorium on the condition that we would commission a new Scroll to be written for them.
Photograph of a Scroll of Psalms written in Israel prior to 1985.
A Rare Scroll with a Very Unique Chapter
Three things about this very long chapter of Psalms quickly come to mind. First, it consists of 176 verses divided into 22 eight verse sections. Every section is given one of the 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet to begin the first word in every verse. Second, every verse in this psalm speaks about the Word of God, e.g. Word, Law, Commandments, Ordinances etc. Third, Scrolls of the Psalms are extremely rare. Only two Scrolls of the Psalms are on public display and these two Scrolls are in Gentile Christian collections.
Photograph of the Scroll of Psalms opened to Psalm 119
a Verses 1 through 8
b Verses 9 through 16
g Verses 17 through 19
Photograph of the Scroll of Psalms showing Psalm 119 verses 1 through 19 showing the alef, bet, gimel
g Verses 20 through 24
d Verses 25 through 32
h Verses 33 through 40
w Verses 41 through 45
Photograph of the Scroll of Psalms showing Psalm 119 verses 20 through 45 showing the gimel, dalet, he, vav
w Verses 46 through 48
z Verses 49 through 56
x Verses 57 through 64
j Verses 65 through 70
Photograph of the Scroll of Psalms showing Psalm 119 verses 46 through 70 showing the vav, zayin, chet, tet
j Verses 71 through 72
y Verses 73 through 80
k Verses 81 through 88
l Verses 89 through 96
Photograph of the Scroll of Psalms showing Psalm 119 verses 71 through 96 showing the tet, yod, kaf, lamed
m Verses 97 through 104
n Verses 105 through 112
o Verses 113 through 120
e Verse 121
Photograph of the Scroll of Psalms showing Psalm 119 verses 97 through 121 showing the mem, nun, samech, ayin
e Verses 122 through 128
p Verses 129 through 136
u Verses 137 through 144
q Verses 145 through 147
Photograph of the Scroll of Psalms showing Psalm 119 verses 122 through 147 showing the ayin, pe, tzade, qof
q Verses 148 through 152
r Verses 153 through 160
s Verses 161 through 168
t Verses 169 through 172
Photograph of the Scroll of Psalms showing Psalm 119 verses 148 through 172 showing the qof, resh, shin, tav
t Verses 173 through 176
Photograph of the Scroll of Psalms showing Psalm 119 verses 173 through 176 showing the tav
Reading a passage from a Sefer Torah is quite a bit different than reading the same Scripture from a book. The exact same letters are seen in both cases but there are flourishing and oddities in the scroll that shows the personality of the Sofer. Many of these oddities are sanctioned by the law of STaM, sometimes liberties are taken which delve into the mysticism of Kabbalah. Some of the oddities were used to simply help keep the writings free from error.
Genesis 1 The account of creation “In the beginning” Torah from Lithuania written in the 16th century
Sheet 7 Genesis 30:42 “feeble” – But when the cattle were feeble, he put them not in
Sheet 8 Genesis 34:31 “harlot” – And they said, Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot
Sheet 12 Exodus 2:2 “good” – and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.
Sheet 12 Genesis 50:23 “third generation” – And Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation:
Sheet 12 Exodus 3 burning bush – Torah from Lithuania written in the 16th century
Sheet 15 Exodus 11:8 “go out” – and after that I will go out. And he went out from Pharaoh in a great anger
Sheet 15 Exodus 14:25 “wheels” – And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel;
Sheet 16 Exodus 15:1 “Song of Moses” – Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the LORD, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.
Sheet 17 Exodus 19:17 “lowest” – And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount.
Sheet 17 Exodus 20 image 10 Commandments – Torah from Lithuania written in the 16th century
Sheet 17 Exodus 20 Adultery from the 10 Commandments – Torah from Lithuania written in the 16th century
Sheet 19 Exodus 28:6 make – purple – fine twined – And they shall make the ephod of gold, of blue, and of purple, of scarlet, and fine twined linen, with cunning work.
Sheet 19 Exodus 28:36 “plate” – And thou shalt make a plate of pure gold, and grave upon it, like the engravings of a signet, HOLINESS TO THE LORD.
Sheet 20 Exodus 34:7 “keeping” – Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
Sheet 21 Exodus 34:11, 14 “observe” – “other” – Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, – For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:
Sheet 26 Leviticus 11:42 Middle letter of the Torah – “belly” – Whatsoever goeth upon the belly,
Sheet 28 Leviticus 13:33 “he shall be shaven” – He shall be shaven, but the scall shall he not shave;
Sheet 30 Leviticus 19:19 “linen and woolen” – neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.
Sheet 33 Numbers 3:44 “Moses” – And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Sheet 34 Numbers 4:22 “Take_Gershon” – Take also the sum of the sons of Gershon, throughout the houses of their fathers, by their families;
Sheet 34 Numbers 5:5, 6 “Moses, man” – And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 6 Speak unto the children of Israel, When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit,
Sheet 36 Numbers 10:35 ,36 Two inverted Nuns – And it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said, Rise up, LORD, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee. 36 And when it rested, he said, Return, O LORD, unto the many thousands of Israel.
Sheet 37 Numbers 13:30 “silenced” – And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.
Sheet 37 Numbers 15:27— sin, found, gathered, Sabbath, Congregation – Torah from Lithuania written in the 16th century
Sheet 38 Numbers 16:41 “children”, “Moses” – But on the morrow all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, Ye have killed the people of the LORD.
The numbering system in the English language Hebrew Bible is different in this section and this verse is listed as Numbers 17:6
Sheet 40 Numbers 24:5 “how” How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!
Sheet 41 Numbers 27:5 “cause” And Moses brought their cause before the LORD.
Sheet 44 Deuteronomy 2:33 “and we smote” And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people.
Sheet 44 Deuteronomy 3:11 “Bedstead” For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.
Sheet 45 Deuteronomy 5:1 “hear” And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them.
Sheet 46 Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, One” Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
Sheet 47 Deuteronomy 10:12 “Require” And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee,
Sheet 47 Deuteronomy 11:17 “Kindled” And then the LORD’S wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven,
Sheet 48 Deuteronomy 15:19 “The male” All the firstling males that come of thy herd and of thy flock thou shalt sanctify unto the LORD thy God:
Sheet 49 Deuteronomy 18:13 “Perfect” Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God.
Sheet 49 Deuteronomy 21:7 “Shed” And they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.
Sheet 50 Deuteronomy 22:6 “Nest” If a bird’s nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree, or on the ground,
Sheet 51 Deuteronomy 26:5 “Speak” And thou shalt speak and say before the LORD thy God,
Sheet 52 Deuteronomy 28:68 “And there ye shall be sold” and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you.
Sheet 52 Deuteronomy 29:28 “And cast them – 11 dots above letters” and cast them into another land, as it is this day.
Sheet 53 Deuteronomy 32:1 “Rock” “To the Lord” “Crooked” Because I will publish the name of the LORD: ascribe ye greatness unto our God. 4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. 5 They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation.
Sheet 53 Deuteronomy 3229 “Happy” Happy art thou, O Israel who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help,4
Sheet 52 Deuteronomy 3229 “Happy” Happy art thou, O Israel who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help,3
Sheet 52 Deuteronomy 32:29 “Happy” Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help,
Sheet 53 Deuteronomy 34:12 Last words of the Torah Usually written by a Tsadik Older man in the congregation | <urn:uuid:cebb2deb-4093-4cf0-8251-a14489f52b8c> | CC-MAIN-2018-22 | https://scrolls4all.org/scrolls/scribal-oddities/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-22/segments/1526794864999.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20180522225116-20180523005116-00428.warc.gz | en | 0.90559 | 2,622 | 2.515625 | 3 | 2.56045 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Religion |
Should a math test tell a story? That’s certainly not what most people think a math test should do!
Should a course tell a story? More on that tomorrow, but at least I might get a few more takers for that idea.
Let’s first discuss math tests. I can argue both sides of the issue here:
- On the one hand, students should be nimble enough to handle any appropriate problem thrown at them, regardless of order or specific content: none of this we’re-in-Chapter-3-so-we’re-supposed-to-factor nonsense!
- On the other hand, one of the (many) reasons why math doesn’t make sense to so many students is that they don’t get a feeling of coherence, the big picture, the themes.
Also, it’s really hard to make a math test tell a story if it’s supposed to measure what students know and what they can do. So nobody writes tests that way.
One year in the ’70s, when I was team-teaching honors precalculus with my friend and colleague Phil Lewis, we decided to see whether we could actually write a final exam in the form of a short story. Weird, right? But this was Lincoln-Sudbury in the ’70s; weird was normal. Phil and I had already been thinking about the precalculus course as a story (more on that tomorrow, as I said above), so we first co-wrote a chronological account of what we had done all year and how it all connected. We included relevant math problems on every page or so, with plenty of white space after each problem. Then we went through the story and systematically replaced various words and phrases with blanks (underscores long enough to handwrite the missing text). Students would fill in the blanks and solve the problems.
We had warned the students that that would be the format of the final, as a way of tying the whole year together, and we were cautiously optimistic that it would lead students to look back at their course and see how everything made sense as a story: with a beginning, a middle, and an end, with characters in a setting, where one or more conflicts occur and are resolved. Cool, isn’t it?
Well, we had been much too pleased with ourselves. “Cautiously optimistic” wasn’t enough. Not to put too fine a point on it, the exam was something of a disaster. To this day I remember how there were far too many competent (even excellent) students who just couldn’t handle the bizarre format. I still think it was a worthwhile experiment, but the only way it would have worked would be if the students had seen previous assessments in that format. Throwing it at them for the first time in a final exam was clearly not a good idea. | <urn:uuid:a87d3bdb-3078-4427-bb0e-3fcd993fb73c> | CC-MAIN-2019-39 | https://blog.larrydavidson.com/2019/07/07/stories-and-tests/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-39/segments/1568514575596.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20190922160018-20190922182018-00033.warc.gz | en | 0.977378 | 609 | 2.578125 | 3 | 2.767915 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Education & Jobs |
There is light at the end of the Covid-19 tunnel with the digital revolution that has taken over the world. Here are ways to use it for future jobs. The Covid-19 pandemic has pushed India to the brink of crisis, with unemployment rates hitting a record 27.1% last year. Now, if we look at the data, we can see that the population hardest hit by this crisis is: the country’s youth under the age of 25 who make up more than 50% of our population.
The proportion of females in the country has seen their income fall sharply by almost two-thirds more than men, and they have lost their jobs more severely than men.
The country’s rural population, with over 65% of the total population of our country spread over 680,000 villages.
How can we help our country’s youth, women and rural population recover? What can we do to ensure that this pandemic does not accelerate and exacerbate existing divisions?
In other words, can we use this as an opportunity to empower people to break down existing inequalities and reduce them instead?
The computing revolution of the 1990s ushered in an era when Indian software engineers were running in-house offices in Silicon Valley. On the other hand, the 2020 pandemic ushered in a long-awaited era in India’s economy:
Also, Read – State-wise status of schools reopening across India.
1. The digital revolution
Since most of the functionality is moved to the virtual “work from home” space, where all you need is a laptop; The need today is to make digital skills accessible to the masses to prepare them for the jobs of the future.
2. What are the jobs of the future?
Gone are the days of tradition where all it takes to get a good job is an MBA. Thanks to the wide presence of smartphones and the Internet, you can work sitting anywhere.
When small businesses need to create a website, they no longer turn to a fancy design agency or company. They’ve found a simpler and more cost-effective way: hiring a freelance designer who knows how to use digital tools to build their website.
With the media looking for young journalists who can use their smartphones to report from home and the spread of encryption in remote areas, one thing is clear, future jobs require skills for the future.
Perhaps the best question is: How can I prepare for these future jobs?
There are a few important things to keep in mind while preparing for this digital revolution:
- Develop future-ready skills Leverage digital technologies –
focus on developing your digital skills (whether it’s in creative design, coding, or even artificial intelligence) to increase your potential across industries and businesses. Learn about digital creative tools like Adobe Premiere Pro, Spark, Canva, and depart and think of ways to expand your digital competence. Stay ahead by exposing yourself to various training opportunities and workplace experiences.
2. Become an entrepreneur
If you are looking to start a new business, take advantage of online marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, Etsy, and Meesho to start a business quickly, as well as learn how to take advantage of platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, and Whatsapp. India started its online business using these platforms.
Selling flowers to cities, supplying sustainable bags, cloud kitchens, last-mile logistical support, producing and supplying personal protective equipment to large hospitals, etc. are some of the work I personally saw achieved while making shark tanks.
3. Welcome to the concert economy:
Platforms like Chegg, Top Coder, Up Work, Freelancer, and Fiverr offer freelance assignments and work in all areas, whether it’s writing content for a website, administrative support, or scheduling a tech startup. Sign up and take advantage of the many freelance opportunities that you are sure to find, regardless of your skillset. By focusing on increasing our digital literacy and using it to equip our residents with future decision skills and creative design), we can see a brighter tomorrow as a growing part of our country has access to ambitious jobs and higher earnings.
Most importantly, we are taking another step towards realizing the dream of a truly inclusive economy and society. | <urn:uuid:4782088e-5d83-47a3-ae75-0a0a38fe2860> | CC-MAIN-2024-10 | https://doortofuture.com/how-to-embrace-the-digital-revolution-for-the-jobs-of-future/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947474775.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20240229003536-20240229033536-00701.warc.gz | en | 0.933331 | 875 | 2.671875 | 3 | 2.640319 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Education & Jobs |
- Inhabitat – Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building - http://inhabitat.com -
Sticky Rice is 1,500 Year Old Secret to Super-Strong Chinese Buildings
Posted By Bridgette Meinhold On June 1, 2010 @ 1:06 pm In Architecture,Disaster-proof design,Green Materials,Green renovation,Sustainable Building | 9 Comments
Photo by Bridgette Meinhold
Sticky rice, which has been a staple of the Chinese diet for centuries, also played a huge role in the construction of their ultra-durable cities and walls. The glutinous side dish has been used since the Ming Dynasty to create a super-strong mortar that has helped keep ancient buildings intact and resisted earthquakes . Scientists recently discovered what it is about glutinous rice that creates the super-strength mortar, and have also determined that sticky rice mortar is best available material to restore ancient and historic buildings .
Photo by Real Thai Recipes
Around 1,500 years ago, the Chinese started adding sticky rice soup to their traditional lime mortar mixture, which dramatically increased the strength of the mortar. Important buildings like tombs, pagodas , and city walls were constructed using this composite mixture, and some of the buildings are still standing today even after earthquakes. Bingjian Zhang, Ph.D., and colleagues performed studies to hone in on the key ingredient in the sticky rice to determine why it made for such a strong mortar.
The results showed that the organic-inorganic compound was made possible by amylopectin , a type of polysaccharide, or complex carbohydrate, found in rice and other starchy foods. The amylopectin combines with the inorganic calcium carbonate from the lime to form a mortar that has more stable physical properties, greater mechanical strength, and is more compatible than normal lime mortar. After their tests on various mortar recipes, the scientists determined that the sticky rice mortar is the most suitable mortar for restoration of ancient buildings, which means its probably also appropriate for new construction as well.
Via PhysOrg
Article printed from Inhabitat – Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building: http://inhabitat.com
URL to article: http://inhabitat.com/sticky-rice-is-1500-year-old-secret-to-super-strong-chinese-buildings/
URLs in this post:
resisted earthquakes: http://inhabitat.com/2010/04/12/affordable-earthquake-resistant-homes-made-from-straw/
Scientists recently discovered: http://www.physorg.com/news194411869.html
restore ancient and historic buildings: http://inhabitat.com/2010/05/28/herzog-de-meurons-elphilharmonie-concert-hall-tops-out/
Image: http://inhabitat.com/2010/06/01/sticky-rice-is-1500-year-old-secret-to-super-strong-chinese-buildings/sticky-rice-mortar/
Real Thai Recipes: http://www.realthairecipes.com/articles/how-to-make-rice/
pagodas: http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/02/15/passively-designed-china-pavilion-unveiled-at-the-shanghai-expo-2010/
amylopectin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amylopectin
restoration: http://inhabitat.com/renovation/
Copyright © 2011 Inhabitat Local - New York. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:38cf3bf9-718a-49be-a9e2-d059fa57fb59> | CC-MAIN-2014-23 | http://inhabitat.com/sticky-rice-is-1500-year-old-secret-to-super-strong-chinese-buildings/print/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-23/segments/1405997878518.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20140722025758-00144-ip-10-33-131-23.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917918 | 793 | 3.21875 | 3 | 2.641816 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Science & Tech. |
Life almost undoubtedly began in space, and specifically in the hearts of comets, rather than on Earth, a new study claims.
Chandra Wickramasinghe, an astrobiologist at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom, and his team say their calculations show that it is one trillion trillion times more likely that life started inside a slushy comet than on Earth.
"The comets and the warm watery clay pools in comets are settings in which the organic molecules are transformed into living structures in comets," Wickramasinghe said. "That transformation is more likely in some comet somewhere in the galaxy than in any small pond on the Earth."
The new findings will be detailed in an upcoming issue of the International Journal of Astrobiology.
But while most scientists are willing to concede that fallen comets might have delivered some of the water and organic materials necessary for life to Earth, critics say that Wickramasinghe's proposal that life originated in comets which subsequently crashed on our planet—an idea called panspermia—is speculative and not supported by evidence.
"It looks to me as if their conclusions are constructed from a series of speculations, none of which is based on much evidence. It is a theory built on air, not solidly grounded in scientific facts," said David Morrison, a senior scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, who was not involved in the study.
Wickramasinghe and his colleagues' idea rests on the assumption that comets are full of porous clay particles that can hold water in a liquid form for eons.
Cometary missions such as Deep Impact have found evidence for a variety of silicates existing inside comets, but not clay per se, Morrison said.
The "assumption that Earth has very little clay while comets are full of clay is the key to their argument, and it is at best speculation," Morrison said.
It is also an open question as to whether comets do indeed contain liquid water inside them and whether other star systems support comets at all, let alone clay-, water- or life-bearing comets. "No comets have been discovered yet around other stars," Morrison said in an email interview.
Paul Falkowski, a biochemist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, also does not think that the site of life's origins can be figured out using simple calculations. "These basic kinds of things are dependent on the beginning initial assumptions. I don't know that we know the odds," Falkowski said. "We know the odds for exactly one planet, and it happened once, so everything else is a game."
The cosmic ray threat
Recent work by Falkowski and his team suggests that life would have difficulty surviving unprotected in deep space where comets reside. In research detailed in the Aug. 6 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team recovered highly degraded microbial DNA from 8 million-year-old Antarctic ice and estimated that DNA on Earth has a half-life of only about 1.1 million years. In other words, every 1.1 million years, half of the DNA disappears.
The researchers say cosmic rays are the culprits and think that DNA—or any other complex organic molecule—would have a difficult time surviving for long in space, where radiation levels are much higher than on Earth.
"The radiation flux on the surface of this planet is one-tenth to one-one-hundredth to that of space," Falkowski told SPACE.com. "So when you go into a situation where you don't have a magnetic field protecting you from cosmic background radiation, the amount of damage to DNA would be incredibly high."
Falkowski's team estimates that DNA would survive only a few hundred thousand years in space, essentially ruling out interstellar pollination of life by comets as well as the potential for life to survive in space for very long.
- Image Gallery: Great Comets
- Comets Through Time: Myths and Mystery
- Deep Impact Special Report | <urn:uuid:cb73f2f4-5fe8-4d77-aca3-b3195f66ed44> | CC-MAIN-2021-10 | https://www.space.com/4233-scientist-calculations-prove-life-began-comet.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-10/segments/1614178347293.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20210224165708-20210224195708-00457.warc.gz | en | 0.961192 | 828 | 4.09375 | 4 | 2.965454 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Science & Tech. |
With more food on the planet than ever before, it's difficult to believe that people still go hungry every day. You might assume that natural disasters, drought, or a lack of access to necessary farming equipment are to blame for a lack of food. What may surprise you, though, is that conflict is a leading cause of hunger.
Currently, conflict between Sudan and South Sudan is causing food shortages affecting millions, leaving children most vulnerable. While it is easy to see the role that a natural disaster or drought plays in hunger, the connection between conflict and hunger can be complicated. To make this complex issue easier to understand, World Vision's James Addis outlines some key questions below.
* * *
How bad are food shortages in South Sudan?
The number of people threatened by food shortages has risen to 4.7 million, according to the World Food Program -- half the population of South Sudan. Of these, 1 million people require immediate food aid.
Why are things so bad?
In January, South Sudan shut down its oil production following a dispute with Sudan. The shutdown sparked a series of economic shocks, including rising food and fuel prices and cuts to agriculture, health, and education services. The situation has been made worse by a poor harvest and fighting, which has displaced tens of thousands of people. On top of all this, more than 400,000 refugees from the north have returned to their homeland in South Sudan. Most of these people lack food and other essential supplies.
What is the fighting about?
World Vision staff inspect food set to be distributed due to the emerging food crisis in the country. (Photo: Geoffrey Kalebbo Denye/World Vision)
Ever since South Sudan separated from Sudan in July last year and became an independent nation, the two countries have been squabbling over valuable oil reserves in the border regions. This has provoked skirmishes, which have intensified in recent weeks. In addition, South Sudan suffers from internal tribal conflicts that have displaced tens of thousands of people in recent months.
Why did South Sudan shut down its oil production?
South Sudan relies on Sudan's oil pipelines, refineries, and other infrastructure to export its oil. Sudan accused South Sudan of not paying the oil transit fees for the use of its facilities and started seizing South Sudan's oil in lieu of those fees. In response, South Sudan accused Sudan of stealing its oil and halted production.
What is the impact on children?
When food is scarce, children are the most vulnerable to starvation. When fighting rages, children’s schooling is disrupted. Older children risk being abducted and recruited by armed groups. During tribal fighting in South Sudan’s Warrap state in February, children were among those targeted and killed. Moreover, about half the population of the country is composed of children, so they are disproportionally affected.
What does World Vision have to say about the Sudan/South Sudan conflict?
World Vision calls on the governments of both countries to cease fighting, end incursions into rival territory, end support for proxy militia groups, honor a non-aggression agreement signed by the two countries, and continue dialogue to solve the oil disagreement.
What is World Vision doing to help?
World Vision has extensive relief operations in border areas, targeting more than 500,000 people. Activities include:
- FOOD SECURITY: general food distribution, school meals, and child nutrition programs.
- WATER AND SANITATION: drilling new borehole wells, distributing water purification tablets, and establishing sanitation facilities.
- HEALTH: medical screening, immunization, promotion of good hygiene, and promotion of breastfeeding.
- EMERGENCY SUPPLIES: distributing mosquito nets, blankets, plastic sheeting, soap, and buckets.
- CHILD PROTECTION: tracing missing children, sensitizing communities to risks faced by children and how they can be mitigated, and establishment of Child-Friendly Spaces.
Read more blog posts about South Sudan's independence and the challenges faced by this region since it became the world's newest country in July 2011. Please pray for children, families, and communities who are suffering at the hands of conflict and hunger.
Make a one-time donation to World Vision's Sudan and South Sudan Relief Fund. Your gift will help World Vision provide food, clean water, healthcare, and other humanitarian assistance in this troubled part of the world. | <urn:uuid:dfa1dbcc-a244-4870-8750-7e4b69e37830> | CC-MAIN-2014-15 | http://blog.worldvision.org/disaster-relief/south-sudan-exploring-the-connection-between-conflict-and-hunger | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-15/segments/1397609533121.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20140416005213-00075-ip-10-147-4-33.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954089 | 893 | 3.375 | 3 | 3.049733 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Politics |
DOROTHY, W. Va. – Larry Gibson lives on an island in the sky.
It didn’t start that way: His land was once a low hill in a rugged hardwood forest – cherry, oak, hickory – skipping from ridge to ridge across one of the poorest, most rural areas of the Lower 48.
Then came the mining companies with their dynamite and trucks. They clear-cut the forest, blew the tops off the ridges and scraped the rocks into the hollows, pushing hundreds of feet of mountains into the valleys below.
They came for the coal – energy that provides half of the nation’s electricity and has been touted as a major plank in the United State’s bid for energy independence. They left, in Gibson’s view, a swale of extirpation and death.
This is mountaintop removal mining, the underbelly of the promise of clean, home-grown energy touted by industry and politicians.
No place in the United States has seen the damage and the benefits of mountaintop removal like Appalachia, where one third of the nation’s coal is mined. Today about 30 percent of all the coal coming out of the central and southern Appalachians comes via such surface mining.
“There is no such thing as clean coal,” Gibson said, talking to a group of journalists under the canopy of his forested knob, where the sylvan sounds of birds and wind carried an undertone of heavy machinery and tumbling rocks.
“I want you folks to write what you see,” he said. “And if you write truthfully, you will end one of the most barbaric practices on the planet.”
Coal’s benefits are considerable: cheap, plentiful energy that simultaneously injects cash into the poorest regions of the country. Coal holds such power that no U.S. administration – Republican or Democrat – has ever tried to stop mountaintop removal.
The full environmental cost is never tallied. No other energy source emits as much carbon dioxide when burned. Coal is so cheap – and so plentiful – that experts generally agree global warming will never be contained until industrialized nations find a way to cap those emissions. And before coal burns, it has to be ripped from the ground.
Gibson’s family has owned this wooded hilltop for 230 years: 50 acres at the end of a rough road, populated with maples, walnuts and a few small houses with tar-paper roofs and kids’ swings out in front.
It’s a peaceful place, where autumn colors a drizzly autumn morning with red and gold and green. “My mother gave me birth,” Gibson often says. “The mountains give me life.”
His grandfather discovered in the late 1940s that 426 acres – acreage now being mined – had been stolen away in 1906, after someone filed what Gibson called a fraudulent title showing three “X”s as the signatures of his illiterate forebears.
In 1986 the Princess Beverly Coal Co. dynamited the top off the first ridge of what Gibson said was once his family’s forest.
Seven years later Massey Coal offered $140,000 for his hill. He turned them down.
“There should be some things in life money can’t buy,” he said.
Gibson’s water table dropped steadily until 2001, when it disappeared altogether. Today Kayford Mountain has become the iconic face of mountaintop removal mining; Gibson regularly brings groups up to see firsthand what’s at stake.
“It amazes me how they can talk about clean coal technology and have an extraction process like this,” said Chuck Nelson, a friend and miner who spent 30 years running coal carts underground before he spoke up against mountaintop removal’s destruction and lost his job.
He’s distressed by the vast scars mountaintop mining leaves in the rugged hills. “What they’re destroying can never be fixed. What they’re creating is worthless.”
What they’re creating lies up a rutted road, just beyond a rusty, padlocked pipe blocking the path.
Gibson calls it “Hell’s Gate.”
“Over here you have life,” he said before lifting a leg to trespass. “Over there you have death.”
He walks another 100 yards and stops. The point where Gibson stands tops out at 2,400 feet above sea level. The gash below stretches horizon to horizon: Bare rock and earth, where 150-ton dump trucks look like Matchbox toys and big dozers churn the landscape.
That chasm, he says, was once the area’s high point, 3,100 feet high. Now it’s some 800 feet below him.
“The costs to reclaim this is going out to the people of America,” Gibson said.
An hour’s drive to the east, Andrew Jordon stands on the porch of a hunting shack he had built for his employees and that looks out over a scene of similar desolation.
Except instead of Hell he sees heaven.
Jordon runs a small mining company that is chewing away at 400 acres of the same coal-rich terrain Gibson is trying to keep.
Jordon is the ninth generation of his family to live in that valley. The land he’s leasing is owned by the family of a friend and former high school football teammate. His general manager, Rocky Hackworth, is another high school classmate.
“I hunt in these hollows,” Jordon said. “To me, it’s very important to do it right. Where we’re standing today is an area we took down, took the coal out, and put it back to about where it was.”
Jordon has been mining for 20 years, has 6,000 acres under lease and has mined and reclaimed 2,200.
For every ton of coal he ships out of his mine, he has to move 28 tons of overburden, or rock. He figures he’s pulled 1.5 million tons of coal out so far and has another 6 million tons to go.
Every operation he’s started has run into some sort of inherited environmental contamination: a river running at pH 2 – fatal to aquatic critters – that Jordon restored to a more natural pH 6. Or a previously botched restoration that his crew reshaped and reforested with black cherry, sugar maple, oak and white ash.
Such work tends to get dropped from press coverage of mountaintop removal, advocates note. Confronting the same group of journalists that had crossed Hell’s Gate with Gibson, Coal Association President Bill Raney had to vent a bit of steam: “You say that mining’s not protecting the resources,” he said. “It drives me nuts when y’all use that same paragraph. It’s absolutely meaningless in terms of what we do out here.”
Men like Jordon and Hackworth move the earth, mine the coal, reshape the hills and reforest them. Or they leave a patch of level ground for a school, a ballpark, a Wal-Mart – no small asset for a state with preciously few flat spots.
The next ridge over from Jordon’s operation is Kanawha State Forest.
“I’ve got a church full of people who use that forest,” Jordon said. “When we got control, I promised those people I’d clean this place up.
He’s making good on that promise, too: From the front porch of that hunting shack, looking out over the mining and the earth-movers, an approaching autumn rain engulfs two forested knobs – artificial to be sure, and reclaimed from the mine, but growing anew nonetheless.
Rare well-paying jobs
Jordon’s story illustrates another fact of life in coal country every bit as stark as the denuded landscape around Gibson’s glade: Poverty.
Median income in the United States was almost $42,000 in 2000, the most recent data the U.S. Census has for nationwide earnings. In the 100 poorest counties - of which 38 lie in Appalachian coal country - the median was half that.
A typical household in Owsley County, in Kentucky’s eastern hills, brought home $16,271 in 2000; in McDowell County in West Virginia’s southern end, median earnings sat at $16,931.
The median income for a miner in 2000? $44,400, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“In areas of the country where there are limited education and opportunities, men can live like kings and women can live like queens compared to their neighbors if they mine coal,” said LaJuana Wilcher, an attorney with English Lucas Priest & Owsley in Kentucky who was the state’s secretary of Environmental and Public Protection from 2003 to 2006.
Coal paid Kentucky $183 million in severance taxes in 2005 and $583 million in other state taxes - almost 10 percent of the state’s general fund for that year. That’s a lot of highways, hospitals, police officers and schoolrooms for poor states, Wilcher notes.
Big Coal also greases the political rails, contributing $2.6 million through mid-October to both sides in the presidential election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Pro-mining West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin III, a Democrat, crushed his opponents Tuesday.
“This is not a partisan issue,” Wilcher said. “You see Sen. (Robert) Byrd (D, W. Va.) and top Republicans all going together on this.”
That power gets used, cautioned Nelson, the veteran miner. He lost his job when Massey Coal, his employer, blew the top off his local ridge and left half an inch of dust coating the interior of his house. He spoke up and has been blacklisted ever since.
“You don’t work for Massey and say anything against the industry,” Nelson said. He can’t stay silent, but he understands those who do.
“People get in debt, they got mouths to feed. They’re afraid to take that step. They’re afraid to be left out in the cold, ‘cause there’s nothing here.”
Coal provides direct jobs for 22,000 miners in West Virginia and another 50,000 contractors, according to the Coal Association. It allows men like Jordon and Hackworth to stay in the hills where they grew up. And it feeds the nation’s appetite for cheap power.
Miners pulled 377 million tons of coal out of Appalachia in 2007, about a third of the nation’s total production. Carbon content varies in coal, but the nation’s appetite for the cinder adds 1.8 trillion tons of climate-warming carbon dioxide to the atmosphere annually, according to a 2000 U.S. Energy Information Agency report.
And it’s increasing: Industry estimates that 1 billion more tons of coal will be burned worldwide come 2013.
Efforts to reverse that trend quickly run into an immutable wall: Price.
The majority of the country, after all, was against drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge last year, Wilcher noted. “And guess what: Gas gets to $4 a gallon, and people wanted to drill offshore for oil and to drill in ANWR.”
Raney summed the attitude of many in coal country: “The Lord put the coal in the ground, and everyone up in Boston and elsewhere enjoys using it.”
“Stewardship is key,” he said. But “should we limit it? Absolutely not.”
Replanting the forest
The growth of mountaintop removal mining can be traced back – as can many an environmental conflict – to efforts to solve another environmental conundrum.
In this case, the need to stem acid rain drove industry out of high-sulfur deposits in northern Appalachia and the Midwest and to the low-sulfur coal of Wyoming’s Powder River Basin and the mountains of West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. Many of those Appalachian seams are too shallow to mine conventionally.
The result is that while coal tonnage has decreased in Virginia since 1990, it has stayed steady in central and southern Appalachia as industry compensates with mountaintop removal, said Carl Zipper, director of the Powell River Project, a research program of Virginia Tech aimed at enhancing communities and restoration efforts in the state’s coalfields.
There’s an incalculable benefit to this shift, noted Wilcher, the lawyer and former regulator: Mountaintop removal mining is safer and requires fewer hands. Coalfield mining deaths have dropped precipitously as a result.
Throughout the ‘70s an average of 35 miners died annually. By the 1980s the annual death rate had dropped to the mid-20s. Today it’s in the single digits; not a single miner died in 2006, a first.
Reclamation practices are changing, too.
In the past, standard practice was to blow the top off the mountain, shovel the overburden into the valley, mine the coal, spray the area with foreign grass seed and hope for the best.
That left the acidic topsoil crucial for forest growth buried under compacted alkaline overburden. Streams became channels. The invasive grass out-competed other plants and stymied any sort of natural succession. Trees, if they were planted, were black locust, ash, sycamore, white pine – far less valuable than the hardwoods they replaced, said Virginia Tech forestry professor Jim Berger.
The Appalachian forest, cleared and logged three times over since Daniel Boone crossed the mountains, would need at least 300 years to grow back at mine sites with such reclamation efforts, Berger figures.
In 2002 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers changed its restoration guidelines, requiring operators to restore streams in a more natural manner and regulating the type of ripples and pools, sinuosity, slope and conductivity.
The Interior Department’s Office of Surface Mining now encourages operators to restore the hardwood forest when they’re done, said Patrick Angel, an agency forester and soil scientist based in London, Ky. In every new surface mining permit issued recently in Virginia and in 80 percent of those in West Virginia, the mining company has committed to reclaim the land by planting a diverse hardwood forest, according to agency figures.
Not all rules move reclamation efforts forward, however.
In mid-October the Office of Surface Mining proposed repealing a 25-year-old prohibition on the dumping overburden in valley streams – a repeal the industry describes as crucial for the expansion of mountaintop removal mining.
Environmentalists are aghast. The rule will leave some 350 miles of Appalachian creeks permanently buried, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center, and hydrologists question whether current technology can rebuild healthy streams in the mountains.
Moving on to the next mountain
It’s unclear what the future holds for Appalachia’s hardwood forest or the coal underneath. True, the debate on coal has shifted: Mining advocates acknowledge the industry needs more environmentally friendly technologies to mine and burn it, said Wesleyan College history professor Robert Rupp. “Ten years ago you wouldn’t have heard that.”
But while President-elect Barack Obama spoke against mountaintop removal during the campaign, key congressional leaders from both parties say they’re content with the law as is.
Back on Kayford Mountain, the walnut and hickory and maple trees have all shed their color. On Gibson’s front porch, cordwood is stacked neatly for the coming winter, right under a sign saying “Larry’s Place – Almost Heaven.”
Just over the ridge, miners have started on their next hill. They’re awaiting permission to blow the top off Coal River Mountain, where buried seams hold a 14-year supply of coal.
Gibson and his allies say the mountaintop would be an ideal place for wind turbines.
The mining companies say they have no problem with wind power. It’d be a perfect use for the area – after they get the coal out.
Douglas Fischer is editor of DailyClimate.org. Email him at [email protected] | <urn:uuid:4b94db90-5112-4f83-a903-66a41257bf83> | CC-MAIN-2015-18 | http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-dirty-side-of-clean-coal/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-18/segments/1429246662032.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20150417045742-00222-ip-10-235-10-82.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953932 | 3,512 | 2.671875 | 3 | 2.923848 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Industrial |
Young male lion at Rooiputs in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park during November 2018.It seems that he might become one of the new leaders in the area due to the fact that the established leaders getting a bit long in the teeth.
Lions is the most social of all wild cat species, living in groups of related individuals with their offspring. Such a group is called a “pride”. Groups of male lions are called “coalitions”. Females form the stable social unit in a pride and do not tolerate outside females. Membership only changes with the births and deaths of lionesses, although some females leave and become nomadic. The average pride consists of around 15 lions, including several adult females and up to four males and their cubs of both sexes. Large prides, consisting of up to 30 individuals, have been observed.
Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is a large wildlife preserve and conservation area in southern Africa. The park straddles the border between South Africa and Botswana and comprises two adjoining national parks:
- Kalahari Gemsbok National Park in South Africa
- Gemsbok National Park in Botswana
The total area of the park is 38,000 square kilometres (15,000 sq mi). Approximately three-quarters of the park lies in Botswana and one-quarter in South Africa. Kgalagadi means “place of thirst.”
The park is located largely within the southern Kalahari Desert. The terrain consists of red sand dunes, sparse vegetation, occasional trees, and the dry riverbeds of the Nossob and Auob Rivers. The rivers are said to flow only about once per century. However, water flows underground and provides life for grass and camelthorn trees growing in the river beds. The rivers may flow briefly after large thunderstorms.
The park has abundant, varied wildlife. It is home to large mammalian predators such as lions, cheetahs, African leopards, and hyenas. Migratory herds of large herbivores such as blue wildebeest, springbok, eland, and red hartebeest also live and move seasonally within the park, providing sustenance for the predators. More than 200 species of bird can be found in the park, including vultures and raptors such as eagles, buzzards, and secretary birds.
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Thank you for shopping with us. | <urn:uuid:db4acc24-b2ce-4ead-89cb-ae81de76e9dc> | CC-MAIN-2020-45 | http://www.gerhardsteenkamp.com/product/new-leader/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-45/segments/1603107889173.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20201025125131-20201025155131-00012.warc.gz | en | 0.945628 | 712 | 3.03125 | 3 | 1.622765 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Art & Design |
Only in recent years, were profitable drilling sites discovered. During 2009, a big deposit of natural gas was discovered off the northern shores of Israel and is supposed to be in production by 2013. Last August, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimated that there are 122 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable, natural gas off the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. This potential has an estimated worth of $450 billion, according to the USGS. Shifting energy use in Israel to domestic gas has already saved the state $5 billion, according to research by the Knesset Research Center.
Everyone wanted a piece of this lucrative pie. Following these findings, a feud between sectors erupted. The government of Israel started to look into ways to increase the government take of these drillings. The drilling companies objected, and civic and environmental organizations have warned that the country should not sell its resources to tycoons too cheaply.
A special committee was appointed by the government to examine the taxation of gas and oil. The committee presented its final report on Jan. 3 and recommended to keep the current taxation regime in place, dating from 1952, but suggested adding a progressive levy on future profits from the drilling.
The government did not accept the recommendation. In the coming week, the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is going to speak to the different ministries and relevant companies to formulate a decision on the subject to place before the government for approval. During the weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday, the prime minister indicated he is in favor of establishing a national fund to utilize the profits of gas reserves for several goals, “with security and education foremost among them."
The companies involved in the drilling objected to any alteration to the current legislation, arguing that after they had taken the financial risk to search for deposits and develop them, it is not fair for the government to change their profit prospects of the projects. Another claim made by the companies is that increasing taxation on the projects will decrease future incentive to develop the gas sector.
“Discovering large deposits of gas in the state of Israel is a strategic and economic leapfrog for the state of Israel,” said the Israeli Institute for Energy and Environment in a formal opinion submitted to the committee. “It decreases the dependency of Israel in foreign energy resources, improves the state's balance of payments, and improves the competitiveness of Israeli products in the world. All of this was accomplished with minimal involvement of the state, with all the risk falling on the entrepreneurs and investors. The state should do what it can to enable the continuation of the use of gas.”
Some civic organization expressed its disappointment with the recommendations, warning of too close a connection between politics and money. Ometz (“Courage”), a corruption watchdog organization, claims that during the works of the committee, energy companies and lobbyists pressured politicians to change the recommendations in favor of the gas companies. Since the publication of the recommendations, claims Ometz, the pressure have increased.
Some environmental organizations, like Adan, Teva VaDin (“Man, Nature, and Law”), claim that it is necessary to make sure taxation on the gas companies is in proportion to the possible environmental damage of the drilling. The environmental organization has accused the committee of appeasing the capitalists. | <urn:uuid:16cc3af5-c5f3-4ef9-8cc9-8784c7d0ab44> | CC-MAIN-2014-52 | http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/israel-finds-natural-gas-controversy-ensues-48956.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-52/segments/1418802775085.124/warc/CC-MAIN-20141217075255-00094-ip-10-231-17-201.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958312 | 668 | 2.53125 | 3 | 3.121476 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Politics |
Do you notice how you are different from your friend? Everyone is different and differences are catered in different ways. Similarly, people with learning difficulties require different ways to be taught and nurtured like people without learning difficulties are. To cater the learning difficulty Cheshire, a number of schools have been established to help them educate themselves and live a dignified life like others, without having to compromise on anything. Different kinds of jobs are also available in Cheshire for them to earn and live independently. These jobs can provide salaries from 12000 to 55000 pounds annually, based on hourly, daily or monthly payments.
To provide for people with learning difficulty Cheshire, there are a number of amenities provided by schools, clubhouses and charities that have been listed below.
Schools/ Colleges- Schools that are geared precisely towards the uplifting of those with learning difficulty provide for tailored education to help them educate themselves. Apart from these, they also help their students to develop mentally, emotionally and socially in order to cope up with the world beyond the school. Speech and language therapies, special exercises and psychological guidance are some of the other widespread facilities provided by these schools. Some colleges also provide them with campus lodging and part time jobs in order to grow responsibly and independently. Nurturing their talents is also taken seriously to widen their scope of options for later in life.
Clubhouses– Clubhouses work on the basis of membership for a certain period of time. The memberships are generally for twelve weeks. Here, the members are made to interact and work with individuals. This helps them to gradually ascertain and attain their goals. Apart from these, there are medical hubs that cater to their needs even after the working hours of helpers are over.
Charities– Charities provide for a wide range of services. Some charities also have their own schools, colleges and homes, and thus, are capable of reaching out to a wider section of people. They provide for special education facilities, residential facilities, fostering, providing family support and also help them to take part in different kinds of community services in an attempt to help in the process of their emancipation. There are flexible courses too, to opt for, but require you being between the age group of 16-28. Some of these had begun as shelters to children until they were adults, but a lot of these have now developed to become homes to adults too, for a lifetime.
People often have a tendency to assume that these organizations are ‘inferior’ to the other organizations in the city. But if it is convincing in anyway, please note that most of these schools or colleges are Ofsted certified and hence, are definitely of a good standard. These organizations that help people with learning difficulty Cheshire are ways to emancipate your child and help them cope up with the world once he or she is an adult as normally as possible. So, do not hesitate from approaching them. | <urn:uuid:5a78631f-6e20-471c-a065-6366ddc5f233> | CC-MAIN-2022-27 | https://koraplatform.com/amenities-for-people-with-learning-difficulties-in-cheshire/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-27/segments/1656103037089.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20220626040948-20220626070948-00174.warc.gz | en | 0.98325 | 590 | 2.515625 | 3 | 2.084326 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Education & Jobs |
A session bean represents a single client inside the Application Server. To access an application that is deployed on the server, the client invokes the session bean’s methods. The session bean performs work for its client, shielding the client from complexity by executing business tasks inside the server.
As its name suggests, a session bean is similar to an interactive session. A session bean is not shared; it can have only one client, in the same way that an interactive session can have only one user. Like an interactive session, a session bean is not persistent. (That is, its data is not saved to a database.) When the client terminates, its session bean appears to terminate and is no longer associated with the client.
For code samples, see Chapter 22, Session Bean Examples.
There are two types of session beans: stateful and stateless.
The state of an object consists of the values of its instance variables. In a stateful session bean, the instance variables represent the state of a unique client-bean session. Because the client interacts (“talks”) with its bean, this state is often called the conversational state.
The state is retained for the duration of the client-bean session. If the client removes the bean or terminates, the session ends and the state disappears. This transient nature of the state is not a problem, however, because when the conversation between the client and the bean ends there is no need to retain the state.
A stateless session bean does not maintain a conversational state with the client. When a client invokes the methods of a stateless bean, the bean’s instance variables may contain a state specific to that client, but only for the duration of the invocation. When the method is finished, the client-specific state should not be retained. Clients may, however, change the state of instance variables in pooled stateless beans, and this state is held over to the next invocation of the pooled stateless bean. Except during method invocation, all instances of a stateless bean are equivalent, allowing the EJB container to assign an instance to any client. That is, the state of a stateless session bean should apply accross all clients.
Because stateless session beans can support multiple clients, they can offer better scalability for applications that require large numbers of clients. Typically, an application requires fewer stateless session beans than stateful session beans to support the same number of clients.
A stateless session bean can implement a web service, but other types of enterprise beans cannot.
In general, you should use a session bean if the following circumstances hold:
At any given time, only one client has access to the bean instance.
The state of the bean is not persistent, existing only for a short period (perhaps a few hours).
The bean implements a web service.
The bean’s state represents the interaction between the bean and a specific client.
The bean needs to hold information about the client across method invocations.
The bean mediates between the client and the other components of the application, presenting a simplified view to the client.
Behind the scenes, the bean manages the work flow of several enterprise beans. For an example, see the AccountControllerBean session bean in Chapter 37, The Duke’s Bank Application.
The bean’s state has no data for a specific client.
In a single method invocation, the bean performs a generic task for all clients. For example, you might use a stateless session bean to send an email that confirms an online order. | <urn:uuid:cadc4df2-6dfa-4b1c-a964-973f86da9d64> | CC-MAIN-2014-52 | http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19575-01/819-3669/bnbly/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-52/segments/1419447554429.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20141224185914-00082-ip-10-231-17-201.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.894263 | 736 | 2.875 | 3 | 2.345221 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Software Dev. |
I talked about the importance of Cloud storage in my article about Windows 10. Cloud storage essentially means that your files are stored on servers accessible over the internet. Programs on your computer can seamlessly keep a copy of these files on your computer, but you can use the files just like anything else on your computer. The great part is that when the files are updated anywhere, the changes are synchonized with the copy on the internet and then with any other devices you own that share the files. So if you update a recipe document on your computer, that same recipe is updated and your other devices then have the latest copy. Your files are also backed up not just in the internet but on every one of your devices, depending on your settings. This is amazingly convenient and protects your data at the same time from loss.
Suddenly about now, people stop me and ask “is that safe?” and “Can’t anybody can steal my files?” Well, you’re not the first person to think of that problem, and companies using cloud services have been building in better and better safeguards for years. Let’s start by thinking about your laptop. If somebody steals it or if you lose it, your hard drive contains all your files. With physical access, your data is ALWAYS vulnerable. People can remove the hard drive from your computer and copy your files with our without the password to your computer. The cloud can help with this.
The approach to digital security is adapting to reflect the facts of cloud based storage. There are two tricks to securing data on portable devices:
- You can ENCRYPT your device’s data, rendering it useless to thieves: For example, you can upgrade Windows to include “Bitlocker,” encryption on your hard drive that renders your data to be gibberish unless Windows boots up and decodes it, and this requires you to login with a real password. Encrypting all the data on your hard drive requires special software and specific setup, and right now nearly all personal computers do NOT have this set up. Typically, this is reserved for enterprise-level computers configured by an IT department with security in mind.
- You can keep data in the cloud ONLY. . . simply keep your cloud data in the cloud and only copy it to your computer when you use it. Cloud storage programs can be set up this way and Microsoft’s OneDrive is especially good at this. While your files are inaccessible, though, without access to the internet, you can specify that certain files are available all the time, balancing security against convenience on your terms. Technology has a solution for every situation, and every situation is different. That is where I come in. We can discuss how safe your data is and balance your concerns with convenience and security.
Finally, there is the issue of passwords. Your cloud data is only as safe as your password, but this is changing. Now, Microsoft, Google, Dropbox, Apple, and others have started using something called Two Factor Authentication, which I plan to discuss in my next blog entry, to prevent people from accessing your stuff even if they have stolen your password! It’s a huge advance and can be integrated with programs that help you manage your passwords as well as biometric devices, like fingerprint readers. For instance, we installed a fingerprint reader on our computer at home, so everyone in the family can log in to the kitchen computer with just their finger. | <urn:uuid:a2496526-1db7-4484-b991-573c50abe189> | CC-MAIN-2018-09 | http://tuxorit.com/2015/07/cloud-storage-is-here-to-stay-and-improve-how-you-use-your-devices/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-09/segments/1518891812938.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20180220110011-20180220130011-00199.warc.gz | en | 0.944165 | 709 | 3.0625 | 3 | 2.571912 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Software |
Brinjals – the king of vegetables
Also known as eggplant, aubergine and melogene, the brinjal, often called the 'King of Vegetables', the brinjal originated in India, as early as prehistoric times. The Western world was introduced to the brinjal later on, in around 1500. Being a member of the 'Nightshade' or 'Solanaceae' family, brinjals are closely related to the tomato and potato. Typically, the brinjal we all know today is classified as a berry, with a mass of bitter seeds. Nevertheless, this bitterness can be masked while cooking with different spices, thereby making it a widely used vegetable.
The brinjal plant is mostly annual. Its leaves are large, punctuated with rough lobes and a spiny stem. Brinjal flowers are whitish purple and have five petals. These blossoms are not very attractive to bees and a first blossom rarely produces any fruit (or in this case, the brinjal vegetable).
History behind the name
The term 'eggplant' is used by the Americans, Canadians and Australians, because of the close resemblance between the yellowish white brinjals they get and the eggs of geese and hens. 'Aubergine', used in British English was obtained from the Persian 'badenjan' and Sanskrit 'vatiga-gama'. India, South Africa, Malaysia and Singapore call it the brinjal – which was derived from the Portuguese 'beringela'. 'Melongene', a rarer term was obtained from a French word further influenced by the Italian 'melanzana'.
The most common brinjal in the world is the larger, elongated variety, which is usually purple to deep purple in colour. However, white, yellow, green ('Matti Gulla' of Karnataka), orange and even striped brinjals have been grown, mostly throughout Asia. Chinese brinjals resemble cucumbers in their narrow shape. The vegetable also ranges in size (weight) from the larger ones weighing in at a kilo, to the smaller types ('Baingan'). In Thai cuisine, smaller, rounder brinjals are preferred.
Brinjals in cuisine
To reduce the bitterness prevalent in brinjals, it is customary to add salt, wash and then drain the vegetable before cooking. Apart from enhancing the complex flavours, the amount of fat soaked up in the oil while cooking can also be reduced by this procedure. The thin purple skin and seeds are also edible.
Brinjals are found in cuisines practically all over the world. They are found in curries, chutneys, sauces, sambhars, dals and a variety of vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes (in the latter, they can be stuffed with meat and then baked). They can be deep fried in batter, and then served with a variety of spicy, tangy sauces ('bhajjiyas'). They can be stewed as in the case of the French 'Ratatouille' and Turkish 'Musakka'. Brinjals can be grilled, mashed up and then mixed with onions, tomatoes and spices ('Baingan ka Bhartha') or stuffed. For instance, in Caucasus, brinjals are stuffed with walnut paste to prepare a dish called 'Nigvziani Badrijani'.
Allergies to brinjals
People who are allergic to brinjals will start to itch after both handling and consuming the vegetable. Those people who are prone to hay fever are more susceptible to developing brinjal allergy. This is because of the existence of histamines. Cooking the vegetable may reduce the symptoms in some people, but it is better not to push your luck, because not all the allergy-causing elements may be destroyed.
More articles: Vegetables
Take a big size brinjals in two numbers. Heat them in fire,better coal fire. peel the skin. Beat the flesh of brinjals into a bowl. Add salt to the need. By keeping a pan in stove just fry slightly chopped green chillis with little oil. Add this with the paste. Taste it with or without curd. The taste makes you to accept full heartedly Chantella's "Brinjal-the king of vegetables" | <urn:uuid:d65bbcba-e68a-48ae-81df-f13c12088f3f> | CC-MAIN-2018-05 | http://www.indiastudychannel.com/resources/137508-Brinjals-The-King-Vegetables.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-05/segments/1516084889617.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20180120122736-20180120142736-00142.warc.gz | en | 0.938586 | 919 | 3.203125 | 3 | 1.581655 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Food & Dining |
News Releases - 2012
New Web Site Shares Information About Deadly Tree Pathogens
Pacific Southwest Research Station/USDA Forest Service
Science that makes a difference. . .
Contact: Sherri Eng, PSW Research Station Public Affairs, [email protected]; (510) 559-6327
ALBANY, Calif.—Sudden oak death, Port-Orford-cedar root disease and other deadly tree diseases caused by Phytophthora species (pronounced fy-TOF-ther-uh) are threatening forest ecosystems worldwide. These microorganisms, which are related to algae and diatoms, spend part of their life cycle in soil or water but once they infect trees, they can kill them. A new web site, developed jointly by the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station and Oregon State University, hopes to put knowledge and resources in the hands of scientists and land managers as they look for ways to fight these deadly diseases.
SomePhytophthoras have likely been introduced to forests through the planting of infested ornamental nursery plants, such as rhododendrons and Lawson’s cypress. The diseases are difficult to control in part because infected plants show only indistinct leaf spots, which go unnoticed until the pathogen escapes a garden and kills a neighboring forest tree.
The Forest Phytophthoras of the World web site (www.forestphytophthoras.org/) is part of a worldwide effort to protect forests by preventing the spread of these exotic microbes. Information on forest Phytophthoras is currently scattered, making it difficult and time consuming for professionals to keep up with scientific literature, regulatory programs, management activities and educational materials on the topic.
Funded by the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station, and created and maintained by Jennifer Parke at Oregon State University, the site will serve as an international resource where scientists, students, forest managers, regulators, policy makers and the public can share the latest information on species of Phytophthora that affect the world’s forests.
The web site currently features profiles of 10 forest Phytophthora species and the diseases they cause, with several additional species profiles to be added each year. Management and educational materials for each species are included, often in multiple languages. Other features include a disease finder, an illustrated glossary, a photo gallery, and a section on Phytophthora “basics” to help inform non-experts. A searchable reference system with links to scientific publications is also available. The website is paired with a newly created open access scientific journal, Forest Phytophthoras (www.journals.oregondigital.org/ForestPhytophthora/issue/current).
“Of all types of plant pathogens, fungi, bacteria, viruses, the Phytophthora are among the most damaging, and are very difficult to combat,” says Susan Frankel, a biologist at the Pacific Southwest Research Station. “With this website and journal, we aim to improve communication needed to get ahead of this battle to protect our natural resources.”
Headquartered in Albany, Calif., the Pacific Southwest Research develops and communicates science needed to sustain forest ecosystems and other benefits to society. It has laboratories and research centers in California, Hawaii and the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands. For more information, visit www.fs.fed.us/psw/. | <urn:uuid:5f471a0d-362b-4dec-9db9-84f4936302b0> | CC-MAIN-2014-52 | http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/news/2012/20120202_PhytophthorasWebsite.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-52/segments/1418802769550.123/warc/CC-MAIN-20141217075249-00044-ip-10-231-17-201.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919244 | 708 | 2.921875 | 3 | 2.865046 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Science & Tech. |
However, extremist groups also misuse this issue and spread such myths in an attempt to glorify the Nazi-allied Slovak state, according to Ivan Kamenec from the Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV).
“I have a feeling that demonising the uprising for extremist groups is only a substitute issue because they mostly care about glorification of the fascist-totalitarian Slovak state and its representatives against whom the uprising was directed,” Kamenec told The Slovak Spectator.
Myth 1: Communist organisers
One of the most popular myths about the SNP is that it was prepared and organised mainly by communists and that it therefore paved the way for a communist takeover after the end of the World War II.
According to Kamenec, the uprising was not organised by communists only, but also was a result of the civil resistance and the army of resistance was definitely not itself communist.
Michal Schvarc from the SAV’s Institute of History agreed that there were plenty of democrats and others that balanced out the communist contingent in the uprising. The fact that Czechoslovakia was in Soviet Union’s post-war sphere of influence was the main reason why the country later suffered under socialists’ dictatorship, he said.
Moreover, Marína Zavacká from the Institute of History pointed out that the government of the wartime Slovak state established all the institutions and habits which are now considered to be characteristic of the communist regime. It banned political parties except the ruling one and established its paramilitary units. Moreover, just like the communist regime, it limited travel and persecuted emigrants; it dictated education, the media and civic associations and its political opponents were detained in concentration camps.
“The society adapted to the criminal behaviour of the state, accepting what was before considered impossible,” Zavacká told The Slovak Spectator. “While the six years [of the Nazi-allied state] broke the back of democrats and considerably lessened public resistance to other non-democratic political programs.”
Myth 2: Harming the country
Several other myths say that the uprising caused unnecessary damage to the country and was actually unpopular among ordinary people who suffered from the military operations and were terrorised by the irregular military force members called partisans.
One such claim is that the SNP drew German forces into a fight in the country, without which the war-related damage would have been significantly less.
However, the Slovak territory officially became part of German army’s area of operation at the beginning of August 1944, thus Nazi commanders had already planned for Slovakia to become a war zone.
“Considering those facts, there is no need to discuss whether the country would suffer war damages or would not,” Schvarc told The Slovak Spectator. “Of course, Slovakia would not avoid war damage.”
Zavacká also pointed out that the uprising actually gave more reasons to the advancing forces of the Soviet Red Army to behave like they were in liberated, rather than conquered, territory.
Another myth is that rebels were cowards avoiding direct contact with enemy and attacked only infrastructure like railways and bridges, in the end damaging their own country.
Schvarc disagrees, saying that SNP forces directly fought Nazi occupants and did not focus solely on diversionary tactics. The main power of the uprising was a regular army, which used standard tactics and later preferred guerrilla warfare. However, some rebels did not act in line with orders of official SNP leaders, but obeyed Ukrainian Partisan Headquarters in Kiev run by the Soviet Union.
As with any military action, or any human undertaking, the uprising was not perfect. But with 60,000 poorly armed soldiers from the regular army and 18,000 partisans, its commanders held for two months against well equipped Nazis.
“That is not a half bad result by European standards,” Zavacká said. “The more their divisions were engaged here the weaker Nazi forces were on other fronts; for example, in Brussels, which was liberated by Allied forces on September 3.”
Myth 3: Partisans were criminals
Another myth also says that partisans generally abused their power by attacking defenceless people. For example, there were guerilla groups which killed the local German population.
However, the SNP should be evaluated as a whole and claims about rebels who behaved as criminals or bandits rather than regular soldiers are not reasonable, according to Schvarc. He added that such claims are part of propaganda spread by people admiring the wartime Slovak state.
“Of course, there were all kinds of people even among rebels and it is possible to track cases of settling scores, etc.” Schvarc said. “But it is not possible to come to the generally condemning conclusion [about the SNP] just because of those marginal features.”
Citizens’ attitudes towards the partisans were ambivalent; some people supported them despite the threat of consequent punishment and some did not. However, historians should not uncritically accept stories about malevolent partisans passed by several generations, he added.
Why celebrate the uprising
Considering the aforementioned myths, some people ask whether it is proper to celebrate an event which “only brought suffering” upon Slovaks.
The uprising did not meet all of its goals and it is necessary to talk about that, but without an attitude of being either a prosecutor or an advocate, according to Kamenec. It is necessary to realise that the uprising is part of a flow of history and should be evaluated without bias.
Zavacká opined that the choice of symbols and heritage of the uprising is up to people today. Some can dwell on the memory of a desperate soldier who robbed out of hunger or killed out of hate. For others, it will be a day of honouring people who risked their lives in the fight for freedom – such as Margita Kocková, an English teacher who became an interpreter for the British and American military mission and together with its members was executed in the Mauthausen Concentration Camp.
“I realise the power of symbols and attractiveness of examples,” Zavacká said. “The bravery of thousands of Slovaks … preferring rather a democratic Czechoslovakia over a non-democratic ethnic-based state could be a strong source of inspiration even today.”
25. Aug 2014 at 0:00 | Roman Cuprik | <urn:uuid:b92b88d3-96b5-4ead-82de-0b36585c579a> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | https://spectator.sme.sk/c/20051789/debunking-some-of-the-snp-myths.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578530527.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20190421100217-20190421122217-00247.warc.gz | en | 0.974701 | 1,328 | 3.3125 | 3 | 3.038549 | 3 | Strong reasoning | History |
Four years ago, I wrote an editorial on the Pope’s Laudato Si’ encyclical. That encyclical, released on June 18, 2015, called for discussion and dialogue on climate change. Pope Francis stated,
“The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change.” (Laudato Si’, Sec 13)
According to Pope Francis, that development includes the restoration of spiritual life in all of humanity, with Christ, in the form of the Eucharist, at its centre, and Sunday, as a universal day to rest and experience that restoration.
For Pope Francis, the hope of humanity rests in a return to Eucharistic worship and rest on Sunday.
A few months later, in September 2015, Pope Francis delivered a speech to the White House where he explicitly supported Barack Obama’s plan to cut carbon emissions and chastised climate change deniers for failing in their duty to protect our “common home”.
Just two weeks ago, as reported by “The Guardian”, June 15, 2019, Pope Francis took a harder line when addressing energy leaders at a meeting in the Vatican, declaring a “climate emergency” and urging action. A failure to act urgently to reduce greenhouse gases would be “a brutal act of injustice toward the poor and future generations”. He also endorsed the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit on temperature rises that some countries are now aiming for, said a “radical energy transition” would be needed to stay within that limit, and urged young people and businesses to take a leading role.
The 1.5 degrees Celsius limit is a figure found in the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The 190 nations that signed up to it have agreed to tackle the threat of global warming by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
So how can the Pope’s push for a universal day of rest for all humanity, as part of the global response to climate change, gain the backing of the nations of the world?
A novel proposal put forward by Dr. Menahem David Smadja, a well-known author, economist and religious scholar, may hold the answer. For the past 35 years, Dr. Smadja has been studying economics and its impact and influence in the religious world — examining their spiritual and material response to the challenges of everyday life.
His recent research focused on how to apply the concept of the Sabbath (day of rest) to address the climate change crisis. In brief, his proposal calls for an international day of rest, comprising approximately 53 days per year and an additional 15 days off where both individuals and industry would refrain from all creative, manufacturing and productive activity.
“These 70 days, representing approximately 20% of the year, would help achieve the shared goal outlined in the Paris Climate Conference (COP21) of a 20% reduction of pollution globally by 2050.” According to Dr Smadja, “The impact of a day of rest not only would provide needed relief to our planet and ecosystem, it will also benefit people. If individuals adopt a day away from technology, work and other pursuits, we will also see improved quality family time.”
It is not too far-fetched to tie Dr Smadja’s proposal together with the Pope’s call for urgent action on climate change. What better and more electorate-friendly proposal could be put forward than a universal day off for everyone. Time for the family, time for rejuvenation, and time away from industrial activities that contribute to carbon emissions.
Noting the international political consensus for action on climate change, an article appearing in “CEO WORLD Magazine” observed,
“the time may be right for Dr. Smadja’s proposal. ‘This frantic race to go faster and faster makes us forget essential things, such as loving ourselves, others and also our earth,’ says Smadja, ‘the result is a global disaster, whose ecological impact is more and more obvious. A Sabbath for ourselves, our industry and our environment is a corrective to these failures. It is a transcendence of spiritual over material, will lead to a better sharing of wealth and a measurable improvement to the climate crisis that can bring together populists, progressives and conservatives toward a common cause.’ ” (“A Modest Proposal for a Day of Rest”, CEO WORLD Magazine, Jan. 29, 2018)
That cause was somewhat derailed in 2017 when President Trump, citing economic reasons, announced his intention to withdraw the USA from the Paris Agreement. That withdrawal will take place in November of 2020. However, in a backlash to that decision, the US Congress on the 7th of May this year, passed a Bill that requires the President to develop and update annually a plan for the United States to meet its nationally determined contribution under the Paris Agreement on climate change. Specifically, the plan must describe steps to (1) cut greenhouse gas emissions by 26%-28% below 2005 levels by 2025, and (2) confirm that other parties to the agreement with major economies are fulfilling their announced contributions. Further, no money is to be spent to hasten a withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.
The Bill is yet to be passed by the US Senate and ratified by the President. But their intentions are clear. The US Congress, along with the vast majority of the world want to press forward with their plans–cut the global average temperature by reducing global air pollution.
Twenty years ago, one person asked me, “How would Australia or the USA bring in a Sunday law, when society has become so secular and so accustomed to commercial activity on Sunday?” Admittedly, I was not sure of the answer myself. But the Bible is clear, a Sunday law will happen. (Revelation 13:11-18.)
Today, however, it is easier to see how Dr Smadja’s proposal would be a welcome addition to the basket of strategies nations are adopting to achieve their plans. As natural disasters—storms, hurricanes, droughts, fires, floods—increase, the resolve for action on climate change will intensify. This should come as no surprise to students of Bible prophecy. The Great Controversy, pages 589-590, makes it plain that natural disasters will be one means the devil is going to use to bring about a global Sunday law. For the non-religious, a universal day of rest for the good of the environment will make common sense. For the religious, it will be an answer to the Pope’s call for action on climate change and a welcome return to the reverence of Sunday.
This reverence for Sunday will transcend denominational barriers. In listing ways the church can take action for “climate justice”, The Salvation Army’s International Social Justice Commission says,
“Keep the Sabbath: It could be the most radical thing a church can do for environmental stewardship—to commit to keeping the Sabbath. The scriptures make constant reference to rest and care for the land as well as for people on the Sabbath. Spending time with family and friends and enjoying the free outdoors is an act of resistance to the pressures of materialism and consumerism.” (“A Call for Climate Justice”, Release 7, The Salvation Army International Social Justice Commission)
Of course, the Sabbath they are referring to is Sunday as a day of rest. However, as I wrote four years ago, while worshipping on Sunday has been a much-revered Christian tradition, we find no biblical support for it whatsoever in the Old or New Testament Scriptures. The only day we as Christians are called to set apart as a day of rest is the seventh day of the week; namely, Saturday.
Unfortunately, Pope Francis’ efforts to “to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development” with Eucharistic worship on Sunday at its centre will not stop with mere appeals to the heart. Prophecy indicates that the whole of Christendom will be caught up in a political drive to enforce this “mark” of Roman Catholic authority.
Sunday, as a day of rest, will be enforced upon the world.
Beloved, we are nearer to these events than when we first believed. Probation is fast closing. Time is short. Jesus is coming. It is our prayer that we will be awake to these things today. Let us not put off the coming of the Lord. Let’s unite together in proclaiming this last message of mercy to a lost world while we have time. The night is coming when no man can work. Maranatha. | <urn:uuid:3e590ae8-4b6c-4f3c-b185-6e175d6cb79e> | CC-MAIN-2020-45 | https://www.sdarm.org.au/news/2019/08/12/congress-climate-change-the-sunday-law/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-45/segments/1603107881551.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20201023234043-20201024024043-00675.warc.gz | en | 0.947724 | 1,834 | 2.609375 | 3 | 2.98479 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Religion |
hopes, but not much knowledge of the way; however, they managed to get safely on the Underground Rail Road track, and by perseverance they reached the Committee and were aided in the usual manner.
ARRIVAL FROM GEORGETOWN CROSS-ROADS, 1857.
LEEDS WRIGHT AND ABRAM TILISON.
For three years Leeds had been thirsting for his liberty; his heart was fixed on that one object. He got plenty to eat, drink, and wear, but was nevertheless dissatisfied.
The name of his master was Rev. John Wesley Pearson, who was engaged in school teaching and preaching, and belonged to the more, moderate class of slave-holders. Once when a boy Leeds had been sold, but being very young, he did not think much about the matter.
For the last eight or ten years previous to his escape he had not seen his relatives, his father (George Wright) having fled to Canada, and the remainder of the family lived some fifty miles distant, beyond the possibility of intercourse; therefore, as he had no strong ties to break, he could look to the time of leaving the land of bondage without regret.
ABRAM, the companion of Leeds, had been less comfortably situated. His lot in Slavery had been cast under Samuel Jarman, by whom he had been badly treated.
Abram described him as a "big, tall, old man, who drank and was a real wicked man; he followed farming; had thirteen children. His wife was different; she was a pretty fine woman, but the children were all bad; the young masters followed playing cards."No chance at all had been allowed them to learn to read, although Abram and Leeds both coveted this knowledge. As they felt that they would never be able to do anything for their improvement by remaining, they decided to follow the example of Abram's father and others and go to Canada.
ARRIVAL FROM ALEXANDRIA.
WILLIAM TRIPLETT AND THOMAS HARPER.
RAN AWAY from the subscriber, on Saturday night, 22d instant, WILLIAM TRIPLETT, a dark mulatto, with whiskers and mustache, 23 to 26 years of age; lately had a burn on the instep of his right foot, but perhaps well enough to wear a boot or shoe. He took with him very excellent clothing, both summer and winter, consisting of a brown suit in cloth, summer coats striped, check cap, silk hat, &c. $50 reward will be paid if taken within thirty miles of Alexandria or in the State of Virginia, and $150 and necessary expenses if taken out of the State and secured so that I get him again. He is the property of Mrs. A. B. Fairfax, of Alexandria, and is likely to make his way to Cincinnati, where he has friends, named Hamilton and Hopes, now living. ROBT. W. WHEAT. | <urn:uuid:1e946975-7fbe-45c7-a110-98359c0c9ad8> | CC-MAIN-2017-17 | http://deila.dickinson.edu/cdm/ref/collection/slaverya/id/58622 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917121778.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031201-00156-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990634 | 611 | 2.71875 | 3 | 2.681883 | 3 | Strong reasoning | History |
STAAR Motivation Reading
In the United States, reading levels among the adult population appear to be low. According to the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (Kutner, Greenberg, Jin, Boyle, Hsu, & Dunleavy, 2007), statistics showed 14 percent of adults read prose texts at such a low level, indicating the most basic and concrete literacy skills are understood. It appears only 13 percent read prose at the proficient level, demonstrating complex literacy activities. Proficient readers, as reported by the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, have declined 15 percent from 1992.
The percent of adults in the United States reading literature declined from 54.0 in 1992 to 46.7 in 2002 (National Endowment for the Arts, 2004). The percent of adults reading any book also dropped 7 percentage points. This low and declining achievement rate may be connected to a general lack of independent reading. Thus, a focus was placed on text complexity among the reading passages and their association with Lexile ranges. The text complexity of all passages within Motivation Reading were aligned to Lexile ranges so that the development of reading comprehension between and among the grades would lead students to read at the college and career readiness level by the time they graduated high school. The Lexile ranges for the passages within each grade level are 650L to 1130L for fifth grade, 630L to 950L for fourth grade, 510L to 910L for third grade, and 470L to 900L for second grade. Lexile analyzers are widely adopted measures of reading ability and text difficulty. These valuable tools help teachers determine the difficulty of a text and better match students to texts as well as predict whether students will be more likely to understand the text.
Research from the American College Test research report (ACT, 2006) confirms text complexity is important in reading achievement. Over the last fifty years, texts in K-12 grades seem to be less complex; yet higher education and the workforce have not lowered reading demands. In the last half of the century, the difficulty of college textbooks, as measured by Lexile scores, has not decreased but increased (Stenner, Koons, & Swartz, in press). College students are expected to read complex texts more independently and with little scaffolding than in their K-12 education years. Studies report that reading in the workplace varies, but some Lexile measures show the text complexity levels exceed grade 12. The vocabulary difficulty of newspapers remained stable over the 1963–1991 years (Hayes, Wolfer, & Wolfe, 1996). With a decline in complexity of texts and a lack of reading of complex texts independently, the emphasis on reading comprehension and text complexity is essential and continues to rise in importance. Thus, the need existed for Motivation Reading to place emphasis on text complexity. The high-quality passages provide the appropriate level of text complexity and engage students in topics related to science, social studies, fine arts, and technology.
Reports from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, 2003) indicate 38 percent of fourth graders cannot read well enough to grasp meaning from a basic children's book. With scientifically based approaches to reading, students with reading or language problems, attention or learning deficits, or those with a reading disability or with limited English speaking abilities risk their performances lagging behind those of their peers. Chall (2000) notes that research findings are not always widely accepted. Practitioners do not always readily transfer findings into classroom practices. It is imperative that educators and others appreciate, recognize, agree upon, and implement pertinent research findings that are scientifically based. Educators must seek to optimize learning opportunities for students validated by research. Students are expected to independently read some unfamiliar texts, relying on the print and drawing meaning from it. Motivation Reading seeks to provide a resource that supports the concept of "reading to learn."
Motivation Reading is a comprehensive, rigorous, and relevant supplemental reading resource developed by Texas educators to integrate critical and focused reinforcement into reading instruction. Motivation Reading addresses all Readiness and Supporting student expectations of the English Language Arts/Reading Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (ELA/R TEKS) and is designed to develop and improve students’ reading comprehension and critical analysis of text. With a unique emphasis on critical thinking in the classroom, students are empowered to extend and apply learning beyond the classroom.
Motivation Reading units are aligned with the Reporting Categories as outlined on the Assessed Curriculum Document prepared by the Texas Education Agency (2010). This resource also aligns with the STAAR® Blueprint (TEA, 2010) as it includes activities or questions that prepare students for the Readiness TEKS (60-70%). An emphasis is also placed on questions or tasks that reinforce the Supporting TEKS (30-40%). The rigor, depth, and level of cognitive complexity will increase in order to measure a greater range of student achievement and to better link the results to college and career readiness and success. Students must display a beyond literal understanding of texts as they exhibit critical and inferential skills. Students must also show sufficient skill in forming connections within and across texts, using evidence to justify or form conclusions and make real-life applications. Each unit includes components that represent the STAAR® requirements of developing rigor and complexity of thought in order to move students forward in mastering the existing Reading Standards. The development of the unit contents were based on STAAR® Blueprints (2011), Test Design Schematics (2010), Released Test Questions (2012), ELA/R TEKS eligible for testing (2011), Reading PowerPoint shared by Young (2011), and other assessment curriculum documents found on the Texas Education Agency website. Updates for Reading assessments presented at Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association (TEPSA) and Coalition of Reading and English Supervisors of Texas (CREST) conferences were also considered while developing Motivation Reading.
Student data from the 2011-2012 STAAR® Reading Summary Report demonstrate a range of scores for students in grades three through five. The total third grade students tested were 327,993. The released data from each of the three reporting categories yield the following results for the All Students summary. For the category Understanding/Analysis Across Genres, third graders answered 70% of items correctly or an average of 4.2 items out of 6; for Understanding/Analysis of Literary Texts category, third graders answered 60% of items correctly or an average of 10.8 items out of 18; for Understanding/Analysis of Informational Texts third graders answered 68% of items correctly or an average of 11.0 items out of 16. The total fourth grade students tested were 334,511. The released data from the three reporting categories yield the following results for the All Students summary. For the category Understanding/Analysis Across Genres, fourth graders answered 69% of items correctly or an average of 6.9 items out of 10; for Understanding/Analysis of Literary Texts, fourth graders answered 67% of items correctly or an average of 12.1 items out of 18; for Understanding/Analysis of Informational Texts, fourth graders answered 65% of items correctly or an average of 10.3 items out of 16. The total fifth grade students tested were 348,803. The released data from each of the three reporting categories yield the following results for fifth graders in the All Students summary. For the category Understanding/Analysis Across Genres, fifth graders answered 69% of items correctly or an average of 6.9 items out of 10; for Understanding/Analysis of Literary Texts, fifth graders answered 63% of items correctly or an average of 11.9 items out of 19; for Understanding/Analysis of Informational Texts, fifth graders answered 72% of items correctly or an average of 12.2 items out of 17. According to Victoria Young (2012), Director of Reading, Writing, and Social Studies Assessment for the Texas Education Agency, there are several reasons for the lower range results. The following reasons indicate most likely why students answered in the lower range: Literary texts may be more difficult to analyze, infer, and think differently about as most all questions go beyond literal understanding. Also, students must understand how the writer’s craft affects the meaning, and how to use text evidence to confirm the validity of their ideas. In addition, other genres were assessed that students may have been unfamiliar with, such as poetry and drama. As evidenced by these results, there appears to be a need for quality resources that support the implementation of reading skills and show a strong potential for improving outcomes for students with or without reading difficulties. Motivation Reading provides an essential framework that offers all students exposure to literary and informational texts that encourage narrow and deep thinking, and opportunities to make connections within and across texts, a variety of levels of questions so that students must think more critically and inferentially about a variety of genres as well as about using context to interpret vocabulary and determine word meaning. Motivation Reading offers instructional support in the form of formative assessment opportunities for targeted TEKS within passages that reflect literary and informational genres.
Motivation Reading incorporates research-based strategies and pedagogically sound principles for teaching and learning. This product is designed to support and enhance best practices for incorporating the standards into student instruction. Motivation Reading is founded on the modeling of active teaching, which is teacher-directed instruction that proceeds in small steps. Active instruction includes a wide range of instructional approaches: small groups, class discussion, concrete objects, hands-on experiences, reading, and writing. In Motivation Reading, teachers can ask students to think aloud, consider different options for responses, show evidence for the response reached, and put their thoughts in writing. All of these ways help students to organize their thinking and assist teachers in determining the level of understanding of reading concepts. Studies indicate that instruction which emphasizes active student engagement in hands-on opportunities improves attitudes toward learning and indicates a positive effect on achievement. Research also shows the active teaching approach is associated with higher levels of student achievement. Throughout Motivation Reading, student engagement is invited in numerous ways. Students are guided through the learning process and are afforded opportunities for success, which include: Reading Passage, Assessment, Critical Thinking, Creative Thinking, and Homework with Parent Activities.
The National Reading Panel (2000) identified comprehension of text as critical to reading successfully. This panel pointed out a series of strategies that influence the meaning of text. The Teacher Edition of Motivation Reading will delineate strategies that students can use independently as they read. Pressley and Afflerbach (1995) state that when students learn and apply such strategies, their comprehension improves. Without comprehension, teachers and students become frustrated when students can read words but only have a surface understanding of the printed word. With the absence of comprehension, reading for pleasure and knowledge appears to be virtually impossible (Vaughn and Linan-Thompson, 2004). The questions and instructional activities at the end of each unit accent specific skills and provide practice designed to challenge students and address elements of reading comprehension. Reading comprehension skills include applying one's prior knowledge and experiences to the text, understanding vocabulary and other concepts, linking ideas, recognizing the author's purpose, distinguishing between facts and opinions, and making inferences or drawing reasonable conclusions. Poor readers cannot actively process text. Teaching students to use strategies that target the aforementioned skills or the individual difficulties they encounter, can increase comprehension (Mastropieri and Scruggs, 1997; Swanson, 1999; Gersten, Fuch, Williams, and Baker, 2001; Swanson, 1999). Strategy instruction seems to consistently improve the abilities of students to see relationships in reading selections and to grasp meaning while actively engaging students. Explicit and systematic instruction is linked closely with improved outcomes in reading comprehension. Thus, learning experiences must entail participation from both students and teacher, determine what students need, and should adapt to meet the needs of each learner in order to progress in reading.
Motivation Reading is not a reading approach but a supplement to reading for grade levels two through five. This product provides students with practice in components essential to learning: repeated practice, assessment, critical thinking, creative thinking, homework, and parent activities. This product contains reading passages that reflect a variety of genres incorporating literary or informational selections. Each selection will include questions that measure or assess the comprehension of students toward the passage. Critical thinking questions, based on Bloom's Taxonomy, are offered to help students derive meaning from texts using lower- and higher-order thinking questions. A creative thinking activity is provided within each unit to stimulate the mind by connecting an element of the passage in a fun, productive manner. Homework is provided through a paragraph which follows each passage and parallels some aspect of the passage, coupled with questions that assess the comprehension of that paragraph. All of these activities provide practice to extend the learning of each reading passage and to reinforce selected ELA/R TEKS. Parent activities are suggested to promote home-school connections and engage parents in the learning of their children.
Adams (1990) advocated the need for practice in reading. Furthermore, the exposure to many reading materials could reinforce vocabulary learning and provide motivating reading materials that would interest students. Chall (2000) also noted the need to provide children with the practice in reading that would provide challenging reading material in addition to texts. These supplemental materials would enable students to practice skills they had acquired. A review of literature reveals a strong correlation between children's academic engaged time and growth in achievement.
Vaughn and Linan-Thompson (2004) indicate sometimes teachers pose questions to students and those students who respond in a reasonable manner achieve. Such students are regarded as those making adequate progress. Those who do not respond correctly or completely are then given answers or just provided cues leading these students to the specific answers sought. Students may or may not understand the text but both of these situations appear to satisfy some teachers. However, the best approach to ensuring comprehension of text is to directly and explicitly teach comprehension strategies. Studies during the late 70s by Durkin reveal a minimum amount of minutes dedicated toward the direct instruction of comprehension. Studies continue to show that comprehension is not being taught as often as it should be (Pressley and El-Dinary, 1997; Schumm, Moody, and Vaughn, 2000). Motivation Reading provides a supplement for the teacher to apply the taught comprehension strategies and an opportunity to check progress of students toward identified standards or skills.
With the emphasis on district and state level reading assessments, the purpose for teaching comprehension strategies to students is of dire necessity. Every state is required by law to show evidence of student progress in reading. Vaughn and Linan-Thompson (2004) note that gains will surface in the assessments of students' progress if teachers will provide systematic and explicit comprehension instruction. Cunningham (1998) agrees with the importance of teaching comprehension strategies. Although she notes that teachers may ask questions after the reading of a text, modeling how to answer the questions does not occur often enough. Teachers appear to confuse asking questions with teaching. Teachers also assign tasks with questions to be answered by the students yet they fail to demonstrate how to answer written questions which is also the teaching of comprehension strategies that skilled readers use.
The experiences, discussions, and review of the literature convinced the Mentoring Minds Product Development Team that quality supplemental resources for reading practice were needed. Thus, the format for a Student Edition was designed to help move reading practice and assessment forward so that teachers could incorporate standards-based teaching on a higher level and develop within students the confidence they need to succeed. Developed by Texas educators, Motivation Reading provides extensive supplemental reading practice for all student expectations in grades two through five in Spanish and in English. The Student Edition for each level contains twenty-five reading passages, with paired selections as an integral component of the fourth- and fifth-grade levels. Each level reflects a diversity of literary or informational passages related to curricular content in science, social studies, music, and art.
Every unit features a reading passage, assessment practice, critical thinking questions, creative thinking activities, and a homework/parent activity page. Effective teaching literature indicates that students need to be given both an opportunity to discover and invent new knowledge and an opportunity to practice what they have learned to improve student achievement. Teachers must ensure that ample opportunities are provided for students to learn important skills in reading. A specific focus must accentuate all targeted skills on a regular basis. Therefore, time must be built into the schedule for instructional opportunities. Evidence from research demonstrates that a successful instructional program must include time for students to practice what they are learning and experiences to perform the tasks for which they are to demonstrate competence. A positive relationship between total time allocated to instruction and general student performance exists. Motivation Reading is an educational tool that enables students to practice what they are learning.
Assessment plays a critical role in all aspects of teaching and learning. The need for higher-quality assessments is well established. Studies show teachers spend as much as one-third to one-half of their time involved in assessment-related activities (Stiggins and Conklin, 1992). For instruction to be effective, classroom assessments must reflect quality. Evaluative tools, which closely align with the objectives, are usually more beneficial for diagnosing and revising instructional needs. No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, 2001) stated, “Beginning no later than the 2005-2006 school year, each state must administer annual assessments in reading or language arts and mathematics in each of grades 3 through 8 and at least once in grades 10 through 12.” Therefore, an Assessment page is included at the end of each student-tested expectation from whence the teacher can gather timely student information to readily and continuously maintain accountability for academic achievement standards.
The No Child Left Behind Act (2002), the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, challenges schools to offer assessments reflecting state and/or national standards. Furthermore, the challenge includes that students score favorably and continually reach adequate yearly progress on state assessments. Therefore, there exists a critical issue to improve reading instruction and meet the accountability outlined by the NCLB legislation. Motivation Reading provides supplemental reading passages that contain a variety of multiple-choice, open-ended, and short-answer questions to provide practice and measure comprehension of literary and informational texts.
Pressure to improve test scores continues to increase. Headlines in newspapers or the breaking news on television are written or stated to grab the attention of the public. Nothing appears to capture public attention like the test scores of schools. As the critical issue of accountability continues to move across our nation, more students are being tested. The state assessment scores are used to measure adequate yearly progress (AYP) for all public schools. All students' scores are part of the AYP measure, including students with disabilities and limited English proficiency (NCLB, 2001). Schools continue to be compared. Test scores appear to be the barometer that measures the success of the educational environment of a campus or that of a district. More than ever before, Juel (1988) states that the ability to read well is necessary for academic success. The goal is for educators to use scientifically based practices to improve their knowledge and improve their effectiveness toward reading instruction. Novice and veteran teachers can enhance their instructional delivery to lead students in becoming proficient lifelong readers. Motivation Reading can provide additional practice with comprehension skills.
Teachers must view assessment as an integral and natural component of the instructional process. Formative and summative assessment results should inform instruction. Formative assessments are information-gathering activities that take place during the actual teaching of concepts or skills. Summative assessments are administered to students periodically to determine what students have learned (National Research Council, 2001). Formative and summative assessments work together to form a complete picture of student performance and are essential in providing a balanced approach for assessing student achievement. Teachers cannot wait to assess students using summative test results. Assessments must be ongoing and skillfully used. Based on many studies, Black and Wiliam (1998) noted significant gains can result due to formative assessment. Other researchers confirmed the finding that formative assessment has a positive impact on learning (Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall, and Wiliam, 2004; Primo and Furtqak, 2006). When students know their learning targets, receive descriptive feedback in relation to the targets, then they are aware of what they need to do or what steps to take to improve. Engaging students in self-assessment is a powerful element in increasing student performance. The Chart Your Success chart in Motivation Reading involves students in shared responsibility for assessment, and the formative assessment opportunities provide teachers ongoing data to inform instruction and provide one vehicle from which regular, descriptive feedback can be provided to students. This chart is included at all levels and is located in the back of each Student Edition on which students can visually record, observe, and monitor individual progress on an ongoing basis.
The involvement of students in assessment promotes student engagement in individual learning targets and develops student accountability as they monitor and measure learning. Students need to know what learning targets they are responsible for mastering, and at what level. Marzano (2005) states, “students who can identify what they are learning significantly outscore those who cannot.” This self-assessment opportunity promotes practices that are crucial to independent learning. Research on formative assessment suggests that students should be aware of their learning target, their present status, and the next steps in reaching that goal or closing any gaps (Atkin, Black, and Coffey, 2001). Such knowledge helps students keep track of their achievements, know how close they are to their learning targets, and determine future steps to advance their learning. When students are aware of their achievement gaps and teachers motivate students with continuous feedback linked to the expected outcomes and criteria for success, students are able to surge ahead and close performance gaps in the ELA/R TEKS. Black and Wiliam (1998) note there is evidence to support a strong relationship between interactive feedback and student achievement.
Teachers have to assess the subject matter accurately so accurate information can be collected about student achievement. Assessment results help make sound decisions for the purpose of improving student achievement. Most teachers are unprepared to meet the assessment challenges they face today. Licensure does not state that teachers have to show assessment competence, yet much of their time is spent in assessment-related activities (Stiggins and Conklin, 1992; Trevisan, 1999). Teachers must have help in accurate assessment. Mentoring Minds sought to develop a product to assist in the practice of reading skills and the assessment of teaching and learning. Assessment of incorrect and correct answers to questions for each reading unit will be charted by each student to maintain accurate and useful data. By observing the students’ Chart Your Success charts, teachers and students can determine individual strengths and weaknesses. In the Teacher Edition, the TEKS Frequency chart lists the reading skills that correlate to the Motivation Reading Student Edition passages and test questions. Through utilization of this chart and using the data from the students’ chart, specific areas could be identified where students need additional practice in mastering skills before participation in an actual state assessment. Reading data informs educators about their students as readers. Once data is retrieved, deciding how to organize the data is vital so that better instructional decisions can be made. A study of student data allows for individualization of instruction to meet the needs of students.
Studies support the use of a variety of measures to gauge student achievement. Due to accountability issues, Mentoring Minds encourages teachers to maintain accurate and useful data records as well as employ a variety of assessment measures to form a more valid insight on where a campus, a classroom, or a student stands in mastery of reading performance standards. Following each main reading passage in the Student Edition are sections entitled Critical Thinking and Creative Thinking. Six critical thinking questions, one for each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy are provided to stimulate students to think about the passage(s) read. The Creative Thinking page contains an inspirational message. Interdisciplinary creative thinking activities are presented under the Motivation Station heading and range in variety from word puzzles, art activities, map skills, to figurative language. This section offers students engaging and rigorous, independent thinking opportunities with which to practice or apply reading skills and concepts. Therefore, Motivation Reading reflects formative assessments mingled with interactive student/teacher conversation. Data from the Assessment page used in conjunction with other measures from the Student and Teacher Editions provide crucial information for the teacher in improving performance relating to the ELA/R TEKS.
A writing activity in the format of a journal entry always concludes the creative thinking section. Students must learn to read, write, speak, listen, and use language effectively in a variety of content areas. Journal prompts are an important element in each unit for the purpose of incorporating writing into reading. Journal prompts are used within each unit in the Student Edition to provide authentic writing opportunities and, as promoted by research, serve as a valuable instructional learning experience for concept application to real-world settings. Prompts or questions are used to compose original responses that integrate student writing skills with reading based on upper levels of critical thinking. This writing prompt invites students to apply a concept from the text selection to their own lives, thus making real-world connections. Literary concept prompts allow students to reflect and communicate their knowledge as they integrate reading and writing as required by the ELA/R TEKS. The journal prompts in Motivation Reading serve as another formative assessment opportunity for students to express their thoughts and reasoning abilities as they transfer concepts across the disciplines and to everyday life.
Research indicates that thinking skills instruction makes a positive difference in the achievement levels of students. Thinking skills involve two modes of thinking: critical and creative thinking. An essential goal in education is to assist students in learning how to think in a productive manner. Authorities in the field of thinking indicate both creative and critical thinking lead to a “well-rounded” thinker (Paul 1995; Hillis and Puccio, 1999; Cotton, 1991). Studies that reflect achievement over time show that learning gains can be accelerated. These results indicate that the teaching of thinking skills can enhance the academic achievement of participating students (Bass and Perkins, 1984; Bransford, 1986; Freseman, 1990; Kagan, 1988; Matthews, 1989; Nickerson, 1984). Critical thinking is a complex activity and we should not expect that one method of instruction would prove sufficient for developing each of its component parts. Carr (1990) acknowledges that we have learned that while it is possible to teach critical and creative thinking and its components as separate skills, they are developed and used best when learned in connection with content knowledge. To develop competency in critical thinking, students must use these skills across the disciplines or the skills could simply decline and disappear. Torrance (1972) examined the extent to which creative thinking could be taught. The culmination of his research showed that creative thinking could be enhanced. Torrance indicated that Creative Problem Solving (CPS) was a widely accepted model of teaching creative thinking. Motivation Reading allows students opportunities to apply their thinking using creative and critical thinking avenues. Teachers should expect students to use thinking skills in every class and evaluate their skills accordingly. Hummel and Huitt (1994) stated, "What you measure is what you get."
Critical thinking is an important issue in education today. Attention is focused on quality thinking as an important element of life success (Huitt, 1998; Thomas and Smoot, 1994). In the 1950s, Bloom found that 95% of the test questions developed to assess learning required students to only think at the lowest level of learning, the recall of information. Similar findings indicated an overemphasis on lower-level questions and activities with little emphasis on the development of students’ thinking skills (Risner, Skeel, and Nicholson, 1992). “Perhaps most importantly in today’s information age, thinking skills are viewed as crucial for educated persons to cope with a rapidly changing world. Many educators believe that specific knowledge will not be as important to tomorrow’s workers and citizens as the ability to learn and make sense of new information” (Gough, 1991). “Now, a considerable amount of attention is given to students’ abilities to think critically about what they do” (Hobgood, Thibault, and Walberg, 2005). It is imperative for students to communicate their thinking coherently and clearly to peers, teachers, and others.
It is crucial to invite students to explain their thought processes. If the results are inaccurate, teachers can identify the precise point at which students deviated from using critical thinking. Thus, teachers must purposely promote critical thinking as part of the learning experiences that align with the English Language Arts/Reading TEKS. The literature notes that when students use their critical thinking abilities integrated with content instruction, depth of knowledge can result. Teachers are encouraged to refrain from limiting instruction to lectures, rote memorization, and other strategies that exercise only lower levels of thought as opposed to incorporating those that build conceptual understanding (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking, 2000).
The ability to engage in careful, reflective thought is viewed in education as paramount. Teaching students to become skilled thinkers is a goal of education. Students must be able to acquire and process information since the world is changing so quickly. Some studies purport that students exhibit an insufficient level of skill in critical or creative thinking. In his review of research on critical thinking, Norris (1985) surmised that students’ critical thinking abilities are not widespread. Most students do not score well on tests that measure ability to recognize assumptions, evaluate controversy, and scrutinize inferences.
Students are not likely to develop these complex skills or to improve their critical thinking abilities if educators fail to establish definite expectations and measure those expectations with some type of assessment. Assessments (e.g., tests, demonstrations, exercises, panel discussions) that target higher-level thinking skills could more than likely lead teachers to teach content at those levels, and students, according to Redfield and Rousseau (1981), to perform at those levels. Students not only need to know an enormous amount of facts, concepts, and principles, they also must be able to effectively think about this knowledge in a variety of increasingly complex ways. If test items are used that only require lower-level thinking skills such as knowledge and comprehension, students will not develop and use their higher-order skills even if instructional methods that employ these skills are implemented. Individuals do not do what is expected, only what is inspected.
Solving problems in the real world and making worthwhile decisions is valued in our rapidly changing environment today. Paul (1985) points out “thinking is not driven by answers but by questions.” The driving forces in the thinking process are the questions. When a student needs to think through an idea or issue or to rethink anything, questions must be asked to stimulate thought. When answers are given, sometimes thinking stops completely. When an answer generates another question then thought continues. Paul ascertains that students who ask quality questions are really thinking and learning.
“Multiple forms of student engagement exist when high-level thinking is fostered. Examples of engagement include collaborative group activities, problem-solving experiences, open-ended questions that encourage divergent thinking, activities that promote the multiple intelligences and recognize learning styles, and activities in which both genders participate freely. Brain researchers suggest that teachers use a variety of higher-order questions in a supportive environment to strengthen the brain” (Cardellichio and Field, 1997). “Meaningful learning requires teachers change their role from sage to guide, from giver to collaborator, from instructor to instigator” (Ó Murchú, 2003). “Since students learn from thinking about what they are doing, the teacher’s role becomes one of stimulating and supporting activities that engage learners in critical thinking” (Bhattacharya, 2002).
Thus, students’ performances on measures of higher-order thinking ability reveal a critical need for students to develop the skills and attitudes of effective thinking. Furthermore, another reason that supports the need for thinking skills instruction is the fact that educators appear to be in general agreement that it is possible to increase students' creative and critical thinking capacities through instruction and practice. Presseisen (1986) asserts that the basic premise is students can learn to think better if schools teach them how to think. Adu-Febiri (2002) agrees that thinking can be learned. According to Sousa (2006), students are not actually taught to think because children are born with the brain organizational structure that originates thinking. As educators, students can be assisted in organizing the content of their thinking to facilitate complex reasoning. Sousa supports Bloom’s Taxonomy as an organizational structure that is compatible with the manner in which the brain processes information to promote comprehension.
The sections Homework and Parent Activities are located at the conclusion of each unit in the Student Edition. Motivation Reading includes these activities to invite and encourage parent engagement in the education of their children. Product developers recognize that teachers must support and encourage parent collaboration with students regarding reading. Teachers are provided activities per unit with which to cultivate parent involvement with their children by reinforcing previously introduced skills. Research concludes that productive collaboration and interaction with parents have a favorable impact on attitudes towards reading and student achievement (Calabrese Barton et al, 2004). Parents can be significant contributors to the learning process. Opportunities for parents to be involved in their students’ learning allow parents to show an interest in the students’ work. Parent involvement helps parents become familiar with the content and the way students are learning. When parents take time to provide home encouragement, students have another opportunity to apply and practice the concepts previously learned.
Research indicates that the more parents are involved and excited in the learning of their children, the more successful a child can be academically. When schools cultivate partnerships and engage families in their children’s education, author Constantino (2008) stated that student achievement can increase. In addition, Constantino noted that schools must continuously nurture relationships with parents by providing them with resources to help their children succeed in school. Constant attention in strengthening relationships lays the foundation for high-quality engagement. West (1985) and Weller (1999) indicate there are parent behaviors that can lead to effective schools. When parents show support, interest, and become involved the success rate of students can rise. Students in at-risk situations show an increase in grades, test scores, and academics when their parents become involved in instructional programs (Dolan, 1996). The activities for parents in Motivation Reading offer opportunities within each unit to reach and meaningfully engage parents.
Bagin and Gallagher (2001) note that communicating on a regular basis with parents can promote student learning and reduce attendance problems. Weller (1999) advocates that when schools and teachers treat parents with genuine concern and make them feel important, welcome, and needed, parents are more apt to take an active role in supporting their children in academic achievement. Thus, a letter is offered at the back of each Motivation Reading Teacher Edition inviting parents to join in the education of their children. The one-page Homework page contains a paragraph accompanied by three or four questions to address various tested student expectations. Each Homework paragraph connects to the information presented within the unit passage. The 2-3 multiple-choice formatted questions and an open-ended question provide additional skill practice, assessment, and critical thinking opportunities. Vocabulary development is addressed with one or more questions. The remaining questions address some aspect of reading comprehension.
Following the homework exercise, Parent Activities are provided to help parents support their children with meaningful and relevant applications to the previously taught concepts. Findings from an extensive research review on parent/family involvement programs are shared by Henderson and Mapp (2002) in the report A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family, and Community Connections on Student Achievement. Henderson and Mapp concur with other researchers that a favorable and substantiated relationship exists between family involvement and student success, regardless of race/ethnicity, class, or parents’ level of education. A key finding is that children of parents who are involved in home and in school settings show improved performance in school. Thus, the sections Homework and Parent Activities are provided to help parents support their children with meaningful and relevant applications to the previously taught concepts. The information given helps the parent and child build oral language through informal conversation. Simply stated, the text invites parents to support learning by asking questions, making relevant comments, or setting up other home learning activities to reinforce previously introduced concepts. Assignments, intended to be completed in class or at home, enhance students' understanding, skills, and proficiency in reading. Motivation Reading reflects the careful planning taken by the Mentoring Minds Product Development Team as they support research findings and develop homework and parent activities that are meaningful extensions of the concepts taught. The Motivation Reading Teacher Edition includes a parent letter, written in Spanish and English, so teachers can invite parents to actively support their children in reading instruction.
The application of ELA/R TEKS requires students to develop depth of understanding as well as the ability to read and comprehend. Therefore, teachers can benefit from quality educational resources that align with the ELA/R TEKS. Studies show that teacher subject knowledge has an impact on student achievement (Yoon, et.al, 2007). Researchers continue to share the importance of content knowledge for effective teaching, but they also point to pedagogy as being essential. Thus, knowledge and skill in how to teach are both necessary. Effective teachers must understand and apply strategies that help students increase achievement. Ongoing targeted professional development is an element that affects student performance, and it can take many forms. Reading and teacher collaboration are both vehicles from which to promote professional development. Motivation Reading is a student and teacher resource that focuses on teaching and learning of standards that are applicable to reading. The Teacher Edition for Motivation Reading is designed to provide teachers an array of information that can guide them in the implementation of the standards to promote a high level of reading achievement. All sections give teachers background knowledge in what to teach and suggestions for activities. The contents will guide teachers in the preparation and planning of effective instruction and successful use of Motivation Reading to enhance student achievement in reading. In turn, the Teacher Edition can be said to increase a teacher’s knowledge and improve a teacher’s preparation. Collaboration and receiving feedback from other colleagues while implementing Motivation Reading can advance teacher understanding of ELA/R TEKS and effective instructional practices.
The section entitled Components delineates a descriptive overview of the components of each reading unit followed with suggestions on how a teacher might use the components. Another feature in the Teacher Edition is the TEKS Frequency Chart. This section denotes all Readiness and Supporting Standards and student expectations for each unit in the Student Edition. This chart lists each unit title and the number of assessment questions from both the unit selection and the homework passage that address the TEKS/STAAR Reporting Categories. A TEKS Frequency Chart is an organizational tool from which teachers may identify standards which are in need of reteaching and/or may need tutorials. Answer keys for each unit, vocabulary pertinent to each individual reading selection, and a grade appropriate glossary for each level are also included in the Teacher Edition. Answer keys identify coding based on TEKS, STAAR® Reporting Categories, Readiness and Supporting Standards, and English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS).
Enrichment literature that can be used for integrating lessons across the curriculum is noted for each individual reading unit. Recommended books may relate to the content of the selection, focus reading skills, or both. Children's literature offers excellent resources to help students form connections between literature and skills instruction. Skill-based literature is also identified which can be used to develop, reinforce, and extend targeted ELA/R skills. Literature brings relevance to skills, strengthens student motivation, and presents meaningful contexts for stimulating a variety of responses to critical and creative thinking. Higher levels of engagement are increased when discussions are held to build conceptual understanding. Becoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading (Anderson, 1985) stresses the importance of the integration of reading. Reading is a communication tool that helps students become successful learners, impacting the rest of their lives.
Within the Teacher Edition is the section Skill Focus. The Skill Focus section introduces teachers to the ELA/R TEKS. These Skill Focus pages identify the TEKS, describe the skill within, and offer suggestions for practice and skill mastery of the student expectation. This information builds background knowledge for teachers or provides information relating to skill development. Enrichment or practice activities to fit the needs of a particular student, a small group of students, or the entire class can be selected from those provided and used to foster active learning, offer additional practice, provide the means for assessing students beyond traditional classroom methods, reteach or reinforce concepts, or provide targeted skill intervention.
Many other topics are included in the Teacher Edition to assist teachers as they plan high-quality, effective instruction. Topics include: 5E Model of Instruction; Reading Comprehension; Questions Before, During, and After Reading; Reading Graphic Organizers; Genres; Four Rs; and STAAR Reporting Categories: Readiness and Supporting Standards. Previously mentioned studies note the importance of providing teachers with information that will help improve their skills in the preparation, planning, and delivery of high-quality instruction.
Suggestions are also provided to classroom teachers on how to address critical thinking using Bloom’s Taxonomy to stimulate and develop students’ higher order thinking skills. Reading questioning prompts are included on all six levels of thinking and other question stems that stimulate and encourage creative thinking are also suggested. Bloom (Bloom, Englehart, Furst, Hill, and Krathwohl, 1956) developed a classification of levels of intellectual behavior in learning. This taxonomy contained three domains: the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective. Within the cognitive domain, Bloom identified six levels: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. This domain and all levels are still useful today in developing the critical thinking skills of students.
The model used to develop critical thinking throughout the Student and Teacher Editions of Motivation Reading is: Bloom's Taxonomy (1956). The English Language Arts Product Development Team employed this framework to stimulate and develop students' higher order thinking skills and to make extensions to the real world. Critical thinking is integrated into each component of the unit through higher-order questions and complex problematic situations. Students are invited to shift to new levels of increased awareness when analyzing, problem solving, and evaluating. In the Student Edition, two pages are dedicated to the component Critical Thinking. This opportunity is presented to entice students to think critically and move them beyond basic comprehension and rote memorization. This component typically offers open-ended questions that are coded to all six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. While students are applying and using higher order thinking skills in real-life situations, they are also learning to question the accuracy of their responses or solutions.
Strategies to develop vocabulary and promote meaningful connections are also included within the Teacher Edition that accompanies Motivation Reading for students. Assessment questions pertaining to these words are included in the Student Edition. Passages within Motivation Reading include underlined vocabulary words. Students have to understand vocabulary to understand the academic content they encounter in school. Stahl and Fairbanks (1986) revealed when specific vocabulary from academic subject areas is selected as the focus of instruction, the result was a 33 percent increase. Therefore, it appears when students are taught specific content vocabulary in each subject area at each grade level, students have an excellent opportunity to acquire the academic background knowledge they need to understand the subject area content. Teaching content vocabulary using a systematic approach appears to be a powerful tool for student success (Marzano & Pickering, 2005). Furthermore, research firmly documents that academic background knowledge has an effect on academic achievement. Any intervention for the achievement of students should identify increasing students’ content vocabulary knowledge through direct instruction as a leading priority (Marzano, 2004). In earlier research, Becker (1977) concluded that the implementation of systematic vocabulary programs appeared essential in order to close gaps between students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and those who were not.
Student acquisition of vocabulary is imperative to success in reading comprehension. The significance of its relationship to comprehension was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (2000). Researchers agree that vocabulary level differences among students are reasons for the varied ranges in academic achievement (Baumann and Kameenui, 1991; Stanovich, 1986). Although studies reveal the importance of vocabulary instruction, schools exist that neither have frequent or systematic vocabulary instruction (Lesaux, Kieffer, Faller, and Kelley, 2010; Scott and Nagy, 1997). Students must be given varied and repeated opportunities to comprehend meaning of words and to use them in different contexts. (Landauer, McNamara, Dennis, and Kintsch, 2007). Thus, Motivation Reading acknowledged these findings and reflected the importance of vocabulary in this resource.
Researchers note that generally between 5 and 15 percent of new words when read for the first time are retained. Furthermore, the weaker the student’s vocabulary the smaller the gain (Hayes and Ahrens, 1988; Herman, Anderson, Pearson, and Nagy, 1987). Research indicates that students must comprehend approximately 95 percent of the terms (Carver, 1994). Therefore, as students encounter new words, they benefit significantly when instruction centers on connections and patterns in the language (Beck, McKeown, and Kucan, 2008). When teachers extend vocabulary development with reading, writing, speaking, and listening opportunities, students become more aware of how these interrelated skills impact word learning. The product development team made a conscious effort to include vocabulary as an integral element in Motivation Reading.
Exposure to vocabulary and interaction with language throughout education years, enable students to comprehend word meanings, build awareness of language, and apply their knowledge to understand as well as produce language. Within each Student Edition of Motivation Reading, a glossary of key terms related to the ELA/R is found. These words increase student comprehension of terms pertinent to the TEKS and successful performance in reading. A common academic language is essential to support application of the academic vocabulary with texts and assessments. In the Teacher Edition, the same glossary is contained. Within each unit in the Teacher Edition, the vocabulary is identified with an asterisk placed aside the terms that are assessed in the passage.
Earlier in 2012, the United States Department of Education and the Federal Communications Commission announced a blueprint to invite schools to transition to digital textbooks by the end of the next five years. While not mandated, the initiative encouraged schools to make the switch from print-to-digital materials based on the projected cost-savings and the academic improvement. These benefits are due to the expense of printed textbooks and the personalization of digital content. Motivation Reading also features a print-to-digital transition. Campuses will have digital access to all the Student and Teacher Edition pages if using Internet-connected computers. Using the same aligned content as Motivation Reading educators have access to an interactive delivery method for their students and classrooms. This new dimension of flexibility, Motivation Reading Online, offers an engaging learning environment, not only for educators, but also for students. Tools such as online progress monitoring, automatic tracking, and reporting are built into this innovative program. With the appropriate use of technology, students can develop deeper understanding of reading skills identified in the ELA TEKS.
Mentoring Minds seeks to understand the issues involved in teaching and learning reading. The National Research Council (2001) asserted that the performance of students in both reading and math at the conclusion of elementary school is an important predictor of their educational success. Students who have not mastered a quality foundation in reading skills can expect to encounter problems across the disciplines throughout their schooling and later. Summary statements such as these, other research findings, and a review of literature combined with recommendations from studies and observations from classroom experiences have yielded much knowledge about what works. With this wealth of information, Motivation Reading was developed as a supplement to complement reading instruction for any campus.
Effective instruction and meaningful practice support student success on STAAR®. Within instruction, it is important that students acquire and use the language of the English Language Arts/Reading TEKS. Motivation Reading offers students in-depth exposure to all assessed genres. Furthermore, these genres are associated with relevant learning activities that include compare/contrast strategies and opportunities to analyze and make connections between different genres and strands. The Mentoring Minds ELA Product Development Team embraces the goal that all students receive quality-based opportunities to develop the essential reading skills so that they can read to learn for the remainder of their lives. Teachers must establish an environment conducive to independent reading and include a variety of literature. They must also provide their students quality reading instruction, addressing the Reading TEKS in order to develop literacy and raise the achievement rate. Motivation Reading is a resource for teachers and students that aligns with the ELA/R TEKS, contains texts that fall within the general complexity ranges for specific grade levels, and offers numerous opportunities that promote depth, rigor, and complexity of thought.
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- Accomodations Wheel
- ADD/ADHD Wheel
- Behavior Guide
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- Critical Thinking Strategies Guide
- Critical Thinking Educator Wheel
- Intervention Strategies Guide
- Master Instructional Strategies
- STAAR Motivation Math
- Motivation Math Case Study
- STAAR Motivation Reading
- Response to Intervention (RtI) Strategies
- Vocabulary Products
- STAAR Motivation Science
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- Motivation Math Middle School Case Study
- Math Benchmark Assessments | <urn:uuid:d968673b-6592-46ed-9595-d7329fbdaa70> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.mentoringminds.com/research/staar-motivation-reading | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011338837/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305092218-00073-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924488 | 14,063 | 3.4375 | 3 | 2.973949 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Education & Jobs |
Autumn is the time to plant fall bulbs that bloom in spring and early summer — including daffodils, tulips, freesias, and hyacinths — and summer bloomers such as iris.
SELECTING THE BEST BULB
Bulb is the common name for any of a group of plants that have underground “storage organs.” These accumulate nutrient reserves to ensure the plant’s survival during the dormant season, and supply energy for growth and blossoming in the year to come. Whether your plant is a true bulb, rhizome, corm, tuber, or tuberous root, there are a few things to remember when selecting bulbs for planting in your garden.
Choose bulbs that are plump, firm, and heavy. Don’t buy any that feel soft, mushy, or shriveled. Larger-sized bulbs will often yield more flowers but may be expensive. Alternatively, you may wish to choose more economical mid-size specimens — the plants will grow over the next year or two and eventually bloom as richly as the larger bulbs.
When purchasing bulbs, watch closely for the plant origin. Avoid buying wild bulbs — in many cases, these bulbs have been so extensively dug in the wild that the plants are considered endangered species in their native habitats. Any commercially grown plants will probably be labeled as a named variety or a hybrid; they should also be marked “commercially propagated” or “from cultivated stock.” If the bulbs are not labeled, make sure to ask about their origin before buying to avoid contributing to the loss of these plants in the wild. The bulbs can be stored in the refrigerator for a few weeks until you are ready to plant them. Keep them in a sealed plastic bag away from food.
PLANTING YOUR BULBS
Most bulbs prefer full sun. Some, like iris, crocus, and freesia will appreciate some shade once they are finished blooming. Bulbs may be planted among other plants, or in a bed all to themselves. Each bulb should be planted in its own individual hole.
Good soil is crucial to winter and wet season survival as well as bloom performance in subsequent years. Drainage and moisture retention are key — saturated soil will drown or rot bulbs over the winter months. If the drainage in your garden is poor, you might consider planting on a slope or in raised flowerbeds.
Soils that don’t absorb moisture may be nutrient-poor. Amendments like compost, peat moss, and fine-textured mulch will provide the organic matter for a good bulb bed. Fertilizers like bone meal, superphosphate, or specialized bulb mixes are highly recommended to add slow-release phosphorus for fantastic flowers next year. Work a complete fertilizer into the soil or, if you are planting around already established plants, dig up to a teaspoon (depending on the type) of fertilizer into the bottom of each hole, then add an inch or two of compost (or other soil amendment) before planting the bulb. Each spring-flowering bulb variety has its preferred depth, but a general rule is to plant at a depth equal to twice the bulb’s height. In a hot area or in sandy soils, you can plant slightly deeper; in heavy soil, plant more shallow.
CARING FOR YOUR BULBS
Caring for your bulbs once they have sprouted is quite simple. If you like, you may apply a light fertilizer just before bloom time. This can be done with either a water-soluble or granulated fertilizer or compost worked into the surface of the soil.
Let the plant continue to grow until it completely dies off and turns brown. This enables it to come back the following year. It’s tempting to remove all the leftover yellowing foliage when the plant has finished blooming, but the longer the leaves remain on the plant, the more nutrients the plant will be able to store in its bulb for the upcoming dormant season.
Follow these guidelines, and you’ll be rewarded with beautiful flowers in your garden next spring. | <urn:uuid:7227987b-a93d-4e78-ae0c-ecab4f95e07b> | CC-MAIN-2017-39 | http://www.marinatimes.com/2013/09/planting-fall-bulbs-for-spring-bloom/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-39/segments/1505818689661.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20170923123156-20170923143156-00230.warc.gz | en | 0.94468 | 845 | 3.53125 | 4 | 1.752013 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Home & Hobbies |
Sending your child to a new school can be just as nerve-racking for the parents as the student. I’m not sure if I am extra sensitive to this subject because I distinctly remember moving to a new state and school when I was in the fourth grade.
It was not as glorious as I anticipated. I actually had a very hard time adjusting to the school and meeting new friends. I’m sure the age factor had a lot to do with the situation. Also, we moved at the very end of the school year.
Moving to a new school is inevitable, but there are a few things we can do to make attending a new school more inviting for our children before their first day.
How to Prepare Your Child for a New School
Attend Orientation Together.
Have your child go with you to the orientation and meet the teacher day. Introduce them to as many people as possible. This is great way to meet other families and you can plan a playdate to meet at the park before the first day of school. Having a friend can make all the difference in the world for a child.
Take Tour of School.
If this is not a planned event, call the school and request a guided tour of the campus. Make sure you point out where the bathrooms are located. Also, show them their classroom and where they will put their backpacks when they arrive at school. If children are well aware of where they need to go and what is expected of them on the first day, it can help eliminate additional fears.
Pinpoint the Positives.
Discuss and view the school’s handbook, mascots, and check out the school’s websites. Show them the playground, school calendars, and pictures of the students from the previous years. This will help your child envision their experience as a student at their new school.
Prepare with Back to School Supplies.
Plan to purchase their back to school school supplies together. Have them pick out a new backpack and lunchbox. Make the back to school shopping an afternoon date. Take your child for ice cream after you’ve had a busy shopping day.
Remind Child of other Firsts.
It’s helpful to remind your children of all the other ‘firsts” they have encountered, such as, attending a new church or attending camp. Remind them how well they did and it wasn’t as scary as they initially thought. Show them pictures of the their accomplishments.
Pray with Child.
Never underestimate the power of prayer. Start praying with your child now about their first day of school. Intentionally pray for their fears.
My children love when I read them books on subjects that they are currently experiencing. Either go the library or purchase books on the subject of the first day of school. Read one every day until school starts.
There are many other things you can do to make your child’s new school experience as exciting and successful as possible, but these are just a few tips that I plan to implement with my children before starthing this school year at the public school.
Of course, I will be sending cute lunch box notes in my children’s lunchboxes everyday, too.
What ways that you are going to prepare your child for a new school this year? | <urn:uuid:aa1c0fc2-735e-4715-b5f4-6e3b395ac254> | CC-MAIN-2017-13 | http://www.blessedbeyondadoubt.com/how-to-prepare-your-child-for-a-new-school/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-13/segments/1490218189472.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20170322212949-00340-ip-10-233-31-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976511 | 688 | 2.515625 | 3 | 1.820923 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Education & Jobs |
- Division of Fisheries and Wildlife
Media Contact for Why you shouldn't feed wildlife this winter
Media Contact, MassWildlife
Each winter, MassWildlife receives inquiries from the public regarding whether or not to feed wildlife. While people have good intentions, supplemental feeding of wildlife typically does more harm than good. Most wildlife seasonally change their behavior to adapt to cold temperatures and scarce food supplies. Supplemental feeding can alter that behavior and have detrimental, and sometimes fatal, effects. Wildlife in Massachusetts have adapted over thousands of years to cope with harsh winter weather, including deep snow, cold temperatures, and high winds.
Supplemental feed sites congregate wildlife into unnaturally high densities, which can:
- Attract predators and increase risk of death by wild predators or domestic pets;
- Spread diseases among wildlife or cause other health issues (e.g. Rumen acidosis in deer, Aflatoxicosis in turkeys);
- Cause aggression and competition over food, wasting vital energy reserves and potentially leading to injury or death;
- Reduce fat reserves, as wild animals use energy traveling to and from the feeding site;
- Cause wildlife to cross roads more frequently, therefore increasing vehicle collisions;
- Negatively impact vegetation and habitat in areas where feeding congregates animals.
Providing wildlife with food at any time of year teaches them to rely on humans for food, which puts them at a disadvantage for survival and can lead to human/wildlife conflicts. Once habituated behavior is established, it can be very difficult or impossible to change.
What can you do?
The best way to help wildlife make it through the winter is to step back and allow the animals’ instincts to take over. To help wildlife near your home, focus on improving the wildlife habitat on or near your property, by including natural food and cover (e.g., some conifer cover and regenerating forest or brushy habitat). It is also important that wildlife populations are in balance with what the habitat can support.
MassWildlife biologists advise against feeding wildlife. While backyard bird feeding during winter months is generally acceptable, we recommend using native plants and water to attract birds to your yard. Fallen bird seed can unintentionally attract many types of wildlife, including bears, turkeys, small mammals like squirrels and mice, and predators like foxes, fishers, and coyotes that feed on small mammals. If you notice unwanted wildlife in your backyard, bring in your bird feeders immediately. | <urn:uuid:6a5e1cbc-f880-4921-a136-cad4b57d415c> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | https://www.mass.gov/news/why-you-shouldnt-feed-wildlife-this-winter | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764500255.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20230205130241-20230205160241-00163.warc.gz | en | 0.937684 | 505 | 3.1875 | 3 | 2.78865 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Science & Tech. |
New US government estimates of coca production in Colombia indicate the South American country is growing more of the drug-producing crop than ever before, a development that is likely driving changes in underworld dynamics across the Americas and the globe.
The estimates released March 14, by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) show that Colombia produced 188,000 hectares of coca crops in 2016 — a figure nearly 20 percent higher than the 2015 estimate, and nearly 80 percent higher than the average annual estimate from 2008 to 2015.
No government or non-governmental organization has estimated such high levels of coca production in Colombia since records began being kept on this issue.
InSight Crime field research supports the conclusion that Colombia is growing more coca than ever. And this in turn means that Colombian production of cocaine is also almost certainly at record levels.
Cocaine yield per hectare of coca has tripled over the past decade in some areas as farmers have begun experimenting with different strains of the plant to optimize production, and improving extraction techniques to get more cocaine out of each coca leaf.
Using InSight Crime’s conservative estimate that seven kilograms of cocaine can be produced from one hectare of coca, it is possible that as much as 1,316 metric tons of cocaine could be produced from the amount of coca cultivated in 2016.
Nearly all of the world’s cocaine is produced from coca plants grown in Colombia as well as its neighbors, Peru and Bolivia. However, coca production in the latter two countries is far less than in Colombia.
Peru produced an estimated 53,000 hectares of the crop in 2015, while Bolivia produced an estimated 36,500 hectares. Data from 2016 was not immediately available from the ONDCP.
The increase in coca cultivation in Colombia has been linked to several factors, including the end of a long-running aerial fumigation program in 2015, and ongoing economic challenges faced by many of Colombia’s rural poor.
A municipal official in the town of Roberto Payán, in Nariño department — one of the country’s main coca-growing areas — told InSight Crime, “The entire economy here is based on coca. Even though I don’t want to grow it, I’ve been forced to.”
“There’s nothing else besides coca,” said a farmer in the same town, referring to alternative sources of income. “There have been some projects, but almost all of them have failed. People always go back to growing.”
InSight Crime Analysis
Authorities and experts have been warning for months about a boom in Colombia’s coca cultivation, so the new figures from the US government come as little surprise. They do, however, serve as a reminder that record levels of Colombian cocaine production are already having an effect on the global market dynamics of one of the world’s most popular, criminally lucrative drugs.
For example, the United States, which is the world’s largest market for cocaine, recently reported the first increase in cocaine availability and abuse in years — a development that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) linked to increasing production in Colombia.
Similarly, a series of recent cocaine seizures and related arrests in Spain suggests that Europe, the world’s second-largest market for the drug, may also be experiencing the effects of booming production in Colombia.
SEE ALSO: Coverage of Coca Production
Although it is difficult to determine the accuracy of the new US government figures, there is a broad consensus that Colombia is producing more coca — and more cocaine — than ever before. And as the “lifeblood” of organized crime in Latin America, this development is likely to have profound impacts on criminal dynamics around the world.
Not only will the flourishing cocaine trade fuel the activities of crime groups in Colombia, including defectors from the demobilizing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC), it could also bring increasing revenues to Central American and Mexican criminal organizations with significant roles in transporting the drug from South America to the United States.
Colombia’s cocaine boom could also help strengthen crime groups in Brazil, which is the principal departure point for cocaine heading to Europe, Africa and Asia. | <urn:uuid:3777af52-9df9-40f9-913c-ba5ed8bd01f2> | CC-MAIN-2019-22 | https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/us-estimates-highest-ever-colombia-coca-production/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-22/segments/1558232257699.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20190524164533-20190524190533-00256.warc.gz | en | 0.950748 | 898 | 3.234375 | 3 | 3.017744 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Crime & Law |
In article after article, academics, policy analysts, and journalists have told a similar story: climate change, by melting Arctic ice, is unlocking resources that could soon trigger war in the far north. They argue that the race to extract the vast reservoirs of oil and natural gas that lie under the vanishing ice – up to a quarter of the world’s undiscovered fossil fuel reserves, by some estimates – will likely provoke hostilities between Russia, the United States, and other nations with claims to the bonanza. The overall failure of early drilling efforts in the Arctic, it seems, is of little consequence.
These claims add a new twist to a vast and growing body of scholarship that links climate change to conflict. Academics working in this area often begin their work by showing that past climate changes reduced – rather than increased – the regional availability of some crucial resource, such as water, or grain, or fish spawning grounds. They then use diverse methods to trace the destabilizing social and political consequences of these resource shortages. Environmental historians, for example, have argued that falling temperatures and changing precipitation patterns in the seventeenth century led to poor grain harvests and famines that provoked rebellions in diverse societies the world over. More controversially, scholars in many disciplines have linked human-caused global warming to droughts that encouraged migration and ultimately conflict in twentieth-century sub-Saharan Africa. Far less attention has been directed at the ways in which more abundant resources might incite violence either within or between states.
In fact, those who make claims about the inevitably more violent nature of the future Arctic have rarely thought to consider the history of climate change and conflict in the far north. Yet violence in the Arctic has long coincided with volcanic eruptions and fluctuations in solar activity that altered regional temperatures and in turn the availability of crucial resources. In the early seventeenth century, for example, the Arctic cooled sharply and then warmed slightly just as Europeans discovered, hunted, and fought over bowhead whales off Spitsbergen, the largest island of the Svalbard archipelago. Oil, bones, and baleen from bowheads became crucial resources for the economies of England and the Dutch Republic.
Diverse manifestations of climate change in the Arctic and Europe influenced how easy bowhead whales were to hunt, the profits that could be fetched by their oil, the proximity of whalers to one another, and the ability of whalers to reach the far north. Skirmishes within and between whaling companies operating from rival European nations reveal that climate change can affect both the causes and the conduct of conflict in diverse ways, even in environments it transforms on a vast scale. There is nothing inevitable or simple about the ways in which climate change influences human decisions and actions.
This history would be hard to investigate without new climate reconstructions compiled by scholars in many different disciplines, using many different sources. In 2014, researchers drew from natural and textual sources to create a sweeping new reconstruction of average Arctic air surface temperatures over the past 2,000 years. It confirms that the Arctic was overall very cold in the seventeenth century, but also that it warmed slightly towards the middle and end of the century. Temperatures in the Arctic therefore roughly mirrored those elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere during the chilliest century of the “Little Ice Age,” a cooler climatic regime that endured for roughly six centuries. The extent and distribution of sea ice in the Arctic – the most important environmental condition that whalers coped with – would have responded to even subtle changes in average annual temperatures.
Yet these very big trends do not tell us exactly how climate change transformed environments around Svalbard. Local temperature trends do not always precisely mirror regional or global developments, and anyway the distribution and extent of Arctic sea ice registers more than just the warmth or chilliness of the lower atmosphere. Ice core and model simulation data both suggest that air surface temperatures around Svalbard were quite cool in the early seventeenth century and somewhat warmer in the middle of the century, at least in summer. Lakebed sediments, by contrast, suggest that glaciers across Svalbard actually retreated beginning in around 1600 owing to changes in precipitation, not temperature, which may have reduced the local frequency of storms that can break up sea ice. Moreover, sea surface temperatures – which also influence sea ice – were quite warm off the west coast of Spitsbergen, the largest island of the Svalbard archipelago, for much of the seventeenth century, although they were very cold off the northern coast.
Overall, it seems safe to conclude that, in the summer, temperatures around Svalbard roughly mirrored those of the broader Arctic in the seventeenth century. Warmer currents may have brought more nutrients to the region and probably reduced the extent of local sea ice, although a reduction in storm frequency would have preserved the ice that was there. In any case, most Arctic sea ice melts in the summer before reaching its minimum annual extent in the fall, which means that summer weather and currents had the greatest impact on the extent of ice in the Arctic north of Europe. Because sea ice retreated from Svalbard in the summer, it was also the crucial season for whaling.
If the local consequences of global climate changes can be counterintuitive – that warming current off Spitsbergen, for example – so too can human responses. One might assume that climatic cooling would have dissuaded explorers, fishers, and whalers from entering the Arctic. Instead, European sailors found and then started exploiting the environments on and around Svalbard in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, just as volcanic eruptions led to arguably the coldest point of the Little Ice Age in the Northern Hemisphere. In previous work, I have shown that climate changes in this period interacted with local environments to leave just enough sea ice in the Arctic north of Europe to redirect expeditions in search of an elusive “Northern Passage” to Asia. Dutch and English sailors struggling to find a way through the ice ended up discovering Spitsbergen and the many bowhead whales off its western coast. Bowheads are relatively docile, float on the surface when killed, and have very thick blubber that can be turned into oil. Beginning in 1611, they started attracting Dutch, English, and Basque whalers.
Other scholars have argued that cooling in the early seventeenth century led bowhead whales to congregate along more extensive sea ice near Spitsbergen, which made them easier to hunt for whalers. By contrast, whales dispersed as sea ice retreated in the warmer middle of the seventeenth century, which made them harder to hunt. There does seem to be a statistically significant correlation between ice core reconstructions and model simulations of summer temperatures around Spitsbergen on the one hand, and the annual whale catch on the other. Iñupiat whalers consulted by our own Bathsheba Demuth, however, report that bowheads in the Berring Sea are not social enough to gather in huge groups. Perhaps bowhead culture was different in the Atlantic corner of the Arctic when whale populations were much higher than they are today.
The apparent correlation between surface air temperatures and the whale catch around Spitsbergen provides our first point of entry into relationships between climate change and conflict in the far north. From the first years of whaling around Spitsbergen, two companies – the Dutch Northern Company, and the English Muscovy Company – emerged as the leading players in the Arctic whaling industry. The governments of England and the Dutch Republic had granted these companies monopolies on whaling operations, but they were resented by merchants and mariners who preferred to operate independently. After around 1625, as bowhead whales dispersed amid warming temperatures, competition between Dutch whalers devolved into piracy. Many conflicts involved whalers who sailed either for the Northern Company or for themselves, although even some Company whalers hid the best hunting grounds from one another. In these circumstances, the governing body of the Dutch Republic rescinded the monopoly of the Northern Company in 1642.
From the beginning, competition between English whalers assumed an even more brutal character. The Muscovy Company took an uncompromising stance towards English interlopers, who responded in turn. In 1626, for example, whalers aboard independently-owned vessels destroyed the Company’s station at Horn Sound, Spitsbergen, after they had been harassed by Company ships. Not surprisingly, petitions submitted to the English Standing Council for Trade in 1652 reveal that small groups of English merchants also sought to overturn the monopoly of the Muscovy Company. Individual merchants insisted that the Company could not adequately “fish” the territories over which it held a monopoly. The Company responded that whalers in the employ of those merchants had interfered with the activities of its sailors and stolen whales they had killed.
Warming temperatures that reduced the extent of pack ice and encouraged whales to disperse may well have encouraged competition and conflict between whalers belonging to the same nationality. Bizarrely, the whaling industry also responded to fluctuations in the supply of rape, linseed and hemp oils, which were less smelly substitutes to whale oil for fueling lamps or manufacturing soap, leather, or wax. Temperature and precipitation extremes that reduced the supply of vegetable oils naturally also increased the price of whale oils in the Dutch and English economies, and thereby the profitability of whaling. In the context of the Little Ice Age, the 1630s in particular were relatively warm across the Northern Hemisphere. The trusty Allen-Unger commodity database tells us that the price of linseed oil in Augsburg, for example, dropped sharply as average annual temperatures increased. Even the price of lamp oil – which would have also registered the price of whale oil – fell modestly in the same period. Could whalers in the 1630s and 1640s have vied with monopolistic companies just climate change both reduced the supply of their resource and increased its profitability?
We can sketch these relationships by mixing and matching different statistics from natural and textual archives. Detailed qualitative accounts written by whalers, however, reveal that climate influenced conflict in more complicated ways during the first decade of the Svalbard whaling industry. In that decade, whalers from several European nations – most importantly England and the Dutch Republic – employed experienced Basque whalers to kill bowhead whales, strip their blubber, and boil the blubber on the coast. Whalers would deploy boats from a mothership to kill small groups of whales. They would then establish temporary settlements on the coast to turn the blubber into oil that could be loaded into barrels and returned to the ship.
These techniques forced whalers from different nations to rove along the coast of Spitsbergen, which made it likely that they would encounter one another. Initially, the Muscovy Company falsely claimed that English explorers had found Spitsbergen, which meant that it alone had the right to hunt for whales off the island. The Dutch – who had actually discovered the island – insisted that whalers from all European nations should be allowed to fish off its coast. In 1613, a Dutch expedition under Willem van Muyden, the legendary “First Whaleman” of the Republic, reached Spitsbergen in late May and found the coast blocked by ice. After only two weeks, the retreating ice let his whalers enter a bay roughly halfway down the island, but a better-armed English fleet quickly spotted them. In subsequent weeks, the English harassed the Dutch whalers and stole much of their equipment and whale commodities. Yet the Dutch returned with naval escorts in 1614. After the English seized a Dutch ship in 1617, the Dutch arrived with overwhelming force in 1618 and killed several English whalers.
The worst skirmishes between Dutch and English whalers raged in years that were relatively warm across the Arctic and probably around Svalbard, despite the generally cooler climate of the early seventeenth century. In cold years, sea ice could have kept whalers working for different companies from lingering on the coast, where tensions simmered and eventually erupted into bloodshed. In any case, the Muscovy Company and the Northern Company eventually agreed to occupy different parts of Spitsbergen. The Dutch would claim the northwestern tip, where they established the major, fortified settlement of Smeerenburg: “blubber town.” The English, meanwhile, took the rest. The Dutch eventually benefited from being closer to the edge of the summer pack ice, where there were more whales to hunt.
Hostilities between the English and the Dutch in the volatile first decades of the Svalbard whaling industry convinced the Northern Company to keep a skeleton crew at Smeerenburg and nearby Jan Mayen island during the winter. If they could survive, they would keep Company infrastructure safe from springtime raids and provide valuable information about the region’s winter weather. In 1633/34, two groups of Dutch whalers overwintered at Smeerenburg and Jan Mayen. Regional summer temperatures may have been warming at the time, but winter temperatures across the Arctic were cooling, and 1633/34 was particularly cold. The Smeerenburg group survived the frigid temperatures and killed enough caribou and Arctic foxes to hold off scurvy. The Jan Mayen whalers endured until the spring, but they could not catch enough game to survive the ravages of scurvy. In 1634/35, the Northern Company tried again. This time, both groups died from scurvy, and the Smeerenburg whalers did not even make it to winter. Violent competition between whaling companies – plausibly influenced by warming summers – exposed whalers to a quirk in the climatic trends of the Little Ice Age in the Arctic: the big difference between summer and winter temperatures, relative to long-term averages.
Climate change also influenced hostilities between whalers by altering how easily they could reach the “battlefield” around Spitsbergen. In 1615, a year of typical chilliness during the Little Ice Age, the author of a Dutch whaling logbook reported that sea ice on June 7th blocked the crew’s progress towards Svalbard. The crew spotted a bowhead whale three days later, but ice kept them from pursuing. That evening, a storm rose just as they found themselves surrounded by sea ice. They tried to anchor themselves to an iceberg, but it shattered and would have destroyed their ship “had God not saved us.” The few surviving logbooks written by Dutch whalers also record trouble with ice in the warmer 1630s, yet it surely would have been harder to reach Svalbard and compete with English whalers in the first decade of the Arctic whaling industry.
Beginning in 1652, the Dutch Republic and England also embarked on hostilities in the North Sea region that would endure, with interruptions, until the Dutch invasion that launched the Glorious Revolution of 1688. During the three Anglo-Dutch Wars that raged in these decades, English and Dutch ordinance kept whalers from sailing to the Arctic or constructing new ships and equipment for the whaling industry. Sailors who might have served aboard whaling ships were urgently needed to crew the warships of the English and Dutch fleets. Many whalers also served as privateers, raiding merchant ships and convoys and then surrendering a share of the profits to their governments. Any whalers who set sail for the Arctic risked losing everything if discovered.
As I have written elsewhere, a cooling climate in the second half of the seventeenth century profoundly influenced naval hostilities between the English and Dutch fleets. By altering the frequency of easterly and westerly winds in the North Sea, it helped the English claim victory in the First Anglo-Dutch War but aided the Dutch in the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars, as well as the Glorious Revolution. It probably shortened the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652-54) but lengthened the third war (1672-74). That, in turn, would mean that the manifestations of global climate change in the North Sea affected the opportunities for whalers to engage in hostilities in the Arctic.
After 1650, the character of hostilities between Arctic whalers changed dramatically. Cooling summer temperatures brought thick ice into the harbors of Spitsbergen, while the depletion of the bowhead whale population may have worsened the prospects of whaling near land. Whalers had to hunt further and further from the shore, and started processing their whales at sea. They abandoned settlements along the coast of Spitsbergen, which soon fell into ruin. Violence between whalers now took place exclusively at sea. The evidence is spotty, but privateers seem to have hunted whalers in the final decades of the seventeenth century. In 1692, Henry Greenhill, commissioner of the English navy at Plymouth, reported that two “Greenland Prizes” – whaling vessels captured off Spitsbergen – had been brought into harbor. Since England had allied with the Dutch Republic against France, these ships were probably French in origin.
The history of climate change, whaling, and violence in and around Svalbard during the seventeenth century is above all complicated, filled with surprising twists and turns. Climate change may have occasionally provoked violence, but it probably did so by reducing, rather than increasing, the accessibility of bowhead whales to whalers. More importantly and more certainly, it altered the character of confrontations between whalers in the far north. Moreover, its manifestations thousands of kilometers from the Arctic ended up having important consequences for hostilities in and around Svalbard.
These intricate relationships in the distant past should give us pause as we contemplate the warmer future in the Arctic. Global warming may indeed set the stage for war in the far north, but we have no way of knowing for sure. It is equally likely that climate change will provoke human responses that are hard to guess at present. In this case, we cannot use the past to predict the future, but we can draw on it to ask more insightful questions in the present.
Selected Works Cited:
Degroot, Dagomar. “Exploring the North in a Changing Climate: The Little Ice Age and the Journals of Henry Hudson, 1607-1611.” Journal of Northern Studies 9:1 (2015): 69-91.
Degroot, Dagomar. “Testing the Limits of Climate History: The Quest for a Northeast Passage During the Little Ice Age, 1594-1597.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History XLV:4 (Spring 2015): 459-484.
Degroot, Dagomar. “‘Never such weather known in these seas:’ Climatic Fluctuations and the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the Seventeenth Century, 1652–1674.” Environment and History 20.2 (May 2014): 239-273.
Hacquebord, Louwrens. De Noordse Compagnie (1614-1642): Opkomst, Bloei en Ondergang. Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2014.
Hacquebord, Louwrens. “The hunting of the Greenland right whale in Svalbard, its interaction with climate and its impact on the marine ecosystem.” Polar Research 18:2 (1999): 375-382.
Hacquebord, Louwrens and Jurjen R. Leinenga. “The ecology of Greenland whale in relation to whaling and climate change in 17th and 18th centuries.” Tijdschrift voor Geschiendenis 107 (1994): 415–438.
Hacquebord, Louwrens, Frits Steenhuisen and Huib Waterbolk. “English and Dutch Whaling Trade and Whaling Stations in Spitsbergen (Svalbard) before 1660.” International Journal of Maritime History 15:2 (2003): 117-134.
Laist, David W. North Atlantic Right Whales: From Hunted Leviathan to Conservation Icon. Washington, DC: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017.
McKaya, Nicholas P. and Darrell S. Kaufman. "An extended Arctic proxy temperature database for the past 2,000 years." Scientific Data (2014). doi: 10.1038/sdata.2014.26. | <urn:uuid:c04e4778-2ee1-4cc3-b583-4a74741540e1> | CC-MAIN-2020-34 | https://www.historicalclimatology.com/features/will-climate-change-cause-conflict-in-the-arctic-searching-for-answers-in-the-past | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439738858.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20200811235207-20200812025207-00150.warc.gz | en | 0.955138 | 4,241 | 3.46875 | 3 | 3.073473 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Science & Tech. |
Today many vehicles make use of the internal combustion engine, however with slight variations according to vehicle types, having some added features or components. Developed in the 19th century, this type of engine still remains a popular choice and it continues to benefit from the technological advances in engineering. Sell Auto Parts ease your hunt of truck engine parts at the reasonable price and quality product.
Components of an engine
Camshaft is a type of rotating device or apparatus used in piston engines for propelling or operating poppet valves. Camshaft comprises of series of cams that regulates the opening and closing of valves in the piston engines.
As mentioned earlier, gasoline engines make use of a spark to ignite the fuel and cause a controlled explosion in the engine. The spark plug in these engines supplies the spark that is required to ignite the air and fuel mixture.
These engine parts allow for fuel and air to enter the combustion chamber and later let the exhaust out. They remain sealed during the combustion process and only open when required.
Pistons and piston rings
This is a cylindrical piece of metal that is located inside the cylinder of the engine. Piston rings are located between the piston and the cylinder in which the piston is located in. They provide a sealing edge between the exterior of the piston and the interior of the cylinder. The purpose of these engine parts is to seal the space and prevent the fuel and air mixture on one side of the piston from leaking into the sump during the combustion or compression process and also prevent the oil in the sump from leaking into the combustion area as it would get burnt and lost, deterring the movement of the piston.
Connecting rod and crank shaft
The connecting rod connects the piston to the crankshaft. As the piston moves up and down due to the controlled explosions, it causes the connecting rod to move. This then cause the crankshaft to move as well as it is connected to the connecting rod, in a circular motion due to the configuration of the piston, connecting rod and crankshaft.
Surrounding the crankshaft, the sump contains some amount of oil.
Engine oil system
Oil is one of the most necessary substances of an automobile engine. Oil is distributed under strong pressure to all other moving parts of an engine with the help of an oil pump. This oil pump is placed at the bottom of an engine in the oil pan and is joined by a gear to either the crankshaft or the camshaft. The different parts of engine oil system include: engine oil, engine oil cooler, engine oil filter, engine oil gaskets, engine oil pan, and engine oil pipe.
The above explained parts are the mandatory engine parts which can be seen in any kind of engine. Maintenance of these things is a must for the smoother use of your vehicle. | <urn:uuid:ee9775dc-f2ab-4c36-b21c-a6b54c2edb23> | CC-MAIN-2018-34 | http://sellautoparts.co/eon-enterprise-guide-truck-engine-parts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-34/segments/1534221209755.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20180815004637-20180815024637-00475.warc.gz | en | 0.957987 | 584 | 2.953125 | 3 | 1.44318 | 1 | Basic reasoning | Transportation |
Switching to a plant-based diet is something many people can’t imagine. What most people are unaware of are the many benefits that come with this type of diet. According to health experts, going plant-based is one of the best ways of improving your health. Almost every part of the body benefits when you eat more vegetables, fruits, legumes, and nuts.
There are many reasons why people decide to switch to a plant-based diet. Some do so for health reasons while others for environmental concerns associated with factory farming.
Plant-based diets mainly focus on grains, seeds, fresh produce nuts, and whole grains.
Below Are 10 Benefits of A Plant-Based Diet
1. Reduced Inflammation
Inflammation is often caused by white blood cells fighting against invaders like irritation and pathogens. When it comes to autoimmune diseases, the immune system attacks normal and healthy issues in the body.
Experts largely attribute an overactive inflammatory response to chronic disorders such as heart problems and Type 2 diabetes. Exercise and diet have big effects on inflammation but nutrients commonly found in vegetables and fruits have been found to reduce inflammation.
2. Improved Gut Health
Plant-based diets have been linked to better gut health. But science says that there are many more benefits attributed to plan-based diets including the immune systems, mood improvement, and better metabolism. This is mainly because of the antioxidants and fiber found in plants that protect body cells from getting damaged.
3. It Supports the Immune System
Research shows that 80% of your immune system is domiciled in the gastrointestinal tract. That’s why it is important for the immune system to have a healthy microbiome. There’s no better way of doing that than feeding the good bacteria found in the body.
Most of the fiber found in foods such as artichokes and bananas act as prebiotics that is food for the bacteria. Additionally, plant foods have plenty of nutrients that can help bolster the immune system.
4. Helps Maintain a Healthy Weight
There’s overwhelming evidence showing that regular consumption of fruits and vegetables can help you lose weight. Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables promotes long-term weight loss or weight stability in women. One of the reasons could be because vegetables and fruits help you feel satisfied much faster.
5. Increased Energy
Have you ever found yourself feeling fatigued and without energy? This could probably as a result of the foods you eat. Highly processed foods and those with plenty of refined sugars tend to slow you down. They often take more energy and a long time to process.
But a plant-based diet boosts energy and is easier to digest. KIKI Heath offers a wide variety of plant-based foods and supplements that can help boost your energy and keep you healthy.
6. Lowers Cholesterol
Eating foods that are highly processed, meat, saturated fats, and other animal products result in high levels of cholesterol. Considering the fact that a plant-based diet doesn’t have animal products, no processed foods, or saturated fats, it can be a great solution for individuals with high cholesterol.
7. Prevents and Reverses Diseases
A plant-based diet has been proven by research to prevent and even rebel against diseases like type 2 diabetes. The diet can also prevent a number of chronic diseases. It comprises wholesome and nutrient-dense foods that work with almost every part of your body to keep it healthy. This is contrary to meat and other animal products that can easily clog your arteries
8. It Keeps Your Heart Healthy
Switching to a plant-based diet means substituting trans fats and unhealthy saturated fats with plant-based fasts that come with heart-protective polyunsaturated fats.
9. It Keeps Your Heart Healthy
Going plant-based also helps in lowering your blood pressure. People who consume a lot of processed food and sugary drinks tend to experience common cases of high blood pressure. Diet can directly cause high blood pressure. Switching to a plant-based diet helps reduce the chances of developing high blood pressure.
10. It Keeps Your Heart Healthy
There’s an increased number of professional athletes who are switching to plant-based foods to improve their performance.
In recent years, more and more people are switching to plant-based diets because of the many benefits associated with them. A plant-based diet has been proved to reduce inflammation, improve gut health, and prevent certain diseases among other benefits.
Guest article written by Hannah Boothe
Hannah Boothe is a freelance writer native to Northern California who spends her free time developing herself. Hannah enjoys the outdoors, she goes hiking whenever the weather permits and enjoys practicing yoga. She carves out time to journal and read whenever she can. She loves adventure and connecting with those around her. | <urn:uuid:fcc348cc-0889-4154-850c-46c05d91c96c> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://kiki-health.com/10-benefits-of-switching-to-a-plant-based-diet-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224648911.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20230603000901-20230603030901-00687.warc.gz | en | 0.951408 | 993 | 2.953125 | 3 | 1.887841 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Health |
The “Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy” is the opening to Marx’s lengthy unfinished manuscript, the “Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy,” or the Grundrisse. It was written around 1857, then abandoned by Marx, to be first published posthumously in Germany around 1939. Towards the end of his life, Marx supposedly viewed his more popular published works with a “skepticism bordering on rejection,” while viewing his Grundrisse “with a tone of achievement and sense of accomplishment.”
There are three parts to the Introduction: (1) production, (2) the relation of production to distribution, exchange and consumption and (3) the method of political economy (economics). Below is a summary of the first half of the first part of the Introduction where I pretend to be Marx’s (sometimes heavy-handed) editor.
The two big ideas in the first half of his section on “production” are that (1) the isolated hunter-fisher of Smith and Ricardo is not primitive or natural but a creation of the highly developed bourgeois society of the 18th century and (2) production is most usefully discussed historically as opposed to as a general economic term. He makes a couple of really cool analogies between production and language and sets out the only two basic principles of production that exist outside history: mankind and nature. BOOM.
In the first paragraph, Marx waxes polemical against the naturally independent isolated individual hunter or fisher of Smith and Ricardo. This individual is not found in some return to our natural primitive history! He is rather the result of history not its starting point. This natural individual who is free from the bonds of nature is actually the child of “the dissolution of feudal society and new forces of production developing since the 16th century” (i.e., bourgeois society). I reproduce below a particularly compelling analogy in Marx’s own words:
Production by isolated individuals outside of society – something which might happen as an exception to a civilized man who by accident got into the wilderness and already dynamically possessed within himself the forces of society – is as great an absurdity as the idea of the development of language without individuals living together and talking to one another.
In the second paragraph, Marx continues to expound on why this “natural man” of Smith and Ricardo is wrongly regarded by them as natural. If he was natural then we would find him in primitive history, but we do not. Let us look in history for this independent isolated individual man, and we do not find him. Instead we find a social individual. We find an individual who both depends on and makes up a social union. We find an individual dependent on and part of a family, then a clan, then a community.
The “natural man” of Smith and Ricardo can only exist in the 18th century when social unions have become so evolved as to appear completely separate and apart from the individual, as “outward necessities.” These highly evolved social unions no longer seem like an end in themselves, like a family or a clan or a community seems like an end in itself. We do not view our family as existing in order to provide us a means to achieve our own ends. We view our family as existing because family is a natural and beneficial organization for all its members. A family itself, a clan itself, a community itself is a goal.
When society has developed beyond these forms, only then can the “natural man” of Smith and Ricardo emerge. Marx is saying that the isolated independent individual can only become prevalent at a highly evolved point in the development of social unions where the individual feels that he is no longer a part of the social union and this frees him up to use the union(s) as a means to his own ends without it seeming like a perversion.
In the third paragraph, Marx arrives at his chosen topic – production. According to Marx, the concept of “production in general” is too abstract to be useful because production can only be seen through the lens of a stage of social development, i.e., historically. After all, production is accomplished by social individuals not by the independent hunter/fisher natural man. It would be appropriate to trace the historical process of production or to talk about a specific type of production, for example of modern capitalistic production (the subject proper of this work), but not to talk about production in general.
He does not deny that production has general features, but he says that the general features of production constitute something very complex whose constituent elements have different destinations [which he does not fully treat in the Introduction]. He uses, again, the analogy of language. Languages have commonalities among them, but knowing Spanish and having no previous knowledge of Italian, I could not spontaneously understand and speak Italian based on its commonalities with Spanish. These two languages have many commonalities, but I still probably would only be able to capture about 25 percent of an Italian conversation on any subject spontaneously (and I am good with languages).
In Marx’s view, there are only two commonalities in production in general: (1) the subject of production (mankind) and (2) the object of production (nature).
He goes on to his critique that modern economists try to prove the eternal nature and harmony of existing social conditions as opposed to truly trying to find commonalities in production. According to the capitalist economists, commonalities of production include an instrument of production and accumulated labor. He makes comments on these that are a bit hard to follow if the Introduction is taken in and of itself (it is a draft, after all). The gist of it seems to be these can be deconstructed (my word) since, e.g., capital can also be an instrument of production, but capital cannot be a naturally occurring universal phenomenon without ignoring the properties that turn an instrument of production and stored up labor into capital. He then references (Henry Charles) Carey, chief economic advisor to President Abraham Lincoln, saying that to a man like Carey the “entire history of production appears . . . as a malicious perversion on the parts of government.” Okay. I think what he is saying is that other economists are so simple minded as to believe that production is purely a product of government policy, which would not line up with Marx’s view of production as something more akin to language and the job of an economist more like that of a linguist. In any case, you just cannot get more basic and unassailable than mankind and nature as commonalities for production.
The fourth paragraph is almost a footnote to the above section and has very few words. He adds hastily that not only is “production in general” a useless concept, but there is no “general production.” Production is always a special branch or an aggregate – agriculture, stock raising, manufacturing. Lastly, production is not only special it can also only be seen as a whole; as a “political body” or “social personality” engaged on an aggregate of branches of production.
This post was inspired by one of my favorite bloggers Great Books of the Western World. The featured image is Mikhail Nesterov’s “The Philosophers: Portrait of Sergei Bulgakov and Pavel Florensky” (1917). The original can be found at the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. The work of Nesterov (1862-1942) is in the public domain. | <urn:uuid:268e8f64-6ba3-4a56-9522-153c79b9fe9d> | CC-MAIN-2018-51 | https://1874firstimpressionistexhibition.com/2014/11/22/marxs-editor-production-part-i/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-51/segments/1544376824059.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20181212155747-20181212181247-00082.warc.gz | en | 0.961026 | 1,557 | 2.5625 | 3 | 2.954337 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Finance & Business |
According to the International English Institute for Language Studies, “A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover.” However, it should not take one long to understand that this definition of a book is a bygone tale. Having a material existence is no longer a need when it comes to being a book. A book no longer requires to be between two physical covers, and yet it can be covered from cover to cover.
According to the book titled Oxford Companion of the Book co-authored by Suarez and Woudhuysen, “An eBook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices.”
As per research published by Pew Research Center, “Thirty per cent of those who read e-content say they now spend more time reading, and owners of tablets and eBook readers particularly stand out as reading more now.” They further noticed, “In a head-to-head competition, people prefer eBooks to printed books when they want speedy access and portability, but print wins out when people are reading to children and sharing books with others.”
Though one cannot overlook the pleasure of having a book with physical pages in hand, one must acknowledge that the possibility of carrying a library with you wherever you go and that of affording books that only a few had access to is awesome and a dream-come-true feeling, to say the least. Gone are the days when to read a book one was sometimes required to travel thousands of miles to a library. Now, the same is available at clicks of fingers.
If you own a Kindle or any other electronic book reader, you have the potential of owning not just books, but libraries. You have the access to some of the rarest masterpieces that humankind has ever produced. It does not matter whether you read on paper or on some device as long as one is inclined to reading. For J. K. Rowling, “We should be delighted people still want to read, be it on a Kindle or a Nook or whatever the latest device is.”
Those who remain rigid in the choice of printed books over the electronic ones fail to appreciate that it is the content and not the material that matters. In the words of Douglas Adams, “Lovers of print are simply confusing the plate for the food.” One must not miss the forest for the trees. Jocularly, eBooks can help save some trees in the forest too.
It might astonish the readers that nowadays some books, magazines and newspapers are available only in the electronic version. It is somewhat tickling to imagine the fate of printed books had they come into existence only after the invention of eBooks. There would not have been very good reasons for choosing the print over the electronic. In the words of Mokhonoana, “If eBook readers were invented before print books, the smell of ink would have been some people’s only reason for not abandoning eBooks.”
When it comes to reproducing copies similar to the actual one, eBooks are unbelievable. Remember that if you own a printed book, reproducing it is costly and difficult. If you have an eBook, you have not one but as many copies as you seek. You can gift your eBook to a thousand people and not need a return. You can provide access to awesome stuff at no or low cost. You can lend a book without ever needing or losing your copy of the book. Those who have a craving for reading books; those who are bibliophiles know well that the problem is not the physical or virtual, the problem lies with passing the material for the content. In the words of Laszlo Krasznahorkai, “Devices are not dangerous for literature. People can be dangerous for literature. People, for example, who do not read.”
Those who are or will be filled with the reminiscence of the feel, the smell and the pleasure of printed books will hopefully not regret the option of turning to eBooks for the pleasures- the ease of access, the availability and the benefit of being light on pocket-they offer. The print lover will soon be inclined towards the electronic love for the temptation is hard to resist. In the words of Craig Mod, “Nostalgia is very quickly replaced with convenience.”With the advent of eBooks, one is no longer required to lick the tips of one’s fingers to turn pages.
(The Author is Assistant professor, Government Degree College Sopore. Feedback: [email protected] ) | <urn:uuid:948d2d41-9822-4fc0-b614-59fe6fef3277> | CC-MAIN-2022-49 | http://risingkashmir.com/in-defence-of-ebooks | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446710473.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20221128034307-20221128064307-00094.warc.gz | en | 0.955777 | 1,008 | 2.671875 | 3 | 2.670652 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Literature |
February 12, 1999
A Bitter Struggle in a Land of Strife
WWASHINGTON -- A decade ago, Slobodan Milosevic first fired
Serbian nationalism with a speech in Kosovo, the place that Serbs consider the
heartland of their orthodox religion and their
very identity. Few imagined that the speech by
Serbia's President, which stressed the superiority of Serbian history and tradition, would be the
rationale for fighting that destroyed Yugoslavia
and has now come to Kosovo.
The first battle of Kosovo occurred in 1389
when Turkish invaders defeated King Lazar,
swept through the Balkans and Hungary, and
threatened the gates of Vienna. Kosovo remained under Turkish control
until Serbia won it back after
the first Balkan War of 1912.
After World War I, Serbia became a part of Yugoslavia, a
federation of southern Slav republics. When Marshal Josip
Tito won control of Yugoslavia
and turned it into a Communist
state, he made Kosovo an autonomous region.
By the time Tito died in 1980,
Albanians were the dominant
ethnic group in Kosovo, far outnumbering Serbs, with whom
they had had hostile relations.
During two world wars, they
fought each other with Serbs on
the Allied side and most Albanians on the German side.
The concessions that Tito had
granted giving Kosovo almost
equal standing as other republics in the Yugoslav republic
emboldened Albanians to demand greater autonomy. In
1981, Albanian students rioted in
Pristina, the capital of Kosovo,
Losing Kosovo was anathema
to Mr. Milosevic, who in 1989
revoked the autonomy that Tito had granted. He
then imposed a police state that kept Serbs in
control of all institutions and stripped Albanians
of all power. Albanians, who made up 90 percent
of Kosovo's population of two million, were expelled from universities, medical institutions
The Albanian political leader, Ibrahim Rugova, decided to take a path of peaceful resistance. Mr. Rugova set up a parallel system for
Albanians in Kosovo, providing clinics, schools
and even a university in the capital, Pristina, all
paid for by Albanians living abroad.
But as Serbian repression increased, with
beatings of Albanians and prison sentences without trial, Mr. Rugova's insistence on nonviolence
seemed less and less appealing.
As Mr. Rugova was implementing his ideas of
nonviolence, the rest of Yugoslavia was racked
by wars in Croatia and Bosina.
The Bosnian war ended in 1995 after NATO airstrikes drove the Bosnian Serbs to the bargaining
table. An uneasy peace settled over much of the
former Yugoslavia. But in Kosovo, a guerrilla
movement, called the Kosovo Liberation Army,
The guerrillas wanted independence, a
goal that the United States and its European allies
have refused to back. For the West, supporting
Kosovo independence would break the rule that
borders in Europe are inviolable.
Within months of their rebellion, the guerrillas
had won some territory in Kosovo, repelling Mr.
Milosevic's police units backed by soldiers of the
Yugoslav Army. But by last summer, Mr. Milosevic
had ordered his forces to quell the insurgency by the
most brutal means possible.
In hundreds of villages, Serb armored personnel carriers and
tanks fired on homes, storehouses
and farm animals. To escape the
violence, more than 200,000 ethnic
Albanians, many of them women
and children -- many of their husbands having joined the guerrillas
-- camped in the hills of Kosovo. In
the village of Obrinje more than 20
members of one family, ranging in
age from 2 years to over 90, were
massacred by Serb police seeking
revenge for the killing of two of
their officers by guerrillas.
By last fall, with television images of impoverished families set
to spend a freezing winter in plastic
shelters, the United States and its
NATO allies decided to seek a diplomatic solution.
A cease-fire, brokered by the American diplomat
Richard C. Holbrooke, called on
Mr. Milosevic to withdraw some of
his troops and police officers. Families returned home, though many
of their houses had been burned by
the Serb forces and their livestock
killed. International monitors arrived in Kosovo to try to insure that
the fighting did not resume.
But Kosovo is a small place -- about the size of
Connecticut -- and the hatred between the Serbs and
the Albanians so intense that it was impossible that
normality could return. Skirmishes resumed, and by
early January the cease-fire had fallen apart.
Again, it was a massacre -- this time of 45 ethnic
Albanian civilians in Racak -- that caught the
attention of the West. A peace conference was called
and the two sides were summoned to negotiate for
the first time. The goals were to achieve peace in
Kosovo and to give the ethnic Albanians autonomy
from the Serb Government. It is anticipated that for
at least three years, this form of self-rule will be
watched over by international troops and observers.
If peace does come to Kosovo and Serbian rule is
all but removed, it would represent a victory for
Western diplomacy and an end to Mr. Milosevic's
goal, enunciated 10 years ago in that angry speech,
of a greater Serbia. | <urn:uuid:56b007ac-e2c9-4660-9bd5-4799d3bda258> | CC-MAIN-2014-52 | http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/featured_articles/19990212friday.html?scp=1&sq=Kosovo:%20A%20Bitter%20Struggle%20in%20a%20Land%20of%20Strife&st=cse | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-52/segments/1419447557709.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20141224185917-00041-ip-10-231-17-201.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956583 | 1,185 | 3.125 | 3 | 3.012089 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Politics |
Shingles disease, or herpes zoster, is an outbreak of a rash or blisters caused by the varicella-zoster virus, the same virus also responsible for chickenpox.
Cold Sores, also known as fever blisters and oral herpes, are a type of facial lesion found on the lips or around the mouth area.
Cardio workouts for some are a dreaded task, and for others a passion that they can't get enough of. Cardiovascular exercise, is any movement that gets your heart rate up, and increases blood circulation throughout the body. Most people who choose cardio workouts are using them as a way to burn off excess calories, and because you are moving the body at an intense rate, it is going to greatly increase the need for energy, and fat loss depends on calories burned vs.
The reason to do cardio does not end with fat loss though; there are a wide variety of health benefits you receive from a regular cardio program.
Did you know that you can banish the occasional headache or upset stomach with remedies straight from your kitchen? New studies reveal a way to fight chronic inflammation that leads to disease is to improve the amount of your infection-fighting white blood cells so your body’s better prepared for battle. The medical name for a cold sore is herpes labialis and it is caused by the herpes simplex virus.
Since the late 1970s, the number of people infected with herpes has increased by over 30%, with 500,000 new cases being diagnosed in the US alone each year.
Either way you look at it, it's one of the key components that should never be left out of a fitness plan. There are various forms and methods of performing cardio exercise, and all of these have specific benefits and guidelines.
When you think of the word “inflammation” you should know that it is your body’s complex response to fight off harmful pathogens, irritants, and damaged cells in the body, and kick-start the healing process. Many whole foods can help with this issue, and by switching your diet, you can help cure many problems like arthritis, fatigue, irritable bowel, reflux, chronic allergies, eczema, psoriasis, autoimmune disease, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, migraines, depression, attention deficit disorder, and occasionally even help with lessening the issues attached to autism. Eating a variety of whole, nutrient dense foods can treat a plethora of health issues at one time, and if you need reminders of what foods help with the different health problem please look over the graphic below! By attacking the inflammation issue using whole foods, you can even lose weight quickly and easily without cravings, suffering, or deprivation.
Type 2 diabetes what are the signs zodiac|
Walk to cure diabetes richmond va
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New home sales for january 2014 | <urn:uuid:68a5c29b-32eb-49c0-bce6-81807acf5524> | CC-MAIN-2019-26 | http://s3.amazonaws.com/hope4drdiabete/herpes-type-2-cure-2014-winnipeg.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-26/segments/1560627998291.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20190616182800-20190616204800-00059.warc.gz | en | 0.942122 | 589 | 2.90625 | 3 | 1.700053 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Health |
Factory footprint is the total area needed for manufacturing one or more product(s). The footprint is also determined by the capacity. That is, how many of such products we will make per month.
We start with a product. For the given product, we then decide on the manufacturing technology required. We then decide on the capaity. This, in turn, drives the equipment and machinery needed to produce the part.
The total factory or production area needed for a given capacity is often ignored. Factory space is not just so many square feet. Other factors play a part too. Here are some questions we need to answer while determining the type of factory space we need:
- Is there a need for a clean room? What is the class of clean room we need?
- What are the lighting requirements? How much of this will be from natural sunlight? How much electrical power will get used for the lighting?
- How tall should the factory be? Are there overhead cranes and gantries?
- What is the list of equipment needed?
- How much load will the flooring need to bear in kilonewtons?
- Is there a need to dampen the floor to prevent vibrations?
- What is the leveling needed on the floor?
- What is the length of conveyor belts?
- How many operators will be in the line per shift?
- How much space to be there between process tools?
- How much area will assembly facilities occupy?
- How much area will test facilities occupy?
- How many external roads do we need to lay to bring in goods?
- What kind of security arrangements will we need?
- How much area will inventory and stores occupy?
- How much area will rest rooms and other facilities occupy?
- What is the load of the transformer for supplying electric power?
- Do we need backup power? How much? Will it be a diesel generator or just UPS?
In short, factory area is one of the most expensive real estate in a plant. The total area needed for all the facilities of the plant is the footprint. The primary driver for factory footprint is capacity. The more capacity we have, the larger the footprint. This can a general thumb rule.
How can we reduce factory footprint by additive manufacturing? Generally, 3D printers are compact in size and do not have special power requirements. They will run on just ordinary power lines used for lighting and such. 3D printers will also do away with the need for several process tools as well as one or more assembly steps. This will also help to reduce factory footprint. So the same factory space can cater to higher capacity with 3D printing.
Since factory space is expensive, making better use of it will help the company. An expensive resource thus will get used in a better way.
Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Ca.
Image Source: nasa.gov | <urn:uuid:5d6099ac-d4e7-4367-adb3-861d8d950450> | CC-MAIN-2019-04 | https://stratnel.appspot.com/impact-of-3d-printing/cost-reduction/factory-footprint | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-04/segments/1547583659063.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20190117184304-20190117210304-00467.warc.gz | en | 0.94137 | 605 | 3.234375 | 3 | 1.950987 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Industrial |
- "We will defeat Malak and save the Republic from the Sith threat once and for all!"
- ―Juhani on the Temple of the Ancients
The year 3956 before the Battle of Yavin (BBY), also known as 303 before the Treaty of Coruscant (BTC), was a span of time marked by the continued conflict and conclusion of the Jedi Civil War. Birthed three years earlier from the reemergence of former Jedi war heroes Revan and Malak as Sith Lords. The new dark lords, in conjunction with those in the Republic Navy who had been seduced by the dark side of the Force, invaded Republic space and war broke out. By 3956 BBY, however, Darth Revan had been captured by a Jedi strike team led by Jedi Knight Bastila Shan.
- "Three years ago, Revan and Malak returned at the head of a massive invasion fleet. Revan had assumed the title of Sith Lord; the hero had become a conqueror."
A galaxy-wide conflict known as the Mandalorian Wars ended in 3960 BBY when the Jedi known as Revan and his apprentice Malak joined the war effort, turning the tide of the war. The war heroes had retreated into the Unknown Regions along with much of the Republic Navy under the guise of seeking out the remaining Mandalorian clans. In the Unknown Regions, however, the Jedi and those who served the Republic became corrupted under the leading of Revan and Malak. The two Jedi fell to the dark side and became Dark Lords of the Sith, called Darth Revan and Darth Malak.
During their time stationed outside the boundaries of Republic space, Revan and Malak traveled throughout Republic collecting data from Star Maps and eventually gained access to the Star Forge, an ancient manufacturing facility in the Lehon system. With the power of the Star Forge, the dark lords amassed a large fleet and other matériel—such as droids and weaponry. Under the banner of a Sith Empire the former war heroes turned on the Republic and invaded.
Darth Revan's strategy was originally to capture key Republic planets and facilities, leaving infrastructure intact. By 3957 BBY, battlefronts had opened in various places across the galaxy. At Foerost, the Republic navy was decimated. Key locations along hyperspace routes such as Roche, Axxila, Allanteen Six, and Yag'Dhul were conquered and held by the Sith Empire. Czerka 431, AB-343, Telos IV, Iridonia, Rodia, Mon Gazza, and Lannik were other flashpoints. In that year, however, a Jedi strike team was dispatched to capture Darth Revan. The strike team, lead by Jedi Knight Bastila Shan captured Revan, in part due to betrayal by Darth Malak, and brought him before the Jedi Council. The Jedi wiped Revan's memory, providing him with a new identity and posted him as a soldier under the command of Shan.
The galaxy in 3956 BBYEdit
Jedi Civil WarEdit
Pursuit of Bastila ShanEdit
- "The search for Bastila is taking too long. We cannot risk her escaping Taris. Destroy the entire planet."
- ―Darth Malak, to Admiral Karath, ordering the destruction of Taris
Having usurped the position of head of the Sith Empire from Revan, Malak launched a search of the Jedi Knight Bastila Shan. Malak feared her ability of battle meditation, a Force power that could sway the morale of those fighting in a battle enough to provide the Republic an advantage. Malak, aboard the Leviathan, tracked Shan and her flagship the Endar Spire to the Taris system. Above the planet Taris, the Sith attacked the Endar Spire. During the attack, Shan boarded an escape pod which crashed onto the planet surface. At the same time, however, Revan—who was unawares regarding his original identity—was stationed on the vessel under Shan's command. Together with cabinmate Trask Ulgo, he fought through the boarding party of Sith troopers to reach the bridge. Seeing that Shan had evacuated, the pair sought a lieutenant named Carth Onasi, who was tracking them through the Endar Spire's life support systems. Revan and Ulgo encountered Malak's new apprentice, Darth Bandon, on the way. Ulgo engaged the Bandon in combat while Revan escaped. Ulgo's sacrifice gave Revan enough time to meet up with Onasi and board the final remaining escape pod.
After crashing on Taris, Onasi dragged Revan from the wreckage and took refuge in an abandoned Upper City apartment. Inside the apartment, the pair devised a plan to rescue the Jedi and flee the planet. All the while, Darth Malak refused to allow Shan to escape his grasp. He ordered a quarantine of the planet, blockading any route to and from Taris. On the surface, however, Revan and Onasi eventually traveled into the area known as the Lower City. The pair made contact with the leader of the Hidden Beks swoop gang, Gadon Thek. Through Thek, the Republic soldiers were informed that Shan had been captured by the rival swoop gang, the Black Vulkars. Their leader, Brejik, was holding Shan prisoner and planned to offer her as the prize for the Tarisian Season Opener, the first major swoop race of the season.
Thek and Revan brokered a deal in which he and Onasi would retrieve a prototype accelerator that the Vulkars had stolen in exchange for the opportunity to take part in the race. Revan and Onasi teamed up with Mission Vao, a young Twi'lek, in the Undercity, and the trio helped to rescue Vao's Wookiee friend Zaalbar from Gamorrean slavers before advancing deep into the Undercity sewers. Using the sewers as access, the team began their incursion into the Vulkar Base. After a firefight, the party successfully secured the prototype accelerator. True to his word, Thek permitted Revan to compete in the Season Opener. After Revan won the race, Brejik balked at his posted prize and, along with his comrades, initiated a brawl. Shan freed herself during the skirmish and, together with Revan, defeated Brejik and the other Vulkars.
Having rescued Bastila Shan, Revan and his team needed to escape Taris. While the Republic-sided team had been searching for the Jedi, the Sith were searching the Jedi as well, although unsuccessfully. Furious with the lack of progress, Malak ordered the Sith fleet to begin preparations for an orbital bombardment in an attempt to kill the Jedi. At the same time, Revan was approached by Canderous Ordo with a plan to break through the blockade. Ordo suggested that Revan steal the blockade codes from the Sith Military Base, and then Ordo would provide a ship to leave the planet. Revan agreed, and acquired T3-M4 from Janice Nall to facilitate the infiltration. Revan broke into the base and successfully stole the launch codes after a duel with the Force-sensitive Sith Governor. Having acquired the codes, Ordo brought Revan to the estate of crime lord Davik Kang, hoping to steal his flagship, the Ebon Hawk. As the team was about to commandeer the ship, Darth Malak ordered the Sith fleet to open fire upon the surface of Taris. This prompted Kang and bounty hunter Calo Nord to arrive at the hangar at the same moment of Revan and Ordo. Killing Kang in a scuffle, the pair stole the ship as Nord was buried by falling rubble.
Carth Onasi piloted the Ebon Hawk away from the planet surface with Revan and his team aboard. All the while, the urban surface of Taris was being reduced to rubble. Sith fighters were dispatched to attack the freighter as it was seen fleeing the planet. The fighters were destroyed by Revan as the Ebon Hawk entered hyperspace while the planet was being destroyed.
Following the escape from Taris, Revan and his companions traveled to the planet of Dantooine so Bastila Shan could speak with the Jedi Council. Having landed at the Jedi Enclave proper, Shan spoke to the council members regarding the awakening of the Force within Revan. The former Sith Lord had been experiencing visions through the Force and the development concerned Shan. At the suggestion of the Jedi Council, Revan underwent training in the ways of the Jedi. Still unaware of his history as a former Force-wielder, he quickly relearned many skills and feats that he had previously mastered. As part of his training, Revan was asked to cleanse a dark taint which had infiltrated an ancient grove near the Enclave. There, he encountered Juhani, a Cathar Padawan who had fallen to the dark side after believing she had killed her master in a duel. After sparing and conversing with Revan, Juhani was redeemed and returned to the enclave. She was later assigned to join Revan's crew.
Succeeding in cleansing the grove, Revan was tasked with searching ancient ruins near the Enclave from where another Jedi named Nemo had not returned. The ruins were discovered to be far older than the Republic itself and housed an ancient Star Map. After conversing with an ancient droid inside the ruins, Revan learned some limited information regarding the Star Forge. Reporting his findings to the Jedi Council, the masters charged Revan and his crew to embark on a quest for the Star Forge. All the while, Darth Malak had grown displeased with the escape of Bastila Shan from his grasp. The bounty hunter Calo Nord had survived the bombardment and made his way to the Leviathan to meet the dark lord. There, Nord revealed Shan's escape with the aid of Republic soldiers and offered his services to track them down. Agreeing to Nord's price, Malak dispatched the bounty hunter to pursue the escapees across the galaxy.
In pursuit of the Star ForgeEdit
- "You're a neophyte Padawan who's been saddled with the responsibility of tracking down these Star Maps. Why? That's not normal!"
- ―Carth Onasi
Upon leaving Dantooine, Revan's crew consisted of Carth Onasi, Bastila Shan, Mission Vao, Zaalbar, T3-M4, Canderous Ordo, and Juhani. The crew, executing the commission given to them by the Council, began to visit the places shown on the Star Map. The first destination was the Outer Rim planet of Tatooine. There, the Ebon Hawk landed at the Czerka Corporation–controlled mining colony of Anchorhead. Revan was introduced to the struggle between the mining teams of the Czerka Corporation and the Sand People when the local patrol officer asked Revan to intervene in the conflict by eliminating the local tribe. After acquiring the HK-47 droid from Yuka Laka for translation purposes, Revan peacefully resolved the conflict by giving providing the local chieftain moisture vaporators in exchange for limiting attacks on the miners. In the process, Revan was offered a chance to hunt a krayt dragon by Komad Fortuna. Accepting, the pair slew the large creature. The cave was revealed to be more ancient ruins which contained a Star Map. Before leaving Tatooine, however, Revan encountered the bounty hunter Calo Nord. Nord had tracked the Ebon Hawk crew to the ruins outside Anchorhead and set an ambush for them with the help of other mercenaries. Nevertheless, Revan and his team dispatched with the bounty hunters and proceeded with his crew to the planet Kashyyyk to search for another Star Map.
The Ebon Hawk landed on Kashyyyk in the Czerka-controlled spaceport near the tree-level city of Rwookrrorro. There, Revan and his crew were introduced to the Wookiee slave-trade that Czerka had imposed upon natives with the help of local chieftain and brother of Zaalbar, Chuundar. Hunting for the planet's Star Map, Revan and his team requested audience with the chieftain so they could search the planet's surface. Chuundar granted the explorer access to the surface, called the Shadowlands, under the condition that he dispose of an expelled Wookiee. Zaalbar, however, was required to remain on Rwookrrorro. When Revan began exploring the Shadowlands, however, he encountered former Jedi Jolee Bindo, who agreed to help Revan during his search of the Shadowlands. Eventually the team encountered the expelled Wookiee, who was none other than Freyyr, former chieftain and father of Chuundar and Zaalbar. Instead of eliminating the deposed leader, Revan retrieved a Wookiee relic for Freyyr so he could challenge his son who had usurped power. The team then continued to search deeper into the Shadowlands, ultimately discovering an ancient computer with a Star Map attached. After acquiring access to the Map, Revan and his team returned to the Rwookrrorro village. All the while, Freyyr had returned to the village to challenge his son for the true title of chieftain. A skirmish ensued when Revan and his team arrived, siding with Freyyr. After defeating Chuundar and his allies in the chieftain's quarters, an uprising occurred against the Czerka slavers on the planet.
Following Kashyyyk, Revan and his team visited the oceanic planet of Manaan, landing at the only above-water settlement known as Ahto City. There, the team began the hunt for the fourth Star Map. Through a Force vision, Revan and Shan agreed that the Map was in an underwater location. Contacting representatives in the Republic Embassy, Revan made arrangements to use a submersible to reach the ocean floor at the Republic's Hrakert Station, a harvesting facility of the healing agent kolto in the Hrakert Rift. In exchange for this, Revan was charged with retrieving data from a probe droid which had been stolen by Sith agents on Manaan. Infiltrating the Sith Embassy, Revan and his team faced numerous Sith troopers, security droids and Dark Jedi. They were able to recover the data, however, and also stumbled upon a plot to indoctrinate young Selkath youth to join the Sith cause against the neutrality policy of the Selkath society. Revan discovered that one of the youth, Galas, had been tortured and killed in the process. Revealing this to the other youth and to the Ahto City authorities prevented the Sith scheme from furthering.
Having retrieved the stolen data for the Republic, Revan traveled to Hrakert Station. There, he discovered that the Selkath workers had been driven insane and killed the Republic officials. The source of their insanity was traced to the Progenitor, a large firaxan shark who lived within the rift. The Progenitor, believed by the Selkath to be the guardian of the kolto and the mother of their species, had unleashed a cry which drove the nearby Selkath insane. At the same time, Revan discovered the Star Map in the rift, but was unable to access it due to the large firaxan shark's actions. To appease the Progenitor, Revan needed to destroy the portion of Hrakert Station which was imposing into the rift for kolto harvesting. Overloading the chemicals, a chain reaction destroyed part of the station and the Progenitor eased. With the large firaxan shark appeased, Revan was able to easily access the Star Map in the rift.
Confronting the pastEdit
- "You cannot hide from what you once were, Revan! Recognize that you were once the Dark Lord - and know that I have taken your place!"
- ―Darth Malak to his old Master
End of the warEdit
- Battle of Rakata Prime
- The reformed Jedi Knight Revan defeats his former apprentice Darth Malak aboard the Star Forge.
- The Star Forge is destroyed.
- The Jedi Civil War ends with the Republic as victors.
- Still ongoing in the Kanz sector
- Myrialites still had control
- Republic occupied with the Jedi Civil War
- "The Jedi Civil War brought much suffering to the galaxy, and the forces that Malak and Revan amassed against us seemed limitless. Many worlds were destroyed, trade routes disrupted, and the Republic fleet was almost decimated. While it is said that Revan and several Republic heroes and Jedi defeated Malak, in many ways Malak had already won."
On the one hand, the conclusion of the Jedi Civil War in 3956 BBY brought a temporary peace to the Republic which had been reeling from the effects of the war. Numerous planets had been laid waste and trade was disrupted throughout the Republic. Even five years after the war ended refugees were still inhabiting places such as Nar Shaddaa and the Republic economy was still on the brink of collapse. Furthermore, the military which had fought the Sith Empire was in ruins and fatigued.
On the other hand, however, the defeated Sith Empire was left decimated. Those that remained factioned into smaller groups which made war against each other, starting the Sith Civil War. Two years later, Darth Traya, Darth Nihilus, and Darth Sion began their rise to power and reunited the remnants of Revan's former empire. Their rise to power would lead to the First Jedi Purge and the return of the exiled Jedi.
In the Kanz sector, the lack of Republic intervention enabled the conflict to continue.
- Continued for almost 300 more years
- Conflict caused development of the Lorrdian kinetic communication
Conflicts and battlesEdit
- "Im…impossible. I…I cannot be beaten. I am the Dark Lord of the Sith."
- ―Darth Malak
- Trask Ulgo, Unidentified Dark Jedi (Endar Spire) and Unidentified Jedi (Endar Spire) on the Endar Spire
- On Taris
- Ixgil; shot by Sith assassins
- Luugro; shot by Calo Nord
- T3-H8; malfunction
- Selven; lost duel with Revan
- Kandon Ark; killed during incursion into the Vulkar base
- Brejik; killed in skirmish after Tarisian season opener
- Redros; killed in skirmish after Tarisian season opener
- The Sith Governor; lost duel with Revan
- Davik Kang, during the orbital bombardment ordered by Darth Malak
- Sakul Ondondanax, during the orbital bombardment ordered by Darth Malak
- Kalatosh Zavros, during the orbital bombardment ordered by Darth Malak
- The majority of Tarisians during the orbital bombardment ordered by Darth Malak. The exact number and identities of the casualties are unknown.
- On Dantooine
- On Manaan
- On Korriban
Behind the scenesEdit
Origin of dateEdit
Player options in Knights of the Old RepublicEdit
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Not as year, but events which occurred therein)
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (Not as year, but events which occurred therein)
- Star Wars: The Old Republic (Codex entry)
- Timeline 8: The Jedi Civil War (First identified as 303 BTC)
- The New Essential Chronology (First identified as 3956 BBY)
- Knights of the Old Republic: Prima's Official Strategy Guide
- "Heritage of the Sith"—Star Wars Insider 88
- Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force
- Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide
- The Essential Atlas
- Galaxy of Intrigue
- The Unknown Regions
Notes and referencesEdit
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
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- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19 3.20 3.21 3.22 3.23 3.24 3.25 3.26 3.27 3.28 3.29 3.30 3.31 3.32 3.33 3.34 3.35 3.36 3.37 3.38 3.39 3.40 3.41 3.42 3.43 3.44 3.45 3.46 3.47 3.48 3.49 3.50 3.51 3.52 3.53 3.54 3.55 3.56 3.57 3.58 3.59 3.60 3.61 3.62 3.63 3.64 3.65 3.66 3.67 3.68 3.69 3.70 3.71 3.72 3.73 3.74 3.75 3.76 3.77 3.78 3.79 3.80 3.81 3.82 3.83 3.84 3.85 3.86 3.87 3.88 Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
- ↑ Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi Volume 2—Prisoner of Bogan establishes the year 36,453 BBY as the date of the Tho Yor Arrival, which is the zero point of the Tho Yor Arrival dating system, meaning the difference between the calendar based on the Battle of Yavin and the TYA year-notation system is 36,453 years. This date is derived from simple math based upon other confirmed dates.
- ↑ The New Essential Chronology states that the Great Hyperspace War began in 5000 BBY, which is 1,347 BTC in Star Wars: The Old Republic's Galactic Timeline, so the difference between the calendar based on the Battle of Yavin and the calendar based on the Treaty of Coruscant is 3,653 years. This date is derived using simple math based upon other confirmed dates.
- ↑ The New Essential Chronology states that the Ruusan Reformation occurred in 1000 BBY, which is the zero point of the calendar based on the Ruusan Reformation, so the difference between the calendar based on the Battle of Yavin and the Ruusan Reformation's year-notation system is 1,000 years. This date is derived using simple math based upon other confirmed dates.
- ↑ The Essential Atlas places the Battle of Yavin, the zero point in the Galactic Standard Calendar, in 35:3 under the Great ReSynchronization dating system. The Essential Atlas also places the Battle of Selaggis on 43:2:28 and the Battle of Dathomir on 43:3:21. The Essential Guide to Warfare and The Essential Atlas both place the Battle of Dathomir in 8 ABY. The Essential Guide to Warfare also places the Battle of Selaggis in 7 ABY, confirming the placement of the division between each Galactic Standard Calendar year as the third month in the Great ReSynchronization year. Thus, there is a two-month gap between the two dating systems, and the first two months of a GrS year are the last two of the preceding Galactic Standard Calendar year. The Great ReSynchronization was instituted in 35 BBY, so there is a total difference of 35 years and 2 months between the two systems. This article's date is therefore derived from simple math based on this reference explanation.
- ↑ Chronicles of the Old Republic
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 The Essential Atlas
- ↑ For the purpose of simplicity, the planets are being treated in the order of Tatooine, Kashyyyk, Manaan, and Korriban prior to visiting Lehon. The order can change based upon gameplay, but this order is stated in the revelation vision Revan receives aboard the Leviathan regardless of the order the player visits the planet and is confirmed in the strategy guide published by Prima.
- ↑ Knights of the Old Republic: Prima's Official Strategy Guide
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Bounty hunter Calo Nord appears after the second Star Map is found in gameplay regardless of the order the planets are visited. Similarly, Darth Bandon appears in gameplay after the fourth Star Map is found. As a result, it is possible for Nord or Bandon to appear on Tatooine, Manaan, or Kashyyyk depending upon the player's choice of travel. Because it is believed to be canon that Tatooine was visited second, Nord would then appear on Tatooine. Similarly, Darth Bandon would then appear on Manaan.
- ↑ Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force
- ↑ Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide
- ↑ The Essential Chronology
- ↑ Death in the Slave Pits of Lorrd | <urn:uuid:af051137-09e5-47d3-8993-0ec70e0ab8cd> | CC-MAIN-2018-26 | http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/3956_BBY | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-26/segments/1529267863119.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20180619193031-20180619213031-00565.warc.gz | en | 0.951879 | 5,289 | 2.59375 | 3 | 3.060004 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Games |
Rules to beat cancer without fail
WARNING: These rules apply for cancers by excess acidity in the body, that is, due to poor diet; this includes most cancers. But not suitable for the case of cancers due to ingesting dangerous transgenic that affected to DNA; They not serve to cancers due to high doses of radioactivity that altered DNA; see Note 3
The two pillars to beat cancer without fail are alkalizing and oxygenation
Alkalinity and acidity are opposites; a healthy body is slightly alkaline and acidity (PH) ideal in blood is 7.35; Cancer can only live in an acid medium, with the typical acidity in cancer tissues of around 4
Actions to take if you want to prevent and if desired to get rid of a cancer:
- Do not take sugar, as they cause forever acidity in the body
- Change of diet; Most of diet should be plant, eating mainly a lot of living and uncooked vegetables (such as lettuce, carrots, etc.) and doing juicing therapy.
- Few carbohydrates, like white bread, potatoes, rice, cereals, and so on; bread and carbohydrates are converted by the body into sugar, so you have to limit them; wholemeal bread is better
- Do not take meat or if done on a small amount
- Water without chlorine. To remove chlorine, boil the water and let cool; spring water has not chlorine; to multiply its healing properties far above any water purchased, add seawater to normal water and leave about 6% of this or any fossil salt because they have multiple trace elements, such as Himalayan salt; so we get a type of healing called oligotherapy.
- If you already have cancer, a quick way to alkalize may be to take three teaspoons of baking soda (cafe size) spread throughout the day with the water that is taken; take at least two liters of water every day, preferably with trace elements, that is, with a little salt of Himalayas dissolved or with a little sea water; taking water is needed to dilute acids that often accompany to the cancer in the area where it is (as uric acid); instead of sodium bicarbonate would be ideal a mixture of alkalizing salts in equilibrium and a preparation which meets this is called "PHOUR Salts", because sodium bicarbonate may raise blood pressure in people prone to it. As a form of fast attack there is also an alkalizing that does not raise blood pressure called AlkaLife. change to alkaline food as soon as a cancer is detected (not sugars or carbohydrates such as bread, potatoes, rice, etc.)
Alkalization is imperative when there is cancer, to make life difficult to it, as cancer can not survive in an alkaline environment. In addition to changing the environment in which the cancer can survive and prosper, we must attack him by poisoning. The cells that as a self-defense are turned into cancer are anaerobic, so that oxygen is a great poison for them.
- the Colloidal Silver can also be of great help if you already have cancer, as this is a great virucidal (medicine hidden by business topics); to become cancerous, the cells need mutate their DNA; to form DNA with new chains, they use the DNA of the viruses in their living environment, as they can only live in acidic environments. So that, Colloidal Silver kills viruses that are with us and who are opportunists, so it becomes impossible for the cancer from spreading.
OXYGENATION, the way to poison the cancer:
the ways to administer oxygen may be several, but the most effective is the auto hemotherapy; this is to take between 200 and 250 ml of our blood, ozonate it and receive the blood again.
Another way of effective oxygenation
consists in making Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) food grade diluted to 3% in normal water; in a glass of plain water put 3-30 drops gradually rising in a few days to 30 drops in each glass and thus take for two months (gradually lower the dose during the last days before leaving). You can follow the pattern that occurs in the book in pdf "The One Minute Cure”
The kind of food grade is concentrated to 35%; this is very corrosive and dangerous for us; dilute to 1 part in 11 parts of distilled water to pass to 3%, and use gloves for the operation; in some countries it is also possible to find 9% food grade, so you would only have to dilute 1 part for every two parts distilled water for 3% of H2O2.
Another way to oxygenate enough as to poison and eradicate a cancer would be to have a home oxygen tank or an oxygen concentrator of good quality and administer to ourselves around 90% oxygen purity; when inspiring we would mix this pretty pure oxygen with the ambient air through a mask or nasal cannula (people with COPD should not exceed 30% of oxygen-rich).
You can prepare ozonated water and take it, but this would be complementary, as it is less effective.
- No fluoride, because it favors the cancer:
It is a poison and they have put it in many places on the pretext that it is good for teeth, but if we eat enough vegetables we will get the necessary amount (the excess fluoride is harmful even for teeth)
Be careful with fluorine because it produces atrophy of the pineal gland; do not use toothpaste with fluoride (or glycerine)
- No to the chemotherapy:
This weakens all body cells and if the cancer was spread (metastasis) it will not work; also it produces large acidification throughout the body, so some people die after its administration for failing to admit it. It acidifies so much the body that sometimes appears candidiasis (Candida albicans), an opportunistic fungus that grows in areas of the body very acidified and in the digestive tract (mouth, intestines, etc.)
This work of bibliotecapleyades.net makes clear this topic:
- No radiotherapy:
this weakens and kill many healthy cells in the vicinity of the cancer area.
- Take raw milk and peeled almonds; This is a great anti-cancer. It is better to prepare one self to make sure that does not have added sugars. Prepare with 100 grams of almonds and do not use colander (take with all the pulp)
- Take Chlorella and Spirulina mixed to 50%, two teaspoons size coffee three times a day, because the nutritional properties of these algae are very beneficial and due to its chlorophyll
- Take about three liters of water a day (for a 70 kg person) in order to dilute acids
Cancer is a defense of the cells in an area of our body in a desperate situation for them; It appears in an area in which the acidity is so high that the life becomes very difficult and they pass to work in a different way; they become anaerobic and the oxygen pass to be a major poison for them.
Cancer always will disappear with the strong oxygenation of our body through ozone or food grade hydrogen peroxide.
To become cancer cells, they need viruses to mutate; these lend them their DNA; attacking the viruses we also defend us against cancer and because of that, Colloidal Silver is effective against cancer by attacking the viruses; on occasions with only Colloidal Silver a cancer was wiped out.
To measure the degree of acidity, we could adquire the EXTECH PH110 refillable due to its price / quality ratio; with a small drop of blood or saliva, we can reliably measure the PH. With an aquarium PH meter, which are very affordable, you can measure the pH of our urine; discard the first morning urine for the measurement; mix all the urine collected during the day and make the measurement. If there is a cancer, a highly acidic measurement will be obtained , between 3.5 and 4. 5 (normal urine between 5.5 and 7); ideally 7.35 (7.35 to 7.45) measured in blood or from 6.5 to 7.3 measured in saliva, but not right after eating (the saliva gives acidity as a first defense of the organism). For the body it is not suited an alkalinity degree of over 8, because the growth of bacteria and parasites is favored
Remember, in an acid media we ease cancers, viruses and fungi and in alkaline media we ease bacteria and parasites
Of course if both forms of attack (alkalizing and oxygen) together with a careful feeding are used there is no way that cancer cells can survive, regardless of the number of metastases you have.
A careful feeding involves mainly vegetarian diet, not the sugars (everything with its chemical formula ending in "ose") and not carbohydrates
As a general rule all food coming from animals are bad if you have cancer.
IF AN EXTENDED CANCER OR EVEN WITH METASTASES IS NOT HEALED IN AROUND THREE MONTHS OR LESS IT MEANS THAT YOU ARE NOT FOLLOWING CAREFULLY THE INSTRUCTIONS IN THESE LINES
It is important to know the work of Dr. Otto Warburg; he was awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the leading cause of cancer and how to combat it; They have hidden his jobs despite having received two Nobel Prizes (he expected a third one for the discovery of the cause of all diseases)
Studies of Robert O. Young on alkaline diet are also very interesting
It is very interesting book The One Minute Cure.
It sets out the guidelines for the healing of all diseases through the use of ozone and hydrogen peroxide (hydrogen peroxide food grade, his formula is H2O2); it can be downloaded in pdf format at this link:
Another interesting method for its effectiveness in curing cancer and many diseases, including several degenerative, is the Gerson Therapy; Max Gerson was a doctor who learned to heal himself and saw that his method worked well with many diseases, including cancer. Basically consists of raw food vegetarian diet, the balance between sodium and potassium and body detoxification by coffee enemas. Studying his patients Gerson saw thar sodium, an extracellular mineral, had penetrated into diseased cells displacing potassium, an intracellular mineral; so it is essential not use salt if you follow the Gerson Therapy
Another suppressed anti-cancer therapy that doesn't fail in curing cancer, with many cases of healing incurable brain tumors for conventional medicine, is the method of Dr. Burzynski using Antineoplastons, peptides that act at the same time on hundreds of genes involved in the onset and development of cancer; Dr. Burzynski was persecuted and prosecuted in two trials for the medico-pharmacological system, but his method is so effective that have failed to imprison or fine him, as the jury found him not guilty
There is also another effective method of fighting cancer; open the section The Rife Frequency Healing to see about it
All of the above refers to cancer due to acidosis and lack of oxygen, which includes the vast majority of cancers (nearly 100%); but there is now increasing danger of being affected by radioactive particles due to leaks in nuclear power plants and radioactive contamination of the atmosphere. Our defenses are prepared to make to disappear the cells affected by these particles, but if high levels of radiation reach our body, it does not have resources, because, depending on which type of particle it is stored in a different location of our body and can cause mutations in the DNA in our cells and they can start to reproduce in a disordered way, without regard to the rules. One of the most common is thyroid cancer; we can defend us of the RADIOACTIVE IODINE, which is one of the types of radioactive particles emitted, by taking normal iodine; if the radioactive iodine would reach us it would be removed from the body because our thyroid gland is not needing it (this gland can store about 50 mg of iodine). There are some iodine tablets intended for this purpose and it would be interesting collect some of them
Lemon juice is also highly alkalizing (the body produces an alkaline reaction after taking this juice, despite being an acid); NOT fall into the trap of mixing lemon juice with baking soda, then both react with each other (you can see the mix bubbling) and both neutralize running out of therapeutic value. The mixing of them is a deliberate lie in which many people fell.
I read that sometimes only with Colloidal Silver a cancer disappeared and one time that happened with the Colloidal Silver that I prepare. It is assumed that this only should have stopped the progression of cancer.
it has now been found, and it has been hidden, that GM foods cause cancers in a few months the animals fed with them. In case of DNA damage by GM foods or by exposure to high radioactivity, we can make our whole body vibrates with the frequency of 528 Hz to repair DNA, that is, we have to hear this frequency without headphones; more curative could be an electromagnetic wave radiated to the frequency of 528 Hz, only this frequency, without a carrier; a generator and a coil is needed. Also adequate food, leaving the body slightly alkaline can help in these cancers, as the body will manufacture more patrol cells (macrophages) that will attack those mutated to make them disappear; the Gerson Therapy can be helpful in these cancers, as through it is greatly benefited the immune system and this is the reason why this therapy led to many healings in many different diseases.
Facts to consider:
with the allopathic medicine (which we know in the West) 102 762 patients died in Spain in 2012; trends and studies indicate that 108300 cancer patients will die in 2015 . When dies a patient of the allowed medical group, or many, nothing happens as the system did all it could do.
If a doctor realizes that they are following some inefficient healing methods that only serve to keep a part of the medical system and to promote the medical and pharmacological business and then he starts a drug treatment that differs from the usual, a prosecution begins against him. Such is the case of Dr. Tullio Simoncini; I do not agree with him on that cancer is caused by the fungus Candida albicans, although it is logical that this fungus begins to grow in the highly acidic region that became cancerous; this physician introduced a method of curing cancer that was cheap and highly effective and the allopathic medicine could not tolerate it; if to someone like this physician, an only patient would result in death he would be imprisoned regardless of whether the patient was near to die when arrived to the doctor. To stop the healings they withdrew him the license to practice medicine.
Still have doubts? buy the book THE MEDICAL MAFIA of Dr.Ghislaine Lanctot and please read it; it is a global Best Seller written by someone who practiced medicine, she realized certain matters and wrote this book; after this she was expelled from medical school and her license to practice medicine.
if you want you can download this book from internet
Read things that are able open your eyes, because so you will exercise a great service to humanity by placing you on the side of the Light. Light attracts more Light and Darkness attracts more darkness.
IMPORTANT QUESTION IN WHICH YOU MUST THINK:
Why do you think that the works about cancer of someone who was awarded two Nobel Prizes because of these works were hidden? (Dr. Otto Warburg)
Summaries of his jobs can be found on the Internet. Not delay to investigate, because soon they will try you do not find anything written about these works.
An additional aid
Vitamin C provides many benefits to the body, such as great immune system booster, disappearance of allergies, rapid improvement in cases of viral infections, great improvement of asthma or elimination of kidney stones; but it has come to cure many cases of cancer and to produce a great improvement in cases of terminal cancer; vitamin C is toxic to cancer cells.
The condition is always take a lot of vitamin C, up to 30 grams per day in cases of severe illness. This has been something systematically hidden.
This is corroborated by many works and persons such as Dr. Linus Pauling (Nobel Prize), Cameron, Louis Lasagna (University of Rochester) and have been confirmed by Saga University in Japan by Dr. Murata and others.
The list of tags is empty. | <urn:uuid:dd494f22-8908-4e17-9bb7-366db7792f0c> | CC-MAIN-2020-24 | http://m.el-libertario.com/en/reglas-para-vencer-el-cancer-sin-fallar/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-24/segments/1590347419639.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20200601211310-20200602001310-00396.warc.gz | en | 0.960217 | 3,432 | 2.875 | 3 | 2.78154 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Health |
Sample Essay on Prader-Willi Syndrome
The Prader-Willi Syndrome [P.W.S] is a rare genetic disorder in which seven genes on chromosomes 15 [q11-13] are deleted on the paternal chromosome. This disorder was first described by Andrea Prader in 1956, Heinrich Willi, Alexis Labhart, Guido Fanconi of Switzerland and Andrew Ziegler. Being a rare condition, the incidence of PWS is between 1 in 25,000 and 1 in 10,000 live births.
The maternal origin of the genetic material that is affected in the syndrome is vital because the particular region of chromosome 15 involved is a subject to imprinting. This means that the number genes in this region only one copy of the gene is expressed while the other is not articulated through imprinting. The gene affected in Prader-Willi Syndrome is the maternal copy that is usually imprinted whereas the mutated paternal copy is not efficient. This means that individual not suffering from this condition have one working gene and one silenced set of the genes.
There are numerous signs and symptoms that can be detected from an individual suffering from the Prader-Willi Syndrome. This includes;
- Poor muscle tone
- Food craving and weight gain
- Underdeveloped sex organs
- Poor growth and physical development
- Prone to diabetes mellitus
- Nearsightedness [Myopia]
- Delayed motor development
- Speech problems
- Behavioral problems
- Sleeping disorders
- Scoliosis [abnormal curvature of the spine]
- High pain tolerance and
- Light skin and hair as compared to other members in a family.
The abovementioned symptoms of Prader-Willi Syndrome can occur during birth, in childhood and as an adult. PWS affects boys and girls of any ethnic background. There are estimated more than 400, 000 people who live with the Prader-Willi Syndrome around the world. This disorder is traditionally characterized with obesity, hypotonia, short stature, short hands and feet and behavioral issues among other signs. Despite observing these symptoms in a child, early diagnosis and treatment is essential.
Prader-Willi Syndrome is a spectrum disorder and symptoms can range from mild to severe and so early prognosis is effective. PWS was traditionally diagnosed by clinical presentation, these days; the syndrome is diagnosed through genetic testing. However, the testing is necessary for newborns that are marked with hypotonia. Through early PWS diagnosis, it becomes easy for early intervention and timely prescription of the growth hormone.
The backbone diagnosis of the Prader-Willi Syndrome is genetic testing. DNA-based methylation testing is the most imperative as it helps detect absence of the paternally contributed PWS region on the chromosome 15q11-13. It is an effective testing that detects over 97% cases. The Methylation testing is essential as it is able to confirm PWS on any individual even those young enough to not show any features to make diagnosis on clinical grounds. Many times, PWS is misdiagnosed as many medical communities are unfamiliar with the disorder.
Prader-Willi Syndrome has no cure, but several treatments are utilized to lessen the symptoms of the condition. During infancy, an infant undergoes therapies to improve muscle tone. Speech and occupational therapies are also indicated. In schooling years, children benefit from the highly structured learning environment. Prescription of daily recombinant growth hormone [GH] injections aid children suffering from this condition.
For those with severe obesity, obstructive sleep apnea is a common sequela, and a positive airway pressure can also help. Gastric bypass is an effective surgical procedure that can aid in treating obesity a symptom associated with PWS. Parents need to help children restrict their diets and control weight so as to enjoy quality life. In addition, in case of any of the PWS signs, it is advisable to seek specialist care always.
For the best custom essay writing service, let premiumessays.net be your preferred provider. It is easily to order a professionally written sample essay on Prader-Willi Syndrome. All our custom essays are written by academic experts. | <urn:uuid:6c440040-8f77-4d55-b59c-afcb74f07601> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.premiumessays.net/sample-essay-on-prader-willi-syndrome/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337428.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20221003164901-20221003194901-00066.warc.gz | en | 0.943145 | 852 | 3.09375 | 3 | 2.146282 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Health |
|Look up stable in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.|
A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals. There are many different types of stables in use today; the American-style barn, for instance, is a large barn with a door at each end and individual stalls inside or free-standing stables with top and bottom-opening doors. The term "stable" is also used to describe a group of animals kept by one owner, regardless of housing or location.
The exterior design of a stable can vary widely, based on climate, building materials, historical period and cultural styles of architecture. A wide range of building materials can be used, including masonry (bricks or stone), wood and steel. Stables also range widely in size, from a small building housing one or two animals to facilities at agricultural shows or race tracks that can house hundreds of animals.
The stable is typically historically the second-oldest building type on the farm. The world’s oldest horse stables were discovered in the ancient city of Pi-Ramesses in Qantir, in Ancient Egypt, and were established by Ramesses II (c.1304-1237 BC). These stables covered approximately 182,986 square feet, had floors sloped for drainage, and could contain about 480 horses. Free-standing stables began to be built from the 16th century. They were well built and placed near the house because these animals were highly valued and carefully maintained. They were once vital to the economy and an indicator of their owners' position in the community. Relatively few examples survive of complete interiors (i.e. with stalls, mangers and feed racks) from the mid-19th century or earlier.
Traditionally, stables in Great Britain had a hayloft on their first (i.e. upper) floor and a pitching door at the front. Doors and windows were symmetrically arranged. Their interiors were divided into stalls and usually included a large stall for a foaling mare or sick horse. The floors were cobbled (or, later, bricked) and featured drainage channels. Outside steps to the first floor were common for farm hands to live in the building.[clarification needed]
For horses, stables are often part of a larger complex which includes trainers, vets and farriers.
"Stable" is used metaphorically to refer to a group of people – often (but not exclusively) sportspeople – trained, coached, supervised or managed by the same person or organisation. For example, art galleries typically refer to the artists they represent as their stable of artists.
Historically, the headquarters of a unit of cavalry, not simply their horses' accommodation, would be known as "a stable".
A shed row-style stable at a riding club in Panama.
Stables of the Einsiedeln Abbey, Switzerland.
A horse stable, over 100 years old, still in use at Stanford University.
Media related to stables at Wikimedia Commons.
- "Oldest horse stables". Guinness World Records. Retrieved 2016-06-27.
- England, Historic. "Historic Environment Local Management Training Programme - Historic England". www.helm.org.uk. Retrieved 19 April 2018.
- The Conversion of Traditional Farm Buildings: A guide to good practice (English Heritage publication).
- "The Barn Guide by South Hams District Council". southhams.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 19 April 2018. | <urn:uuid:672caf7a-3698-4f1a-8881-27bbeba123bd> | CC-MAIN-2019-51 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-51/segments/1575540525821.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20191210041836-20191210065836-00147.warc.gz | en | 0.960443 | 748 | 3.40625 | 3 | 1.307171 | 1 | Basic reasoning | Home & Hobbies |
All You Need to Know About Bursitis
Bursitis is an inflammatory disorder caused by trauma due to direct impact or repetitive injury. Besides trauma, other risk factors associated with developing bursitis include rheumatoid arthritis, pseudogout, and gout. Bursitis causes tenderness, and pain in the affected tendon or bone. The bursae sacs might swell, which makes movement difficult quite often. The foot, knee, elbow, and shoulder are some of the joints that are most commonly affected.
How Does Bursitis Develop and What is a Bursa?
Bursae (plural for bursa) are lubricated, thin cushions that are at the points of friction in between a bone and soft tissue that surrounds the bone, tendons, ligaments, muscles, and skin. A bursa is in between the bone and the tissue (e.g., skin, ligament, muscle) similar to a small water balloon with few drops of fluid inside of it. The following are essential characteristics of bursae:
- Healthy bursae are thin. For instance, a research study was conducted with reasonably large bursa that was in between the skin and kneecap that showed that the average measurements of the bursa were a couple of millimeters thick with an average diameter of around four centimeters.
- The size of bursae can vary depending on location in the body and the individual variation that present from person-to-person.
- Some bursae are right below the surface of the skin, but others are deep in soft tissue such as muscle (e.g., shoulder).
- There are around 160 bursae in an adult body.
- Some of these bursae are present at birth, while others develop later on due to frequent friction. For instance, most individuals develop a bursa after age 7 in the elbow (the olecranon bursa).
- Depending on the person, other bursae might develop. An individual who wears constricting shoes on a regular basis or whose foot anatomy is abnormal might develop a bursa on the outer part of the big toe joint.
The subdeltoid bursa (subacromial bursa) in the shoulder separates your supraspinatus tendon from your deltoid muscle and the overlying bone. Usually, inflammation of this bursa is the result of an injury to your surrounding structures, with the rotator cuff being the most common one. A shoulder bursitis can limit your shoulder’s range of motion, resulting in shoulder impingement syndrome, and eventual pain. Shoulder pain from a shoulder bursitis is often felt in front or side of your shoulder joint.
Elbow bursitis is a common cause of elbow pain. The most common form of elbow bursitis is the olecranon bursitis. The olecranon bursitis is located at the tip of the elbow. Olecranon bursitis is a common cause of pain at the tip of the elbow. As mentioned earlier, it is the result of a direct traumatic event or repetitive traumatic events. With an elbow bursitis, the elbow range of motion is limited and painful. Below characteristics are common in an inflamed elbow bursa:
- Quite often pain will be worse at night.
- Reaching activities or overhead lifting is uncomfortable.
- The most common type of bursitis is olecranon bursitis or bursitis of the tip of your elbow.
The Olecranon Bursa of the Elbow
The olecranon bursa lies between the skin and olecranon (bony tip of elbow). The olecranon bursa will develop at some point after seven years old.
Severe elbow bursitis might cause an inflamed olecranon bursa to swell significantly and can easily measure 2.5 cm wide and 6 to 7 cm long. A large olecranon bursa can appear as if you have a small golf ball or egg underneath your skin. Such site-specific, visible swelling might make it easy to diagnose elbow bursitis. However, one should not rush to self-diagnosis or quickly rule out elbow swelling as bursitis, as other more severe conditions like infections can complicate bursa.
Can Bursitis Develop in the Buttocks?
Yes, chronic back problems, prolonged tightness of the gluteal muscles, and trauma can irritate and inflame the ischiogluteal bursa. The ischogluteal bursa is an inconsistent bursa between the gluteus maximus and the ischial tuberosity. The ischial tuberosity lies in the most inferior portion of the buttocks, directly beneath the pubic bone. Prolonged sitting on a hard surface, bicycling for extended periods can irritate the ischiogluteal bursa. Ischiogluteal bursitis is also referred to as weaver’s bottom sometimes from the common position that the occupation uses. We have listed some of the most common findings in persons with ischiogluteal bursitis:
- Leg pain
- The individual has a hard time standing on their tiptoe on the side that is affected.
- The pain is worse when the individual is lying down, and their hip is passively bent.
- When sitting, the individual might elevate their painful buttock.
- Direct pressure on the area can cause a sharp pain.
- Pain might radiate down the back of the person’s thigh.
- Tenderness at pubic bone, which can be made worse by extending and bending the leg.
- The pain occurs when walking and sitting.
Hip Bursitis (Iliopsoas Bursitis)
The largest bursa in the body is iliopsoas bursa. It is deep to and in front of the hip joint. Usually, when bursitis occurs here, it is associated with having hip problems, like an injury (mainly from running) or arthritis.
Iliopsoas bursitis can cause significant leg pain, thigh pain, and hip pain. It can radiate (run down) the middle and front areas of your thigh down to the knee and then increases whenever the hip is rotated and extended. Please review the article published on Dynamic Chiropractic about Trochanteric bursitis treatment through clinical chiropractic.
Extension of your hip while walking can cause leg pain or hip pain so you might limit your stride on the side that is affected and take shorter steps. Also, there might be tenderness in your groin area. At times a mass might be felt that resembles a hernia. The individual might feel tingling or numbness in hip, thigh, and leg if the inflamed bursa compresses the adjacent nerves.
Thigh Bursitis or the Trochanteric Bursitis
The trochanteric bursa is located on the outer thigh over your hip. It might become inflamed and cause significant thigh pain and leg pain. This type of bursitis is quite common and most frequently occurs in middle-aged, overweight women.
Trochanteric bursitis causes aching, deep pain along the side of your hip that might extend into the side of your knee or your buttocks. Stretching, local pressure or activity may aggravate the pain. Pain is frequently worse at night and may make it hard to sleep on the side that is affected.
The knee has ten bursae, but it can be as many as 13, due to individual variations! Symptoms of knee bursitis can vary, depending on the severity of swelling. You may experience knee pain, tenderness, redness or a feeling of warmth in the knees. Often, it starts mild, but can progressively worsen when neglected. Knee bursitis sufferers often complain of a restricted range of motion, increased pain when kneeling or walking. Our advice to all knee pain sufferers is to visit one the best clinical chiropractors in Kula Lumpur and get a proper evaluation of your knee joint, meniscus, ligaments, muscles, and bursae.
The knee joint has ten named knee bursae that can cause pain. We have listed these for you below:
There are a total of five bursae in front of the knee:
- Supra-patellar bursa or the supra-patellar recess
- Prepatellar bursa
- Deep infra-patellar bursa
- Subcutaneous bursa (superficial bursa or infra-patellar bursa)
- Pre-tibial bursa
Looking from laterally (outer side of the knee), there are four bursae:
- Lateral gastrocnemius bursa or the sub-tendinous bursa
- Fibular bursa
- Fibulo-popliteal bursa
- Sub-popliteal bursa (sub-popliteal recess)
Medially (inner part of the knee), there are three bursae:
- Medial gastrocnemius bursa (sub-tendinous bursa)
- Anserine bursa
- Bursa semimembranosa
Retrocalcaneal bursitis or ankle bursitis may occur whenever the bursa underneath the Achilles tendon on the back of your heel becomes inflamed. Ankle bursitis is often caused by a local trauma that is associated with wearing high heels or a poorly designed shoe. It may also be caused by excessive amounts of walking. It might occur along with Achilles tendonitis as well. Ankle bursitis is a common source of ankle and foot pain.
An inflamed retrocalcaneal bursa frequently occurs with overuse injury in ice skaters, young athletes, and individuals who are just starting a new exercise program, including jumping or walking. Usually, the pain is on the back of a heel and will increase with resisted flexion or passive extension.
Are any home remedies available for bursitis?
Yes, and we will be glad to share it with you. The first and most important thing to remember about disorders of a bursa is that they are inflammatory processes. Inflammatory processes are always the result of micro or macro traumatic events. Micro-trauma is the repetitive things you do, while macro trauma pertains to an actual traumatic event. So, the home care for any traumatic pain, injury or disorder is protected, rest, ice, compress, and elevate. In other words, remember P-R-I-C-E:
- Protection in the form of padding, particularly for bursae that close to the surface of your skin on your knees and ankles.
- Rest the affected area when possible can help symptoms. Selective alternative forms of exercise activities that might eliminate painful motions. Swimming might be helpful.
- Ice can be quite effective in reducing pain and inflammation. Small ice packs, like frozen vegetable packages that are applied to the area for around 10 minutes two times per day at the light can help to decrease inflammation in the area.
- Compression and elevation might be helpful whenever possible to compress the area. You can apply an elastic bandage (particularly to elbows and knees). The area should be kept elevated over your heart to prevent blood from pooling.
Can a bursa be infected?
Yes, it can. And this is why you should never self-diagnosis your self. Always get an expert to assess your condition before getting care. Secondly, get care from a clinical team and not the unlearned or the inexperienced. It is your body and your health. Good health is more precious than wealth. Don’t take a chance.
Since an infectious process may cause bursitis, it is critical to have an accurate diagnosis. Fever is a sign that you need to seek immediate medical care since it might indicate infection. Other infection warning signs include severe tenderness or redness or constant warmth around the joint. Skin infections in the area (cellulitis) might mean the bursa also is infected. Visit one of our centers in Malaysia for the best bursitis treatment program in Malaysia.
Why would you seek care from our clinical teams?
Before treatment can be rendered, we need to identify the root cause of your condition. We have treated thousands of patients successfully; the key to our clinical successes when others fail is our understanding of spine and joint disorder. Our abilities to accurately diagnose your condition are unparalleled when it comes to issues involving the bursae. In short, our research-based non-surgical methods of care are better, because we treat the root-cause through holistic means. Our clinical teams of expert chiropractors and the best clinical physiotherapist team in Kuala Lumpur pay particular attention to the root cause of your condition. Chiropractic Specialty Center’s abilities to identify the root-cause are the primary reason when so many of our patients avoid flare-ups.
We have some of the best chiropractors and physiotherapist in Malaysia. In Malaysia, are experts you need for sports injury, joint, and non-surgical treatment. We treat sports and joint injuries through the collaborative efforts from our research-based clinical physiotherapies and some of the best chiropractors in Malaysia. If you are suffering from injury or pain, we are your best option. Our clinical team provides the best bursitis treatment program via technology and integrative holistic means to help you recover quickly. | <urn:uuid:ad0faf26-475b-48d4-a671-9c417c21786e> | CC-MAIN-2018-13 | https://www.mychiro.com.my/leg-pain/bursitis/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-13/segments/1521257647498.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20180320150533-20180320170533-00386.warc.gz | en | 0.918082 | 2,873 | 3.78125 | 4 | 1.719847 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Health |
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New Zealanders have very high rates of antibiotic use compared to other similar countries. Most antibiotic consumption occurs in the community,
so general practitioners and other primary care prescribers have a key role in reducing inappropriate antibiotic use.
Prescribing antibiotics: ensuring that antibiotics are commenced appropriately in the first place.
Clinical and non-clinical factors influence treatment decisions. The initial clinical evaluation can provide information about the probable cause of the patient’s
symptoms, but it is often difficult to distinguish between viral and bacterial infections. Fear of “missing” a significant bacterial infection may mean antibiotics
are prescribed. This is appropriate if the risk of not doing so is high, such as for an immunosuppressed patient. In other situations clinical recommendations
ensure antibiotics are appropriately prescribed, e.g. a patient at risk for rheumatic fever, or with clinical signs suggestive of meningitis.
Non-clinical factors can also complicate management decisions. Patients may expect an antibiotic will improve their symptoms and demand a prescription, or clinicians
may assume patients want antibiotics. Other factors influence prescribing decisions, including the day of the week (the “Friday afternoon consultation”), important life
events, and previous bad experiences affecting either the clinician or the patient.
If prescribing antibiotics, consider: is it more likely than not that the patient has a bacterial infection? Will prescribing an antibiotic result in a better clinical
outcome? Will the infection resolve without treatment? Will the adverse effects of the antibiotics outweigh the benefits? Are laboratory investigations indicated? Can
antibiotic treatment be delayed until infection is confirmed?
Duration of antibiotic course: stopping antibiotics upon resolution of symptoms
Antibiotics can be stopped early in some clinical scenarios, such as for patients with moderate pneumonia, sinusitis, urinary tract infections, and skin
infections including cellulitis. Treatment guidelines for these conditions now recommend short courses of antibiotics, as evidence shows cure rates are similar
to longer regimens. Once the patient’s symptoms have resolved it is reasonable to stop antibiotic treatment in many situations, and is unlikely to lead to
relapse or promote antimicrobial resistance.
Stopping antibiotics early can be inappropriate; such treating patients with more severe infections like osteomyelitis, endocarditis and tuberculosis,
and group A streptococcal (GAS) pharyngitis in patients at risk of rheumatic fever. Antibiotic courses should also be completed for treatment of bacteriuria
during pregnancy, the eradication of latent tuberculosis, and when the patient is severely immunodeficient.
Alternatives to prescribing antibiotics
Good communication reduces the rates of antibiotic prescribing. Most respiratory tract infections (RTI) are viral, self-limiting, and do not require
antibiotic treatment. Providing a delayed prescription (“back pocket prescription”) can help reduce antibiotic use.
Key information to communicate with patients:
- Antibiotics usually do not alter the course of illness in a non-complicated RTI
- The over-prescribing of antibiotics contributes to antibiotic resistance, which means that antibiotics might not work
when they are needed
- Antibiotics are associated with adverse effects, e.g. diarrhoea, nausea, and rarely allergic reactions
- Past antibiotic treatment does not necessarily mean that antibiotics are indicated on this occasion
- The expected course of the illness
- The “safety-net”: advise what to do if the patient feels worse or is not getting better
Peer group discussion points
- How do you normally treat people presenting with symptoms of a RTI?
- Do you think you prescribe too many antibiotics? How would you rate your patients’ expectation of antibiotics? How could
you re-educate your patients about appropriate antibiotic use?
- What sort of experiences have you had prescribing antibiotics? Have you had any outstandingly good or bad experiences of
either using or not using antibiotics? Do you think these experiences have shaped your prescribing habits now?
- What do you think of the delayed prescription strategy? Is this something you have tried? What are your experiences of using this technique?
- What do you think about stopping antibiotic courses early where appropriate? Have you tried this? Were the outcomes satisfactory? | <urn:uuid:cddf02e8-9056-4a1c-aac5-87e0d718e837> | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | http://bpac.org.nz/PeerGroupDiscussions/antibiotic.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886106358.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20170820073631-20170820093631-00651.warc.gz | en | 0.913903 | 886 | 3.046875 | 3 | 2.994118 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Health |
- 1 What does Raven signify in the Bible?
- 2 What did Noah sacrifice?
- 3 How long did Noah stay on the boat?
- 4 What was the sign of God’s covenant with Noah?
- 5 What is a flock of ravens called?
- 6 What does seeing 3 Ravens mean?
- 7 Was the Ark bigger than the Titanic?
- 8 How long did Adam and Eve live?
- 9 How long was a year in the Old Testament?
- 10 Where did Adam and Eve live?
- 11 How many times did Noah send out the dove?
- 12 How many animals were on Noah’s Ark?
- 13 What made Noah special?
- 14 What is the first covenant in the Bible?
- 15 What does a Rainbow mean in the Bible?
What does Raven signify in the Bible?
Ravens are an example of God’s gracious provision for all his creatures in Psalm 147:9 and Job 38:41. (In the New Testament as well, ravens are used by Jesus as an illustration of God’s provision in Luke 12:24.)
What did Noah sacrifice?
After the flood, Noah offered burnt offerings to God, who said: “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done” (8:20–21).
How long did Noah stay on the boat?
After 150 days, “God remembered Noah and the waters subsided” until the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat.
What was the sign of God’s covenant with Noah?
Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”
What is a flock of ravens called?
An unkindness. At least that is one of the names given to the jet black birds with the dubious reputation. Fights between ravens are pretty common, and generally occur between members of the same sex.
What does seeing 3 Ravens mean?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Three crows are a symbol or metaphor in several traditions. Crows, and especially ravens, often feature in European legends or mythology as portents or harbingers of doom or death, because of their dark plumage, unnerving calls, and tendency to eat carrion.
Was the Ark bigger than the Titanic?
The dimensions of Noah’s ark in Genesis, chapter 6, are given in cubits (about 18-22 inches): length 300 cubits, breadth 50 cubits, and height 30 cubits. Taking the lower value of the cubit, this gives dimensions in feet of 450 x 75 x 45, which compares with 850 x 92 x 64 for the Titanic.
How long did Adam and Eve live?
A third son, Seth, is born to Adam and Eve, and Adam had “other sons and daughters” (Genesis 5:4). Genesis 5 lists Adam’s descendants from Seth to Noah with their ages at the birth of their first sons and their ages at death. Adam’s age at death is given as 930 years.
How long was a year in the Old Testament?
In ancient times, twelve thirty-day months were used making a total of 360 days for the year. Abraham, used the 360-day year, which was known in Ur. The Genesis account of the flood in the days of Noah illustrated this 360-day year by recording the 150-day interval till the waters abated from the earth.
Where did Adam and Eve live?
The Book of Genesis puts Adam and Eve together in the Garden of Eden, but geneticists’ version of the duo — the ancestors to whom the Y chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA of today’s humans can be traced — were thought to have lived tens of thousands of years apart.
How many times did Noah send out the dove?
He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.
How many animals were on Noah’s Ark?
Noah’s Ark would have floatedeven with 70,000 animals.
What made Noah special?
In the story of the Deluge (Genesis 6:11–9:19), he is represented as the patriarch who, because of his blameless piety, was chosen by God to perpetuate the human race after his wicked contemporaries had perished in the Flood.
What is the first covenant in the Bible?
The covenant between God and Jews is the basis for the idea of the Jews as the chosen people. The first covenant was between God and Abraham. Jewish men are circumcised as a symbol of this covenant. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.
What does a Rainbow mean in the Bible?
In the Bible‘s Genesis flood narrative, after creating a flood to wash away humanity’s corruption, God put the rainbow in the sky as the sign of his promise that he would never again destroy the earth with flood (Genesis 9:13–17): | <urn:uuid:f795613c-9128-4316-b38d-8f72f585695f> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | http://riedelfamilyltl.com/birds/faq-why-did-noah-send-a-raven.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764499524.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20230128054815-20230128084815-00542.warc.gz | en | 0.965088 | 1,197 | 3.203125 | 3 | 2.331117 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Religion |
The Wellcome Trust was founded in 1936 with the aim of making the general public more scientifically literate. 76 years on, Gamify your PhD was a special kind of game jam, putting PhD researchers in the role of games designers and uniting them with developers to create games that could communicate scientific concepts while also being fun to play. The result? Amongst others, a game set deep inside the human gut. A team of developers from studios Force of Habit and Clockwork Cuckoo joined forces with postdoctoral researcher Margherita Coccia to create the winning game, developing what might well be the world’s first ever “intestinal bacteria shoot ‘em up.” This is how it happened.
After seeing a posting about the game jam on Facebook, Coccia says she was attracted to the idea and could see how her research into intestinal immunology could be both represented and explained through a game. “My lab is a very creative and quite playful environment, and we often joke about the parallels between the immune system and a battlefield, so I thought I could put those jokes into action,” she says. “In addition, I thought it would be great to answer the classical question ‘Could you explain to me what do you study?’ with a game.”
And explaining Coccia’s research isn’t the simplest of tasks. The laboratory she works in investigates inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), including Ulcerative Colitis and Chron’s disease, caused by an imbalance in the the intestine’s own defense mechanisms. Coccia’s own research looks at something called Interleukin-1 beta, which she explains is “A molecule produced at high levels in the intestine of IBD patients. I have shown that blocking it helps control IBD in preclinical models. We hope that this will lead us to exploring whether we can develop new drugs that block Interleukin 1 beta to use in IBD treatment.”
There’s obviously a challenge in bringing concepts like these to a wider audience, one who may not be so scientifically literate, but presenting them through a game allows them to be articulated in new and different ways, including elements of demonstration and cause-and-effect. Although she may not be a games designer, Coccia is a keen gamer (without any sense of irony, she says her favourite game is Theme Hospital). When she arrived at the game jam to meet with Force of Habit and Clockwork Cuckoo, she had come prepared, and with only two working days to make a game, the teams had to get down to business.
“Margherita came to the event with a pretty solid game design already sketched-out,” says Nick Dymond of Force of Habit, adding that the topic of Coccia’s design and her area of research gave an immediate focus to their work. “Once we'd knocked off a few of the rough edges and filled out the mechanics a bit, I wrote-up a detailed checklist on a board and pulled it over to the edge of the table so everybody could see exactly what needed doing. Then it was a matter of prioritising the work so no-one ended-up sitting around waiting for assets.”
“The game was programmed in C++ using a framework that Ash [Gwinnell, also of Force of Habit] has put together himself and is geared towards rapid prototyping. He knows it inside out. It's the old adage of know your tools. In a game jam you get to see just how inefficient your working methods are. Now that we'd done a few together we've created a pipeline that's pretty slick.”
The result might well remind you of the early 80s classic Tempest, as Dysbiosis shares the same simplicity of design and hectic rate of play. As bacteria like listeria and salmonella attack the lining of your intestine, you do your very best to try and fight them off, bolstering your bowel with protective mucus. It’s certainly not the sort of concept we’re accustomed to, but you can’t deny that it’s different, even memorable, which puts it right in line with the Wellcome Trust’s vision.
Dysbiosis beat off strong competition from an excellent collection of games, particularly remarkable considering how quickly they were developed, and including the unusually named yeast-based game Monsieur Baguette presents… RNA transcription of Saccharomyces Cerevisiae. Although there could only be one winner, who will now go on to receive funding that would help them better realise their game, the Trust has expressed its interest in following up with all the teams who took part in the game jam, so high was the standard of work produced.
Most importantly, Gamify your PhD certainly succeeded in demonstrating how elements of hard science could be explained, or at least introduced, through the medium of games, with Coccia saying she would like to see more games developed in the same vein.
“I was really excited to see that really complex concepts, which scientists themselves sometimes struggle to understand, could be explained quite simply in a game. It made me understand that games are incredibly potent tools for science education,” she says. “I think that science should be a component of ‘normal’ life and not confined to lab or university, so I really hope that we will see more and more science-based games.”
On a practical level, many of the scientists and developers also enjoyed working together and sharing best practice. “Having talked to some of the scientists it seems like there is much that software development can teach other industries insofar as workflow and use of tools,” says Dymond. “I'd like to see more cross-discipline events like this in future so that people get a chance to share their techniques and technology with one another.”
If Gamify your PhD has piqued your interest, you may well want to look out for the forthcoming
Explay Game Jam, in October, which will unites The Wellcome Trust and the Science Museum, and don’t forget to check out Julian’s interview with the Trust's gaming consultant Tomas Rawlings. It’s also definitely worth investigating Clockwork Cuckoo and Force of Habit, not least because the latter are now hosting Dysbiosis. | <urn:uuid:56705253-7938-4d19-9377-24d945bfd04f> | CC-MAIN-2014-52 | http://www.pcgamesn.com/indie/game-set-inside-colon-wins-wellcome-trusts-first-gamejam | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-52/segments/1418802772757.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20141217075252-00059-ip-10-231-17-201.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969568 | 1,334 | 2.75 | 3 | 2.905522 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Games |
The humanist movement started in Italy, where the late medieval Italian writers Dante, Giovanni Boccaccio, and Francesco Petrarch contributed greatly to the discovery and preservation of classical works. Humanist ideals were forcefully expressed by another Italian scholar, Pico della Mirandola, in his Oration on the dignity of man. The movement was further stimulated by the influx of Byzantine scholars who came to Italy after the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453 and also by the establishment of the Platonic Academy in Florence. The academy, whose leading thinker was Marsilio Ficino, was founded by the 15th-century Florentine statesman and patron of the arts Cosimo de' Medici. It revived Platonism and particularly influenced the literature, painting, and architecture of the times.
The collection and translation of classical manuscripts became widespread, especially among the higher clergy and nobility. The invention of printing with movable type, around the mid-15th century, gave a further impetus to humanism through the dissemination of editions of the classics. Although in Italy humanism developed principally in the fields of literature and art, in central Europe, where it was introduced chiefly by the German scholars Johann Reuchlin and Melanchthon, the movement extended into the fields of theology and education, and was a major underlying cause of the Reformation.
One of the most influential scholars in the development of humanism in France was the Dutch cleric Desiderius Erasmus, who also played an important part in introducing the movement into England. There humanism was definitely established at the University of Oxford by the English classical scholars William Grocyn (1446-1519) and Thomas Linacre, and at the University of Cambridge by Erasmus and the English prelate John Fisher (1459-1535). Humanism spread throughout English society, paving the way for the flourishing of Elizabethan literature and culture.
Humanism, an educational and philosophical outlook that emphasizes the personal worth of the individual and the central importance of human values as opposed to religious belief, developed in Europe during the Renaissance, influenced by the study of ancient Greek and Latin literature and philosophy. Humanism thus began as an educational program called the humanities, which inculcated those ancient secular values which were consistent with Christian teachings. The Renaissance humanists were often devout Christians, but they promoted secular values and a love of pagan antiquity.
The founder of Renaissance humanism was Petrarch (1304-74), an Italian poet and man of letters who attempted to apply the values and lessons of antiquity to questions of Christian faith and morals in his own day. By the late 14th century, the term studia humanitatis ("humanistic studies") had come to mean a well-defined cycle of education, including the study of grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, and moral philosophy, based on Latin authors and classical texts. Key in ensuring the permanence of humanism after Petrarch's initial success was the Florentine chancellor Coluccio Salutati (1331-1406), who wrote many learned treatises and kept up a massive correspondence with his literary contemporaries. Salutati, together with his younger follower Leonardo Bruni (1369-1444), used the studia humanitatis as the basis for a life of active service to state and society. Bruni in particular created a new definition of Florence's republican traditions, and defended the city in panegyrics and letters.
The 14th-century humanists had relied mainly on Latin. In the early 15th century, however, classical Greek became a major study, providing scholars with a fuller, more accurate knowledge of ancient civilization. Included were many of the works of Plato, the Homeric epics, the Greek tragedies, and the narratives of Plutarch and Xenophon. Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459), a chancellor of Florence and papal secretary, discovered important classical texts, studied Roman ruins and inscriptions, and created the study of classical archaeology. Poggio also criticized the corruption and hypocrisy of his age in biting satire and well-argued dialogues. Lorenzo Valla (c. 1407-57), one of the greatest classical scholars and text editors of his age, proved that the Donation of Constantine, a medieval document that supported papal claims to temporal authority, was a forgery.
The founding (c. 1450) of the Platonic Academy in Florence by Cosimo de'Medici signaled a shift in humanist values from political and social concerns to speculation about the nature of humankind and the cosmos. Scholars such as Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola used their knowledge of Greek and Hebrew to reconcile Platonic teachings with Jewish mysticism, the Hermetic tradition, and Christian orthodoxy in the search for a philosophia perennia (a philosophy that would be always true).
The work of Italian humanists soon spread north of the Alps, finding a receptive audience among English thinkers such as John Colet (c. 1467-1519), who applied the critical methods developed in Italy to the study of the Bible. Desiderius Erasmus of the Netherlands was the most influential of the Christian humanists. In his Colloquies and Praise of Folly (1509), Erasmus satirized the corruptions of his contemporaries, especially the clergy, in comparison with the teachings of the Bible, early Christianity, and the best of pagan thinkers. In his Adages (1500 and later editions), he showed the consistency of Christian teachings with ancient pagan wisdom. Erasmus devoted most of his energy and learning, however, to establishing sound editions of the sources of the Christian tradition, such as his Greek New Testament (1516) and translations of the Greek and Latin Fathers of the Church. Erasmus' friend Thomas More wrote yet another humanist critique of society--Utopia (1516), which attacked the corruptions of power, wealth, and social status. By the middle of the 16th century humanism had won wide acceptance as an educational system.
Later Types of Humanism
By the 18th century the word humanism had come to be identified with a purely secular attitude--one that often rejected Christianity altogether. In the 20th century the term has taken on a number of different, often conflicting, meanings. In the works of the pragmatist philosopher Ferdinand Schiller (1864-1937) humanism is seen as that philosophical understanding which stems from human activity. Irving Babbitt used the word to describe a program of reaction against romanticism and naturalism in literature. Jean Paul Sartre developed a scientific humanism preaching human worth based on Marxist theory, and the Roman Catholic Jacques Maritain tried to formulate a new Christian humanism based on the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. The American Humanist Association, which grew out of the Unitarian movement, holds that human beings can satisfy religious needs from within, discarding the concept of God as inconsistent with advanced thought and human freedom. In recent years, fundamentalist Christian groups in the United States have declared their opposition to "secular humanism," an antireligious ideology that they believe pervades American society, including the major churches, and that they blame for its moral failings.
Bullock, Alan, The Humanist Tradition in the West (1985)
Garin, Eugenio, Italian Humanism (1966)
Kohl, Benjamin G., and Witt, Ronald G., eds., The Earthly Republic: Italian Humanists on Government and Society (1978)
Kristeller, Paul O., Renaissance Thought and Its Sources (1979)
Nash, Paul, Models of Man (1968)
Trinkaus, Charles, The Scope of Renaissance Humanism (1983). | <urn:uuid:3fa3ec9c-35a5-4643-8b37-308643d22997> | CC-MAIN-2021-49 | http://smokyhole.org/sdhok/humanist.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-49/segments/1637964362589.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20211203030522-20211203060522-00627.warc.gz | en | 0.954326 | 1,601 | 4.28125 | 4 | 2.954341 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Religion |
by Unglid Paul
According to Merriem-Webster, a manifesto is defined as “a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer.” (Merriem-Webster) In critical theory, a manifesto takes its role a step further. Scholars and activists alike have treated manifestos as manuals; an instructive guide to achieve the goals it sets forth. Luciano Conchiero states in his work, “A Theory of the Manifesto,” that, at its core, a manifesto wants to create new realities because it believes in humanities capabilities to “transform reality” since “it is man who sets the course of history.” (Conchiero, 13) The shape of the manifesto is both “creatively destructive and destructively creative” (Conchiero, 1) as it is filled with the unabashed youthfulness of a possible tomorrow, unbounded by the socially constructed limitations of today. This energy leads Concheiro to argue that through the manifesto, “technological innovations and social transformation means the rift between today and yesterday broadens and becomes wider.” (Concherio, 22) Manifestos provide us with hope as well as instructions to evolve society into a future we desire.
Teresa Ebert expanded on manifestos in her article, “Manifesto as Theory and Theory as Material Force: Toward a Red Polemic.” She emphasizes the existence of manifestos as a response to the norm, centering their presence as a struggle against the established social structures. Where Conchiero speaks of the shape and possibility of a manifesto, Ebert focuses on its purpose: she states that “the manifesto is writing in struggle” by “confronting established practices, in order to open up new spaces for oppositional praxis.” (Ebert, 553) She agrees that the space is creative and limitless, because it “is the space in which concrete social contestations are articulated as abstract ideas”; Thus, it denies the idea of “revolution” as a historical artifact, instead, “revolution” is used as the manifesto’s tool to transform established, social systems. (Ebert, 554) She also emphasizes that a manifesto is created out of legitimate anger and concerns produced by historical conditions and are not simply the result of “will” or the ideas of a rebel individual. (Ebert, 555) It speaks for the collective since it is only through connection and collaboration that these instructions can transform into action. A manifesto is, simply, “struggle-text and change-writing.” (Ebert, 555)
The feminist discourse has allowed for diverse accounts of manifestos, ranging from inspiring to radical. Amongst them is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “Dear Ijeawele, or, A feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions.” As a response to a letter she received from a childhood friend who asked her how she could raise her daughter to be a feminist, Adichie offers her fifteen suggestions to empower her to be a strong and independent woman. Her first suggestion goes to her friend: “be a full person. Motherhood is a glorious gift but do not define yourself solely by motherhood.” She emphasizes that as her friend finds her identity outside of motherhood, it would highlight to her daughter that a woman can be more than a reproductive entity. (Adichie 9) Another powerful suggestion in her manifesto that gives instruction, but also sound reasons is her eighth point in which she suggests that her friend “teach her to reject likeability. Her job is not to make herself likeable, her job is to be her full self, a self that is honest and aware of the equal humanity of other people.” (Adichie 36) What her work also speaks to is the accessibility of a manifesto. Although written and expanded in a novel, she also posted all her suggestions of Facebook, a major social media platform where people can share and like ideas, which aided in her message to spread.
Another example of an accessible manifesto: the Pussy Riot’s Manifesto. Pussy Riot is “the world’s most prominent feminist protest art collective, which focuses attention on human rights violations at home and abroad.” (Pussy Riot) Posted on their website, Pussy Riot’s founder and Russian conceptual artist, Nadya Tolokonnikova, created a visual manifesto for her followers. Like Adichie, she lists 10 goals the group aims to achieve. Amongst them are compassionate reflections, such as, “you’re capable of making miracles, you just have to believe in them,” to direct instructions, “Move.”
On the more radical side of feminist manifestos exists Valerie Solanas’s “S.C.U.M. Manifesto: (Society for Cutting Up Men).” In it, she controversially claims that “the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion, aborted at the gene stage,” furthering her stance, she states, “To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he's a machine, a walking dildo.” (Solanas 1) In her feminist rage, she satirically describes all of men’s failures and goes in-depth into their jelousy of women because of their incapabilities to connect. Garnering heavy criticism, she unapologetically states that the “SCUM will kill all men who are not in the Men's Auxiliary of SCUM. Men in the Men's Auxiliary are those men who are working diligently to eliminate themselves.” (Solanas, 14) This is indeed a manifesto because this violent imagination is in response to a violent femme reality. It is a direct response to the patrichatral system that aims to shape our lives, our futures, and even our protests. It sparked a conversation in it’s written wake, and left an unsettling impression of where our lives might head if we don’t address the disconnection and tension between manhood and womanhood.
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Dear Ijeawele, or, A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions. First edition, Alfred A. Knopf, 2017.
Conchiero, Luciano. A Theory of the Manifesto. Gato Negro Ediciones, 2016.
Ebert, Teresa L. “Manifesto as Theory and Theory as Material Force: Toward a Red Polemic.” JAC, vol. 23, no. 3, 2003, pp. 553–562. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20866585. Accessed 11 Mar. 2021.
Tolokonnikova, Nadya“A Manifesto by Pussy Riot.” WePresent, wepresent.wetransfer.com/story/a-manifesto-by-pussy-riot/.
Place, Vanessa, et al. SCUM Manifesto. Oodpress, 2010. | <urn:uuid:c57a99de-60bc-4b88-8ad0-f0edca67c8a9> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://union.manifoldapp.org/read/literary-criticism-dictionary-2021/section/32ebb8f4-127b-49c7-89c3-d0ce2e420dad | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662534669.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20220520191810-20220520221810-00700.warc.gz | en | 0.9449 | 1,516 | 2.984375 | 3 | 2.93405 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Politics |
Russians and the North Pacific’s Strange Beasts of the Sea
Ryan Tucker Jones’s excellent book, Empire of Extinction, brings to light the under-realized importance of the “strange beasts of the sea”—Steller’s Sea Cow, sea otters, fur seals, and sea lions—to Western conceptions of nature by tracing the Russian imperial experience in the North Pacific. By comparing the tensions between the conceptions and realities of imperial expansion on ecosystems, Jones accomplishes three objectives: (1) he shows that ecological degradation at the hands of humans occurred prior to the industrial revolution, (2) he expands the geographic reach of Richard Grove’s thesis that changes in European understandings of nature were based on colonial experience, and (3) he shows that naturalists had a complex and dynamic relationship with empire, acting as both accessories and critics of economically driven imperial practices. Furthermore, Jones shows how some Russian imperial practices were simultaneously unique and universal. Western empires produced trauma via barbarity—Russia, for example, hunted the sea cow population to extinction—but also instituted the first colonial conservation policies. In this fascinating combination of imperial and environmental history, Jones illustrates the relevance of both North Pacific marine mammals and the Russian empire to the birth of conservation practices.
Drawing on archival records of imperial efforts, Empire of Extinction utilizes a variety of primary sources. From expedition notes, tax records of fur sales, and naturalist’s notebooks and published writings, the source material is a treasure trove of detail. The text’s six chapters center on various expeditions ordered chronologically, and their resulting lessons of how, or how not, to manage a maritime colony. The chronological ordering is important to illustrate how the extinction of the sea cow, hunted as a food source, and near extinction of fur-bearing mammals inspired self-critical reactions from agents of the Russian empire. Jones’s thorough revival of historic sea otter populations, supported by fur traders’ records of capture, is admirable and exhaustive. For both the reader and the fur trader, the huge population of sea otters is difficult to conceptualize, though their near-demise becomes apparent through Jones’s story. The comparison of local extinctions of sea otters on some islands within the archipelago with the total extinction of the sea cow is an interesting point with which to consider how ideas of global and permanent extinctions occurred.
Jones’s North Pacific focus expands the geographic range of Grove’s thesis on the colonial birth of environmental thought to include Alaska and the North Pacific. The unique and definitively non-tropical landscape plays a starring role in Jones’ argument that the location and fauna of the North Pacific were important to the Russian experience and the lessons of ecological degradation as a result of human activity. Fittingly, the North Pacific region was a cradle of evolutionary forces and “most of the world’s pinnipeds evolved in the area.”(9) Jones’s focus on recreating the landscapes and population numbers for marine mammals helps him to prove the significant role of the region in imperial experience for the empire—the northern landscapes were rich in marine animals but harsh and unforgiving for humans. Due to the austere environment, so full of marine mammals, the naturalists employed by Russia realized the destruction that human actions wreaked on the environment and were quick to criticize imperial policy, resulting in a conception of extinction that preceded Lamarck’s writings on the topic.
Competitive in its land expansion, Russia sought to emulate other European empires through geographical expansion, resource extraction, and knowledge production, yet simultaneously had to rely on non-nationals for scientific duties. Jones illustrates how this unique feature allowed a different type of colonial experience, a critical experience, to emerge from the Russian enterprise. By comparing Chapter Two on North Pacific island ecosystems and Chapter Six on imperial reactions to changing natures, readers can follow how a conservationist ethos emerged from unsustainable ecological management practices through critiques by Russian-employed German naturalists and their experiences in the North Pacific. Due to the unique features of the Russian empire, extinction became a colonial concern much earlier than in other imperial nations.
The historical trajectory of the extinction of the only North Pacific Sirenian, Steller’s sea cow, and near extirpation of sea otters at the hands of Russian fur traders illustrate the interactions between imperial expansion, natural history, and knowledge production. These interactions underlie how imperial practices imagined the global. As a result, Jones’ text would be excellent to use in a globally-focused course on the development of environmental thought or management, evolutionary history, or a comparative course on empire and nature. Specifically, it provides an example of the global connections between natural history and empire (or commerce) not only in the Russian empire but the French and British empires as well. It also emphasizes the role of naturalists and their observations of nature in the creation of universal ideas about the environment and the living things within it. By examining the nature of exchange between Russians and Aleuts, naturalists and empires, Russia and other empires, and naturalists and indigenous peoples, Jones emphasizes the formidable process of exchange. Jones also skillfully considers the naturalists’ conceptions of nature as separate from the ruling empire’s conceptions. This allows the transnational aspect of knowledge production, and the complicated realities of empire, to come through clearly with the text.
In using this book to teach a course with a global focus, one could focus on the different aspects of exchange between parties to explore the characteristics of Russian practices compared to other imperial enterprises. Far from the imperial center, the actors in this Russian empire brought residual ideologies that affected their conceptions of nature and culture and, therefore, informed their actions regarding these things. Jones’s monograph of Russian experience in the North pacific, by looking at this exchange of objects and knowledge, can give insight into imperial assumptions of the global. Does the exchange of knowledge fit into the metropole-periphery conception of the world-system? Or is the global idea produced through worldwide travel? This question of how one imagines or creates the global is an excellent question to pose to a class on global environmental change. Species loss is listed as one of the harbingers of the Anthropocene, and, therefore, a global issue, but just when did it become global? If extinctions can be traced to a specific empire, can they be considered global? Jones’s narrative, with its charismatic cast of mammalian characters, provides an excellent case study with which to interrogate the global through the lens of animals and empire.
In sum, Jones’s text provides a thought-provoking look at the history of imperialism and knowledge production in the name of natural history. By thinking critically about the ways in which the Russian imperial experience sought to exploit or protect the natural resources of the North Pacific Ocean, the reader can examine the effects of combining the goals of natural history and empire and its global ramifications. While Jones’s book does not contain an ecological happy ending, the story of Russia’s interaction with the North Pacific Ocean and its indigenous people brings to the field of environmental history an enlightening historical analysis of the confluence of the Russian empire and the human and non-human animals of the North Pacific. | <urn:uuid:4c05cbf8-2aef-4573-b9ab-696a25bedff4> | CC-MAIN-2020-50 | https://teachingtheglobe.net/portfolio/empire-of-extinction-russians-and-the-north-pacifics-strange-beasts-of-the-sea/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-50/segments/1606141194634.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20201127221446-20201128011446-00647.warc.gz | en | 0.926918 | 1,502 | 2.921875 | 3 | 3.068716 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Science & Tech. |
None of the women in Macbeth are particularly pleasant, as we can probably tell from Lady Macbeth’s cunning and the Witches’ deceit. Lady Macduff – a minor character – is the only morally decent woman, but she doesn’t get much screen (or stage) time.
So, with the obvious villainy of Lady Macbeth and the Witches, let’s examine whether Shakespeare is slagging women off in his play, or if he actually presents them in a feministic light.
Context – Elizabeth I, Elizabeth Stuart and James I
If you’ve read my other Macbeth posts on ambition and the supernatural, you’ll already be aware of the play’s broader context: it was first performed in 1606, three years after James I’s ascension to the English throne. He succeeded Elizabeth I, which was, of course, a tough act to follow given the ‘Golden Age’ of the Elizabethan era.
As a Jacobean play written at the cusp of a power transition from a strong female leader to a strong, but somewhat insecure, male leader, Macbeth is interesting especially for the way it presents the interlocks between power and gender.
There are several points to consider when thinking about how Shakespeare would have wanted to position women in Macbeth:
First, the Bard was personally much closer to James I than he was to Liz I (some critics even posit that he had never spoken to Elizabeth directly).
Second, James I was a man beset with all sorts of paranoia – most famous of which is of course his belief in witches – and in turn, old, ugly women as evil manifestations of witches that need to be rooted out.
Third, the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 was actually intended not just to assassinate the Protestant James I, but to install his eldest daughter, Elizabeth Stuart, as a ‘Catholic Queen’, which was possible because she would have been young and malleable enough to have her faith refashioned in the Catholic tradition.
What could these points suggest?
For starters, given these circumstances, it’s unlikely that Shakespeare would have wanted to position females in a positive light. But if we happen to think that the Witches and Lady Macbeth are ‘negative’ characters, then the motivation for Shakespeare to portray them as such would have been political, rather than misogynistic, in nature. (He was just trying to cover his ass – and we’d probably do the same thing in his situation.)
In the rest of this post, then, I’m going to argue that Shakespeare actually does the courageous thing by not villainising women or subjecting them to simplistic, ‘hero vs villain’, ‘Madonna vs whore’ dichotomies. Instead, he shows women to be complex human beings who, like men, have their own desires, impulses, and failings.
The powerful manipulation of the Witches
There’s lots of reasons to hate on the Witches, and to conclude from their evil shenanigans that Shakespeare is presenting the worst of women through these characters.
But while we see them as manipulative beings, we can also see their successful manipulation of Macbeth as a sign of power.
More important, though, is Shakespeare’s presentation of the Witches as shrewd readers of human character, and equally, as supernatural creatures who aren’t entirely divorced from human instincts.
First, as supernatural agents with foresight about Macbeth’s fate, they also possess insight into human nature and the male ego. One interesting moment where we see this is in Hecate’s speech at the start of Act 3 Scene 5, when she admonishes the Witches for “trad[ing] and traffic[king] with Macbeth/In riddles and affairs of death”, as she says –
And, which is worse, all you have done
Hath been but for a wayward son,
Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,
Loves for his own ends, not for you.
Here, Hecate points out that Macbeth isn’t even worth their time or effort conjuring up magic for him, because like all men he’s only after his own interests, driven by pettiness and anger. This is ironic coming from the Witches, as Hecate is assuming a moral high ground and suggesting that those who can be privy to supernatural prophecies must possess better moral calibre than Macbeth. It also re-orients the source of chaos towards Macbeth himself, who, according to her, misuses their prophecy for “his own [malicious] ends” out of “spite and wrath”.
What’s also intriguing is her comment – “not for you” – as if the Witches have been messing about with Macbeth because they secretly desire his attention. Seen in this light, it appears that the Witches’ antics are driven not by pure evil as conventionally understood, by a much more vulnerable – and feminine – impulse, that of wanting to attract and intrigue a member of the opposite sex, albeit going about it in a destructive way.
The manipulative power of Lady Macbeth
Like the Witches, Lady Macbeth is often blamed for her husband’s downfall.
And for good reason, because she knows exactly which buttons to push, as she taunts him for not being manly enough, for being a weak milquetoast, and for wasting his potential. But we can see her bullying as a sign of the woman’s intellectual and psychological superiority, because like the Witches, Lady Macbeth possesses great insight into the male psyche.
In a way, she’s more of an ambitious risk-taker than her husband, but because of her gender, she can never gain the power and station that a man like Macbeth could.
So, in a world where women are deterministic losers and where the wife can only ever play second fiddle to her husband, Lady Macbeth tries her best to correct this ‘injustice’ by pushing the boundaries of whatever power she can get hands on, even if it’s just by marital association. And this, in a twisted way, can be its own kind of admirable.
Towards the end of the play, though, Shakespeare shows that Lady Macbeth, for all her Machiavellian schemes and bravado, is no less vulnerable or immune to fear than the average woman. In Act 5 Scene 1, otherwise known as ‘the sleepwalking scene’, Lady Macbeth is a far cry from her earlier, composed self: driven stark mad by guilt, she suffers a mental breakdown and raves on incoherently about ‘washing hands’ and ‘going to bed’, which are euphemisms for eradicating guilt and approaching death.
Here, Lady Macbeth is presented as a pitiable character who has suddenly lost all control, a victim of overreaching desires that are all too human.
On the one hand, she clings on to the remaining hope of absolute power, as shown in her rhetorical question “What need we fear who know it, when none can call our power to account”, but the next moment, she reveals that underneath her fearless bluster lies a frightened girl, as she exclaims “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!”
The word “little” is sure to raise some eyebrows here, because “little” as her hand may be, her ambition certainly isn’t. Ultimately, Lady Macbeth disintegrates into a schizophrenic wreck, but she inspires pity rather than disgust, because we see that at least she’s been fearless in pursuing what she believes Macbeth and herself deserved.
The understated power of Lady Macduff
Finally, there’s the minor, but no less important, female character of Lady Macduff, who briefly appears in Act 4 Scene 2, and is then murdered by Macbeth’s assassins.
The main gist of her lines is hopelessness and disappointment over Macduff’s unannounced escape to England. She sees her husband’s act as a cruel abandonment of his family, at once cowardly and stupid, as she comments that “All is the fear and nothing is the love;/As little is the wisdom, where the flight/So runs against all reason”, but of course, she’s unaware of the danger that Macduff faces vis-a-vis Macbeth’s murderous plans, and her comment is dramatically ironic as both she and her son will soon be murdered by Macbeth’s men.
What is most interesting from a feministic standpoint, however, is the question she poses to her son upon telling him that “your father’s dead” (with “dead” here meaning ‘as good as dead’), as she asks – “And what will you do now? How will you live?” Her immediate concern is maternal, and thus, feminine, because she worries about how her child will cope without a father. But when her son retorts with “how will you do for a husband?”, Lady Macduff gives a surprisingly feministic answer – “Why, I can buy me twenty at any market”, i.e. husbands are a dime a dozen, and I can find a new one anytime.
For a Renaissance audience, this tongue-in-cheek statement would have seemed incredibly brazen, but for modern audiences like us, this indicates Shakespeare’s progressive awareness that women, despite social constraints, are much more independent and self-reliant than were generally perceived.
Indeed, when Lady Macduff receives the Messenger’s warning for her to flee, she demonstrates stoic insight by asking “why then, alas,/Do I put up that womanly defence,/To say I have done no harm?” The adjective “womanly” connotes weakness here, and “That womanly defence” implies unnecessary self-justification of one’s existential worth. By rejecting this, Lady Macduff again demonstrates a kind of toughness that goes against the feminine grain.
Macbeth’s powerlessness at the hands of women
Let’s now wrap up by reminding ourselves of the apparition’s fateful prophecy that “none of woman born/Shall harm Macbeth”.
Of course, we know that besides his “vaulting ambition”, Macbeth is ultimately undone by a fundamental misunderstanding of female biology – he doesn’t know that women can give birth in more ways than one, and is thus killed by the caesarean-born Macduff.
In a way, this tells us that despite having been king for a hot minute, Macbeth’s authority has always been dwarfed by female power, from the start of the play as he falls to the seduction of the Witches’ prophecy, to throughout the play as his wife prods him towards the regicidal path of no return, to the end of the play when the ‘not of woman born’ Macduff defeats him to restore order. | <urn:uuid:faa1b030-8fe5-4f74-91ed-dc8eb9a9bd40> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://hyperbolit.com/2022/01/29/is-macbeth-a-feministic-play/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224648635.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20230602104352-20230602134352-00504.warc.gz | en | 0.965709 | 2,400 | 2.640625 | 3 | 2.963692 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Literature |
A Reply to Doug Yurchey's
'The Nature of Black Holes and Quasars'
by Wayne McDonald
essay “The Nature of Black Holes and Quasars >>
In the course of researching another topic, I recently happened
across Doug Yurchey’s essay “The Nature of Black Holes and Quasars,”1
which is posted here at World Mysteries.com. Although this article
is generally well-written (there are, however, several stylistic
faults present), the statements by Mr. Yurchey seem to indicate that
he has misinterpreted some of the fundamental concepts of classical
physics in addition to several facets of quantum mechanics. The
purpose of this essay is to clarify these misconceptions and then to
show that Mr. Yurchey’s conclusions are, in fact, not supported by
the body of evidence relating to these two natural phenomena.
Before examining Mr. Yurchey’s contentions regarding black holes
and quasars, we should first establish what black holes and quasars
are before addressing what they are not. Without
resorting to complex mathematics or long-winded definitions, black
holes and quasars can be defined as follows:
A black hole is an object of such incredible
density that its intense gravitational field prevents any object
(including light) from “breaking free.”
A quasar (QUAsi-StellAR radio source) is an
extremely powerful energy source that arises from matter interacting
with the gravitational fields of supermassive black holes at the
center of galaxies located at tremendous distances from our Milky
While it will be necessary to expand upon these definitions
during the course of this reply, they will serve our immediate
purpose. We can now turn our attention to where it appears that Mr.
Yurchey appears to misunderstand the established scientific facts
concerning both black holes and quasars.
Perhaps his most fundamental error is this statement:
The Laws of Physics are not the same everywhere. The physical
laws of riding on a light beam are very different than the laws
governing the stationary world…3
The laws of physics are universal, constant, and understandable.
The fact that our understanding of these laws may be incomplete in
no way implies that each region of the universe has laws that are
not found in other regions. For example Newton’s Law of Universal
Gravitation applies to the gravity that holds us to the surface of
planet Earth as well as to the gravity that governs the motion of
the entire galaxy or even clusters of galaxies.
The same principle applies to his hypothetical light beam
analogy. According to the Theory of Special Relativity if you were
riding on a single photon of light (your “inertial frame of
reference”) time would pass at exactly the same rate as if you were
standing still, you would still be subject to the laws of nature,
and light would have the same velocity relative to you. To an
outside observer things would be radically different but, relative
to you, things would be the same as if you were not moving at all.
Mr. Yurchey’s misinterpretation of the gravitational mechanics
involved in the various physical phenomena of black holes is
suggested in another statement:
For Black Holes to do what they do, all the laws of Physics must
be off! Things just vaporizing should not, normally, happen. Where
is the balance in nature? … How can we believe in anything if our
basic principles of nature are not within firm foundation? 4
The laws of physics, particularly the laws of gravity and
conservation of momentum, are perfectly preserved in and near black
holes. In order to appreciate the significance of this, we must
first understand the weakest force in the universe: gravity.
According to Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, what we
experience as a gravitational attraction (such as the Earth pulling
on our feet) is the result of a concentration of mass (the Earth)
that is sufficient to cause a distortion of our local space-time
environment. In terms of the classic “rubber sheet and bowling ball”
analogy, the more mass you have, the greater the distortion that
occurs (Figure 1). We can also think of the Earth’s mass creating a
“gravity well” with us near the bottom of this well..5 We
will return to this analogy soon
The distortion of space-time caused by a concentration of mass.
(Credit: Wikipedia Foundation).
When the mass of an object is expressed as a function of
the volume that the object occupies, we can state that the
object has a certain density. The larger the amount of mass
present, the higher the object’s density.6 It is obvious
that the denser the object the greater its distortion of its local
space-time and the deeper the “gravity well” that it produces.
The process which produces a black hole is beyond the scope of
this reply and those readers interested in this topic should consult
one of the many print or online resources devoted to this topic. For
current purposes it will be sufficient to say that in a black hole
the density of its core is so high that it produces a gravity well
with “walls” so “steep” that not even light, traveling at 186,000
miles per second, has enough velocity to escape. In other
words, any object falling into a black hole can never escape but
this does not mean that it has violated any known law of physics.
In his essay Mr. Yurchey reproduces an apparently-unanswered
e-mail from himself to Leonard Susskind, a physicist at Stanford
University7, in which he claims that the phenomena known
as quasars are actually the “opposite ends” of black holes. In doing
so he seems to have again misinterpreted the available observational
and theoretical data.
Mr. Yurchey’s statement “The info-matter-energy through a Black
Hole leaves our universe...and comes out another universe” is simply
incorrect. According to the laws of gravity and quantum physics, any
matter falling into a black hole is compressed by gravity into what
is known as a singularity, an area whose density approaches
infinity but does not reach that “magical” number. It does
not, as Mr. Yurchey claims, go anywhere. It remains within our
universe, although undetectable, and thus does not violate
the Law of Conservation of Matter as Mr. Yurchey alleges. As to the
state of matter comprising the singularity, this question remains
Regarding his opinion that quasars and black holes are in some
way connected (“Go in a Black Hole, come out a Quasar…”), Mr.
Yurchey also appears to misunderstand the now-abundant evidence that
quasars are actually supermassive black holes (black holes
with masses ranging from 10 thousand to 1 billion times the
mass of the Sun) 8 at the center of galaxies varying
between 0.7 to 13 billion light years from Earth.9
In support of his claim that quasars are the location at which
matter eventually emerges from a black hole, he argues that there is
no other possible explanation for the tremendous amounts of energy
known to be associated with quasars. Once again, he is incorrect and
again misunderstands the abundant evidence to the contrary.
All black holes, including the supermassive ones, are surrounded
by what is known as an accretion disk (Figure 2). The
accretion disk itself is composed of matter that has been “captured”
by the black hole’s gravitational field but has not yet crossed the
boundary from which escape is impossible. This rotating cloud of
matter is heated to very high temperatures by friction as the actual
atoms collide with increasing frequency. The result of this heating
is that the atoms begin to emit photons of energy that fall not only
within the visible range but, as the temperatures increase, well
into the gamma-ray end of the spectrum as well.10
Artist’s conception of a black hole. The accretion disk is
represented by the multicolored swirls surrounding the light-colored
center. The structure seen emerging at a right angle to the central
disc represents charged particles trapped in the black hole’s
electromagnetic field (Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center).
While the above mentioned items can be explained as
misinterpretations, Mr. Yurchey’s last contention borders upon the
When we photograph some Quasars, there are huge jets of
matter-debris-energy stretched and extending out the distance of
many light-years. It is reasonable that these 'jets' are
material planets and whole solar systems shooting out the Quasar
at incredible speeds. [Emphasis added] 11
In his essay he includes the following image, apparently a
photographic negative (Figure 3).12
One again Mr. Yurchey seems to have either misunderstood or
ignored the principles of high school mathematics. A simple exercise
will demonstrate his error.
The object in Figure 3 is indeed a quasar known as 3C273. It also
has the distinction of being the first quasar to be discovered (in
1963) and, even at a distance of around 2.2 billion light years,13
is so bright that it can be observed with a backyard telescope. But
at that distance not even the Hubble Space Telescope or its
successor, the James Web Space Telescope, would be able to detect a
solar system! Furthermore, the “dots” in the above images (which Mr.
Yurchey claims to be planets and solar systems), would have to be
several light years in diameter to even appear in the image since
the jet itself is 100,000 light years in length (our home galaxy,
the Milky Way, is estimated to be 100,000 light years across). Since
a solar system, by definition, consists of a star and at least one
planet orbiting at some distance from that star, it follows that
solar systems are over 99% empty space.
Now, let’s take a look at what other observations of 3C273 have
(Left) False-color image denoting areas of mass concentrations.
(Right) False-color image demonstrating the intensity of
electromagnetic radiation at various regions within the jet
originating from 3C273.
(Credit: Jordell Bank Observatory).
Both Figures 4 (above) and 5 (below) further refute Mr. Yurchey’s
statement regarding “…planets and whole solar systems…”
A composite, false-color, image of the same jet as above
utilizing data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST); the Very Large
Array radiotelescope (VLA); the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the
Spitzer Infrared Observatory. Blue denotes areas producing x-rays;
green is for optical light, and red is for infrared emission. The
image has been rotated for editorial purposes. (Credit: Yale
The actual cause of the jet seen in Figures 3, 4, and 5 is the
quasar’s electromagnetic field, which exists as a consequence of the
rapid motion of electrons trapped by gravity within the accretion
disc. From our high school science classes, we know that any moving
electrical current produces its own magnetic field. In the case of
quasars and black holes, this magnetic field is enormously powerful.
Since the orientation of this field is always at a 90-degree angle
to the plane of rotation (the right hand rule of mathematics and
physics), this is the source of the jet (Figure 6).14
The right hand rule. Note the direction of rotation (B) and the
of the resulting force vector. (Credit: Wikipedia Foundation).
Mr. Yurchey’s last contention also falls within the realm of the
Passengers in light-beam saucers certainly survive the hyper
jumps through space. To the crew moving at warp-speed, they are
not moving at all; it is the universe that beams in the opposite
direction! [Emphasis added]15
Mr. Yurchey’s resort to “light beam saucers” as “proof” of his
“theory” only serves to demonstrate the extent of his
misinterpretation of established scientific principles. If Mr.
Yurchey would produce some evidence that such vehicles actually
exist it might enhance his credibility.
This essay has attempted to call attention to several
misconceptions that are central to Mr. Yurchey’s hypothesis
regarding both black holes and quasars. While there is no doubt that
he is sincere in his beliefs his supporting “evidence” is, at best,
tenuous there can be no questioning of his zealotry. Unfortunately,
in his haste to inform the world of his discovery, he has committed
so many errors in reasoning that it would not be improper to
question whether errors are due to a willful disregard of the
available evidence. Since the previously discussed errors and/or
omissions are central to Mr. Yurchey’s thesis, the thesis itself
cannot support itself and should be dismissed as untenable.
1. Yurchey, Doug (2006): “The Nature of Black Holes and
Quasars.” Available at
http://www.world-mysteries.com/doug_bhquasars.htm, accessed June
2. Goddard Spaceflight Center (2002): NASA’s Imagine
the Universe Q & A. Available at
accessed June 14, 2007.
There have been several names given to the phenomena
that we will describe as quasars. These include radio galaxies,
active galactic nuclei, and QSO (Quasi-stellar Object). Regardless
of the names used, the underlying physical mechanism is powered by a
black hole of almost unbelievable mass.
3. Paragraph 5.
4. Paragraph 2
5. For a more detailed explanation of gravity, I
strongly recommend Gravity by the late eminent physicist
George Gamow. It can usually be found at the larger book retailers,
such as Barnes & Noble or Borders, as part of an anthology of his
works. It is a thorough treatment of the subject yet easily
6. Mathematically, D = m/v where D
is the density of an object per unit volume; m is the amount of mass
present, and v is the object’s volume.
7. Reproduced in paragraphs 7-14.
8. Fulvio Melia (2007). The Galactic Supermassive
Black Hole, Princeton University Press.
9. The 13 billion-year figure was announced on June 7,
2007 and is based on observations made using the
Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope at Mauna Loa, Hawaii and the Gemini
South Telescope in Chile. The press release and links to related
topics can be found at
10. Technically, visible light is but small part of the
electromagnetic spectrum, which itself runs from very low energies
(radio waves) to ultra-high energies (x- and gamma-rays). Higher
temperatures are invariably associated with higher-energy photons.
11. Paragraph 25.
12. Uncredited image, Yurchey ibid.
13. “3C273” is translated as “object number 273 in the
Third Cambridge Catalog of Radio Sources, the standard reference
used by both optical and radioastronomers. The 2.2 billion light
year figure is from the same source.
14. The reader is again referred to any number of high
school-level textbooks of mathematics or physics for a more in-depth
discussion or, alternatively, consult the Wikipedia article
concerning the derivation of the right hand rule.
15. Paragraphs 26 & 27.
©2007 Wayne McDonald
All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted with Permission | <urn:uuid:de356963-e591-41bd-ae7d-5a446235672a> | CC-MAIN-2015-06 | http://www.world-mysteries.com/mcdonald_bhquasars.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-06/segments/1422120394037.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20150124172634-00239-ip-10-180-212-252.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911173 | 3,484 | 2.53125 | 3 | 2.895787 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Science & Tech. |
February 8, 2006
One of the most popular and widely prescribed antiretroviral medications is tenofovir (TDF, Viread). Overall, the drug has few side effects or toxicities -- a fact that has formed the basis of recommendations for its use in multiple HIV treatment guidelines, including the U.S. DHHS treatment guidelines.1 However, limited drug-drug interactions with some protease inhibitors have been described -- an important consideration because lopinavir/ritonavir (LPV/r, Kaletra) and atazanavir (ATV, Reyataz) have been shown to increase exposure to tenofovir by about 25%. The basis of this increase in tenofovir has not been fully determined. In addition, because tenofovir is eliminated from the body by the kidney, patients with significant impairment of kidney function should have tenofovir dosing frequency adjusted.
In prospective clinical trials of tenofovir (where patients with significant pre-existing renal disease were excluded), renal toxicity has appeared to be rare (about 1% of patients), and occurred at similar rates in tenofovir-treated and non-tenofovir-treated patients.2,3 In contrast, anecdotal reports of renal toxicity have been reported,4,5 raising the possibility that even among healthier HIV-infected individuals, there may be a risk of tenofovir-induced toxicity.
At this year's Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, five poster presentations focused on the question of renal toxicity and tenofovir, culminating in an hour-long session about the topic. This review will summarize their findings. The methodologies and patient groups that were examined differed from study to study. Because of continued vigilance about the side effects of antiretroviral medications and the widespread use of tenofovir, the discussion drew much attention from academia, industry and the treatment community.
Dr. Melanie Thompson from Atlanta, Ga., speaking on behalf of her collaborators in the GlaxoSmithKline-sponsored ESS40006 study, reviewed changes in renal function (glomerular filtration rate, or GFR) using the MDRD (Modification of Diet in Renal Disease) formula. Patients in this now-completed salvage study received treatment with abacavir (ABC, Ziagen) + ritonavir (RTV, Norvir)-boosted amprenavir (APV, Agenerase) + either efavirenz (EFV, Sustiva, Stocrin), for patients who were naive to non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs), or tenofovir for NNRTI-experienced patients.
In this observational, non-randomized study, tenofovir use was associated with a statistically significant decline in GFR. Importantly, however, the clinical significance of small changes in GFR is unknown. Limitations of the study relate to its observational nature, failure to control for concomitantly taken medications and unequal dropout rates between the two arms of the study. Another issue is that all patients also received ritonavir; the relationship between ritonavir, tenofovir and renal toxicity remains cloudy.
In another poster, Dr. Jodie Guest and colleagues from the Atlanta Veterans Administration Medical Center looked at 12-month composite kidney toxicity among 222 patients receiving tenofovir. In this study, renal toxicity was evaluated by the Cockcroft-Gault equation (which adjusts for weight, but not race). Kidney toxicity was observed in 17% of patients; renal insufficiency (defined as a 50% change in GFR) in 4% of patients; and hypophosphatemia (defined as any phosphate level less than 2) was seen in 13% of patients. These aggregate rates of renal injury are significantly higher than in other cohort or prospective studies.
Another observational cohort of tenofovir-receiving patients was described by Dr. Heidi Crane from the University of Washington. Of 497 patients who received tenofovir, 87 developed abnormal renal function (calculated by Cockcroft-Gault and MDRD formulae). Patients with increased age, didanosine (ddI, Videx) use and lower baseline weight were found to have a greater risk of developing renal dysfunction.
A significant limitation of both Dr. Guest's and Dr. Crane's studies, however, is their non-comparative nature. Because renal disease can occur in patients with HIV who are not taking tenofovir, it's unclear to what extent these events are attributable to tenofovir, HIV or other concomitant medications. For instance, Dr. Guest noted that nephrotoxicity was associated with the use of the fungal infection treatment amphotericin B (Amphocin, Fungizone Intravenous) and that hypophosphatemia was related to didanosine use.
In one of the largest cohort analyses to date to look at tenofovir's renal effects, Dr. James Heffelfinger from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention described an analysis from the Adult Spectrum of Disease study. This is an observational cohort analysis of more than 11,000 patients. Patients with pre-existing renal impairment were excluded from this analysis. Patients receiving tenofovir were about 60% more likely to have mild or moderate (but not severe) renal insufficiency on treatment than other patients (mild, moderate and severe renal impairment occurred in 35.1%, 6.4% and 2.6% of patients, respectively). After adjusting for multiple demographic factors (age, race, sex), the presence of a lower CD4+ cell count, lower hemoglobin, diabetes and hypertension predicted all categories of renal impairment. However, one limitation of this study was that the tenofovir patients tended to be more treatment experienced than the controls.
The experiences with tenofovir in the Gilead expanded access program and post-marketing safety reports were reported by Dr. Mark Nelson from the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, United Kingdom. More than 10,000 patients and safety data from an estimated 455,000 patient-years of tenofovir treatment were included. Overall, the rate of serious renal toxicity (serious adverse events) was 0.57% in the expanded access program; concomitant nephrotoxic medications and a low baseline CD4+ cell count were found as risk factors. The study was not designed to capture data about mild or transient kidney injury.
Taken as a whole, these studies provide additional clarity on the safety and toxicity profile of tenofovir. A parsimonious view of these data is that tenofovir is usually very safe to use, with low overall rates of serious kidney injury. The largest cohort studies show that renal dysfunction occurs at low but measurable rates in patients with HIV, whether they receive tenofovir or not. However, research also suggests that kidney disease can occur at higher rates in select patient groups. Tenofovir patients with concomitant nephrotoxic medications or other risk factors for kidney disease appear to be at higher risk.
Of course, there are many caveats to these findings. Descriptive studies without comparative groups should be viewed with caution, since the risk attributable to tenofovir cannot be ascertained. In addition, because different patient groups were studied (with differing baseline risk characteristics), differences in calculating or characterizing renal injury and the incident rates of renal disease will also differ from study to study.
So what are a doctor and patient to do when selecting antiretroviral treatments? For patients without significant risk of kidney disease, these studies suggest little need to change our view of tenofovir. By contrast, for patients with a risk of renal disease, it would be prudent to carefully consider the relative risks and benefits of the use of tenofovir versus alternate treatments.
In either circumstance, patients who commence tenofovir therapy should have their renal function thoughtfully monitored -- not simply by measuring serum creatinine, but by calculations of GFR by Cockcroft-Gault or MDRD methods.
Abstract: Tenofovir-induced nephrotoxicity in the first year of therapy (Poster 778)
Authored by: J Guest, D Rimland, B Patterson, K Desilva
Affiliations: Atlanta VAMC, Decatur, GA, US; Emory Univ Sch of Med, Atlanta, GA, US; Rollins Sch of Publ Hlth, Emory Univ, Atlanta, GA, US; Univ of Missouri, Sch of Pharm, Kansas City, US
Abstract: Renal impairment associated with the use of tenofovir (Poster 779)
Authored by: J Heffelfinger, D Hanson, A Voetsch, A McNaghten, P Sullivan
Affiliations: CDC, Atlanta, GA, US
View poster: Download PDF
Abstract: Didanosine and lower baseline body weight are associated with declining renal function among patients receiving tenofovir (Poster 780)
Authored by: H Crane, R Harrington, S Van Rompaey, M Kitahata
Affiliations: Univ of Washington, Seattle, US
Abstract: The safety of tenofovir DF for the treatment of HIV infection: the first 4 years (Poster 781)
Authored by: M Nelson, D Cooper, R Schooley, C Katlama, J Montaner, S Curtis, L Hsu, B Lu, S Smith, J Rooney, the Viread Global Expanded Access Prgm
Affiliations: Chelsea and Westminster Hosp, London, UK; Univ of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; Univ of California, San Diego, US; Hosp Pitié-Salpétrière, Paris, France; Univ of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada; Gilead Sci, Foster City, CA, US
View poster: Download PDF
View slides: Download PowerPoint
|Please note: Knowledge about HIV changes rapidly. Note the date of this summary's publication, and before treating patients or employing any therapies described in these materials, verify all information independently. If you are a patient, please consult a doctor or other medical professional before acting on any of the information presented in this summary. For a complete listing of our most recent conference coverage, click here.|
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The Reader 6/9/05
THE BIOLOGY AND POLITICS OF BREAST CANCER
by Ken Fischman, Ph.D.
Dedicated to the memories of:
A Parable for Our Time
People in a town along a river spotted a person drowning in the turbulent waters and attempted to rescue him. The next day they noticed more and more people struggling in the torrent, and redoubled their efforts to save them. They became experts in river rescue and invented more and more ways to try to retrieve and resuscitate the drowning victims. In fact, as time went on, they became world-famous for their ever-more innovative river rescue techniques, of which they were quite proud.
However, don’t you think it odd that in all this time, they never thought to look upstream to find out who was pushing these people in? (adapted from Living Downstream, by Sandra Steingraber,)
In this article, I invite the reader to walk with me upstream, along the banks of that river.
The Biology of Cancer
In order for the reader to better understand what cancer is and what its medical and political implications are, it is necessary first to cover a few basic biological concepts.
Cancer cells are cells that no longer obey the body’s controls. They revert to a primitive state, and have a tendency for perpetual growth and tumor formation. Genes are the basic units of heredity within cells. You can think of them as a set of blueprints for building and controlling your body. There are thousands of different kinds of genes in human beings.
DNA is the chemical stuff that the genes are made of. DNA is an extremely long molecule, made of thousands of subunits. The genes are attached to each other in groups of hundreds, like a string of pearls. There are 46 of these strings in each human cell and we call them Chromosomes.
A remarkable property of genes is their ability to make identical copies of themselves. They distribute these copies, one to each of the new cells produced through a process called Cell Division. Therefore, every cell in your body contains a duplicate set of genes.
If every cell in your body has an identical set of genes, then why do some cells look and act differently from each other? Muscle cells produce a protein, called myosin, that enables them to contract. Brain cells produce neurotransmitters, which enable them to send signals to other cells. The explanation is that all of the genes in a cell are not functioning all of the time. There is one set of genes functioning in a brain cell and a somewhat different set in a muscle cell.
Which groups are functioning is controlled in two different ways. The first way is controlled by other genes; the second, is by chemical signals from outside the genes, which may even come from distant parts of the body. Hormones are the chemical messengers involved in this kind of remote control.
An Oncogene (“cancer gene”) is one type of controller gene that plays important roles in Breast Cancer (BRCA). It is normally involved in directing growth and cell division. It is only when genes of this type are malfunctioning that they cause cancer. You can think of a faulty Oncogene as if it were a stuck accelerator on an automobile.
There are two types of cancer: (1) inherited and (2) acquired:
The inherited type occurs as a defect in the person’s genes and has been passed on to him/her through the egg or sperm from one, or both parents . The defective gene is therefore found in every cell of his body. This gene can be passed on to the next generation, again through the reproductive cells. Familial BRCA is of this type.
Acquired cancer, on the other hand, occurs due to changes that take place in the genes in at least one of the person’s cells during his lifetime. If it does not occur in one of his reproductive cells, it cannot be passed on to the next generation. Examples are: lung cancer, Leukemias, and most BRCAs.
A mutation is a change in a gene. The change is passed on to the cells resulting from division of the cell that carries the mutated gene. When these cells divide in their turn, the mutation is passed on again, and so on and so on, until there can be millions of such cells, each with the identical defect.
There are several ways in which these mutations can come about. One way is for a mistake to happen while the DNA is duplicating itself. Another way is for an environmental agent, like radiation or a chemical, to come in later, and damage the DNA in some way. A third way is for a mistake to occur later, during cell division. The chromosomes might break or not be distributed equally between the resulting cells. Any one of these kinds of mutations, and sometimes all three, can be involved in producing a cancer cell.
Breast Cancer – A World-Wide Epidemic
Breast Cancer is a disease that strikes one woman in seven. The incidence of BRCA has risen steadily since World War II. It increased 60% between 1950 and 1988. This increase has nothing to do with increased longevity. For example, women born in the USA between 1947 – 1958 have three times the rate of breast cancer as their grandmothers had at same age. In 1991, 170,000 American women were diagnosed with BRCA. The latest available figures are for 2002, with 205,000 new cases. That is an 20 % increase in eleven years.
This type of cancer is effecting younger women more and more. BRCA kills more women between the ages of 35-50 than any other disease. Why has this veritable explosion in BRCA occurred?
The American Cancer Society (ACS) points to ‘lifestyle’ and heredity as the prime villains. Their brochures exhort women to: (1) exercise, (2) lower fat in their diets, (3) perform breast self-examinations, (4) examine their family history, and (5) receive regular mammograms in order to detect BRCA, etc. Yet, the great majority of BRCAs cannot be explained by either inheritance or so-called ‘lifestyle’ factors. Let’s examine a few circumstances:
The list of chemicals and other environmental agents, known or suspected to be cancer-causing is a very long one. Yet, in all this time, only about a dozen have been banned by U.S. government agencies. Here are just a few of the more egregious cases.
Twenty seven years ago evidence was presented that women working in the plastics industry and exposed to Vinyl Chloride (VC), faced an increased risk of BRCA. (J. Occup. Med., 1977). VC was acknowledged by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to be a human carcinogen (cancer-causing agent). It was not banned however, and enormous quantities of it are still being produced and distributed around the world.
Polychlorinated Biphenyls, better known as PCBs, are strongly suspected of causing BRCA. General Electric dumped PCBs into the Hudson River in New York state until the 1970s. There are an estimated one million pounds lying on the bottom of a 40 mile stretch of the river .
Well known risk factors for BRCA are: (1) early 1st menstruation, (2) late menopause, and (3) late or no childbirths. What these factors have in common is that they all increase a woman’s lifetime exposure to estrogens.
Estrogens are hormones, secreted by a woman’s ovaries each month. It effects only cells with Estrogen Receptors on their surface. The hormone attaches to the receptor. Then the Estrogen-Receptor complex penetrates into the nucleus and activates one particular set of genes while turning off another set. The net effect is to increase cell proliferation in: (a) the vagina, (b) the uterus, and (c) the breast. Estrogen therefore stimulates ovulation, menstruation, and breast development.
A full term pregnancy early in a woman’s life protects against BRCA. Why? The current theory is that breasts do not completely develop until the last few months of the first pregnancy. Once they are developed, cell division in them slows, and because DNA in non-dividing cells is less sensitive to damage from radiation and chemicals, these women are less vulnerable to BRCA.
Early onset of puberty is also a strong risk factor for BRCA. Consider the following facts: The average age of female puberty in the 1940s was 13 – 14 years. At present it is 10 – 11 among whites, and even earlier among black girls. Some possible explanations are:
Since WWII, over 70,000 Synthetic Organic Chemicals (SOCs) have been produced, some in enormous quantities, and distributed all over the world. They have infiltrated our air, water, food, and our very bodies.
(1) many pesticides, herbicides and other SOCs are endocrine-imitators, (i.e they have estrogenic effects). SOCs may hasten the onset of puberty. There is strong evidence that Atrazine, the most widely used herbicide in the world, has this type of effect. Despite this, the EPA has recently refused to ban it.
(2) Americans eat a greater proportion of meat in their diets than any other people. Chickens and cattle are often treated with hormones in order to make them grow faster.
Women who have fatty diets have greater risk for BRCA. The NCI, and many other authorities, have concluded from this that fat causes cancer, and they have told women to change their lifestyles by doing more exercise and eating less fatty foods. Some scientists however believe that it is not the fat, but what is in the fat that causes BRCA. Many SOCs are fat-soluble, and therefore tend to concentrate in fatty tissue such as the breast and bone marrow. The more obese you are, the more carcinogens you accumulate. (Carcinogen concentration in fatty tissues may also explain why the incidence of Multiple Myeloma, a hitherto rare cancer of the bone marrow, has increased ten-fold in the past few decades) .
SOCs not only lodge in fatty tissues, they become biomagnified (concentrated) there.) In addition, SOCs are not easily metabolized and excreted. Therefore, they may linger in tissues for years. Some researchers have called fat the body’s hazardous waste site.
Inherited Breast cancers
You have probably heard of Breast Cancer Families, in which several generations of women develop BRCA. Two BRCA genes have been identified: BRCA-1 & BRCA-2. Women who possess BRCA-1 also have a higher risk for Ovarian cancer, but this does not appear to be so for those who have BRCA-2. Women who inherit either mutant gene are at much greater risk earlier in their lives for subsequent steps in the carcinogenesis process (described further on in this article). This is demonstrated by the high percentage of women possessing the gene, who get BRCA in their 20s (40%), compared with the much lower percentage of women who have the gene, who get BRCA in their 80s(1%).
A good way to distinguish between inherited and environmentally-induced diseases is to compare populations in different parts of the world. It has been observed for example, that BRCA rates in the U.S. are thirty times higher than in parts of Africa. We can also evaluate groups of people before and after they migrate from an area of high disease incidence to one of low incidence, or vice versa. BRCA rates rise in Jewish women who migrate from North Africa to Israel; rates decrease when English women migrate to Australia. Their genes of course remain the same. Only their environment has changed.
As previously mentioned, inherited Breast Cancers were the predominant form of BRCA before the 1940s. Their incidence has not increased in the ensuing years. They are now a tiny minority of all BRCA cases, probably no more than 5 – 10%, and effecting only about 1/3 of 1% of all women. The other 90 – 95% of BRCAs are classified by US government agencies as ‘sporadic’, meaning that the cause is unknown.
Saying that most BRCAs are ‘sporadic’ reminds me of a story about a novice boxer. His manager sends him into the ring against a much more experienced opponent. He is getting badly beaten. At the end of one round he comes back to his corner with his nose bleeding, one eye almost closed, and bruises all over. His manager tries to buck him up. “You’re doing great kid” he says “You have him on the run. He hasn’t laid a glove on you.” The kid turns around and looks at the manager. “Yeh?”, he says, “Well you better keep an eye on the referee because someone out there is sure beatin the crap out of me!”
Mechanism of Carcinogenesis
Normal cells do not become cancer cells in one swoop. For example, Benzo(a)pyrene is the principal cancer-causing agent in tobacco smoke. It and Croton oil are much more effective in inducing cancer when applied sequentially, rather than together. This is evidence that there is more than one step in cancer production.
Mutations are usually chance events that could occur in any one of the cell’s thousands of genes. Routine errors could be made during DNA replication, or a gene could be damaged by a carcinogenic agent. The first step toward cancer is a mutation. This is obvious because tumors continue to grow even after the carcinogen is removed. Therefore, an event has occurred that is being passed from generation to generation of its cells.
Another clue that cancer is a multi-step process is the long lag time, or latent period after first exposure to a carcinogen before a recognizable cancer develops. It may take many years. This lag time occurs because two or more rare chance events have to take place in order for a cell to become cancerous. The probability that two rare events will both happen is the product of the chance for each of them to happen by itself.
A simple illustration of this is flipping a penny. If you flip it once, the chance that it will come up heads is 1/2. If you flip it twice, the chance that it will come up heads both times is 1/2 X 1/2, or 1/4. Imagine then that if the chances that each of these two mutations occurring in the same cell is a couple of thousand to one, the probability of both happening is a very long shot indeed. Time however, is an additional factor. The longer the cell lives, the more likely it is that the second mutation will eventually occur.
The stages for inducing a cancer cell are called: (1) Initiation, (2) Promotion, and (3) Progression
1. Initiation is usually a small subtle lesion in DNA. There are no visible changes, but it can be recognized by the body and reacted to. The immune system may recognize changes in the cell surface and then destroy the aberrant cell. Any weakening in these defense mechanisms could lead to retention of initiated and therefore potentially cancerous cells, making it more likely that some of them will survive to reach the next stage of carcinogenesis.
2. Promotion unfolds over long time period and does not involve mutations, but encourages changes in which certain genes are activated. Promotion can be stimulated by substances like Estrogens. Here is the good news. When the influence of these substances is removed, cells usually revert back to the previous stage.
3. Progression – Mutations pile up at the molecular (i.e. DNA) level and chromosomes become increasingly damaged and unstable. Some of these changed cells become cancer cells. The production of many different chromosome abnormalities in the same tumor has the effect of making it a heterogeneous group of cells with different properties. It makes diagnosis & treatment more difficult.
Many carcinogens have multiple roles. They can take part in more than one of these steps, and do so at: (1) different times, and (2) different concentrations. Dioxins, which are common byproducts of incineration, suppress immunity, as well as induce mutations. This is why there is no such thing as a “safe” dose of a carcinogen. Similar exposures may pose very different threats to different people or at different times. e.g., those whose cells are already initiated, may react to trace amounts and move to the next stages.
We are constantly exposed to more than one type of carcinogen at the same time and to many exposures of the same carcinogens over periods of time. There may be cumulative effects from multiple exposures. DDT and another carcinogen, called AAPA, accelerate tumor formation when applied simultaneously, although neither alone is capable of doing so. This effect is called synergism.
A Real War on Cancer
For many years, BRCA research went under-funded and the whole issue of BRCA was virtually ignored by both government and private research institutions.
Finally, in the early nineties, women began to take note of the success of the Gay Community in turning these institutions’ attention to AIDs research. Women quickly showed that they had learned a lesson in the politics of disease. The Breast Cancer Fund, founded by women, emphasizes that women must stop thinking of BRCA as only a personal tragedy, and demand more emphasis on true prevention, removal of carcinogens from our environment.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Women are showered at that time with literature emphasizing prevention and early detection. The message is: get a mammogram, go on a low fat diet, exercise, and cut back on alcohol consumption.
There is not one word about primary prevention though – removing chemical carcinogens from our environment. Is this merely an oversight?
The chief sponsor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month is AstraZenica, a giant multinational corporation, which manufactures the BRCA chemo- prevention drug, Tamoxifen. It also produces herbicides and fungicides. In addition, AstraZenica now owns the Salick chain of cancer treatment centers.
This seems like a cozy arrangement for AstraZenica. It produces suspected BRCA carcinogens. It is also involved in the treatment of cancer, and it is now selling a BRCA-prevention drug. It also gets all kinds of good publicity from Breast Cancer Prevention Month, and uses that to deflect our attention away from the environmental causes of cancer.
Sandra Steingraber, author of “Living Downstream”, a book documenting the environmental causes of cancer, states that “By emphasizing personal habits rather than carcinogens, they frame the cause of the disease as a problem of behavior rather than as a problem of exposure to disease-causing agents…. It presumes that the ongoing contamination of our air, food, & water is an immutable fact of the human condition to which we must accommodate ourselves.”
How Can We Really Win The “War On Cancer”?
The most important action we can take is to make the ‘Precautionary Principle’ the law of the land. The Principle states, in part, that "When an activity raises threats of harm to human health, or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context,
the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of
proof." The European Union has already invoked the Precautionary Principle, first against Genetically Engineered food, and now against suspected carcinogenic agents.
Last, but not least, join an activist organization that will represent your interests. The next time that you are asked to donate to a ‘cure for cancer’, you might consider the Breast Cancer Fund when you ponder where your money will be most effective. | <urn:uuid:93860339-aa3d-4005-aa97-3afc1095565d> | CC-MAIN-2014-42 | http://ancientpathwaystoasustainablefuture.org/1tag/environment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-42/segments/1413507443883.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20141017005723-00033-ip-10-16-133-185.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965323 | 4,216 | 2.75 | 3 | 2.912085 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Health |
Talking about the Israel-Palestine conflict and the role of the UNO in making sure that peace prevails on both sides, it can be a little daunting to know that not much has been done or offered by UNO in the matter. UNO or united nations organizations is the continuation of the league of nations that was around World War II and then got renamed as UNO with various changes done to the concept.
The most obvious role that UNO has played is in the partition of Palestine in 1947 and the creation of Israel in the year 1948. By the end of the year, UNO did pass resolution 194 which clearly stated that war-affected Palestinians can go back to their homes and will even receive compensations for their losses. Another big development that is as cunning as it gets is that Israel joined UNO the very year and has been its member since.
Taking the advantage of becoming a member of the UN and running its vicious schemes Israel abruptly made sure that the UN has no involvement on the political side of things which obstructed the course of Palestinian refugees getting compensations, land, and resources for the losses that they did bear in the recent war. Thus began the manipulative series of events that led to further deterioration of Palestinians, their civil and human rights while Israel rose to power and the UN was nothing more than a Puppet in all of this.
By the time of 1967 US, France, Britain, and the Soviet Union were in charge and did support the corrupt and hollow tactics of Israel while neglecting the very issue of Palestinian’s rights and a chance at making their own state and government. Instead, they were forced to live and being ruled by Israel having no concept of self-defense or even the basic human rights that they should be given.
The current escalation that is taking place is the result of Israel’s vile tactics and the very propaganda of destroying Palestine and its residents to take over and build a country for themselves and it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the UN is also to blame for all of this. Because they never stepped in and tightened the domains of law and equality around Israel so Palestinians should have their chance at an independent state for themselves.
Since way back Palestinians are only termed as refugees no one has ever struck on the issue that they should be given a separate state or identity just as Israel or other countries living around them. This is a planned scheme and at the center of it lies the genocide of Palestinians and removal of the residents from their own land, they are always termed as refugees but before all of this started they had their own identity and a state, to begin with. Even today Israel is trying its very best to cast Palestinians out of their land in this oppressive occupation and wants to claim event the lasting pieces of land that they have, UN should step in now when there is still time and make sure that Palestinians get their chance at a free country and the rights they are entitled to. | <urn:uuid:f55a07ba-32a0-4099-a8c7-ffa1152e9695> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://mydailypapers.com/what-has-been-the-role-of-uno-in-the-israel-palestine-conflict/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510214.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20230926143354-20230926173354-00165.warc.gz | en | 0.983136 | 596 | 2.765625 | 3 | 2.968176 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Politics |
Public release date: 01-Oct-2008
Coffee is reported to be one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world, and the potential health effects have been widely studied (1, 2). Recently, data from multiple large prospective studies in Europe and North America have shown that habitual coffee consumption is associated with a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (3–8). It is hypothesized that a complex mixture of minerals, antioxidants, and phytonutrient compounds in coffee affect glucose metabolism (9–17). However, the precise mechanisms are unclear.
Tea is also considered one of the world’s most widely consumed beverages, only second to water by some accounts with a per capita estimate of ≈120 mL/d (18). Of the total amount of tea produced, 75% is black, 23% is green, and 2% is oolong (19). The antioxidative and biological properties of tea have led to a developing body of scientific research related to its association with multiple chronic diseases (20, 21). Diabetes-related research has shown the potential for benefits of green and black teas in glucose and insulin metabolism in rats (22–26), unclear associations in cohort studies (5, 7, 27, 28), and inconclusive evidence in trials (29, 30).
The Singapore Chinese Health Study, a population-based, hypothesis-testing, prospective cohort investigation of >63 000 Chinese men and women in Singapore presents a unique and important population in which to examine the association of coffee and green and black tea consumption in relation to the incidence of type 2 diabetes. There has been much study and reasonable consistency on the coffee-diabetes association in Western cultures on populations of similar ethnic homogeneity; however, this cannot rule out some confounding innate to these studies of similar populations. Therefore, data on this topic from studies of other ethnic groups would be highly informative. Second, not many populations outside of white populations drink substantial amounts of coffee. Probably because of its British colonial legacy and its current wealth and cosmopolitan characteristics, Singapore is an Asian country with relatively high consumption of both coffee and tea. There is a wide spectrum of consumption patterns of coffee, black tea, and green tea in this population. As such, the aim of this study was to investigate the nature of the relation between amounts of consumption of coffee, green tea, and black tea with risk of incident type 2 diabetes.
SUBJECTS AND METHODS
Participants were from the Singapore Chinese Health Study, a population-based, prospective cohort of diet and cancer risk. From April 1993 through December 1998 a total of 63 257 Chinese women and men aged 45–74 y enrolled in the study (31). Study subjects were restricted to the 2 major dialect groups of Chinese in Singapore, ie, the Hokkiens and the Cantonese, who originated from the contiguous provinces of Fujian and Guangdong in the southern part of China (32). Participants were residents of government-built housing estates, where 86% of the Singapore population resided during the enrollment period (31). Recruitment occurred by an initial letter that informed potential participants of the study and invited them to participate. Approximately 5–7 d later, a door-to-door invitation was given; ≈85% of eligible subjects who were invited responded positively (32). At recruitment a face-to-face interview was conducted in the subject’s home by a trained interviewer with the use of a structured, scanner-readable questionnaire that requested information on demographics, height, weight, use of tobacco, usual physical activity, menstrual and reproductive history (women only), medical history, and family history of cancer and a 165-item food-frequency section that assessed usual dietary intake (32). A follow-up telephone interview took place between 1999 and 2004 for 52 325 cohort members (83% of recruited cohort), and questions were asked to update tobacco and alcohol use, medical history, and menopausal status of women. The institutional review boards at the National University of Singapore and the University of Minnesota approved this study.
Assessment of coffee and tea intakes and other covariates
Dietary factors were collected with the use of a semiquantitative food-frequency questionnaire (FFQ) during the interview. The questionnaire assessed 165 food items commonly consumed in the study population, and the respondent referred to accompanying photographs to select from 8 food-frequency categories (ranging from never or hardly ever to ≥2 times/d) and 3 portion sizes. The FFQ was subsequently validated against a series of 24-h dietary recall interviews (31) and selected biomarker studies (33, 34). A range of from 0.24 to 0.79 in correlation coefficients of energy or nutrients was obtained with the use of 2 methods (31).
Study subjects were asked to choose the intake frequency of coffee, green tea, and black tea from 9 predefined categories (never or hardly ever, 1–3 times/mo, once a week, 2–3 times/wk, 4–6 times/wk, once a day, 2–3 times/d, 4–5 times/d, and ≥6 times/d). The standard serving size was assigned on the questionnaire as 1 cup. Because decaffeinated coffee is rarely consumed in our study population, only caffeinated coffee was assessed; this decision was made during the development of the FFQ specific for this population (31). In addition, specific questions were asked about adding sugar, artificial sweetener, milk (all kinds), and nondairy creamer to coffee and tea with the use of the same 9 frequencies of intake but undefined amounts.
In conjunction with this cohort, the Singapore Food Composition Table was developed, a food-nutrient database that lists the values of 96 nutritive or nonnutritive components (including caffeine) per 100 g of cooked food and beverages in the diet of the Singaporean Chinese. By combining information obtained from the FFQ with nutrient values provided in this food-nutrient database, we were able to compute the mean daily intakes of caffeine and other nutrients for each subject (31).
Other known or suspected risk factors for diabetes assessed with the baseline questionnaire included age (in years), smoking habits or status (age started or quit, amount, frequency, and type), highest educational level reached, self-reported high blood pressure as diagnosed by a physician (yes or no, age, defined as systolic BP ≥ 140 mm Hg or diastolic BP ≥ 90 mm Hg), body mass index (BMI; in kg/m2) calculated with the use of self-reported height and weight, frequency of moderate (eg, brisk walking, bicycling on level ground) and strenuous (eg, jogging, bicycling on hills, tennis) physical activity.
Assessment of diabetes
Self-reported diabetes as diagnosed by a physician was evaluated at baseline, and participants with a history of diagnosed diabetes were excluded from analysis. Diabetes status was assessed again by the following question asked during the follow-up telephone interview: “Have you been told by a doctor that you have diabetes (high blood sugar)?” If the answer was yes, then the following question was asked: “Please also tell me the age at which you were first diagnosed?” Participants were classified as having incident diabetes if they reported developing diabetes at any time between the initial enrollment interview and the follow-up telephone interview that occurred between July 1999 and October 2004. The average follow up time was 5.7 y.
A validation study of the incident diabetes mellitus cases used 2 different methods. First, cases were ascertained through linkage with hospital records in a nationwide hospital-based discharge summary database, an administrative database in the Singapore Ministry of Health (35). If subjects in the study had been admitted to hospitals for diagnoses with diabetes-related International Classification of Diseases codes (250.00–250.92) after recruitment into the cohort, they were considered a valid case. A total of 949 cases were validated through the linkage. Cases that did not have hospitalization records available with diabetes-related diagnoses were contacted to answer a supplementary questionnaire about symptoms, diagnostic tests, and hypoglycemic therapy during a telephone interview. A total of 1321 subjects who reported incident diabetes but had no relevant hospitalization records were contacted. Some participants (n = 619) refused or were not available for further interview, whereas 702 (53%) agreed, of which 682 (97%) were considered valid cases. A valid case had the following 3 criteria: 1) confirmed diagnosis later than the baseline interview date, 2) diabetes still present at time of interview, and 3) use of oral medications or insulin injections to treat diabetes. No difference was observed between baseline coffee or tea consumption, age, sex, BMI, education level, or other potential modifying characteristics of the participants and nonparticipants in the validation study.
We excluded from analysis any participants who died before the follow-up interview (7722); reported baseline diabetes (5696); reported cancer, heart disease, or stroke (5975); had missing BMI or physical activity data (6753); reported implausibly high (>5000 kcal) or low (<600 kcal) energy intakes; were missing data on the main exposures of interest; had ≥40 items blank on the FFQ; or were lost to follow-up (<1%). These, along with further exclusion of 20 participants whose diabetes status was not clear after the validation study, left 36 908 participants and 1889 incident cases. Analysis of only diabetes cases who participated in the validation study or had diabetes-related International Classification of Diseases codes in their hospital records did not produce materially different results compared with inclusion of all incident diabetes cases.
Person-years for each participant were calculated from the year of recruitment to the year of reported type 2 diabetes diagnosis or year of follow-up telephone interview for those who did not report a diabetes diagnosis. Relative risks per category of coffee, black tea, and green tea intake were estimated by Cox proportional hazards regression models (PROC TPHREG) with simultaneous adjustment for many demographic, lifestyle, and dietary variables. All regression analyses were conducted with the use of SAS version 9.1 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC). No evidence was observed that proportional hazards assumptions were violated. Coffee categories were based on round and logical intake cutoffs that would also provide an ample number of participants and cases per category and are as follows: nondaily, 1 cup/d, 2–3 cups/d, and ≥4 cups/d. Black and green tea categories were based on intakes that also allowed for logical cutoffs and provided sufficient participants and cases per category and are as follows: never or monthly (0–3 cups/mo), weekly (1–6 cups/wk), and daily (1 to ≥6 cups/d). Tests for trend were computed with consumption categories as ordinal variables.
Two main models were constructed. Each model included coffee, black tea, and green tea as well as risk factors known to be associated with type 2 diabetes. The first model adjusted for age (<50, 50–54, 55–59, 60–64, ≥65 y), sex, ethnicity (Hokkien compared with Cantonese), year of interview (1993–1995, 1996–1998), education (none, primary, secondary or more), smoking (no, former, current), alcohol intake (no, monthly, weekly, daily), baseline hypertension (yes or no), BMI (continuous quadratic), moderate activity and strenuous activity (h/wk), and dietary covariates of energy intake (kcal/d), fiber intake (g/1000 kcal), total meat intake (g/1000 kcal), saturated fat (g/1000 kcal), soft drink and juice consumption (glasses/wk), and dairy intake (g/1000 kcal) in quintiles. The second model included those variables in model 1 plus components of coffee and tea intakes that may be on the causal pathway between the beverage intakes and type 2 diabetes risk. For coffee, model 2 included magnesium (in mg/d) in quintiles. For the teas, model 2 included intake in quintiles of magnesium (in mg/d) and caffeine (in mg/d) but not coffee. Pearson’s correlation coefficients between coffee and caffeine, black tea and caffeine, green tea and caffeine, and soft drinks and caffeine were 0.821, 0.102, 0.225, and 0.093, respectively. Total caffeine amounts (in mg/d) by beverage intake amount are presented in Table 1. In addition, one last set of models, including the common additions (milk, sugar, artificial sweetener, nondairy creamer in the same frequencies as each beverage) plus the variables in model 1, were run to determine whether they play any potential mechanistic role in single or logical combinations (eg, milk alone or artificial sweetener and milk). However, none of the results materially differed from model 1, so they are not presented.
Table 1: Daily caffeine intake by beverage intake
|0 cup/wk||57.6 (56.5, 58.8)1|
|1 cup/d||115.9 (115.1, 116.7)|
|2-3 cups/d||240.2 (239.1, 241.2)|
|≥4 cups/d||437.5 (433.2, 441.7)|
|0 cup/mo||144.0 (142.7, 145.4)|
|Weekly||151.5 (149.1, 153.9)|
|Daily||180.8 (177.5, 184.1)|
|0 cup/mo||138.0 (136.8, 139.3)|
|Weekly||145.0 (142.7, 147.3)|
|Daily||222.6 (219.2, 226.0)|
|Almost never||145.7 (144.4, 147.0)|
|1-3 cups/mo||142.5 (139.1, 145.9)|
|1 cup/wk||154.7 (150.0, 159.4)|
|≥2 cups/wk||181.8 (178.2, 185.4)|
Of 36 908 men and women, mean (±SD) age of 54.8 ± 7.5 y with 5.7 mean years of follow-up, 1889 developed type 2 diabetes. Selected characteristics of the study population according to consumption of coffee, black tea, and green tea are presented in Table 2. Seventy-one percent of the cohort reported consuming ≥1 cup of coffee/d, whereas ≈12% reported consuming ≥1 cup of black or green tea daily. Pearson’s correlation coefficients for coffee and black tea, coffee and green tea, and green tea and black tea were −0.146, −0.069, and 0.103, respectively. Weak positive correlations between soft drinks or juice and coffee (0.028) and between soft drinks or juice with black tea (0.092) and green tea (0.009) were observed.
Table 2: Baseline characteristics according to coffee, black tea, and green tea consumption
|Coffee||Black tea||Green tea|
|Nondaily (n = 10 737)||1 cup/d (n = 13 353)||2–3 cups/d (n = 11 381)||≥4 cups/d (n = 1437)||P for trend||Never or monthly (n = 25 672)||Weekly (n = 6833)||Daily (n = 4403)||P for trend||Never or monthly (n = 25 677)||Weekly (n = 6652)||Daily (n = 4579)||P for trend|
|Age (y)||54.5 ± 7.61||55.0 ± 7.6||54.8 ± 7.3||54.6 ± 7.1||0.08||55.2 ± 7.6||53.8 ± 7.2||54.0 ± 7.1||<0.0001||54.9 ± 7.5||54.1 ± 7.3||55.4 ± 7.6||0.38|
|Sex, female (%)||59.0||63.0||50.0||37.0||<0.0001||62.0||48.0||39.0||<0.0001||59.0||52.0||47.0||<0.0001|
|BMI (kg/m2)||23.0 ± 3.5||23.1 ± 3.5||22.9 ± 3.5||22.6 ± 3.6||0.001||23.0 ± 3.5||23.1 ± 3.4||23.1 ± 3.5||<0.001||22.8 ± 3.5||23.3 ± 3.4||23.6 ± 3.5||<0.0001|
|Secondary education (%)||40.0||32.0||31.0||30.0||<0.0001||30.0||41.0||45.0||<0.0001||31.0||40.0||40.0||<0.0001|
|Alcohol (drinks/wk)||0.8 ± 3.5||0.9 ± 3.7||1.1 ± 4.1||1.5 ± 5.0||<0.0001||0.9 ± 3.8||1.0 ± 3.5||1.3 ± 4.4||<0.0001||0.9 ± 3.7||1.0 ± 4.0||1.2 ± 4.2||<0.0001|
|Ever smoked (%)||19.0||23.0||35.0||57.0||<0.0001||26.0||28.0||33.0||<0.0001||27.0||26.0||31.0||<0.0001|
|Strenuous activity (min/wk)||16.0 ± 72.0||11.0 ± 57.0||14.0 ± 70.0||13.0 ± 69.0||0.004||11.0 ± 60||18.0 ± 75||20.0 ± 76||<0.0001||11.0 ± 58||18.0 ± 75||20.0 ± 79||<0.0001|
|Saturated fat (% kcal)||8.8 ± 2.5||9.0 ± 2.5||9.1 ± 2.5||9.3 ± 2.5||<0.0001||8.9 ± 2.5||9.3 ± 2.5||9.1 ± 2.5||<0.0001||8.9 ± 2.5||9.3 ± 2.5||8.9 ± 2.5||<0.0001|
|Dietary fiber (g/1000 kcal)||9.0 ± 2.8||8.5 ± 2.5||7.6 ± 2.3||6.8 ± 2.2||<0.0001||8.3 ± 2.6||8.4 ± 2.5||8.2 ± 2.6||0.21||8.2 ± 2.6||8.6 ± 2.5||8.7 ± 2.8||<0.0001|
|Coffee (cups/d)||0.1 ± 0.2||1.0 ± 0.1||2.5 ± 0.3||4.9 ± 0.8||<0.0001||1.5 ± 1.2||1.4 ± 1.1||1.0 ± 1.1||<0.0001||1.5 ± 1.2||1.3 ± 1.1||1.2 ± 1.1||<0.0001|
|Black tea (cups/d)||0.4 ± 0.7||0.2 ± 0.4||0.2 ± 0.5||0.2 ± 0.5||<0.0001||0.01 ± 0.02||0.3 ± 0.2||1.5 ± 0.8||<0.0001||0.2 ± 0.5||0.3 ± 0.5||0.3 ± 0.7||<0.0001|
|Green tea (cups/d)||0.4 ± 0.9||0.3 ± 0.7||0.3 ± 0.7||0.2 ± 0.7||<0.0001||0.3 ± 0.8||0.3 ± 0.8||0.4 ± 0.8||<0.0001||0.01 ± 0.02||0.3 ± 0.2||2.0 ± 1.3||<0.0001|
Higher coffee intake was associated with being male, a lower BMI, less education, lower prevalence of hypertension, higher alcohol consumption and smoking, increased energy and decreased fiber intakes, increased caffeine intake, and low amounts of tea consumption. Daily black tea intake was associated with being male, increasing education levels, increasing alcoholic drink consumption and smoking, increasing physical activity time, and increasing energy intake. Daily green tea intake was associated with increasing BMI, prevalent hypertension, alcoholic drink consumption and smoking, physical activity time, and dietary fiber intake. Coffee consumption significantly decreased across increasing amounts of black and green tea consumption; however, both tea groups consumed ≥1 cup of coffee/d regardless of tea consumption.
Relative risks of incident type 2 diabetes by consumption of coffee, black tea, and green tea are shown in Table 3 for 2 main regression models. Participants drinking ≥4 cups of coffee/d had a 30% reduction in the risk of diabetes [relative risk (RR): 0.70; 95% CI: 0.53, 0.93] compared with participants who reported nondaily coffee consumption after adjustment for demographic, lifestyle, and dietary confounders (model 1). Further adjustment for magnesium did not alter the association. Exclusion of diabetes cases with <2 y of follow-up time did not materially alter the results. Tests for interaction of coffee consumption by sex, age, or BMI provided no evidence of effect modification.
Table 3: Hazard rate ratio of incident type 2 diabetes mellitus according to coffee, black tea, and green tea consumption
|Subjects||Cases||Model 11||Model 22|
|1 cup/d||13 353||708||0.96 (0.86, 1.08)3||0.94 (0.81, 1.09)|
|2–3 cups/d||11 381||583||0.90 (0.79, 1.02)||0.83 (0.68, 1.01)|
|≥4 cups/d||1437||57||0.70 (0.53, 0.93)||0.70 (0.53, 0.93)|
|P for trend||0.02||0.02|
|Never / monthly||25 672||1324||1.00||1.00|
|Weekly||6833||353||0.97 (0.86, 1.09)||0.95 (0.84, 1.08)|
|Daily||4403||212||0.86 (0.74, 1.00)||0.84 (0.71, 0.99)|
|P for trend||0.07||0.05|
|Never / monthly||25 677||1265||1.00||1.00|
|Weekly||6652||351||1.05 (0.93, 1.18)||1.03 (0.91, 1.16)|
|Daily||4579||273||1.12 (0.98, 1.29)||1.06 (0.90, 1.25)|
|P for trend||0.09||0.49|
2 Coffee was further adjusted for magnesium. Black and green teas were further adjusted for magnesium and caffeine (minus coffee)
3 Relative risk; 95% CI in parentheses (all such values)
Among daily drinkers of black tea we observed a suggestive inverse association with risk of incident type 2 diabetes. In model 1, after adjustment for demographic, lifestyle, and dietary factors we observed a RR of 0.86 (95% CI: 0.74, 1.00, P for trend: 0.07) in daily compared with never or monthly consumption of black tea. On further adjustment for caffeine and dietary magnesium in model 2, the association was slightly stronger (RR: 0.84; 95% CI: 0.71, 0.99, P for trend: 0.05). No association was observed between green tea consumption and risk of incident type 2 diabetes. Tests for interaction of black or green tea by sex, age, or BMI offered no evidence of effect modification. Regardless of how caffeine was examined in this population, it had no association with type 2 diabetes (data not shown). The hazard rate ratio from model 2 of the tea analysis for the fifth compared with the first quintile of caffeine was 0.97 (95% CI: 0.83, 1.14).
In Chinese men and women living in Singapore we observed an inverse association between coffee intake and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus, a suggestive inverse association between black tea intake and diabetes risk, and no association between green tea intake and diabetes risk. The inverse association for black tea with risk of diabetes became slightly stronger after adjustment for magnesium and caffeine intake. The findings for coffee are consistent with multiple other prospective cohort studies on this topic (3–7, 27, 36–38), as well as a recent meta-analysis (8). Of note, one study observed no association between coffee consumption and diabetes risk (39). To our knowledge there are no long-term trials published on this topic.
Multiple components of coffee could explain or contribute to the association with decreased risk of type 2 diabetes. Magnesium is a component of coffee, and higher dietary intakes may be associated with lower risk of type 2 diabetes in large prospective cohort studies (14–16), improved insulin sensitivity, and glucose control (40, 41). However, dietary magnesium was not associated with type 2 diabetes risk in our cohort; thus, it did not change the relative risks for coffee intake. Caffeine’s possible role in type 2 diabetes risk is still unclear, and caffeine and coffee may be too highly correlated to take any mechanistic analysis approaches in this study. Indeed, there are mixed findings in the literature (5, 7, 8, 38, 42–46), probably because many studies are not able to thoroughly assess decaffeinated coffee. An alternative explanation to our findings could be that coffee drinking may be an indicator of sensitivity to caffeine, a potential agent that decreases insulin sensitivity (7, 47), implying a physiologic susceptibility to the pathogenic processes leading to type 2 diabetes. Conversely, evidence from a recent meta-analysis and prospective cohort study found decaffeinated coffee to be inversely associated (8) and more strongly inversely associated than caffeinated coffee with incident type 2 diabetes (38). In addition, a clinical study found that glucose intolerance because of caffeine is blunted by coffee (47), suggesting that other coffee components besides caffeine may be more important with respect to type 2 diabetes risk.
Our findings underscore the possibility that any causal mechanism involved is probably due to the many other minerals and phytochemicals or to the interaction of these components and the overall antioxidant capacity of coffee. However, we were not able to examine these possibilities. Hypotheses on specific bioactive components are driven by laboratory and clinical studies relating to chlorogenic acid, a phenolic compound in coffee (9, 48, 49), quinides (12), and the potential of polyphenolic compounds contributing to a lower iron status (50, 51). Moreover, another hypothesis is coffee’s high antioxidant activity, and a high antioxidant contribution to the diet may reduce free radical generation (52), thus protecting the pancreatic β cells from oxidative stress or potentially promoting insulin sensitivity in the peripheral tissues (17).
Unlike most other studies on this topic, we specifically assessed green and black teas, whereas past studies have typically grouped tea types into one category and have reported null findings (5, 7, 27, 53). A retrospective cohort study in a Japanese population showed that a high intake of green tea, but not black tea, was associated with a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes (28). However, there are potential methodologic concerns in that study with respect to population selection and follow-up because the final analysis included only 17 413 of the original 110 792 participants. Of note, that study did observe a much higher intake of green tea than in our study.
In our study we were not able to assess specific mechanisms beyond any contribution magnesium and caffeine may play in the tea-diabetes association. Although our results in the main model are only suggestive of an inverse association between black tea intake and risk of type 2 diabetes, if there is a true causal relation, it may be explained by a number of plausible mechanisms from laboratory and clinical investigations related to improved glucose metabolism (22–26), antiinflammatory activity (54), insulin-potentiating activity (55), and the ability of tea extracts to induce malabsorption of carbohydrates in humans (30). Those studies all considered tea from the plant Camellia sinensis, as opposed to herbal teas that do not contain any leaves from the plant.
To our knowledge this is the first large prospective study addressing the topic of coffee, black tea, and green tea consumption and incident type 2 diabetes in an Asian population. Other strengths of this study include the high participant response rate, <1% lost to follow-up, data obtained through a detailed face-to-face interview that included a FFQ specific to this population, and validated diabetes case status with a high positive predictive value obtained through the validation study.
Limitations include potential misclassification of the exposures because of poor self-report, biases, and other errors; this would probably bias the results toward the null, assuming it is nondifferential in nature. Residual confounding as an explanation also needs to be considered, yet this appears unlikely to play an important role because of the observation that the relative risk for the coffee and diabetes association was strengthened (away from the null) when we adjusted for lifestyle and dietary factors. In addition, we have not estimated the negative predictive value of our diabetes definition, although missing cases in this manner would tend to bias the relative risks toward the null; this is a relatively benign threat to the validity of the study given the findings for coffee and diabetes risk. In addition, although we were able to study both black and green tea consumption, our results only apply to a smaller range of intake compared with coffee.
In conclusion, we observed a significant inverse association between coffee consumption and risk of incident type 2 diabetes mellitus in middle-aged Chinese men and women of Singapore. We also observed a suggestive inverse association between black tea consumption and incident type 2 diabetes in a population at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes. These findings are important because coffee and tea are 2 of the most commonly consumed beverages worldwide and other prospective studies on this topic have been restricted to essentially European-based populations, whereas Asians have among the world’s highest rates of type 2 diabetes. Second, we were able to take advantage of our rich data set and the unique dietary patterns in Singapore to simultaneously examine the associations of coffee, black tea, and green tea in the same analysis. The associations we observed are noteworthy because they provide evidence that the coffee findings in other prospective cohort studies are not likely artifacts of the reported dietary patterns, nor are they likely to be explained by residual confounding. Further human studies, especially clinical trials, are needed to investigate the role of long-term coffee and tea consumption, and their innate bioactive compounds, in relation to the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Indeed, diet plays an important role in the prevention of diabetes. Given the high consumption of coffee and tea worldwide and the growing type 2 diabetes epidemic, especially in Asia, these findings convey a potential high significance for public health. However, it is too early to recommend increasing coffee and tea consumption until there is more thorough data from clinical trials related to the topic, with respect to not only the possible benefits but possible side effects or harm as well.
We thank Ms. Siew-Hong Low (National University of Singapore) for supervising the field work of the Singapore Chinese Health Study and Ms. Kazuko Arakawa (University of Minnesota) for the development and management of the cohort study database.
The author’s responsibilities were as follows—AOO: contributed to the study design, conducted the statistical analysis, and wrote the first draft of the paper along with editing of further drafts; MAP (guarantor): contributed to the study design, statistical analysis, and writing and editing of the paper; W-PK and MCY: contributed to the study design and writing and editing of the paper; KA: contributed to the statistical analysis and editing of the paper; H-PL: made important contributions to the writing of the paper. None of the authors had a personal or financial conflict of interest.
Supported by the National Cancer Institute (grants R01 CA55069, R35 CA53890, and R01 CA80205).
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- Tuomilehto J, Hu G, Bidel S, et al. .Coffee consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus among middle-aged Finnish men and women. JAMA 2004;291:1213–9
- van Dam RM, Feskens EJ. Coffee consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Lancet 2002;360:1477–8
- Salazar-Martinez E, Willett WC, Ascherio A, et al. .Coffee consumption and risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus. Ann Intern Med 2004;140:1–8
- Rosengren A, Dotevall A, Wilhelmsen L, Thelle D, Johansson S. Coffee and incidence of diabetes in Swedish women: a prospective 18-year follow-up study. J Intern Med 2004;255:89–95
- Greenberg JA, Axen KV, Schnoll R, Boozer CN. Coffee, tea and diabetes: the role of weight loss and caffeine. Int J Obes 2005;29:1121–9
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- Andrade-Cetto A, Wiedenfield H. Hypoglycemic effect of Cecropia obtusifolia on streptozotocin diabetic rats. J Ethnopharmacol 2001;78:145–9
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- McCarty M. A chlorogenic acid-induced increase in GLP-1 production may mediate the impact of heavy coffee consumption on diabetes risk. Med Hypotheses 2005;64:848–53
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- US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service Brewing up the latest tea research Internet: http://www.ars.usda.gov (accessed September 2007)
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- Cabrera C, Artacho R, Gimenez R. Beneficial effects of green tea—a review. J Am Coll Nutr 2006;25(2):79–99
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- Yang M, Wang C, Chen H. Green, oolong and black tea extracts modulate lipid metabolism in hyperlipidemia rats fed high-sucrose diet. J Nutr Biochem 2001;12:14–20
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- van Dam RM, Willett WC, Manson JE, Hu FB. Coffee, caffeine, and risk of type 2 diabetes: a prospective cohort study in younger and middle-aged U.S. women. Diabetes Care 2006;29(2):398–403
- Iso H, Chigusa D, Wakai K, et al. .The relationship between green tea and total caffeine intake and risk for self-reported type 2 diabetes among Japanese adults. Ann Intern Med 2006;144:554–62
- Fukino Y, Shimbo M, Aoki N, et al. .Randomized controlled trial for an effect of green tea consumption on insulin resistance and inflammation markers. J Nutr Sci Vitaminol (Tokyo) 2005;51:335–42
- Zhong L, Furne JK, Levitt MD. An extract of black, green, and mulberry teas causes malabsorption of carbohydrate but not of triacylglycerol in healthy volunteers. Am J Clin Nutr 2006;84:551–5
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- Seow A, Shi CY, Chung FL, et al. .Urinary total isothiocyanate (ITC) in a population-based sample of middle-aged and older Chinese in Singapore: relationship with dietary total ITC and glutathione S-transferase M1/T1/P1 genotypes. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 1998;7:775–81
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- van Dam RM, Dekker JM, Nijpels G, Stehouwer CD, Bouter LM, Heine RJ. Coffee consumption and incidence of impaired fasting glucose, impaired glucose tolerance, and type 2 diabetes: the Hoorn Study. Diabetologia 2004;47(12):2152–9
- Carlsson S, Hammar N, Grill V, Kaprio J. Coffee consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes in Finnish twins. Int J Epidemiol 2004;33(3):616–7
- Pereira MA, Parker ED, Folsom AR. Coffee consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus: an 11 year-prospective study of 28,812 postmenopausal women. Arch Intern Med 2006;166:1311–6
- Reunanen A, Heliovaara M, Aho K. Coffee consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Lancet 2003;361(9358):702–3
- Guerrero-Romero F, Tamez-Perez HE, Gonzalez-Gonzalez G, et al. .Oral magnesium supplementation improves insulin sensitivity in non-diabetic subjects with insulin resistance. A double-blind placebo-controlled randomized trial. Diabetes Metab 2004;30:253–8
- Barbagallo M, Dominguez LJ, Galioto A, et al. .Role of magnesium in insulin action, diabetes and cardio-metabolic syndrome X. Mol Aspects Med 2003;24(1-3):39–52
- Greenberg JA, Boozer CN, Geliebter A. Coffee, diabetes, and weight control. Am J Clin Nutr 2006;84:682–93
- Isogawa A, Noda M, Takahashi Y, Kadowaki T, Tsugane S. Coffee consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Lancet 2003;361(9358):703–4
- Lane JD, Barkauskas CE, Surwit RS, Feinglos MN. Caffeine impairs glucose metabolism in type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Care 2004;27(8):2047–8
- Graham TE, Sathasivam P, Rowland M, et al. .Caffeine ingestion elevates plasma insulin response in humans during an oral glucose tolerance test. Can J Physiol Pharmacol 2001;79(7):559–65
- Greer F, Hudson R, Ross R, Graham T. Caffeine ingestion decreases glucose disposal during a hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp in sedentary humans. Diabetes 2001;50(10):2349–54
- Battram DS, Arthur R, Weekes A, et al. .The glucose intolerance induced by caffeinated coffee ingestion is less pronounced than that due to alkaloid caffeine in men. J Nutr 2006;136:1276–80
- Johnston KL, Clifford MN, Morgan LM. Coffee acutely modifies gastrointestinal hormone secretion and glucose tolerance in humans: glycemic effects of chlorogenic acid and caffeine. Am J Clin Nutr 2003;78:728–33
- Meier JJ, Hucking K, Holst JJ, et al. .Reduced insulinotropic effect of gastric inhibitory polypeptide in first-degree relatives of patients with type 2 diabetes. Diabetes 2001;50(11):2497–504
- Hurrell RF, Reddy M, Cook JD. Inhibition of non-haem iron absorption in man by polyphenolic-containing beverages. Br J Nutr 1999;81:289–95
- Jiang R, Manson JE, Meigs JB, et al. .Body iron stores in relation to risk of type 2 diabetes in apparently healthy women. JAMA 2004;291:711–7
- Svilaas A, Sakhi AK, Andersen LF, et al. .Intakes of antioxidants in coffee, wine, and vegetables are correlated with plasma carotenoids in humans. J Nutr 2004;134(3):562–7
- Hu G, Jousilahti P, Peltonen M, et al. .Joint association of coffee consumption and other factors to the risk of type 2 diabetes: a prospective study in Finland. Int J Obes 2006;30:1742–9
- Nag Chaudhuri AK, Karmakar S, Roy D, Pal S, Pal M, Sen T. Anti-inflammatory activity of Indian black tea (Sikkim variety). Pharmacol Res 2005;51:169–75
- Anderson RA, Polansky MM. Tea enhances insulin activity. J Agric Food Chem 2002;50:7182–6 | <urn:uuid:09cd11af-27e9-43a9-a714-d57abb7c85b1> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | https://coffeescience.de/coffee-tea-and-incident-type-2-diabetes-the-singapore-chinese-health-study-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764500044.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20230203091020-20230203121020-00514.warc.gz | en | 0.893673 | 9,792 | 3.078125 | 3 | 2.94382 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Health |
Achalasia is a rare disease in children with an incidence of less than 5 % of patients have symptoms when they are below 15 years of age.Achalasia is a primary esophageal motility disorder with unknown etiology, characterized by absence of esophageal peristalsis and increased or normal resting pressure of the lower esophageal sphincter (LES) which fails to relax completely in response to swallowing.
The most common symptoms in children and adolescents are vomiting, progressive dysphagia and weight loss, whereas in adults symptoms are progressive dysphagia to solids and liquids, regurgitation, and chest pain. Recurrent pneumonia, nocturnal cough and feeding problem can also occur in children.
The diagnosis is made by careful symptomatic evaluation, barium swallow study and confirmed by esophageal manometry. Endoscopy with biopsy is necessary to rule out other diseases such as eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE)and esophageal stricture, cancer, or gastroduodenal pathology.
Treatment is palliative and the goal is symptomatic relief of the functional obstruction at the level of the LES. Both pneumatic dilations of the LES and Esophageal myotomy (Heller myotomy) are the most used treatment in children and they seem to be safe and effective .
The optimal management of achalasia in children and adolescents remains unclear and the literature lacks standardized technical procedures and follow-up protocols. However, it has been shown that surgical therapy is the best treatment for young male adults as they are not good responders to balloon dilation.
With the recent advances in minimal invasive techniques, laparoscopic Heller’s myotomy is our treatment of choice. Following surgery, there was a definite improvement in their symptoms as well as an increase in their weight. We like others advocate Laparoscopic Heller’s myotomy as the procedure of choice in the management of achalasia in children.
Cristiane Hallal • Carlos O. Kieling • Daltro L. Nunes • Cristina T. Ferreira • Guilherme Peterson • Se´rgio G. S. Barros • Cristina A. Arruda • Jose´ C. Fraga • Helena A. S. Goldani. Diagnosis, misdiagnosis, and associated diseases of achalasia in children and adolescents: a twelve-year single center experience. Pediatr Surg Int (2012) 28:1211–1217 | <urn:uuid:35033fd8-b6f9-4014-b509-fdc27adb7d46> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://paediatriclaparoscopy.in/achalasia-cardia/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224656869.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20230609233952-20230610023952-00196.warc.gz | en | 0.930662 | 532 | 3.25 | 3 | 2.677234 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Health |
Once everyone was safely on land, they realized the place was called Melita (known today as Malta). Melita was named by Phoenician sailors, and it is a Canaanite word meaning refuge. Paul’s knowledge of Hebrew would have been especially useful here in that the natives were so friendly and hospitable toward the people. Luke’s reference in Acts 28:1 to the fact they knew the island was called Melita may very well mean it was well named. The sailors may have recognized the island or the natives themselves may have disclosed the name, but it was the kindness and hospitality they had shown the shipwrecked people that Luke seems to mean when he says “they knew that the island was called Melita.”
What occurred next is a bit of a controversy. Luke tells us that, while Paul was gathering wood for the fire the natives had built to warm the shipwrecked people, a ‘viper’ bit him and while it was hanging onto his hand, Paul shook it off and it fell into the fire (Acts 28:3, 5). Today, Malta has no vipers, but this is not controversial, since it may very well be that as the population increased, the vipers were destroyed. What is controversial is that the ‘viper’ hung onto Paul’s hand. Vipers don’t do that. They bite and move on. However, if Paul (as the text claims) placed the wood he gathered onto the fire, and the viper came out of the wood which was placed on the fire, where would the beast go for safety? It seems to me that the beast not only bit Paul in defense, but held on for the same reason—to get out of the fire.
The natives, when they witnessed what occurred, presumed Paul to be an evil man and fate would not permit such a one to escape the violence of the shipwreck and survive. However, when nothing evil happened to Paul—i.e. he didn’t swell up or die—the natives then presumed he was a god (Acts 28:4, 6).
At this point, Luke introduces us to Publius, the ‘chief man of the island’ or its governor. Luke tells us that he entertained and lodged “us” for three days (Acts 28:7). There would be little wonder why he would show hospitality to Julius, the captain and owner of the shipwrecked vessel, and perhaps the more important of the passengers, but why would he entertain and lodge the prisoners, of whom Paul was one? The idea that all 276 people (Acts 27:37) are included in “us” doesn’t seem practical. So, who is “us” and why would Paul, a Roman prisoner be included in this expression of magnanimous hospitality?
It seems to me that the natives, some of whom may well have been Publius’ servants/slaves, told him of the viper incident and their impression that Paul was a ‘divine man’ of sorts. For this reason Paul and company were probably invited and entertained, as well as Julius and anyone else of notable standing. However, just as Barnabas and Paul at Lystra (cp. Acts 14) wouldn’t permit the locals to continue to presume they were gods, neither would Paul permit the idea to continue here either. When he found out Publius’ father was ill, Paul prayed and laid hands on him and he was healed (Acts 28:8). The fact that Paul prayed shows he had no power in himself to do the things he did. The power came from the one Paul served, namely Jesus, whom, no doubt (though the text is silent concerning this) he also preached during the three months he spent on the island (Acts 28:11). Additionally, Luke shows that many others brought their sick to Paul when they heard about his healing Publius’ father. This is reminiscent of what Jesus did for Peter’s mother-in-law in Luke 4:38-40. In both cases the relative of the healer’s host was healed and there followed additional healings for many others in the locale. In the case of Jesus’ healings, Luke clearly reports it in the context of the coming Kingdom of God. There is absolutely no reason to believe that Paul administered his office as healer or that Luke records the account of what Paul did for a different reason than this.
See F.F. Bruce, The Book of Acts, page 520-21.
See David G. Perterson, The Acts of the Apostles, page702. | <urn:uuid:4213bc0b-c3e0-4a83-86f8-2cf1e3fbc4e0> | CC-MAIN-2018-13 | https://thingspaulandluke.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/paul-on-the-island-of-malta/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-13/segments/1521257645550.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20180318071715-20180318091715-00751.warc.gz | en | 0.986655 | 972 | 3.515625 | 4 | 3.048338 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Religion |
Structuration theory, concept in sociology that offers perspectives on human behaviour based on a synthesis of structure and agency effects known as the “duality of structure.” Instead of describing the capacity of human action as being constrained by powerful stable societal structures (such as educational, religious, or political institutions) or as a function of the individual expression of will (i.e., agency), structuration theory acknowledges the interaction of meaning, standards and values, and power and posits a dynamic relationship between these different facets of society.
Theories of structure and agency
The nexus of structure and agency has been a central tenet in the field of sociology since its inception. Theories that argue for the preeminence of structure (also called the objectivist view in this context) resolve that the behaviour of individuals is largely determined by their socialization into that structure (such as conforming to a society’s expectations with respect to gender or social class). Structures operate at varying levels, with the research lens focused at the level appropriate to the question at hand. At its highest level, society can be thought to consist of mass socioeconomic stratifications (such as through distinct social classes). On a mid-range scale, institutions and social networks (such as religious or familial structures) might form the focus of study, and at the microscale one might consider how community or professional norms constrain agency. Structuralists describe the effect of structure in contrasting ways. French social scientist Émile Durkheim highlighted the positive role of stability and permanence, whereas philosopher Karl Marx described structures as protecting the few, doing little to meet the needs of the many.
In contrast, proponents of agency theory (also called the subjective view in this context) consider that individuals possess the ability to exercise their own free will and make their own choices. Here, social structures are viewed as products of individual action that are sustained or discarded, rather than as incommensurable forces.
Sociologists have questioned the polarized nature of the structure-agency debate, highlighting the synthesis of these two influences on human behaviour. A prominent scholar in this respect is British sociologist Anthony Giddens, who developed the concept of structuration. Giddens argues that just as an individual’s autonomy is influenced by structure, structures are maintained and adapted through the exercise of agency. The interface at which an actor meets a structure is termed “structuration.”
Thus, structuration theory attempts to understand human social behaviour by resolving the competing views of structure-agency and macro-micro perspectives. This is achieved by studying the processes that take place at the interface between the actor and the structure. Structuration theory takes the position that social action cannot be fully explained by the structure or agency theories alone. Instead, it recognizes that actors operate within the context of rules produced by social structures, and only by acting in a compliant manner are these structures reinforced. As a result, social structures have no inherent stability outside human action because they are socially constructed. Alternatively, through the exercise of reflexivity, agents modify social structures by acting outside the constraints the structures place on them.
Giddens’s framework of structure differs from that in the classic theory. He proposes three kinds of structure in a social system. The first is signification, where meaning is coded in the practice of language and discourse. The second is legitimation, consisting of the normative perspectives embedded as societal norms and values. Giddens’s final structural element is domination, concerned with how power is applied, particularly in the control of resources.
Learn More in these related Britannica articles:
social structure: Structuralism…Anthony Giddens suggested the term
structurationto express the view that social life is, to a certain extent, both dynamic and ordered.…
Sociology, a social science that studies human societies, their interactions, and the processes that preserve and change them. It does this by examining the dynamics of constituent parts of societies such as institutions, communities, populations, and gender, racial, or age groups. Sociology also studies social status or stratification, social movements,…
Human behaviour, the potential and expressed capacity for physical, mental, and social activity during the phases of human life. Humans, like other animal species, have a typical life course that consists of successive phases of growth, each of which is characterized by a…
Socialization, the process whereby an individual learns to adjust to a group (or society) and behave in a manner approved by the group (or society). According to most social scientists, socialization essentially represents the whole process of learning throughout the life course and is a central influence on the behaviour,…
Gender identity, an individual’s self-conception as being male or female, as distinguished from actual biological sex. For most persons, gender identity and biological characteristics are the same. There are, however, circumstances in which an individual experiences little or no connection between sex and gender; in transsexualism, for example, biological sexual…
More About Structuration theory1 reference found in Britannica articles
- social structure | <urn:uuid:f86f36b9-b6c1-46a5-9fd7-0c1b096e2927> | CC-MAIN-2019-22 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/structuration-theory | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-22/segments/1558232256082.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20190520162024-20190520184024-00467.warc.gz | en | 0.942306 | 1,039 | 3.328125 | 3 | 3.004334 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Education & Jobs |
Here’s a fun game you can play to get acquainted with systems thinking:
Take a sheet of paper and fold it in half. Now fold it in half again. Keep going until you’ve folded it six times. At this point, you’ve already managed one more fold than the Dalai Lama when Climate Interactive team member Prof. John Sterman challenged His Holiness to do this at MIT’s Global Systems 2.0 Forum.
You might notice that each fold has a bigger effect on the paper’s thickness than the last one, and after six, it may be difficult to fold it again. At this point it should be about one centimeter thick, and while that might not seem like much, the relative change is significant, considering that the thickness was negligible when you started.
Now, with this in mind, guess how thick it would be if it were folded 33 times.
The correct answer may seem a bit counterintuitive: if the paper were folded 33 times, it would be about 3,400 miles thick—equivalent to the distance from Boston, MA to Frankfurt, Germany.
This is because you double the paper’s thickness each time you fold it. After one fold, it’s twice as thick, after two folds, it’s four times as thick, and after 33 folds, it’s about 8.6 billion times as thick!
This is an exercise in exponential growth, and it’s a crucial part of understanding climate change and how serious it is.
Just like piece of paper grows slightly with each fold, the world economy grows slightly with each passing year—an average of about 3.5% in recent years. In order to sustain that growth, humans need to consume more, and this means more resource extraction, more deforestation and more carbon emissions.
Again, 3.5% might seem small, but if the world economy continues the same rate of growth, it will double over the next 20 years, and in 100 years, it will be 30 times bigger than it is today. At the current levels of economic activity, we are already consuming more than the earth can support, so operating under business as usual will soon become totally inconceivable. (See more detail here)
The good news? Our global economy is so inefficient with materials and energy that there are tremendous opportunities to reduce our environmental impact. We can use technology to develop more and better forms of renewable energy and we can combine engineering with smart public policy to create more efficient infrastructure.
On top of that, we don’t really need this endless growth. Studies have shown that a country’s economic development is not strongly linked with the general happiness of its people, as long as they can meet their basic needs.
“This is enormously important and it’s also extraordinarily good news,” John Sterman says when explaining this phenomenon.
“If,” he continues, “only more wealth could bring happiness, then in order to live within the limits of our planets, we would have to create much misery. But because that’s not true, those of us who are so rich but not so happy can change the way we live and provide the opportunity for those who need more to develop.”
Managing that transition is going to take bright, passionate people. And those people will need tools, resources, and ideas—all of which we hope to contribute via the Climate Leader, a free online course open to anyone who is dedicated to making a difference on climate change. If that sounds like you, you can still enroll and join over 1,000 other climate leaders from across the globe. | <urn:uuid:29cb5a11-5d1a-4a11-9f7d-159ba46f2a63> | CC-MAIN-2016-40 | https://www.climateinteractive.org/policy-exercises-and-serious-games/john-sterman-and-the-dalai-lama-investigating-growth-with-a-piece-of-paper/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-40/segments/1474738662251.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20160924173742-00210-ip-10-143-35-109.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957809 | 757 | 3.078125 | 3 | 2.707696 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Science & Tech. |
I130 Introduction to Cybersecurity
An overview of Introduction to Cybersecurity.
Professor Jean Camp
Introduction to Cybersecurity is designed to provide undergraduate students with a 10,000 ft overview of both cybersecurity as a concept and an area of study. The course will provide an opportunity to hear not only the faculty but also the professionals who protect the Indiana University network. Participation does not require understanding more than the lecture; as there are no technical requirements for taking the course. The course is ideal for those students who are enrolled in Informatics or Computer Science; but it is also extremely accessible to those who are simply curious as to the risks they face on the network. The material will be targeted at a level appropriate for freshman, and clarifying questions are more than welcome.
|| class participation
||in class and on on-course participation are both counted.
||due every week
In terms of participation both in the classroom and in the discussion area in On-Course are considered. If you are more comfortable speaking than writing, or more comfortable tin writing than speaking, you may choose only one. Participation should illustrate that any assigned reading has been complete. Participation that is not professional in manner will not be counted as a positive contribution.
In terms of the weekly writing, each week there is a 150 word commentary on the lecture. The commentary may be a summary, or a comment, or you may ask a question, or you may connect the lecture to some current event. The commentary must illustrate awareness (to be passable) and understanding (to be excellent) of the lecture materials.
This course introduces students to Security. The course will primarily focus on introduction to three core areas (technical aspects of security, organizational aspects of security and legal aspects of security). Through examples of security problems in real life, this course will illuminate fundamental ideas and concepts of information security.
October 25: The Course in a Nutshell
Professor Jean Camp
Introduction to the basic concepts of security. Introduction to the faculty, grading and class organization.
November 1: Your Privacy and Security
Bob Konicek, Network Administrator
As you use the computers and networks in Informatics, what does the school learn about you? Does this align with your expectations?
November 8: Security Protocols
Markus Jakobsson, Associate Professor, Informatics and Computer Science.
Protocols define the syntax and semantics of communication between devices. That is security protocols can be seen as games. Understanding security means understanding the rules and breaking security allows you to cheat.
November 15: Security in Practice
Mark Bruhn, Chief IT Security and Policy Officer, IU.
Security in theory is different from in practice. What does it mean to secure a network? How do network managers view security, and what are the real-world threats likely to be faced by security managers.
November 22:Thanksgiving Day recess
Thanksgiving Day recess
November 29: Malware on the Network
Raquel Hill, Assistant Professor, Informatics and Computer Science.
Connectivity is exposure. Network risks include denial of service, masquerade attacks, and directing hacking assaults. This session will focus on understanding the threats created on and in the network.
December 6: Malware in Peer to Peer Networks
Minaxi Gupta, Assistant Professor of Computer Science.
Security is based on concepts of transactions, log-in and specified roles. P2P can violate all those assumptions. What risk are you taking when you download your music. | <urn:uuid:d7ce52d5-9cd8-4a90-be7e-c9f2157d40e1> | CC-MAIN-2021-39 | http://www.ljean.com/classes/06_07/I130/Prospectus_130.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-39/segments/1631780057366.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20210922132653-20210922162653-00078.warc.gz | en | 0.920481 | 712 | 2.71875 | 3 | 2.448226 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Education & Jobs |
The five millimetre long crustacean, discovered by UK and US researchers, has been named Colymbosathon ecplecticos - derived from the Greek for "astounding swimmer with a large penis".
The well-endowed creature is surprisingly similar to modern relatives, despite being entombed nearly half a billion years ago, says the team.
David Siveter, a paleontologist at the University of Leicester, and colleagues unearthed the clamlike species in a rock formation in Herefordshire, UK. The creature possesses a hard shell, an organ for grabbing prey, six gills, as well as a "copulatory organ [that] is large and stout", says the team....
From Monty Python's Life of Brian:
I'm not Jewish ... I'm a Roman!
(But he's not quick enough to avoid another blow from the CENTURION.)
So, your father was a *WOMAN*. Who was he?
He was a centurion in the Jerusalem Garrison.
Oh. What was his name?
(An involuntary titter arises from the CENTURION.)
Centuwion, do we have anyone of that name in the gawwison?
Well ... no sir.
You sound vewwy sure ... have you checked?
Well ... no sir ... I think it's a joke, sir ... like ... Sillius Soddus
or ... Biggus Dickus.
What's so funny about Biggus Dickus?
Well ... it's a ... joke name, sir.
I have a vewwy gweat fwend in Wome called Biggus Dickus.
(Involuntary laughter from a nearby GUARD surprises PILATE.)
Silence! What is all this insolence? You will find yourself in
gladiator school vewwy quickly with wotten behaviour like that.
(The GUARD tries to stop giggling. PILATE turns away from him. He is angry.)
Can I go now sir ...
(The CENTURION strikes him.)
Wait till Biggus hears of this!
(The GUARD immediately breaks up again. PILATE turns on him.)
Wight! Centuwion ... take him away.
Oh sir, he only ...
I want him fighting wabid wild animals within a week.
(He starts to drag out the wretched GUARD. BRIAN notices that little
attention is being paid to him.)
I will not have my fwends widiculed by the common soldiewy.
(He walks slowly towards the other GUARDS.)
Now ... anyone else feel like a little giggle when I mention my fwend ...
(He goes right up to one of the GUARDS.)
Biggus ... Dickus. He has a wife you know.
(The GUARDS tense up.)
(The GUARDS relax.) | <urn:uuid:819473c9-88a6-4e29-9750-9001c32f4426> | CC-MAIN-2017-39 | http://lantoniou.blogspot.ca/2003/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-39/segments/1505818695375.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20170926085159-20170926105159-00381.warc.gz | en | 0.91064 | 616 | 2.9375 | 3 | 2.350595 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Science & Tech. |
from David Ruccio
As everyone knows, robots and artificial intelligence are coming. The question is, what effects will they have on us? In particular, will they replace workers and lead to massive unemployment? And what about the other workers, the ones who manage to keep their jobs?
According to Moshe Vardi [ht: ja], in a speech to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, “AI could drive global unemployment to 50%, wiping out middle-class jobs and exacerbating inequality.”
Unlike the industrial revolution, Vardi said, “the AI revolution” will not be a matter of physically powerful machines that outperform human laborers, but rather a contest between human wit and mechanical intelligence and strength. In China the question has already affected thousands of jobs, as electronics manufacturers, Foxconn and Samsung among them, develop precision robots to replace human workers.
Martin Ford, author of Rise Of The Robots: Technology and The Threat Of A Jobless Future, also foresees dire consequences for workers. Here are some excerpts of an interview with him by National Geographic:
An Oxford University survey suggested that 47 per cent of the world’s jobs will be taken by robots in the coming decades. What’s involved and which jobs are most at risk?
This is a big issue that is not science fiction and is happening already. It involves what we call narrow artificial intelligence, which can do relatively routine, predictable things. By predictable, I mean you can predict what a person doing a job is going to be doing based on that they’ve done in the past.
Like flipping burgers?
It could be flipping burgers or a lot of factory and warehouse jobs like stocking shelves. One of the most dramatic impacts isn’t going to involve actual robots. It’s going to involve software. Some of the people most threatened are what we might call office drones: people who sit in front of computers doing relatively routine, formulaic things. If your job is to produce the same kinds of reports again and again, software is getting smarter and better at doing that. We already have lots of examples, even in journalism. There’s smart software that is able to write basic news stories. Lots of white-collar jobs held by college graduates are going to be threatened.
What will the effect on the world economy be?
In the long run, it could have a dramatic impact and I think we are already beginning to see that. As you eliminate workers and people become unemployed or their wages fall, consumers will have less purchasing power to buy the products and services produced by the economy. As a result, there will be less and less demand. Economists all over the world are talking about this issue. In Europe, for example, there are concerns about inflation because there is not enough demand for products and services. If you project this forward, there are going to be a lot of people who are either unemployed, underemployed, or struggling financially, who simply won’t have discretionary income to spend.
Massive unemployment is one problem associated with the increased use of robots and artificial intelligence. The other concerns workers who, for whatever reason, are able to keep their jobs.
Think about the current situation at AT&T, which is seeking to retrain its workers and, at the same time, threatening to layoff up to one third of its workforce.
Eboni Bell, 24, a product manager for smartphone software in AT&T’s Atlanta office, sees the Vision 2020 retraining as the chance of a lifetime. The company provided tuition assistance for much of her two-year Udacity/Georgia Tech master’s degree in computer science, which it says cost $6,600. Single and childless, she doesn’t mind the hours it takes.
“I leave the office at 7 p.m., work at home until midnight, and Saturdays and Sundays are committed to school,” she said.
What we have, then, is a situation in which, as a consequence of robots and artificial intelligence, its’s quite possible that many workers will be made redundant, while workers who retain their jobs are going to face lower wages, increased work loads, and longer hours.
There’s nothing inevitable about these effects. It’s not robots and artificial intelligence per se that are going to negatively affect workers. What matters is how the robots and new kinds of software are created and utilized within the current set of economic institutions—as a way of increasing profits and exacerbating inequality.
We can, of course, imagine an entirely different set of effects—ways that robots and artificial intelligence might serve to eliminate onerous tasks and lessen the amount of work we all have to do.
But that’s going to require fundamentally changing the existing set of economic institutions. That, and not robots and artificial intelligence, is the real challenge facing us. | <urn:uuid:ccdfc9fe-969c-4af1-bda3-f67b5b9cefb1> | CC-MAIN-2017-13 | https://rwer.wordpress.com/2016/02/16/theyre-coming-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-13/segments/1490218189802.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20170322212949-00177-ip-10-233-31-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953712 | 1,015 | 2.84375 | 3 | 2.925848 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Finance & Business |
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent. -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Change. The number of times the word “change” has been spoken in the United States during the last year or two seems impossible to count. As Barack Obama campaigned for presidency, change was sought. And when he won? “Change [had] come to America.” Today, as we anticipate tomorrow’s Inauguration (whether it be with dread or excitement), we also anticipate the changes that will begin to transpire.
As media flurried to and fro with Inauguration celebration happenings, they also recalled that today is Martin Luther King Day. If anyone has missed or not heard about the connection there then s/he must be living under a rock where cell phone and internet are unavailable. Not wanting to miss out on the fun, I had to choose the above quote from MLK that seemed perfectly fitting as such a crossroads.
“Change has come,” but it did not come over night. As a history major, I know that this change has been hundreds of years in the making. Continuous struggle. Abolitionists fought to end slavery, but they did not all fight for equal rights. Many would have scoffed at the idea of a black man as president. President Lincoln worked to preserve this nation, but even the Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately free slaves and it only applied to those states that had seceded. As many of us know, the ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments did not change the way black men, women, and children were treated. Dr. King, while certainly a key figure in the Civil Rights Movement, was one of many that continued the struggle for change throughout the second half of the 20th century.
Tomorrow, President-Elect Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States and history will (officially) be made. It won’t be the end of the struggle though. Civil rights still need protecting for many. Citizenship must be recognized. We each need to straighten up, continue the struggle, work together to build peace, and help our country to be great. This morning, Mr. Obama shared a similar sentiment while remarking,
“Tomorrow, we will come together as one people on the same mall where Dr. King’s dream echoes still. As we do, we recognize that here in America, our destinies are inextricably linked. We resolve that as we walk, we must walk together. And as we go forward in the work of renewing the promise of this nation, let’s remember King’s lesson – that our separate dreams are really one.”
We must walk together and see the human dignity that our founding fathers proclaimed we each hold innately. Lincoln reminded those at Gettyburg that we were (and are) a country “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” We must recognize our own dignity and the dignity of our neighbors. See the equality. See how we are one as a human race. Live in a way that demonstrates your recognition of our connectedness to one another.
And tomorrow as we watch and participate in the Inauguration of our newly elected president, let us remember our past as we look to our future.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” | <urn:uuid:d9f732ee-ef02-45ed-995e-7bfe0c4f551a> | CC-MAIN-2015-48 | https://bleach226.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/evolutionofacountry/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-48/segments/1448398447043.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20151124205407-00253-ip-10-71-132-137.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970953 | 787 | 2.921875 | 3 | 2.862452 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Politics |
As July and Fibroid Awareness Month comes to a close, I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss a common issue affecting many women. Fibroids can affect up to 80% of women by the age of 50 and is even more common in African-American women. Here’s what you need to know:
What are fibroids?
Fibroids are benign (NOT cancerous) growths in the uterus. Each fibroid starts from abnormal growth of one muscle cell in the uterus. They can occur in 3 locations in the uterus. Submucosal fibroids push into the cavity on the inside of the uterus, intramural fibroids are within the muscle of the uterus and subserosal fibroids sit on the outside of the uterus. While fibroids are not cancerous and do not turn into cancer, there are some rare types of uterine cancer that can look and behave like fibroids, so it’s important to have suspected fibroids evaluated.
What problems do fibroids cause?
Some fibroids don’t cause any symptoms at all, but others can cause one or more issues depending on their size, location, and number. If you have any of the symptoms below, you should be evaluated for possible fibroids.
- Bleeding: fibroids can cause heavy, prolonged and irregular periods. Sometimes heavy bleeding and clots are severe enough to cause anemia, even requiring blood transfusion at times.
- Bulk symptoms: large fibroids or multiple fibroids can cause symptoms due to bulkiness. They can give a sensation of pelvic pressure and fullness and even cause protrusion of the belly. They can put pressure on the bladder causing urinary frequency, leakage and difficulty emptying the bladder. They can put pressure on the bowels causing constipation and difficulty with bowel movements and reflux or heartburn. On rare occasions, fibroids can be large enough to put pressure on and even block off the ureters, which are the tubes connecting the kidneys to the bladder. When this occurs, urine backs up into the kidneys and can cause kidney damage and even kidney failure. Similarly, the fibroids can put pressure on the veins in the pelvis decreasing blood flow and leading to dangerous blood clots.
- Pain: fibroids can cause pain, most often cramping pain during periods or pain with sex. However, as fibroids grow, they can temporarily outgrow their blood supply, which leads to degeneration of the fibroid and pain even outside of menses and sex. Pressure from fibroid bulk can also cause pain.
- Fertility issues: while many women can and do get pregnant with fibroids, some fibroids can cause issues with pregnancy. Submucosal fibroids can distort the endometrial cavity causing difficulty with implantation. This can lead to miscarriage. If a pregnancy does continue, fibroids tend to grow during pregnancy and can cause issues of pain during pregnancy. They can also make it more difficult to monitor the size and growth of the baby. They can block the birth canal impeding vaginal delivery and can cause more bleeding during both vaginal deliveries and c-sections.
How do you treat fibroids?
If fibroids are not causing you any problems, you don’t need to do anything about them. However, fibroids tend to grow during the reproductive years and treating larger fibroids can be more difficult than treating smaller fibroids. After menopause, fibroids tend to decrease in size. They may cause some pain while they degenerate, but this is typically temporary. Treatment of fibroids depends on several factors including a woman’s symptoms, her desire for pregnancy and the size, location and number of fibroids.
- Diet: there are no specific dietary factors that have been shown to treat fibroids. There is some evidence to suggest that fibroids are more common in women who eat more red meat and less vegetables and that fibroids are less common in women with more dairy and vitamin A in the diet.
- Hormonal treatment: hormonal treatments like birth control pills, patches and rings, as well as, IUDs can help to manage the bleeding of fibroids and sometimes reduce pain, but they do not help the bulk symptoms. GnRH agonists like Lupron injections can decrease the size of fibroids, reducing both bleeding and bulk symptoms, but this is a temporary option, usually to aid in surgical management. Once the treatment is stopped, the fibroids will return to their larger size. While there are some additional hormonal options, these are either experimental, not widely available, or less frequently used due to side effects.
- Uterine artery embolization: uterine artery embolization is a procedure done by interventional radiologists to shrink the size of fibroids. This involves accessing the blood vessels in the groin, which connect to the uterine blood vessels. Small beads are placed within the uterine blood vessels to decrease the blood flow and cause degeneration of the fibroids. While this procedure does not eliminate the fibroids, it can reduce the size by 30-60%, which can be enough to manage symptoms in some women. However, this is not a good procedure for women who still desire pregnancy.
- Hysteroscopic treatment: there are 2 procedures done hysteroscopically that can help treat fibroid symptoms in some women. Hysteroscopy means using a camera and instruments through the vagina and cervix to operate in the uterus without incisions. A hysteroscopic myomectomy removes submucosal fibroids, which can be very helpful in treating bleeding and fertility issues with minimal recovery time. An endometrial ablation is a procedure which burns the lining of the uterus to stop or reduce bleeding. This does not treat the fibroids themselves, but can manage the bleeding. Endometrial ablation is not recommended for women who want pregnancy in the future.
- Procedures to ablate or remove fibroids: there are several different techniques to ablate fibroids including high-frequency ultrasound, cryoablation, and radiofrequency ablation. These options are newer and some still experimental. They show promise in offering minimally invasive options for women, but it is still unclear how they may affect future pregnancy. For women who desire pregnancy and have symptomatic fibroids other than submucosal fibroids, myomectomy (surgical removal of fibroids) is the best option.
- Hysterectomy: for women with symptomatic fibroids who have completed childbearing and desire definitive treatment, hysterectomy is a good option. This eliminates bleeding, bulk and pain symptoms and makes recurrence very unlikely. Hysterectomy can usually be accomplished in a minimally invasive approach, sometimes with the use of GnRH agonists to temporarily decrease the size of larger fibroids prior to surgery.
Fibroids are common and can decrease the quality of life for many women and in some cases, can become dangerous. If you suspect that you have fibroids, consult a qualified gynecologist for further evaluation and to discuss which treatment options are best for you. | <urn:uuid:6cc0eca4-1177-4df7-a610-a3a30cbf239c> | CC-MAIN-2020-34 | http://floridaurogyn.com/fibroid-awareness/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439738674.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20200810102345-20200810132345-00278.warc.gz | en | 0.951577 | 1,502 | 3.09375 | 3 | 2.442485 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Health |
As the rapid expansion of fracking in the U.S. has led to a growing chorus of concerned voices about the potential health and environmental repercussions of this activity, news has surfaced that the European Union (EU) is taking significant steps toward preventing fracking in Europe.
However, in a conversation with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, British Prime Minister David Cameron confirmed that he will work to ensure that fracking comes to Europe.
This acknowledgement comes at a time when the EU is debating strengthening its carbon-trading system. The EU has recently moved to delay the selling of 900 million carbon allowances, which is likely to raise the prices of carbon allowances by 10 to 15 percent.
The withholding of carbon allowances—which is a publicly-tradable certificate that “offsets” or pays for the carbon dioxide a company releases into the atmosphere, with each certificate representing a metric ton of the gas—is thought to raise the prices on energy production, as companies must spend more to control their emissions.
Cameron’s comments come on the heels of the EU deciding it won’t regulate fracking on the European continent. The European Commission, based in Brussels, has previously moved to introduce new regulations that would control the environmental impact the drilling may have. Buoyed by France, which has banned fracking within its borders since 2011, concerns of contamination to the continent’s shared watersheds and the possibility of induced earthquakes have forced commissioners to take seriously this relatively new and dangerous technology.
However, lobbying from the UK and various fracking companies have convinced EU President Jose Manuel Barroso that a “hands-off” approach is best.
“I was just very worried that while we are already behind on fracking and unconventional gas compared to America, we would fall even further behind if we had more legal processes to go through,” Cameron said after the EU’s reconsideration. “So it’s a good step forward. It could mean 70,000 jobs or more for people in the UK as well as helping to keep the bills of individuals down, but also helping to make us more competitive as a location for investment.
“We’ve got to follow through on that and now make sure that this industry can really go ahead,” Cameron said.
Chasing Shale Gas in Great Britain
Currently, shale gas extraction is regulated under 17 EU regulations, with the member states having autonomy over how to enforce the legislation. In the UK, rising energy costs have proven to be a cantankerous issue ahead of the 2015 general elections. While the rising price of energy has been a matter of concern—particularly, in light of an abnormally cold winter and tightened carbon trading—anti-fracking protests and outcries from a number of communities have led a number of Tory MPs to fear that their seats may be in danger should fracking be approved in the country.
According to a government-commissioned report, the government is planning to permit as many as 2,800 wells to be drilled. Every English county—with the exception of Cornwall—will receive a well, with the local communities being promised at least $164,730 in benefits per well. Government estimates project that at peak fracking will satisfy one-fifth of the UK’s gas demand and create as many as 32,000 jobs.
Among the areas that have been offered to fracking companies as potential well sites are several national parks, a large number of “areas of outstanding natural beauty,” and several sites deemed of “international importance” for conservationists.
So far, 176 “license” areas have been allocated to the drilling companies, mostly around Lancashire, Cheshire, Yorkshire and Sussex. The proposed sites stretch from the south of Scotland to the Southern English coast and represent approximately two-thirds of England or one-half of Great Britain.
The oil and gas companies will be allowed to apply in a licensing round to commence in the summer. The companies will be required to secure a series of planning and environmental permits, however, prior to drilling.
“We have seen the enormous impact that shale gas extraction in the States has had on its economy, both on household bills and industrial prices. It has had a strong impact there and it has the potential to have an impact here,” said Michael Fallon, the U.K. energy minister. “It will reduce our dependence on liquid natural gas. We import over half our gas at the moment and we face the prospect of having to import 70 percent of our gas by 2030 if we haven’t found any shale by then.”
“If we do find shale that will obviously reduce our dependence on those imports and reduce our dependence on wholesale gas prices,” Fallon continued. “That in turn will be good for the economy.”
Throughout the continent, there seems to be few shared opinions on fracking. Germany, under Angela Merkel, has increased drilling and extraction to such a high degree that fracking is logistically impossible in the country.
The German coalition agreement read:
According to available studies on its environmental relevance, the fracking technology in unconventional natural gas production—particularly in shale gas production—is a technology with enormous potential risks. The effects on humans, nature and the environment are scientifically not yet sufficiently clarified. Drinking water and health have absolute priority for us.
We reject the use of environmentally toxic substances in the application of fracking technology for exploration and extraction of unconventional natural gas deposits. A request for approval can only be decided upon when the necessary data basis for evaluation exists and is clarified beyond doubt that any adverse change in water quality can be ruled out.
Poland, on the other hand, is aggressively tapping its reserves—thought to be the largest on the continent. This presents a host of problems: Poland is one of Europe’s most-densely populated nations with a large agricultural base. The nation’s water supply was already under pressure before fracking. Questions about the drilling’s massive water use have raised concerns that Poland will be pulled into drought conditions or that leaked fracking fluids can poison a large population quickly.
However, the prospect of Polish gas relieving the EU’s dependency on Russian gas has convinced the Eastern European nation to push on despite the risks. Russia currently provides the EU with 25 percent of its natural gas.
California and “Safe Fracking”
As Europe embraces the American fracking model, the U.S. is starting to deal with the long-term implications of the technology. After a series of Associated Press reports highlighting Southern California offshore oil and gas companies discharging fracking chemicals into the ocean, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has introduced new rules requiring well operators to report the release of any chemicals into the waterways.
The reports found that the well discharged the chemicals without an environmental impact analysis, without public disclosure and with little or no oversight. State regulators ruled separately that California oil companies must test the groundwater and alert local landowners prior to the starting of any fracking or well stimulation activity. In addition, the companies must disclose all chemicals used during fracking and acquire permits prior to a fracking job.
For many, the notion that the oil and gas companies are hiding what they are doing begs the question of just how safe fracking truly is.
“The EPA’s rule will provide some information about the toxic fracking chemicals dumped into our ocean, but it relies on oil companies to be honest and transparent in their self-reporting,” said Miyoko Sakashita, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity.
These regulations are scheduled to go into effect in 2015.
Visit EcoWatch’s FRACKING page for more related news on this topic. | <urn:uuid:fe66dde4-0c0d-4d85-b2cb-a979e566e978> | CC-MAIN-2014-49 | http://ecowatch.com/2014/01/13/uk-proposes-to-frack-one-half-great-britain/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-49/segments/1416931008105.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20141125155648-00042-ip-10-235-23-156.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957788 | 1,588 | 2.734375 | 3 | 3.000585 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Politics |
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What’s Doctor Know? It’s a fun way to help teachers, students, and the general public understand how biomedical innovations are transforming medicine.
Players assume the role of a physician who must diagnose and treat patients using a toolkit of tests and treatments. At the start of the game, that toolkit contains familiar, established techniques. Over the course of the game, players can adopt innovative new biomedical tools to diagnose their patients more accurately and treat their ailments more effectively.
During the game, players must keep in mind that their patients' bodies are interconnected systems, and that treating one part of the body may affect other parts of the body. Players need to carefully consider the pros and cons of each treatment to see which is the best solution for their patients.
1. Our bodies are made of smaller components, including cells, and cells have even smaller biochemical components.
2. Our body systems are interconnected and always at levels that span systems at the level of molecules, cells, tissues, organs, and the whole body.
3. People can now engineer diagnostic and therapeutic solutions at the molecular and cellular levels to create precision medicines that target disease cells. These solutions can minimize related side effects, including harm to healthy cells.
4. Because of the massive amounts of data generated by modern diagnostic techniques, people need to use computers to organize and search for patterns of disease.
Arizona Science Standards
Grade 5, Concept 2, PO 1. Provide examples that support the premise that science is an ongoing process that changes in response to new information and discoveries (e.g., space exploration, medical advances).
Grade 5, Concept 2, PO 3. Describe how scientific knowledge is subject to modification and/or change as new information/technology challenges prevailing theories.
Grade 6: Concept 1, PO 5. Explain the hierarchy of cells, tissues, organs, and systems.
Grade 6, Concept 2, PO 2. Describe how scientific knowledge is subject to change as new information and/or technology challenges prevailing theories.
Grade 6, Concept 2, PO 3. Apply the following scientific processes to other problem solving or decision making situations: observing, questioning, communicating, comparing, measuring, classifying, predicting, organizing, data, inferring, generating, hypotheses, identifying
Common Core Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.7 Integrate information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words to develop a coherent understanding of a topic or issue.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.10By the end of the year, read and comprehend literary nonfiction in the grades 6-8 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
Determine the meaning of symbols, key terms, and other domain-specific words and phrases as they are used in a specific scientific or technical context relevant to grades 6-8 texts and topics.
Next Generation Standards
3-5-ETS1- Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
MS-ETS1-3. Analyze data from tests to determine similarities and differences among several design solutions to identify the best characteristics of each that can be combined into a new solution to better meet the criteria for success.
Dr. Biology. (2014, April 29). For Teachers. ASU - Ask A Biologist. Retrieved December 16, 2018 from https://askabiologist.asu.edu/doctor-know-for-teachers
Dr. Biology. "For Teachers". ASU - Ask A Biologist. 29 April, 2014. https://askabiologist.asu.edu/doctor-know-for-teachers
Dr. Biology. "For Teachers". ASU - Ask A Biologist. 29 Apr 2014. ASU - Ask A Biologist, Web. 16 Dec 2018. https://askabiologist.asu.edu/doctor-know-for-teachers | <urn:uuid:ff4e844a-bb51-4ef4-8df5-6061791e3e59> | CC-MAIN-2018-51 | https://askabiologist.asu.edu/doctor-know-for-teachers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-51/segments/1544376827727.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20181216121406-20181216143406-00357.warc.gz | en | 0.900333 | 863 | 3.875 | 4 | 2.561245 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Education & Jobs |
Israel’s first-ever national survey of iodine levels in the population revealed widespread deficiencies, which could mean millions of children are at risk of stunted development.
The survey, whose unpublished results were presented last week to endocrinologists in Ramat Gan, found that 62 percent of school-age children and 85 percent of pregnant women have iodine levels below the World Health Organization minimum.
According to the researchers behind the survey, Israel appears to have one of the highest rates of iodine deficiency in the world. The national health problem is likely related to Israel’s world-leading use of water desalination, they said.
“We could be talking about a significant detriment across the population,” Dr. Aron Troen, a nutritional neuroscientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who helped lead the survey, told JTA. “For anyone below the minimum level, you may lose 7 to 10 to 12 IQ points, which translates into a huge decrease in GDP due to reduced productivity.
“We are concerned that increased reliance on desalinated water in the Israeli food chain is contributing to iodine insufficiency in the population.”
Even mild iodine deficiency can limit intellectual development. In the womb or early childhood, deficiency has been shown to impair brain development and in severe cases cause physical malformation, dwarfism and intellectual disability. Previous studies have found the children of iodine-deficient mothers perform much more poorly in school.
Researchers from Hebrew University, Maccabi Healthcare Service, Barzilai University Medical Center in Ashkelon and ETH Zurich in Switzerland collaborated on the survey, which analyzed urine samples from 1,023 school-age children and 1,074 pregnant women. They found similar results among Israeli Arabs, secular Jews and Orthodox Jews.
Based on their findings, the researchers called on the Israeli government to mandate the addition of iodine to salt or other foods, as do many other countries, including the United States. They said the change would be easy, inexpensive and have potentially large public health benefits. They also called for regular monitoring of national iodine levels.
In the meantime, Israelis can change their diets, including by buying iodized salt, which is currently expensive and hard to find in Israel.
“Individuals can improve their iodine status through increased consumption of iodine-rich foods such as milk, dairy and saltwater fish. They can also replace regular table salt with iodized salt,” Yaniv Ovadia, the doctoral student and registered dietitian who performed the survey, said in a statement.
Israel was one of only a few countries to have never before gathered nationally representative data on its residents’ iodine levels. But Troen said “the trajectory” of his research suggests the problem has worsened in recent years and may be related to Israel’s pioneering use of water desalination, which removes iodine as well as other minerals. About half of the water Israelis consume is desalinated – a higher percentage than in any other country.
In a study last year, Troen and fellow researchers found a “surprisingly high” prevalence of insufficient iodine intake among the residents of the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, where residents get much of their water from the local desalination plant. They also found a strong association with thyroid dysfunction among adults and evidence that the problem increased in the 2000s, as Israel was ramping up its water desalination program.
According to data from the Israel Center of Disease Control, self-reported use of thyroid medication among Israeli adults increased 63 percent between the Israeli National Health Interview Surveys of 2003-04 and 2007-10.
Troen said other potential explanations for Israelis’ iodine deficiency are increased consumption of processed foods and surprisingly low consumption of dairy products. The scarcity of iodine-enriched salt and other food is certainly a factor as well, he said. Troen has started new research on the causes of iodine deficiency in Israel. | <urn:uuid:61a1d326-4042-4390-ac05-fbf49bba0ab1> | CC-MAIN-2019-39 | https://jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com/millions-of-israeli-children-said-at-risk-of-stunted-development-possibly-from-desalinated-water/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-39/segments/1568514572491.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20190916060046-20190916082046-00092.warc.gz | en | 0.963263 | 808 | 2.78125 | 3 | 3.038546 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Health |
Ammar Ali Hasan, Novelist and researcher in political sociology
There is no political, social, intellectual, or religious movement that has known so much proliferation and fragmentation as that which claims to represent the “true Islam”, not only in modern times, but throughout Islamic history.
The difference over the interpretation of the Qur’anic and prophetic texts — as well as the conflicting interests, predominance of whims, rivalry of understandings, and the accumulation of allegations — led, over the course of fourteen centuries, to the establishment of partisan groups, which emerged in waves of injustice, rejection, and rebellion against the existing powers-that-be, as well as against the mainstream of Islam and/or other minority factions claiming to represent Islam. The disputes over who had the right to speak in the name of Islam were also squabbles for prestige and influence.
Many of these organizations had a temporary ability to circumvent the authorities and endure in a form capable of engaging in armed fighting, which kept them active on the social scene for some time. But they were usually torn apart or disintegrated, often quite quickly.
Anyone who reads Dr. Abdel Moneim El-Hefny’s “The Encyclopedia of Islamic Organizations, Groups, Sects, Parties and Movements” will be certain that conflict and fragmentation, appearance and disappearance, are key features governing the history of the “Islamic movement”, whether political or dawa (preaching), moderate or radical. This has affected every movement, contemporary or historical, even the Muslim Brotherhood — founded by Hassan al-Banna in 1928 in Egypt, and spread by now into more than sixty countries, called by its followers “the largest Islamic movement in the modern era”. The Brotherhood is certainly very large, but it has been afflicted by this phenomenon of disintegration, between its mother branch in Egypt and the foreign branches, and within the Egyptian wing itself.
Al-Hefny attributes this recurring fact of fragmentation within Islamic movements to two main factors:
- The differing views of these groups in interpreting texts, daily matters, and how to deal with “the Other”; and
- The entry of many different nations and races into Islam — during the early conquests — who brought with them different cultures and civilizations, leading to various doctrinal approaches and even innovations that disrupted the unity of Islam.
Still, Al-Hefny ignores the most important reason behind the fragmentation of organizations claiming to be the authentic Islam: the struggle over political power and social status — and, relatedly, a sharp disagreement over how to deal with the authorities that have ruled over the Muslim world from the Fitna (great sedition) to the end of the Ottoman caliphate in 1924. Perhaps this is because the book focuses mainly on the intellectual aspects of these groups, trying to move away from the political and historical aspects. The author describes his encyclopedia as “not a book of history, but of thought, piecing this thought together, and then renewing it”.
Although the writer did not make the effort he promises on the issue of renewal, by keeping track of the thought of about 800 groups, sects, parties, and organizations, he showed that this issue of renewal is not easy. He finds himself confronted with accumulated, floundering, and conflicting ideas made over the course of more than 1,400 years ago. Some of these ideas did not die and are not only recorded in the history of ideas; they are still live, interactive, and able to influence people who live among us, who can adopt them as “the straight path”.
One can reach the aforementioned conclusion by reading this encyclopedia because in its content and structure it serves as a “doctrinal record of all Islamic ideological and political organizations of Sunnis and Shi’ites across Asia, Africa, and various Arab, Islamic, and non-Islamic countries … from the first group to the present time”.
What helps in coming to this conclusion, without ignoring the truth or unfairly denigrating these groups, is that the encyclopedia did not arrange them in chronological order. Rather, it arranged them alphabetically, beginning with a group that the author calls Al-Muhammad, apparently in reference to the broad current of believers in the message of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) throughout the social history of Islam and Muslims, followed by a group called Al-Amiriyah, a Shi’a sect affiliated with the Prophet’s daughter Fatima, who claim their right to rule the Muslims because of this lineage. They are followers of Abu al-Qassem Ahmad ibn al-Mustansir (1074-1101), better known as Al-Musta’li, the ninth Fatmid caliph, whose accession to power split the Isma’ili sect, creating the offshoot that called itself the Nizaris (and became known in the West as “The Assassins”). Again, a theological division was at root a power struggle.
The encyclopedia ends with another group called Al-Yonisia, a group of fanatics belong to the Murji’ah, named after Younis bin Aoun al-Nimeiri or Al-Shammri. This group believes that faith is merely knowledge of Allah and submission to him, loving him with the heart, the recognition of his Oneness, the belief in what the prophets have said; and that faith in the heart and tongue, does not increase or decrease, and is not affected by sins; that the believer enters paradise with his sincerity and love not by his works and obedience; that it suffices to know that the prophets have brought of faith, with no need for detailed knowledge of the contents. However, it requires that these qualities be available in one person for his faith to be complete. Thus, anyone who leaves one of them is considered, in its view, to have committed an act of apostasy.
The non-linear presentation of the book, time-wise, means that the book moves from older groups to newer ones, then back again, and in so doing allows the reader to see the way the ideas of older groups overlap with those of the present and, perhaps more interestingly, the way some of the ideas seem to be making progress towards understanding reality, only to strongly regress. This cycle might be the strongest factor that prevented the renewal of Islamic thought and jurisprudence, especially in recent centuries.
In being influenced by the old tradition, and even adopting it, these groups were not limited to ideas and perceptions, but to names and terms. The encyclopedia shows that some of these groups took similar names, despite the different times and places, with the following list showing the repetitions:
- Abrahamism, which has five sub-groups: Imamiyyah Abrahamism, Shia Abrahamism, Ibadi Abrahamism, al-Mushabaha Abrahamism, and al-Ghalya Abrahamism.
- Ahmadiyya, which has three sub-groups: Bedouin Ahmadiyya, Qadianiyyah Ahmadiyya and Imamiyyah Ahmadiyya.
- Ishaqiyah, which has five sub-groups: Ishaqiyah al-Ghulah, Turkish Ishaqiyah, Ishaqiyah Al Mujasamah (Anthropomorphic), Ishaqiyah al-Heluliya, and Shia Ishaqiyah.
- Isma’ilism, which has six sub-groups: Aghakhaniyah Isma’ilism, al-Taaliymyyah Isma’ilism, al-Khalisah Isma’ilism, al-Mustailyah Isma’ilism, al-Tatariyah Isma’ilism, and al-waqifa Isma’ilism.
- Ashab (companions), which has 20 sub-groups, such Ashab al-Ijma, Ashab ar-ra’y, Ashab alsuwal, Ashab alrajeat, Ashab altebaaye, Ashab almaeani, Ashab al-hadith, Ashab altafsir, etc.
- Ahl (people), which has 25 divisions, ranging from Ahl Alhaq and Ahl al’ithbat, and from Ahl alsuffa to Ahl al’ahwa and Ahl al’ihmal, Ahl al-Ridda, then Ahl al-hall wal-aqd, Ahl al-thawq, Ahl al-rajeat, Ahl al-felasafa, Ahl al-kalam … etc.
- Oulu (men of), which has three groups: Oulu al-Albab, Oulu al-Azm, and Oulu al-elem.
- Al-Jama’a (group), this name attracted many groups and organizations, reaching 31 groups, the most prominent of them is Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya, a local group in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, and Tablighi Jama’at, which was founded in India and spread throughout the Muslim world, and Al-Nahda, in Algeria.
- Gameia (association), which has seven groups such as the World Muslim Youth Association, the Islamic Society of Writers and Sunnis, Ansar al-Sunna Muhammadiyah Association in Egypt, the Association of Islamic Dawa People, the Association of Muslim Scholars in Algeria, the Youth Association Islamic in Morocco, and the Association for the Preservation of the Holy Quran in Tunisia.
- Harakah (movement): there are 15 organizations, most notably: Taliban Movement in Afghanistan, Al-Ahbash Movement, the Islamic Tawhid Movement, Amal Movement in Lebanon, the Islamic Youth Movement in Malaysia, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, the Islamic Revolutionary Movement in Morocco, the Justice Movement in Uzbekistan, and the Islamic Society Movement in Algeria.
- Hezb (party): there are 16 organizations, notably Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hizb ut-Tahrir which has branches in several countries, the Islamic Party in Turkestan, the Islamic Party of Alash in Kazakhstan, the Islamic Party and the Islamic Union party in Afghanistan, the Islamic Dawa Party in Iraq, the Islamic Action Party in Yemen, and the Islamic Ennahda Party in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
- Tanzim (organization): there are 6 organizations: The Organization of the Islamic Revolution in the Arabian Peninsula, the Shiite Organization of Dawa, the Organization of Islamic Action, the Faith Brigades Organization, Word of God Organization, and the Mujahideen Organization in Morocco.
- Al-Waqifite (Shia sect), there are 4 groups under this name: Waqifite Al-mutakallimun, Waqifite Kharijites, Imamiyyah Waqifite, and Ibadi Waqifite.
Those who look closely at these classifications of Islamic groups and organizations, which claim to represent Islam in its entirety, can deduce ten important observations:
First, these groups, whose names are repeated, are either attributed to people, whether they are preachers, religious scholars or political leaders who wear the mantle of religion, or believe that Islam should be a path to political power; or attributed to exclusive qualities: when it is said Ahl or Ashab, they wish to make Islam or faith exclusive preserve to the followers of a certain group.
Second, there is a habit of referring to rivals by derogatory names related to their qualities. These groups will call themselves Ahl al-Haq (“people of truth”) and call the others Ahl al-Ahwa (“people of whims”). This is a simple manifestation of a trend that has prevailed and gained momentum in the history of Islamic groups and Islamdom generally, of ostracism and mutual antagonism that in some cases amounts to an accusation of blasphemy.
Third, these groups and organizations are not necessarily in conflict and rivalry with each other all the time. Sometimes even hostile groups will collaborate, albeit unintentionally. For example, groups and associations whose role is limited to producing and promoting traditional religious knowledge that fills the public sphere with ideas and perceptions, can pave the way for politicized religious groups, or those seeking political power, sparing them the effort and time spent in the process of persuasion and recruitment, under the pretext of continuing to support religion, while what these groups are putting forward is in fact a political project. Sometimes these politicized groups can infiltrate the ranks of advocacy and educational organizations or schools, and then use them to serve their own goals.
Fourth, these groups and organizations are divided among the two main doctrines in the history of Islam, namely Sunnism and Shi’ism. Both doctrines have produced many different groups over the centuries, and the antagonism between them is at various times and in various places framed more as an intra-family or tribal struggle for leadership, and at other times as a distinct doctrinal and intellectual war.
Fifth, throughout the history of the Muslims, a pattern repeats: groups that appear weak will gain strength, ideologically (i.e. in terms of the number of followers) and materially, and once it comes to dominate, it begins to decline, especially after the death of its founder and the circle around him. This is usually followed by civil war — sometimes several — and once the group is defeated, its followers disperse, and the victorious authorities launch a kind of media blackout on its ideas until its influence fades.
Sixth, there has been no age, era, or epoch in the history of the Muslims without fringe groups rising and falling in their attempts to challenge the mainstream of Islam. Most of the time these extremists do not achieve their goals and are a mere nuisance to the rest of the Muslims; sometimes they prevail.
Seventh, the extremist and radical organizations are in conflict with one-another, while they simultaneously wage war against the society and political power-holders they believe to be illegitimate.
Eighth, not all these associations and groups were politicized, extremist, or radical. Some of them played their part in advocating spiritual fullness, moral transcendence, and the public interest of society; and some of them opened space for the study of religious sciences. These entities are often more viable than those which engage in power struggle.
Ninth, some of these organizations and groups, politicized or dawa, were not far from the political power in the history of Muslims, and this was true with the Umayyads as it was right down to the end with the Ottomans. The Islamic authorities would manipulate these groups — sponsoring them at various stages in their life-cycle, for example — or simply create such groups, depending on what served their interests. Sometimes groups emerged in response to conflicting claims to authority, or as a result of the conflict between Arabs and Mawlis in the Second Abbasid era, or between Turks and Arabs in Ottoman times.
Finally, there is nothing to prevent future dissent and cracks in already established groups, organizations, parties and movements, as well as the emergence of new groups in the Muslim world from Ghana to Fergana. It is not expected that there will come an era or an epoch in the life of the Muslims without the presence of such religious and political entities and formations. If one were to make a medical analogy, they are like diabetes: there is no cure, but there are means of control to reduce the most serious and negative effects.
In conclusion, reading and examining this encyclopedia will undoubtedly help us understand and analyze the perceptions, objectives, and measures of these groups and organizations, whether political or religious, in our time. Current groups and organizations are not entirely disconnected from their predecessors and in some cases are simply rebrands of old organisations and ideas that are trying to cultivate themselves in a different social and political contexts. | <urn:uuid:a01f3cc6-88a1-4eca-a192-ef41d3e21654> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | https://eeradicalization.com/encyclopedia-of-islamic-organizations-groups-sects-parties-and-movements/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764499524.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20230128054815-20230128084815-00243.warc.gz | en | 0.949752 | 3,331 | 2.828125 | 3 | 2.998095 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Religion |
I was quite annoyed by the top comment on this thread being "just use printf". This post is a more fleshed-out version of my comment on that thread.
Debuggers are drastically better than just using prints for many problems. An hour of research on this now will save you countless hours solving hard problems later.
In short, debuggers let you run your program in "human time" rather than ultra-fast computer time, giving you time to carefully inspect program state, control flow, and your assumptions.
This article serves as a stepping-off place for learning about debuggers.
The best graphical debugger is, without contest, Microsoft Visual Studio. You can debug C, C++, and C# programs with it (and maybe more). In this article I will refer to it as "MSVS". MSVS is the industry-standard C/C++ debugger for game development. Most graphical debuggers will feel familiar to MSVS.
Note that VSCode also has debugging capabilities, but it isn't nearly as streamlined or powerful as MSVS.
On Linux, GDB is the top dog. It's a command-driven debugger, but there are many front-ends that you can use to get a MSVS-like experience. VS Code has a GDB front-end. I use Emacs and GUD to help with debugging (run
gdb to start; I also prefer running
gdb has started).
Here is a list of features you should search and get familiar with using. Nearly every interactive debugger should support these fundamental features. You may need to look at your debugger's documentation. I assume an MSVS-like debugger for this article.
Breakpoints insert a special instruction that halts your program at that point in the code. You place a breakpoint as close to the problem as you can, so you can inspect program state.
Stepping is when you advance the program by one "step", usually one line of code. This is very useful because you can go line by line through your program, checking your watches/hovering your mouse over variables to see how the data is changing. "Step Into" means go into the function being called and step inside it. "Step Over" means don't step into that function, just run it and step to the next line. You usually Step Over functions you know are working/irrelevant to the problem.
Resumes the program execution. If you still have breakpoints, they may be hit again for the next iteration, game frame, etc.
Watches are added in MSVS via right-clicking a variable/statement and selecting "Add Watch". This displays the variable and its current value when the program is stopped.
You can modify watch statements to show you fields, the address of things, etc. by using the same syntax as the programming language, e.g.
myVar in watch, add
&myVar.field and it'll show you the address of
field instead. Hovering over a variable with your mouse usually shows a pop-up that you can use to explore all the fields and substructs in a variable.
In MSVS, you can use e.g.
myVar is an array to display 3 elements in the watch. Use
myvar-3 to decrement its address by 3. GDB has its own syntax for arrays, so refer to their documentation.
The above features form the core toolset of every interactive debugger. There are some advanced features that help solve trickier problems. I recommend you search e.g. "How to use conditional breakpoints in visual studio" and add these valuable tools to your toolset.
These take a memory address and a size. If memory at that address is changed by any code, the breakpoint will fire immediately after the change. This solves questions like "who the hell is changing this variable?" and assists with discovering things like memory stomps etc. It also helps narrow down tons of stepping, because you can set a data breakpoint to only notify you when there is change.
These only break if a condition you specify is met. In MSVS, you create these by right-clicking on an existing breakpoint and selecting "Add Condition". You can do e.g.,
bIsAttacking == true and the breakpoint will only be hit in that game state. This also saves you a lot of unnecessary stepping, if e.g. the thing only happens in certain states.
Moving the instruction pointer
In MSVS, you can drag around the little arrow pointing to the current line the debugger is stopped at. This allows you to repeat code so you can step through it again, or skip over blocks that aren't working yet.
MSVS has a "Memory" window that lets you see the raw memory at arbitrary addresses. This can be useful when working with optimized code, among other things.
For compiled languages, debuggers will often allow you to inspect and step at the assembly level. This is especially useful when working on program optimization.
Some things you need to be aware of, especially for C/C++ debugging:
- Your program becomes easier to debug when compiled in "Debug" mode
- You need "symbols" to easily debug. On windows, that means PDB files, on Unix-type systems, they're built into the executable/.so when compiling with
McConnell's Code Complete recommends stepping through any new code you add as a habit. This helps spot easy problems by walking through things line by line and making sure your assumptions/understanding of the program are correct. It greatly reduces the amount of iteration you have to do. I like doing this instead of getting my hopes up that a new block of code will work the very first time, which is unrealistic for most non-trivial implementation tasks.
John Carmack recommends occasionally stepping through an entire frame to get a better understanding of your game's execution:
An exercise that I try to do every once in a while is to "step a frame" in the game, starting at some major point like
renderer->EndFrame(), and step into every function to try and walk the complete code coverage. This usually gets rather depressing long before you get to the end of the frame. Awareness of all the code that is actually executing is important, and it is too easy to have very large blocks of code that you just always skip over while debugging, even though they have performance and stability implications.
Prints are still useful, sometimes
There are some problems that printf may be the better tool for:
- Real-time systems where stopping a program/thread to debug will change the behavior. In my experience, it is very rare that this is a problem. Things like audio and network connections with timeouts may be examples where outputting the data is better
- Very large data sets where only a small subset of the data may be anomalous, and you don't know how to formulate a Conditional or Data breakpoint to pinpoint that data (yet)
- Problems which only happen on a live service which cannot be stopped and debugged
Other debugging techniques
Visualization is also a valuable technique:
- Spatial 2D/3D math where drawing lines on the screen would be much easier than inspecting the numbers themselves. This is a case where interactive debuggers aren't the best
- Audio waveform graphs are usually more informative than raw numbers, and you generally can't step debug audio without changing the output
There are some programmers who don't believe debuggers are very useful (Walter Bright, the creator of the D programming language, for example). I think this is silly. There's no harm in learning to use a debugger, especially when even the most rudimentary use can be hugely valuable. It's another tool suitable for some subset of problem debugging, much like prints. | <urn:uuid:20641f06-9919-4388-9a7f-e4058813a96e> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://macoy.me/blog/programming/UsingADebugger | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233506423.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20230922202444-20230922232444-00267.warc.gz | en | 0.928529 | 1,784 | 3.453125 | 3 | 2.303741 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Software Dev. |
Five myths you probably believe about diabetes
The world prepares to paint itself blue in observation of the World Diabetes Day on November 14, 2013, which makes it a perfect time to discuss some of the bitter details of this condition.
Simply put, diabetes mellitus is about your body’s inability to regulate blood sugar level. This could happen in two ways: either your pancreas doesn’t make enough insulin, which is the hormone responsible for lowering blood sugar level (type I diabetes), or the body doesn’t respond as effectively to an otherwise normal level of insulin (type II diabetes).
The following are a few common misconceptions about diabetes that need to be cleared.
It’s a fat person’s disease
While the correlation between obesity and diabetes is undeniably clear, this disease cannot be thought of as a problem exclusively affecting fat people with sedentary lifestyles. Genetics and epigenetics play a major role as well. If you are a healthy young male with a strong family history of diabetes, you may still want to give that large serving of kheer a second thought.
Cricket legend, Wasim Akram, is possibly the farthest thing from a stereotypical diabetic patient one could picture. At the age of 31, this healthy, athletic male was diagnosed with diabetes. And ever since, he has presented himself to the world as cautionary tale – even a man, who is professionally required to remain physically fit, is not immune from this pandemic.
In fact, type I diabetes has very little to do with unhealthy lifestyle choices, and rears its head at an early age (hence its other name, ‘juvenile onset diabetes’).
Diet and exercise fix diabetes
Expanding on the point previously made, it should be recognised that diabetes is not merely a product of sloth and poor eating habits, but an actual disease. And like other chronic diseases, it requires long-term medication as prescribed by the doctor.
A diabetic patient needs to be counselled on the importance of regular physical exercise and dietary control in slowing the progress of this disease, but it is possible to have a high blood sugar level despite taking such measures. Poorly controlled blood sugar is not necessarily an indicator of a patient’s lack of commitment towards his own health.
Fruit is good for you
The general public holds fresh fruit in high esteem. Newly diagnosed diabetic patients are often confused when asked by doctors to avoid eating dates. It is customary for patients admitted in hospitals to receive fruit baskets and cartons of fruit juice. The presence of such foods on a diabetic patient’s bedside is likely to alarm any concerned doctor who walks by.
Most fruits are high in sugar, and even though they offer a cornucopia of vitamins and minerals that are imperative for healthy living, they are not fit for consumption by diabetic patients.
The glycemic index is a measure of the rapidity with which a food increases your blood sugar. Fruits with higher glycemic index, like grapes and bananas, should be avoided. Fruits with low glycemic index, like grapefruit, are better tolerated by diabetics. Be advised that watermelon and dates, despite their reputation as being benign and healthy, have some of the highest glycemic indices among fruits.
Eat as little as possible
Over-exuberant dietary restrictions may result in low blood sugar, which is just as much of a hazard for a diabetic patient as too much blood sugar, if not more. Fasting for long periods of time does the opposite of keeping you healthy.
The goal is to keep the sugar level within a Goldilocks range. This is best achieved by taking small, frequent meals, and regularly monitoring blood sugar.
It’s not that bad!
Diabetes doesn’t seem too alarming to an external observer. The last time I checked, nobody at my workplace took a sick leave for “having a bad case of diabetes today”.
It’s a disease that slowly gnaws away at just about every body part you own. A tiny wound on one’s toe could expand to a life-threatening, gangrenous ulcer, if left unchecked. It is not diabetes itself that is the cause of death for the sufferers; the fatal blow comes from rampant infections or failure of organs brought on by the degeneration that uncontrolled diabetes catalyses.
In fact, it is precisely the slow, insidious nature of the disease that makes it so pernicious. If one falls from a tree, he’d rush to the hospital howling in pain. If one’s blood sugar is consistently high, he may never know until his organs have suffered irreversible damage.
It is a disease that requires constant care, surveillance and patience.
While much remains to be understood about this disorder, it is comforting to find the world waking up to the fact that this scourge is not to be taken lightly.
The views expressed by the writer and the reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of The Express Tribune. | <urn:uuid:051f402f-bfdb-40c8-acd6-edb9e313a691> | CC-MAIN-2017-43 | https://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/19583/five-myths-you-probably-believe-about-diabetes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187824824.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20171021171712-20171021191712-00626.warc.gz | en | 0.951867 | 1,039 | 3 | 3 | 2.698023 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Health |
postmodernism theory in urban planning presence
as a result of combining the modern age of planning with industrialization
market-oriented capitalist economies, new social classes, democracy, and enlightens
values- reason and progress. (Elaati, 2016, p.2)
From the last three decades of the 20th
century, the postmodernism in urban
planning theory had appeared (Irving, 1993).
From that time, postmodernism has
included planning theories that pointed to produce variety and raises the elasticity, alternation, and suspicion (Hatuka
and D’Hooghe, 2007). The main objectives of the postmodernism
planning are to consider the plurality accepted at the realization of the
social variation orderly to consent get to light the minority demands
The new urbanization creates modern
directions of thinking toward the urban development and urban form among the postmodernism theories. The new urbanism theory
debates to develop conventional (classic) architecture and originate a potent,
solid identities (personality) for the urban. In brief, while the modernism has
deeply influenced the city form, new urbanism offers a modern, ideal, and
simple for the perfect society (Grant, 2006). The urbanism utilizes the sustainability
ideas and the ecological meaning (terminology) seeking to improve regional
theory structures (Duany and Talen, 2002). The new urbanism concept is “connect
natural environment with human-made
environment in order to sustain environment”, also the new urbanisms use a
system of zoning significant elements in city designs which is used to
coordinate domain of comprehensive changes in village to city and organize
their advantages from village to cities (Rahama Etal, 2012, p.197). Depending
on the new urbanism movement and the result of the technological development,
also intervening the globalization to our daily life, the outcome is appearing
the tendency of a smart city.
Farley (2015) explained that urbanism
norms are possible to stratify and increase the projects at both individual
building scales to the whole urban and social.
These principles are/
Mixed-use and variety.
Traditional composition and fabric of the neighbourhood.
Sustainability and sustainable development.
Claiming a well living and good quality of life.
Less effect on
Rising the build up and buildings concentration and
Both urban design and architectural fineness.
Less than 5% of the world
population in the eighteenth century lived in the cities. According to (UNPD, 2007),
extra than half of the world’s global population are living in the cities. It
is expected that by the end of the 21st century, more than eighty percent
of the world’s population will live in the cities and these urbanization and
civilization are the results of machinery and technicality improvement that led
to decrease the human’s efforts and work manually such as in agriculture and choose preferable life in emigrating to the cities. | <urn:uuid:8d7e6bdf-daa4-4d25-be58-7d0f5ed2a889> | CC-MAIN-2019-47 | https://marquezformontana.com/introduction-urban-development-and-urban-form-among-the/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-47/segments/1573496670135.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20191119093744-20191119121744-00521.warc.gz | en | 0.873363 | 632 | 2.921875 | 3 | 2.938215 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Art & Design |
USING THE CHARACTER FILL MODE COMMAND The Character Fill Mode ( CF ) command specifies the way scalable fonts are filled and edged. Bitmapped and Stick fonts cannot be edged and can be filled only with raster fill, shading, or PCL cross-hatch patterns. For more information see the PCL 5 Printer Language Technical Reference Manual. The syntax for this command is as follows: CF fill mode,[edge pen]; PARAMETERS: Fill Mode Specifies how the printer renders filled characters. Edge Pen For characters that are to be edged, this parameter indicates the pen that is used to edge the character (black or white, edged or not edged). PROGRAM: LEGEND: Ec = [Ctrl] [P] [Esc] in DOS EDIT. EcE Resets the printer. Ec%0B Enters HP-GL/2 mode. IN; Initializes HP-GL/2 mode. SP1; Selects pen number 1, (black). Even though there is no physical pen, the SP command must be used to enable printing. SD1,21,2,1,4,140,5,0,6,3,7, 4148;SS; Specifies a 140 point Universe Bold font with the Standard Font Definition ( SD ) command; selects it for printing with the Select Standard font ( SS ) command. PA1000,3000;DT*; Specifies absolute plotting and moves to (1000,3000); sets the Data Terminator ( DT ) to be an asterisk (The mode of the Data Terminator is not set so it defaults to a 1, which means it will not print). FT3,50,45; Specifies a hatching fill type with 50 plotter units (plu) between each line, and the lines set at a 45 degree angle. CF1,1;LBA*; Select character fill mode 1 (edge and edge with pen number 1 (black); plots the letter "A." PR127,0; Moves the pen to a position 127 plu to the right. PW.1;CF3,1;LBB*; Sets the pen width to .1 mm; selects character fill mode 3 (fill and edge) and edge with pen number 1 (black); prints the letter "B." PW.5;LBC*; Sets the pen width to .5 mm to change the thickness of the fill lines; prints the letter "C." Ec%0A Enters PCL mode. EcE Sends a reset to end the job and eject the page. Copyright Hewlett-Packard Co. 1993 The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. Hewlett-Packard shall not be liable for incidental or consequential damages in connection with the use of this material.
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On the outbreak of war the Poles found themselves conscripted into the armies of Germany, Austria and Russia, and forced to fight each other in a war that was not theirs. Although many Poles sympathised with France and Britain they found it hard to fight with them on the Russian side. They also had little sympathy with the Germans. Pilsudski considered Russia as the greater enemy and formed Polish Legions to fight for Austria but independently. Other Galician Poles went to fight against the Italians when they entered the war in 1915, thus preventing any clash of conscience.
Almost all the fighting on the Eastern Front took place on Polish soil.
Pilsudski, Josef (b. Zulow, Lithuania, 1867. d. Warsaw, 1935), was raised on his Lithuanian family estate and educated at Wilno University where he was exposed to Polish nationalist ideas. He was determined to bring about Polish independence by direct action (specifically against Russia) rather than rely on support from others. He joined the organisation of Young Poles and, after the assassination attempt on Alexander III, was arrested and exiled to Siberia (1887-1892). On returning to Poland he joined the Wilno branch of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) founded in 1892, and became the first editor of the underground newspaper "Robotnik" ("The Worker"). He also continued to work in the underground, was arrested by the Russians (1900), escaped from prison and fled to London. In Japan, during the Russo-Japanese War (1905), Pilsudski advocated the establishment of anti-Russian Polish Legions made up of prisoners-of-war held by the Japanese but faced opposition from his arch-rival, Dmowski. The Japanese did not pursue the idea beyond discussions due to their decisive victories in Manchuria. Moving to Austrian Poland (1905) he founded a paramilitary organisation, "Zwiazek Walki Czynnej" ("Union for Armed Struggle") with the aim of creating the nucleus of a future Polish army and carrying out guerrilla action and raising funds through a series of robberies (the most successful being the mail-train raid at Bezdany, 1908). With the threat of war, Pilsudski's underground "Riflemen's Clubs" were formed into Polish Legions training in the Carpathians (with Austrian support) and soon spawned a whole series of similar groups such as the student organisations "Zarzewie" ("Embers") and the Nationalist "Sokol" ("Falcon"). At the outbreak of WW1 these Polish Legions fought independently under Austrian command, siding with the Central Powers in bitter opposition to Russia. On 6 August 1914 he attempted an independent invasion of Russian Poland with ill-equipped troops and occupied Kielce "in the name of free and independent Poland". During the fighting that followed, in which the Austrian armies were being defeated, the Legions fought in some heavy rearguard actions and with distinction at Limanowa and Lowczowek (22 - 25 December 1914). The Legions played an important role in the offensives of 1915, most notably at Rokitno (13 June 1915). The Central Powers were slow to show any positive moves towards Polish independence after the fall of Warsaw and so Pilsudski resigned his command of the Legions at the height of the action in September 1916. Largely as a result of his actions, the Central Powers recognised an independent Russian Poland (November 1916) and appointed Pilsudski head of the military commission there. When Tsarist Russia collapsed during the Russian Revolution in 1917 the main reason for fighting for Austria and Germany ceased to exist and the Legions refused to swear allegiance to Germany and Pilsudski was imprisoned at Magdeberg Castle; in his own words, addressed to the German Governor of Warsaw, "If I were to go along with you, Germany would gain one man, whilst I would lose a nation." When all three partitioning powers collapsed at the end of WW1, Pilsudski established Poland as an independent state. His principal aim, in the immediate post-war period when Eastern Europe was in a political vacuum and Poland was involved in an unofficial war with the Soviets (1919 - 20), was to create a "Federation" of friendly states in the former Polish Commonwealth where the Poles were an ethnic minority and which would act as a check to Russian ambitions; key to his plan was an independent Ukraine. The Ukrainians had recently been occupied by the Soviets and their leader, Semen Petlura (1877 - 1926) had sought refuge in Poland. Pilsudski entered into a pact with Petlura whereby Eastern Galicia was ceded to Poland and Polish troops marched on Kiev to restore Ukrainian independence (April 1920). As Chief of State, Pilsudski defeated five Soviet armies when they rolled back the Polish advance and, in turn, invaded (May 1920); the battle of Warsaw (13 - 25 August 1920) in which, as a result of a strategic blunder on the part of the Soviets and a successful outflanking manoeuvre on the part of Pilsudski (the "eighteenth decisive battle of the world"), crushed the Soviet forces and saved Europe from a Red Army conquest. With his "Federation" policy in ruins, Pilsudski organised a surprise attack against Lithuania (October 1920) and acquired certain disputed areas including his own city of Wilno (and by so doing earned the enmity of the new Lithuanian Republic). Pilsudski had now left the PPS; "I rode in the tramcar called Socialism but I got off at the stop called Independence." Marshal Pilsudski retired from politics in 1922 but kept an eye on events; he once said, "To be defeated and not to yield is victory. To win and to rest on laurels is defeat." The assassination of the first elected President of the newly reconstituted Poland, Narutowicz, by a nationalist fanatic a few days after taking office (16 December 1922) had a profound effect on Pilsudski and changed his character; he became more withdrawn and disillusioned by politics. Never a politician himself, having learnt his trade in the underground, it is hardly surprising that, in May 1926, when he felt that the rise of fascism and the Right was making the political situation very unstable, he staged a coup d'etat; he marched on Warsaw and demanded the resignation of the government - President Wojciechowski refused to be pressurised by the military and called out the army. There followed three days fighting after which the government was forced to resign. Whilst there were some cases of opposition politicians and journalists being attacked by unidentified assailants the only savage reprisal was the disappearance of General Wlodzimierz Zagorski (b. 1882; d. 1926?), one of Pilsudski's personal opponents from the days of the Legions and later Chief of the Air Force. Although offered the Presidency, Pilsudski declined to serve suggesting Moscicki instead. Pilsudski preferred to stay in the background - the real power in Poland, taking supreme command of the Armed Forces and amending the Constitution. This became known as the "Sanacja" (Purification or Regeneration) regime and became less democratic over the years. In 1927 Walery Slawek organised the "Non-Partisan Block for Co-operation with the Government" (BBWR) in order to manage the 1928 elections but, failing to get an overall majority (getting only 122 of the 444 seats in the Sejm), Pilsudski lost confidence in proper methods. The Sejm was dissolved and Pilsudski's political opponents were imprisoned in the citadel at Brzesc under brutal conditions; Poland had became a dictatorship. Pilsudski died of cancer (12 May 1935).
"He gave Poland freedom, boundaries, power and respect..."
President Moscicki, funeral oration, 18 May 1935.
Despite his apparent attacks on democracy (in reality he was opposed to the growth of factions in the Seym - a legislative body - that would make the government of the country impossible), Pilsudski is venerated by the Poles for his contributions to the establishment of the state and his victory over the Soviet Union. His tomb is in the crypt of Wawel Cathedral, his heart is buried (in Wilno's Rossa Cemetery) amongst the soldiers killed fighting for Wilno in April 1919, and a mound has been constructed in his honour in Krakow.
Roman Dmowski, founder of the right-wing Nationalist League, had foreseen that Germany was the real enemy and gone to France where the "Bayonne Legion" was already fighting alongside the French Army. He and Paderewski formed a Polish Army which consisted of volunteers from the United States, Canada and Brazil together with Poles who had been conscripted into the German and Austrian armies and had become POWs. This Army became known as "Haller's Army" after its commander who had escaped from Russia to France.
Dmowski, Roman (b. 1864; d. 1939), founded the Polish National Democratic Party (Endecja) in 1893 and, in 1903, headed Polish representatives in the Duma (the Russian Parliament). His militant nationalism preached that the only true Pole was an ethnic Pole and encouraged anti-Ukrainian and anti-Jewish feelings; it can be said that Dmowski's views sounded the death-knell of the old Rzeczpospolita, its multi-ethnic "nationalism" and its tolerance. His right-wing National League ran clandestine educational programmes for the peasants aimed at bringing Polish culture to the masses; these efforts were boosted by the school strikes of 1904 - 7. During the Russo-Japanese War (1905), whilst Pilsudski was advocating the establishment of anti-Russian Polish Legions made up of prisoners-of-war held by the Japanese, Dmowski, fearing that a Japanese foray into Polish affairs would force the abandonment of constitutional reform, suggested that his party would do everything in its power to prevent anti-Russian activity in Poland. The Japanese did not pursue the idea further due to their decisive victories in Manchuria. At the outbreak of WW1, Dmowski who believed that Germany, and not Russia, was the real enemy, went to France where the "Bayonne Legion" was already fighting alongside the French Army. He and Paderewski formed a Polish Army which consisted of volunteers from the United States, Canada and Brazil together with Poles who had been conscripted into the German and Austrian armies and had become PoWs. This Army became known as "Haller's Army" after its commander who had escaped from Russia to France. In 1916 he headed the Polish National Committee and, after WW1, was leader of the Paris committee recognised as the temporary government of Poland, and signed the Treaty of Versailles, (1919). Naturally, Dmowski was greatly disappointed when it was Pilsudski who managed to take control in Poland. He became minister of foreign affairs in 1923, opposed Pilsudski and retired from politics shortly afterwards.
Paderewski, Ignacy Jan (b. Kurylowka, Podolia, 1860. d. New York,1941), the Polish pianist and statesman, began to play the piano at the age of three. He studied at Warsaw (later becoming professor in the Conservatoire there in 1878), Berlin (1883) and Vienna (under Leschetizky, 1885) where he made his professional debut in 1887. He became a virtuoso and appeared successfully in Europe and (after 1891) America, establishing himself as an interpreter of Chopin, Liszt, Rubinstein and Schumann. Paderewski gave over 1500 concerts in the US alone and was the first to perform in the newly built Carnegie Hall, New York. He married Baroness de Rosen (1889). Paderewski became director of the Warsaw Conservatoire in 1909 and composed an opera, "Manru", a symphony in B minor, and several other orchestral and piano pieces. A patriot, Paderewski was so impressed by the "Panorama Raclawicka" (1894) that he commissioned Jan Styka to produce a large-scale work (93 feet by 178 feet wide) based on a crucifixion theme, "Golgotha" , which was obtained by Dr. Hubert Eaton for Forest Lawn Park, Glendale, California, in 1944. In 1910, on the 500th anniversary of the Polish victory over the Teutonic Knights at Grunwald, Paderewski presented a memorial, the "Pomnik Grunwaldski" by Marian Konieczny, which was unveiled in Plac Matejko, Krakow. During WW1 he promoted the Polish cause with vigour and raised funds for Polish relief through his concerts in the US. Particularly significant was his winning the sympathy of Colonel House, the intimate adviser to President Wilson, with the result that, on 22 January 1917, President Wilson historically declared in the Senate:
"No peace can last...which does not recognise and accept that governments derive all their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists to hand peoples about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property. I take it for granted... that statesmen everywhere are agreed that there should be a united, independent and autonomous Poland."
In summer 1917 a Polish National Committee, consisting of representatives from all three parts of the country, was set up (initially at Lausanne but then, for the rest of the war, in Paris) and eventually recognised as the official Polish organisation by the Western Powers; Paderewski was recognised as its agent in the US. Paderewski represented Poland at Versailles at the end of WW1 and became the first Premier and minister of foreign affairs of a reconstituted Poland (17 January 1919 - 27 November 1919). At the Peace Conference he was involved in a long and bitter struggle with, in particular, Lloyd George (who showed great distrust in Poland's strength, capacity and goodwill) and the other major powers over the issues of Galicia, Danzig, Silesia and the status of minorities. When Paderewski addressed the League of Nations in Geneva (1920) he spoke for more than an hour without notes in French and then repeated it in English; he was the only speaker who did not use an interpreter. Paderewski abandoned his political career in 1921, retiring to Morges in Switzerland. In 1936, along with Wincenty Witos, Jozef Haller and Wladyslaw Sikorski he became a founding member of the Morges Front, named after his home where they met, determined to rebuild a respectable centre-right opposition. He died in New York whilst on one of his visits campaigning for the Polish cause during WW2. His funeral mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral was attended by around 40,000 people (of whom 35,000 listened outside). He was buried at Arlington Cemetery, Washington DC, until his body could be transported for reburial in a free Poland. In July 1992 Paderewski's remains were interned in the crypt in St. John's Cathedral, Warsaw; his heart is encased in a bronze sculpture at the church of the Black Madonna in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
On March 17th, 1921, a modern, democratic constitution was voted in. The task that lay ahead was difficult; the country was ruined economically and, after a hundred and twenty years of foreign rule, there was no tradition of civil service. Despite all her problems Poland was able to rebuild her economy; by 1939 she was the 8th largest steel producer in the world and had developed her mining, textiles and chemical industries. Poland had been awarded limited access to the sea by the Peace of Versailles (the "Polish Corridor") but her chief port, Gdansk (Danzig) was made a free city (put under Polish protection) and so, in 1924, a new port, Gdynia, was built which, by 1938, became the busiest port in the Baltic. There were continual disputes with the Germans because access to the sea had split Germany into two and because they wanted Danzig under their control. There problems increased when Adolf Hitler took power in Germany.
Smigly-Rydz, Edward (b. 1886; d. 1941),a general and Marshal of Poland (the first son of a peasant to rise to such a high rank), served in Pilsudski's Polish Legions (1914 - 17) and later succeeded Pilsudski (1935) in becoming Inspector General of the Polish Army. During WW1, Smigly-Rydz commanded the underground Polska Organizacja Wojskowa (POW; the Polish Military Organisation). During the Polish-Soviet War (1919 - 20) he played a significant role, particularly after the capture of Wilno. The Northern front was complex, being an area of operations for Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian armies as well as 3 Russian White armies, 3 Soviet armies and the German Baltikum Army. The Poles, in conflict with Lithuania over Wilno, suspicious of German intentions and having common cause with the Latvians, launched an offensive against Dunaburg (Dvinsk) led by Smigly-Rydz. His forces dashed across the frozen Dvina (3 January 1920) in temperatures of minus 25°C, stormed the citadel and cut off the Soviet lines of retreat in an operation which effectively ended the campaign of 1919. During the invasion of the Ukraine (April 1920) Smigly-Rydz commanded the 3rd Army in the centre of the line. His attack group included a large armoured force which gained maximum surprise on its drive into Zhitomir and played an important role in the capture of Kiev. During the chaos of the Soviet counteroffensive led by Budyonny (June 1920) he organised a successful rearguard action which saved the 3rd Army and, again, during the Soviet advance in Galicia (July 1920), Smigly-Rydz controlled the situation by setting up an effective system of defence using garrisons in strategic towns supported by large mobile forces in the rear. Smigly-Rydz's forces, centred on the Wieprz, formed the main attack force under Pilsudski's command during the Battle of Warsaw (13 - 25 August 1920). The Polish counterattack from the Wieprz (16 August) was the most significant event in the battle. He became Marshal of Poland and the most powerful man in the country during the "Government of the Colonels" (1936 - 39). On the ninth anniversary of the May Coup (1926), Colonel Adam Koc (b. 1891; d. 1969) formed the Oboz Zjednoczenia Narodowego (the Camp of National Unification, OZoN) in an attempt by the "Sanacja" regime to regain some influence on Polish society which had begun to turn to the political groups around it; the National Democrats, Peasant's Party, and the Socialists. A quasi-military organisation, by which the Polish Army could extend its influence beyond the military sphere, it attracted right-wing elements and it's highly nationalistic attitude led to the brutal putting down of peasant strikes and protests, the pursuit of Ukrainian separatists and (though mild in comparison with other parts of Central and Eastern Europe) anti-Semitic tendencies which, in April 1936, led to the passing of an inconvenient law limiting shehitah (ritual slaughter) to Jewish localities. With its fear of the non-Catholic minorities shared by the Catholic Church there was a genuine move towards some sort of alignment of interests but this was brought to a halt by the outbreak of WW2. In time it became a mere propaganda auxiliary to the army; Smigly-Rydz was one of its leading personalities. After the German invasion and occupation, in 1939, he took refuge in Rumania where he was interned. On 15 December 1941 a "teacher", Adam Zawisza, was buried in Powazki Cemetery, Warsaw. In reality this was Smigly-Rydz who had escaped (from internment in Rumania) to Hungary (December 1940) and thence to Warsaw where he had tried to establish an underground organisation but his overtures had been rejected by the commander of the underground army (Armia Krajowa). He died of a heart attack in Warsaw. Once, fearing a choice between submission to Russia or to Germany he said:
"Germany will destroy our body, Russia will destroy our Soul."
quoted in A. Bromke, Poland's Politics: Idealism versus Realism, Cambridge, Mass., 1967
In 1939, under constant threat from Germany, Poland entered into a full military alliance with Britain and France. In August, Germany and Russia signed a secret agreement concerning the future of Poland. | <urn:uuid:e39dfb88-a922-439e-8d96-61974442459f> | CC-MAIN-2015-40 | http://www.kasprzyk.demon.co.uk/www/history/RestoredRepublic.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-40/segments/1443736682102.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20151001215802-00161-ip-10-137-6-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979543 | 4,359 | 3.296875 | 3 | 2.98608 | 3 | Strong reasoning | History |
BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 90
Copyright 1996 Biblical Horizons
The apostle Matthew is also known as Levi son of Alphaeus. While not much is said about this man, the few things that are told us are significant.
Matthew in Greek is Matthaios and comes from the Hebrew name Mattithiah, or Mattith-Yah, "Gift of Yah(weh)." Matthew’s other name is Levi, which in Hebrew means "Joined" (Genesis 29:34).
If we reflect on these names and names are almost always significant in the Word of God some interesting associations can occur to us. The Levites of Israel connected or joined the people to God, for they were the priests and deacons of the nation, mediators between God and the people.
The Levites received the tithe of the people (Numbers 18), and Levi was a tax farmer for the Roman Empire. He left that service to follow Jesus and become a fisher ( = farmer) of men. Tithes and taxes represent the people who give them; Matthew would collect the people themselves.
Moreover, the Levites were the teachers of Israel. To them was committed the task of teaching the Word to the people in the local synagogues and Levitical cities, as well as at the central sanctuary. Is it an accident, then, that the new Levi writes the first gospel, which is a "Mosaic" gospel full of sermons?
Matthew means "Gift of Yah." The Levites of old were given to Yahweh as His servants, but Yahweh gave them back to Israel as teachers and servants of the people.
Finally, I find it interesting that in all of the first three gospels, we find that Matthew Levi holds a feast in his house (Mt. 9; Mk. 2; Lk. 5). The Pharisees complain that Jesus eats and drinks with tax farmers and outcasts. Notice that this is an argument about eating, about the use of food, which was supervised by the Levites and priests. Yet, in the Law there is no prohibition on eating with any group of people; only certain meats are forbidden. Matthew Levi, in his feast, shows what a true keeping of the dietary laws entails.
Moreover, Jesus says that He came not to heal the healthy but the sick, and to save sinners. That was Levi’s task all along. The scribes and Pharisees, who were the heirs of the original Levites, were not doing their job. But Jesus and His new Levi are. | <urn:uuid:601eda45-6b95-419b-87d7-c6c4384c894b> | CC-MAIN-2022-49 | https://biblicalhorizons.com/biblical-horizons/no-90-a-note-on-matthew/print/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446711712.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20221210042021-20221210072021-00594.warc.gz | en | 0.981767 | 534 | 2.734375 | 3 | 2.907649 | 3 | Strong reasoning | Religion |
The Western Magar of Nepal
Nepal is a small mountainous kingdom lying sheltered at the foot of the Himalayan Mountains, sandwiched between India to the south and Tibet to the north. It is home to approximately 110 distinct ethnic groups who speak a variety of languages and have many diverse religious beliefs.
The Magar are one of the oldest known tribes of Nepal. They live on the Terai plain where the hills begin, in the small lower hills of the Mahabharat Lekh, and sometimes in the high mountain areas. Their origin is unclear; however, they are believed to be of Tibetan descent, since their language and dances are similar to those of Tibetan culture.
The Magar can be basically divided into Eastern and Western Magar, then further divided into a number of clans. These include the Rana, Tharpa, Ale, Poon, Budhathoki, and Gharti. There are also four major language groups that distinguish the Magar and give them their tribal identity.
What are their lives like?
Most of the Magar are craftsmen, involved in various trades. Some work as miners; others are blacksmiths or basket weavers. A smaller number own their own land and have taken up agriculture for their livelihood. As a people, the Magar tend to be simple, hard-working, honest, self-reliant, and generally self-sufficient. They are said to be a happy people who enjoy dancing and singing. They perform different kinds of dances and frequently enjoy their own unique tribal games.
Magar houses usually have two stories and roofs of slate or thatch. Generally, they are large and made of stone. Often, a verandah extends along the front of the house.
The Magar men typically wear loincloths and bhotos (shirts with sleeves) or loincloths with shirts and coats. The women often wear dhotis, or loincloths of short width. They may also wear a pair of fulis (flower-like ear ornaments) and necklaces made of glass beads and Indian silver coins. Western-style clothing, however, is slowly becoming more common.
The most distinctive element in Magar family structure is the strong connection between a maternal uncle and his nephew. Mutual respect is shown because the nephew has the first claim to marry his uncle's daughter. Marriages are usually arranged by the groom's brother-in-law, who goes to the house of the bride's parents. Gifts of money and alcohol are made, and if the woman accepts the proposal, further payments are then made. After marriage, the couple will usually establish their own home, separate from their parents.
"Life cycle rituals" are important in Magar society. On the eleventh day after a baby is born, it is washed for the first time and given a name. The festival of Jyestha Poornima is observed on the full moon in May or June, and newly harvested grains are offered to the gods at that time.
What are their beliefs?
Generally, the Western Magar are regarded as ethnic religionists, practicing their ancient religions and traditions. However, there is a strong Hindu influence due to the influx of Brahmans from India, and approximately 30% of the Western Magar are Hindu. They worship the major Hindu gods, such as Brahma, the creator of the universe; Vishnu, its preserver; and Shiva, its destroyer; as well as a host of other deities.
What are their needs?
Nepal has long been hidden away and forgotten by most of the world. Fiercely opposed to any form of proselytizing, the Nepalese government has imposed harsh restrictions and subsequent penalties on Christian witness. Many believers have spent significant periods of time in prison because of their beliefs.
There are very few Christian resource materials available to the Western Magar. Many have never seen a Bible, and there are only a handful of believers. Fervent prayer and additional laborers are urgently needed if the Western Magar of Nepal are to come to a saving knowledge of Christ.
- Ask God to raise up loving Christians who will take the Gospel to the Western Magar of Nepal.
- Pray that the Bible will soon be translated into the Magar language.
- Ask the Lord to speed the production of the Jesus film and other evangelistic materials into the Magar language.
- Pray that God will reveal Himself to the Western Magar through dreams and visions.
- Pray that God will strengthen, protect, and embolden the small number of Western Magar believers.
- Take authority over the spiritual principalities and powers that are keeping the Western Magar bound.
- Ask God to raise up prayer teams who will begin breaking up the soil through worship and intercession.
- Pray that strong local churches will be raised up among the Western Magar by the year 2000.
Latest estimates from the World Evangelization Research Center.
- People name: Western Magar
- Country: Nepal
- Their language: Magar
- Largest religion:
- Christians: <1%
- Church members: 66
- Scriptures in their own language: None
- Jesus Film in their own language: None
- Christian broadcasts in their own language: None
- Mission agencies working among this people: 0
- Persons who have heard the Gospel: 24,200 (11%)
- Persons who have never heard the Gospel: 195,000 (89%)
- Country: Nepal
- Major peoples in size order:
- Major religions:
- Number of denominations: 27
© Copyright 1997
Bethany World Prayer Center
This profile may be copied and distributed without obtaining permission
as long as it is not altered, bound, published
or used for profit purposes. | <urn:uuid:e89c6f33-9e7b-48a2-94e7-6e42f43affd7> | CC-MAIN-2018-30 | http://kcm.co.kr/bethany_eng/p_code3/1325.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-30/segments/1531676592001.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20180720232914-20180721012914-00497.warc.gz | en | 0.954646 | 1,202 | 3.171875 | 3 | 2.316375 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Religion |
It seems the days of asking your nearest and dearest to sponsor you a few quid each to run, swim or otherwise put yourself through something are on the out.
Now charities and supporters are looking for weirder and wackier ways to encourage people to support their cause - both financially and with increased awareness.
First we had the #nomakeupselfie, and now we have the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.
The original idea in both cases is that you either do the challenge (post a make-up free photo of yourself on social media or dump a bucket of freezing cold water over your head) or you pay a donation to charity to have yourself excused. Then you nominate your friends to do the same.
Except because no one wants to look like they're shirking out of giving money to a good cause, most participants are donating money AND taking the challenge.
Celebrities are getting in on the act, helping to raise awareness of ALS - better known in this country as Motor Neurone Disease - with Justin Timberlake, Mark Zuckerberg, Emily Rossum, Chris Pratt and Bill Gates all splatting themselves with ice-cold water in the name of charity.
Fortunately Barack Obama, when nominated, decided to take the road of donating $100 to charity rather than getting all wet, which more befits the president of the USA after all.
What is the charity all about?
Motor Neurone Disease (MND) is the general term for a collection of conditions that cause the degeneration of the nerve cells in the brain that control muscles in the body.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a particular type of motor neurone disease but in some countries, including the US, it's used as a more generic term.
Whatever you call it, MND/ASL is a debilitating and deadly condition. The progressive degeneration of the motor nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord mean that the sufferer rapidly loses control of muscles vital for movement, speech, breathing and swallowing.
The muscles weaken and become paralysed impairing all these essential functions. In most cases, the disease does not affect intellect, memory or the senses, but life expectancy after the onset of symptoms is low - between two and five years.
How did the Ice Bucket Challenge start?
The challenge has been doing the rounds for some time, with sports stars taking it up and a slow trickle on social media. But as high profile celebs such as Justin Timberlake get involved, it's taking the internet by storm.
It's thought it all began with Boston College baseball player Pete Frates, whose American Football career was cut short by ALS.
His first challenge was accepted by fellow Boston athletes and some Red Sox players, where he'd been tipped to be a future player, and soon it had snowballed.
ASL and MND charities hope that with the extra money the challenge is bringing in, more research can helpbring a cure closer.
Like all of these crazes, it's easy to be cynical, but the ALS Association in the US has seen a huge increase in donations and awareness since the challenges begun. So if you're going to do it, be safe and don't forget to donate.
Find out more at the Motor Neurone Disease Association. | <urn:uuid:26abf239-b3c2-47e1-95a7-1165e3222659> | CC-MAIN-2022-27 | https://uk.style.yahoo.com/ice-bucket-challenge--what-is-it-093704364.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-27/segments/1656103640328.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20220629150145-20220629180145-00030.warc.gz | en | 0.957006 | 679 | 2.53125 | 3 | 2.466299 | 2 | Moderate reasoning | Health |
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