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1. Al Capone played banjo in the inmate band. The notorious gangster and mob boss was among the first prisoners to occupy the new Alcatraz federal prison in August 1934. Capone had bribed guards to receive preferential treatment while serving his tax-evasion sentence in Atlanta, but that changed after his transfer to the island prison. The conditions broke Capone. “It looks like Alcatraz has got me licked,” he reportedly told his warden. In fact, Convict No. 85 became so cooperative that he was permitted to play banjo in the Alcatraz prison band, the Rock Islanders, which gave regular Sunday concerts for other inmates. 2. There were no confirmed prisoner escapes from Alcatraz. A total of 36 inmates put the supposedly “escape-proof” Alcatraz to the test. Of those convicts, 23 were captured, six were shot to death and two drowned. The other five went missing and were presumed drowned, including Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin, whose 1962 attempted breakout inspired the 1979 film “Escape from Alcatraz.” The crafty trio chipped away at the rotting concrete cell walls with sharpened spoons and fashioned decoy heads complete with used locks of hair from the barbershop that they placed in their beds to fool the guards. Their possessions were found floating in San Francisco Bay, but no bodies were ever recovered, leading some to speculate that they may have engineered a successful escape. 3. Alcatraz is named for sea birds. Before criminals became its denizens, the windswept island was home to large colonies of brown pelicans. When Spanish Lieutenant Juan Manuel de Ayala became the first known European to sail through the Golden Gate in 1775, he christened the rocky outcrop “La Isla de los Alcatraces,” meaning “Island of the Pelicans.” The name eventually became Anglicized to “Alcatraz.” With the inmates gone, gulls and cormorants are now the most plentiful inhabitants of Alcatraz. 4. In spite of his nickname, the “Birdman of Alcatraz” had no birds in the prison. While Robert Stroud was serving a manslaughter sentence for killing a bartender in a brawl, he fatally stabbed a guard at Leavenworth Prison in 1916. After President Woodrow Wilson commuted his death sentence to a life of permanent solitary confinement, Stroud began to study ornithological diseases, write and illustrate two books and raise canaries and other birds in his Leavenworth cell. He was ordered to give up his birds in 1931, and he was banned from having any avian cellmates during his 17 years inside Alcatraz, which began in 1942. The 1962 movie “Birdman of Alcatraz,” for which Burt Lancaster received an Academy Award nomination just weeks before “The Rock” closed, was largely fictitious. 5. After the prison stood dormant for six years, Native American activists occupied Alcatraz. Following two previous brief occupations, a group of nearly 100 Native American activists, led by Mohawk Richard Oakes, took over the island in November 1969. Citing an 1868 treaty that granted unoccupied federal land to Native Americans, the protestors demanded the deed to Alcatraz in order to establish a university and cultural center. Their proclamation included an offer to purchase the island for “$24 in glass beads and red cloth”—the same price reportedly paid by Dutch settlers for Manhattan in 1626. Federal marshals removed the last of the protestors in June 1971, but some of their graffiti remains. When the National Park Service recently rebuilt an Alcatraz water tower, it made sure to repaint the red graffiti that read “Peace and Freedom. Welcome. Home of the Free Indian Land.” 6. Military prisoners were Alcatraz’s first inmates. Once the Gold Rush of the 1840s turned San Francisco into a boomtown, Alcatraz was dedicated to military use. The U.S. Army began incarcerating military prisoners inside the new fortress in the late 1850s. During the Civil War, prisoners included Union deserters and Confederate sympathizers. The cells were also used to imprison Native Americans who had land disagreements with the federal government, American soldiers who deserted to the Filipino cause during the Spanish-American War and Chinese civilians who resisted the Army during the Boxer Rebellion. 7. Alcatraz was home to the Pacific Coast’s first lighthouse. When a small lighthouse on top of the rocky island was activated in 1854, it became the first of its kind on the West Coast of the United States. The beacon became obsolete in the early 1900s after the U.S. Army constructed a cell house that blocked its view of the Golden Gate. A new, taller lighthouse replaced it in 1909. 8. The country’s worst criminals were not automatically shipped to Alcatraz. The convicts housed in Alcatraz were not necessarily those who had committed the most violent or heinous crimes, but they were the convicts most in need of an attitude adjustment–the most incorrigible and disobedient inmates in the federal penal system. They had bribed guards and attempted escapes, and a trip to Alcatraz was intended to get them to follow the rules so that they could return to other federal facilities. 9. It was possible to swim to shore. Federal officials may have initially doubted that any escaping inmates could survive the swim to the mainland across the cold, swift waters of San Francisco Bay, but it did happen. In 1962, prisoner John Paul Scott greased himself with lard, squeezed through a window and swam to shore. He was so exhausted upon reaching the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge that police discovered him lying unconscious in hypothermic shock. Today, hundreds complete the 1.5-mile swim annually during the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon. 10. Inmates requested transfers to Alcatraz. While Alcatraz was certainly not Club Med, its tough-as-nails reputation was a bit of a Hollywood creation. The prison’s one-man-per-cell policy appealed to some inmates because it made them less vulnerable to attack by fellow jailbirds. Alcatraz’s first warden, James A. Johnston, knew poor food was often the cause of prison riots, so he prided himself on serving good food, and inmates could return for as many helpings as they wanted. Inmates who behaved had access to privileges including monthly movies and a library with 15,000 books and 75 popular magazine subscriptions. Overall, some prisoners considered the conditions inside Alcatraz to be more attractive than at other federal prisons, and several asked to be moved there.

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Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr (1804) On July 11, 1804, years of escalating personal and political tensions culminated in the most famous duel in American history: the standoff between Alexander Hamilton, a leading Federalist and former secretary of the treasury, and Aaron Burr, who was then serving as vice president under Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton had come to detest Burr, whom he regarded as an opportunist, and vehemently campaigned against him during his failed 1804 bid to become governor of New York. Burr resolved to restore his reputation by challenging Hamilton to an “affair of honor,” as duels were then known. The enemies met at the dueling grounds near Weehawken, New Jersey—the same spot where Hamilton’s son had died defending his father’s honor in November 1801. (The loss inspired Hamilton to denounce dueling and lend his voice to the growing movement against the practice.) According to some accounts, Hamilton never planned to aim at Burr, hoping instead to fire a symbolic shot into the air and resolve the matter peacefully. Whatever his intentions, Hamilton missed his opponent but was promptly shot in the stomach; he died the next afternoon. Few affairs of honor actually resulted in deaths at the time, and the nation was outraged by the killing of a man as eminent as Alexander Hamilton. Public opinion turned against Burr, who was charged with murder and later arrested for treason in an unrelated incident. Acquitted on a technicality, he fled to Europe before returning to private life in New York. Lady Almeria Braddock and Mrs. Elphinstone (1792) A certain Mrs. Elphinstone expected no more than a cup of tea when she paid a social call to Lady Almeria Braddock’s London home in 1792. But the visit veered off into decidedly unladylike territory when the hostess, evidently enraged by a casual comment Mrs. Elphinstone made about her age, challenged her guest to a duel in Hyde Park. According to reports, Mrs. Elphinstone fired her pistol first, knocking Lady Braddock’s hat to the ground. The women then took up swords, and Lady Braddock got her revenge by wounding her opponent in the arm. The “Petticoat Duel,” as it came to be known, ended without further incident when Mrs. Elphinstone agreed to write a letter of apology. Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro (1612) Considered the preeminent Japanese swordsmen of their time, archrivals Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro met on the remote shores of Ganryū Island to settle their differences once and for all. According to legend, Musashi showed up several hours late to psych out his opponent, bearing a giant wooden sword he had fashioned from the oar of a boat. Kojiro attacked the tardy samurai with his signature “swallow cut” move, but before his blade was lowered Musashi dealt him a fatal blow. Pursued by furious Kojiro supporters who considered his delayed arrival unfair, Musashi hopped back into his boat and rowed to safety. Later in life, Musashi would become an acclaimed painter. Édouard Manet and Edmond Duranty (1870) In February 1870, the French painter Édouard Manet flew into a fit of rage after reading a single dispassionate sentence about two of his works penned by his longtime friend, the critic Edmond Duranty. The artist stormed into Paris’ Café Guerbois, slapped Duranty in the face and challenged him to a sword duel. According to police reports, the men faced each other on February 23 in the forest of Saint-Germain, with the famous writer Émile Zola attending Manet as his “second.” The adversaries’ swords allegedly struck only once, but with such force that both blades buckled. When Duranty sustained a minor wound, Manet declared his honor sufficiently defended, and before long the two Parisians had patched up their relationship and were once again sharing meals at the Guerbois. Alexander Pushkin and Georges d’Anthès (1837) Perhaps more so than the man wielding the pistol, it was pure jealously that felled the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin at the height of his career. In the 1830s, George d’Anthès aggressively pursued Pushkin’s beautiful wife Natalya in Saint Petersburg, earning verbal threats from the famous—and notoriously pugnacious—writer in return. On January 10, 1837, the Frenchman wed Natalya’s sister Ekaterina, perhaps to dispel rumors of an affair and quell Pushkin’s wrath. Nevertheless, on January 27 the newly minted brothers-in-law met in a duel. D’Anthès escaped with a gash on his arm, but Pushkin took a bullet to the stomach and died two days later. Isabella de Carazzi and Diambra de Pettinella (1552) Fabio de Zeresola may have been the most sought-after bachelor in 16th-century Naples. At a time when many duels were fought between men for a disputed lady’s favor, two young women—Isabella de Carazzi and Diambra de Pettinella—competed for Zeresola’s affection in a public swordfight. Although the outcome is unknown, the sensational event kept gossips’ tongues wagging for decades to come. In 1636, the Spanish artist Jose de Riberta immortalized the story in his famous painting “Duelo de Mujeres” (“Duel of Women”). Ben Jonson and Gabriel Spenser (1598) A contemporary of William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson overcame a rough upbringing to become an accomplished playwright, poet and actor. He also cultivated a bad-boy reputation through his ruthless exploits as a soldier, his hard-drinking lifestyle and his inflammatory writings. On September 22, 1598, he killed the actor Gabriel Spenser in a duel that may have arisen after the two men quarreled over which theater troupe was Elizabethan England’s finest. Sentenced to hang for the murder, Jonson used a legal loophole known as the “benefit of clergy,” reciting a Bible verse to escape the death penalty; his property was ultimately confiscated and his thumb branded. Jonson’s hit play “Every Man in His Humor” was produced the same year, with Shakespeare himself playing a role. Andrew Jackson and Charles Dickinson (1806) More than two decades before he became the seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson faced off against Charles Dickinson, a lawyer regarded as one of the best shots in the area, in Logan, Kentucky. The proud and volatile Jackson, a former senator and representative of Tennessee, called for the duel after Dickinson described his wife Rachel as a bigamist, referring to a legal error in her 1791 divorce from her first husband. On May 30, 1806, the two men met with pistols in hand, standing 24 feet apart in accordance with dueling custom. After the signal, Dickinson fired first, grazing Jackson’s breastbone and breaking some of his ribs. Jackson, a former Tennessee militia leader, maintained his stance and fired back, fatally wounding his opponent. It was one of several duels Jackson was said to have participated in during his lifetime, the majority of which were allegedly in defense of Rachel’s honor.

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This article was originally published in the July/August 1996 issue of Home Energy Magazine. Some formatting inconsistencies may be evident in older archive content. | Back to Contents Page | Home Energy Index | About Home Energy | Home Energy Magazine Online July/August 1996 Try These On for Size: The 60-unit building in the photo above houses middle-income families. As part of a study conducted in New York City, researchers monitored the building's hot water consumption, which fell into the medium usage category under the 1995 ASHRAE guidelines. Energy professionals have long been frustrated by the lack of reliable data for sizing domestic hot water (DHW) equipment in multifamily buildings. To be on the safe side, many designers oversize the equipment, resulting in systems with higher equipment costs, operating costs, and energy use. Now ASHRAE has incorporated data from recent studies into new guidelines for properly sizing DHW systems. Using previous (pre-1995) ASHRAE guidelines resulted in serious undersizing (see Figure 1). In practice, however, DHW systems and combined heating/DHW boilers are often oversized by 30%-200%, according to the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Energy Conservation Division. Discussions with designers in other parts of the country revealed similar oversizing. What happens is that the individual responsible for installing a boiler will often size it with a what was there before, looks like ..., or other rule-of-thumb method. Even when they do try to calculate the loads, designers use enormous safety factors because they know the DHW demands estimated with the old methods tend to undersize (see Evolution of an Oversizing Rule). The safety factors cause considerable oversizing even when the space heating portion is calculated properly, which is rarely the case. I've seen factors that double the size of the boiler relative to the space heating load (a rule of thumb that is particularly inaccurate for the New York climate). Many of these methods were initially based on the pre-1995 ASHRAE approach. I once sat down with the VP of marketing and one of the design engineers for a prominent manufacturer and asked them how the data sheets in their catalog determine system size. They replied the ASHRAE Handbook method. After running some calculations, we found that in fact their results were somewhere between two to three times greater than the results obtained using the Handbook method. What probably happened was that the engineer who had written the sizing sheets (many years ago) started with the Handbook values as a base. But from his experience, he recognized that the numbers were not sufficient to meet a building's demand, so he added a safety factor based on that experience. Subsequently, as the catalog has been revised, each engineer given the responsibility to update the sheets has said to himself or herself, Well, I'm not going to be responsible for there not being enough hot water in a building and has added another safety factor on top of the previous one. And then the chief engineer in charge of the revision says, I'm not going to be responsible for there not being enough hot water . . . and adds yet another safety factor. Thus over time these values have in some cases become grossly inflated. To aggravate this already bad situation, the contractor on the job may look at the data sheets and say, Well I'm not . . . and add another level of so-called safety factor. The job then gets sized out and a call is made to the warehouse, whose staff, feeling like all the other parties, applies the next-size-up approach before sending the heater/boiler out to the job site. The 1995 guidelines also take a new approach. Rather than a single value for volume of water used per apartment, they offer a range of values for different types of users. The residents or likely residents of a building are separated by their demographic characteristics into three usage categories: low, medium, or high (LMH). Additionally, the usage factors are provided per capita rather than per apartment. This reflects the fact that people, not apartments or square footage, use water. To help in the design process, the new ASHRAE tables give more detailed levels of consumption for the peak 5 minutes and the peak 15 minutes (the old tables had only 60-minute peak values). These values more closely represent the instantaneous demand peak that a building will experience.Using the New Method The first step in calculating DHW demand is to determine the demographic profile of the project and building occupants. Different types of building occupants consume hot water in fairly predictable patterns. Users can be lumped into one of the three typical LMH categories of water consumers. Table 1 lists a variety of occupant classifications, one or a combination of which should describe the occupants of any particular multifamily building. For example, a luxury condominium in an area inhabited predominantly by young couples will tend to fall into the all occupants work category of low anticipated water consumption. By contrast, a low-income housing project will generally fall somewhere between the low income and no occupants work categories of high-volume water consumption. An abundance of hot-water-consuming appliances, such as clothes washers or dishwashers, will tend to increase hot-water consumption. If the condominium building example above intended, or allowed, the future installation of a clothes washer in each unit, the demographic category should be augmented from low to medium. It is up to the system's designer to determine this category. Once this LMH factor has been determined, values for hot-water consumption can be selected from Table 2. Values are indicated per capita in peak or maximum flows of 5 minutes, 15 minutes, one hour, two hours, three hours and one day, as well as average daily flow. From these values, anticipated demand can be determined for the estimated maximum building population. |Table 1. Demographic Characteristics Correlation to DHW Consumption| |Demographic characteristics||Usage factor| No occupants work Public assistance and low income (mix) Family and single-parent households (mix) High percentage of children Higher population density One person works, one stays home All occupants work |Table 2. National DHW Sizing Guidelines (Low-Medium-High)| |Hot Water Demands and Use for Multifamily Buildings| |Maximum hour||Peak 15 minutes||Maximum day||Average day| |Low||2.8 gal (10.5 l)/person||1 gal (4 l)/person||20 gal (76 l)/person||14 gal (53 l)/person| |Med||4.8 gal (18 l)/person||1.7 gal (6.4 l)/person||49 gal (185 l)/person||30 gal (114 l)/person| |High||8.5 gal (32.5 l)/person||3 gal (11.5 l)/person||90 gal (340 l)/person||54 gal (205 l)/person| |Peak 5 minutes||Peak 30 minutes||Maximum 2 hours||Maximum 3 hours| |Low||0.4 gal (1.5 l)/person||1.7 gal (6.5 l)/person||4.5 gal (17 l)/person||6.1 gal (23 l)/person| |Med||0.7 gal (2.6 l)/person||2.9 gal (11 l)/person||8 gal (31 l)/person||11 gal (41 l)/person| |High||1.2 gal (4.5 l)/person||5.1 gal (19.5 l)/person||14.5 gal (55 l)/person||19 gal (72 l)/person| |Note: These volumes are for DHW delivered to the tap at 120oF.| |Sources: Data from Chapter 45: Service Hot Water, In 1995 ASHRAE Handbook: HVAC Applications, Atlanta: ASHRAE, 1995, and Goldner, F.S., and D.C. Price. Domestic Hot Water Loads, System Sizing and Selection for Multifamily Buildings. In 1994 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings Proceedings, 2.105-2.116. Berkeley: American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, 1994.| Author Fredric Goldner discusses meter equipment with building superintendent John Perkins. The meter he is pointing to monitors hot water recirculation, and above it is a domestic hot water consumption meter. The number of occupants per apartment should be estimated based on local standards or regulations. For example, in a given city, studios may accommodate two persons; one-bedroom apartments, three persons; two-bedroom apartments, three to five persons; and so on. In buildings where corrective maintenance cannot be done, a safety factor of 20%-30% may be employed to compensate for poorly maintained fixtures and distribution piping. However, this should be done only in extreme cases. The figures presented in Table 2 are for centrally fired systems; individual apartment water heater systems are likely to have lower levels of consumption because the resident usually pays for fuel directly, which encourages conservation. There isn't a set of values for individual systems in ASHRAE, but a suggested rule of thumb for sizing these would be to use a low-end estimate for a single-family home load. ASHRAE based its 1995 guidelines (published in the 1995 HVAC Applications Handbook) on new research conducted in New York City (see Collecting Usage Data in New York City) as well as data from studies in seven other areas of the United States and Canada. Both research and practical experience in different areas of North America indicate that there are variances in DHW use among geographical locations. There is, however, no distinctive pattern that can be identified with the available data. The joint ASHRAE/ASPE (American Society of Plumbing Engineers) Domestic Hot Water Design Manual, to be published this fall, will go into greater depth than the ASHRAE standards, including the patterns of consumption and demand derived from the New York study. Becoming familiar with these patterns can help designers choose the best equipment and help auditors troubleshoot related system problems. Collecting Usage Data in New York City The data were collected by computerized heating controllers, which monitored burner on-off times and the following temperatures: apartment air, outdoor air, boiler water (aquastat), and DHW. Eight buildings had additional monitoring equipment installed to record stack temperature, boiler makeup water flow, DHW flow in 15-minute increments, oil flow, and DHW temperature before and after the mixing valve and on the return line. In 1993, we equipped a subset of three of the sites to record DHW flow in 5-minute increments and to record recirculation flows. This was done to get a more precise picture of short-term/instantaneous demand peaks and to collect the missing information necessary to create an accurate simulation of real-time operations. We collected data in these three buildings for 100 days. EMRA also collected building operation and tenant information from superintendents and property managers via questionnaires and interviews, and building and apartment occupancy records. We conducted energy audits to determine the type and condition of equipment and buildings. Within the New York research, we tried to include a variety of building sizes, income levels, ethnic backgrounds, and locales. The study buildings are characteristic of the older and predominant stock of the over 120,000 New York City multifamily buildings. The buildings range in size from 17 to 103 apartments in either five or six above-ground stories. These buildings were built before 1902 or between 1902 and 1928. All have combination steam-space-heating and DHW-generating steel tube boilers, which use primarily #4 or #6 oil in air-atomizing burners. DHW is generated by a tankless coil just under the surface of the boiler water. Energy Use Analysis For further details, a copy of Report No. 94-19, Energy Use and Domestic Hot Water Consumption: Phase 1, is available from NYSERDA. Tel:(518)465-6251, Ext. 250. Figure 2. Seasonal variations in weekend consumption, gallons per person (composite of data from New York City apartment buildings). There is generally a slightly higher daily consumption on weekends than on weekdays. This holds true in all seasons. The average weekend daily consumption is 7.5% greater than the average weekday daily consumption. Weekday and weekend hot-water consumption patterns have distinct differences (see Figure 3). Weekdays have little overnight usage; a morning peak; lower afternoon demand; and an evening or nighttime peak. Weekends have just one major peak, which begins later in the morning and continues until around 1 pm to 2 pm. The usage then tapers off fairly evenly through the rest of the day. The weekend peak is greater than any of the weekday peaks. The highest peaking level occurs during winter weekends. Thus, the best tactic for an engineer who has the time and money to custom-design a retrofit system is to monitor current consumption for two or three winter weekends to determine a building's actual peak usage, rather than estimating it with Table 2. A system designed to meet these draws should satisfy all other year-round requirements. Two morning peaks occur on the weekdays, the first between 6 am and 8 am and the second between 9:30 am and noon. Individual buildings tend to exhibit one of these two peaks. Generally, the buildings with large numbers of working tenants and middle-income populations experience the early morning peak, while buildings with many children exhibit the later morning peak (especially during the summer period). This knowledge of flow patterns can come in particularly handy when troubleshooting hot water complaints. For instance, a large fluctuation in water temperature at a time when the usage was extremely low recently helped me to identify a problem with a faulty hot water coil. If the fluctuation was observed only during a high usage period, the cause-perhaps an undersized coil or a problem with the mixing valve-would have been harder to determine. Although recirculation pumps should be sized to meet each individual building's requirements, common practice is one size fits all. Thus we found the same pump size at all sites. (A methodology for proper pump size selection can be found on page 45.5 of the 1995 ASHRAE HVAC Applications Handbook.) Our monitoring showed that water consumption has an inverse relationship with recirculation flow. In the overnight period, when there is little or no consumption, the pump reaches its maximum capacity rate. Designers should consider this and the flow curves in Figure 3 when choosing between recirculation control strategies (see The Best Boiler and Water Heating Retrofits, HE Sept/Oct '95, p. 27, and Controlling Recirculation Loop Heat Losses, HE Jan/Feb '93, p. 9). A new study investigating three very low-cost approaches to reduce recirculation system losses while maintaining resident comfort and satisfaction should be completed in early 1997.Peak Demands and Average Consumption In the New York City buildings, the average hourly consumption is only 42% of the consumption in the peak hour. Instead of sizing a system to be able to provide the peak demand, it's possible to generate and store hot water during the periods of average and below-average demand to meet the peak. This could be accomplished by installing a system with a heater designed to generate the average hourly load, running essentially continuously, and providing enough storage tank capacity to store unneeded hot water during the night and furnish it during periods of peak demand (such as morning shower time). Figure 4. Parts of three-hour peak and 60-minute peak consumption. The 5-, 15-, 60-, 120-, and 180-minute peak demand times coincide with each other. These volumes should therefore be addressed as different (time length) measurements within the same peak DHW draw, so the system can be designed to satisfy this load. An instantaneous system designed to meet the peak 5-minute draw will have no problem meeting the rest of the load. Generation and storage systems should be designed both to provide hot water for the average load and to meet the short, sharp peaks. Step 1. Compute the maximum potential occupancy, based on local standards and expectations, and conversations with the building owner or manager. Step 2. Determine the Low, Medium, or High (LMH) usage factor of the building's occupants from Table 1, based on knowledge of the building, conversations with the building owner or manager, and observations. Consider the effect of either currently installed or potential future additions of appliances that might move a building up to a higher usage category. Based on the information above, the Medium usage factor was selected. Step 3a. Compute the system load using the 5-minute peak demand values in Table 2. 1/Boiler System load Conversion Temp rise combustion efficiency DHW load 1,663 gal/hr x 8.33 lb/gal x 90oF x 1/0.8 (80% CE) = 1,558,439 Btu/h Instantaneous DHW-Only Heater. The 1,558,439 Btu/h should be the size of the DHW heater. (Note that a higher combustion efficiency should actually be used for sizing an instantaneous heater; use 85% or the efficiency specified in the equipment documentation.) Combination Heat/DHW Boiler. When sizing a tankless coil in a combination heat/DHW system, the 1,663 gallons per hour is the coil size to be ordered. The 1,558,439 Btu/h is the additional load capacity for DHW to be added to the space-heating load to size the boiler. (In an existing steam heating distribution system, the space-heating load should be computed by the EDR-equivalent direct radiation-methodology.) Generation and Storage System Step 3b. Compute the system load using the peak 30-minute and maximum three-hour hot water values in Table 2. Step 4b. Next, convert the load into equipment ratings. Estimating Consumption in Existing Buildings Step 3c. Calculate system load using the average day values in Table 2. If the current practice of defensive oversizing is applied to the new guidelines, this will only exaggerate the capital and energy inefficiencies experienced in the past. It is therefore important for the designer to recognize the inherent safety nets in the new approach. The most significant of these is that the method uses the building's maximum potential occupancy, which may never actually occur. Also, using the new guidelines, an engineer designs a system to satisfy the higher-volume but short-duration peaks (not delineated in the old guidelines), which occur only a few times during the year. Even if the system were not able to satisfy that load, the problems would probably be minor-for instance, the occupants might experience slightly lower temperature hot water at their taps a few times per year. The main question concerning acceptance and use of the new guidelines is whether the designers and energy professionals are comfortable with their reliability and professional backing. ASHRAE's Technical Committee 6.6 (Service Hot Water) was the main force in the call for a new sizing tool based on the vast quantity of real-time data that has been collected. The new joint ASHRAE/ASPE Domestic Hot Water Design Manual, scheduled for publication this fall, should also provide substantial support for those who wish to size systems properly. It includes a how-to sizing guide for 17 different building types-from residential buildings to commercial, industrial, and recreational facilities.Further Reading Chapter 45: Service Hot Water, In 1995 ASHRAE Handbook: HVAC Applications, Atlanta: ASHRAE, 1995. Goldner, F.S. DHW System Sizing Criteria for Multifamily Buildings. ASHRAE Transactions 100, No.1 (January 1994): 147-65. Goldner, F.S. Energy Use and DHW Consumption Research Project, Report No. 94-19. Final Report: Phase 1. Prepared by Energy Management and Research Associates for New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, November 1994. Goldner, F.S., and D.C. Price. Domestic Hot Water Loads, System Sizing and Selection for Multifamily Buildings. In 1994 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings Proceedings, 2.105-2.116. Berkeley, CA: American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy,1994. | Back to Contents Page | Home Energy Index | About Home Energy | | Home Energy Home Page | Back Issues of Home Energy | EREN Home Page | Home Energy can be reached at: [email protected] Home Energy magazine -- Please read our Copyright Notice - FIRST PAGE - PREVIOUS PAGE

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Cool Roofs Cool the Planet September 11, 2006 There's an important, although little-known, advantage to cool roofs: They help cool the planet. The Summer 2006 heat wave resulted in dramatic increases in both A/C electric bills and homeowners’ interest in cool roofs.As Home Energy readers know, cool roofs can reduce A/C use by up to 20% and improve a home’s comfort in the event of a power loss (see “Cool Colored Roofs,” HE March/April ’06, p. 12). This article focuses on a lesser known cool roof benefit— their contribution to the Earth’s albedo or reflectivity. Approaches such as cool roofs that instantly reduce global warming may well turn out to be a critical tool in countering the risk of abrupt climate change. To read complete online articles, you need to sign up for an Online Subscription. Once an order has been placed there is an automatic $10 processing fee that will be deducted with any cancellation. The Home Energy Online articles are for personal use only and may not be printed for distribution. For permission to reprint, please send an e-mail to [email protected].

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Homeopathy is based on the observation that substances that are capable of causing disorders of the mind or body in healthy people can be used in dilute form as medicines to treat similar disorders in someone who is ill, whatever the cause of the illness. Allium cepa derived from onions can be taken as an example. Contact with raw onions causes lacrimation, stinging and irritation around the eyes and nose. Allium cepa can therefore be prescribed to patients with hay fever with the same symptoms. The key to successful homeopathic treatment is identifying the similarity between the effects of the original substance in healthy people and the pattern of the illness in the individual who is ill. This is called the similia principle. Homeopathic medicines must be customized to match the individual with that disease, a process that is called ‘individualisation’. The very same disease in another patient will most often be cured with an entirely different medicine. Thus we could have two different medicines that cure two different patients with identical conventional diagnoses. The word ‘individualisation’ is emphasized because any particular disease or illness, although it may have a particular form of pathology, actually manifests itself differently in individual patients. The pattern of clinical symptoms and signs will differ in some details from person to person. This is true of the actual condition itself, but even more so if incidental factors like changes in mood, thirst, appetite, reaction to temperature, and other body functions are taken into account. The characteristic actions of the homeopathic medicine must match these individual characteristics of the illness if it is to have a therapeutic effect. Homeopathy is based on the philosophy that the body, mind and emotions are not really separate and distinct, but are actually fully integrated. Based on this perspective, a homeopathic doctor seeks a medicine that fits all of a patient’s physical and psychological symptoms. The action of homeopathic medicines is to enable the natural self-regulating mechanisms in the mind and body to function more efficiently, and to mobilize and reinforce the healing resources, which already naturally exist. Actually, instead of defeating or covering up diseases, it facilitates healing. Choosing the right prescription is like choosing the precise key needed to switch on this process. Homeopathy does not seek to remove or suppress symptoms. Its goal is to recognize and remove the underlying cause of these symptoms. This is why a homeopathic doctor will work towards understanding the whole person — including their body, mind and emotional state — before prescribing a medicine. When accurately implemented, homeopathic treatment can elicit a profound healing response. Homeopathy can be extremely effective in treating chronic and long-term health problems. Prescribing medicines of botanical origin is not identical with homeopathy. In phytotherapy the plant extracts are used in their crude form and not potentised as in homeopathy, nor is the law of similars considered. Homeopathy is also to be distinguished from anthroposophic medicine. In anthroposophic medicine homeopathic medicines can be used among other medicines, but their prescription is not based on the law of similars.

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In this article I will describe a basic aspect of homeopathy’s spiritual understanding of health and disease: the view that disease arises from a fixed adaptation to a past situation that no longer exists in the present. Homeopaths view health and disease as states of being that are either appropriate for the situation (healthy) or inappropriate for the situation (unhealthy). The state of being that we adopt from moment to moment can be regarded a ‘posture’ that is either suitable or unsuitable for the present moment of existence. An unsuitable posture kept for too long manifests as chronic disease, whereas a short-lasting one causes acute symptoms or weakens the organism until it is susceptible to infectious influences. Disease arises from memory of a past state that no longer exists Conventional medicine is based on a materialistic view of life. Health is compared to a well-functioning machine, while disease is viewed as a malfunction in some part of the machine. Homeopathy is based on a spiritual view of life. Health is the ability to respond freely and creatively to all situations encountered throughout life, whereas disease is any restriction on this ability. Samual Hahnemann, the originator of homeopathy, discovered through lifelong clinical observation that disease could often be traced to a ‘mistunement’ created during a past stressful episode in the life of the organism or its ancestors. He concluded that the memory of this past state was the real cause the suffering that we experienced through physical and psychological symptoms. Health is the flexibility to successfully adapt to all life situations Rajan Sankaran (author of The Spirit of Homoeopathy) describes disease as an “unsuitable posture… adopted by the organism in order to survive in a perceived situation.” What is a “perceived situation”? To answer this, let’s first look at an example he gives of a real situation: If you are lifting a heavy bag and you have to walk with that heavy weight, in order that your back does not break, you have to bend in the direction opposite to the bag. So, your body adopts a posture to survive in this situation. This posture is healthy, it is going to do you good, in this situation it is needed, and as long as the bag is heavy, the posture has to be maintained. Hence, we see that posture is an adjustment. As long as this adjustment is in proportion to the existing situation, as long as it is suitable to this situation, and as long as the situation or exciting factor remains, this adjustment cannot and should not be corrected. Life can be viewed as a series of adaptations: one situation flows into another, and each time a different posture is adopted to suit the new situation. Health is the flexibility to correctly adapt to any situation that arises throughout our life journey. An unhealthy posture arises from adaptation to a perceived situation that is not really present. This adaptation can be either inappropriate for the situation or appropriate for the situation but of disproportionate intensity. Sankaran illustrates these possibilities as follows: When a man is being chased by a lion, the posture of running fast, being afraid, etc. is appropriate since his survival depends upon it. However, if a man is in the same state without a lion chasing him, or he adopts the same posture even if a little dog chases him, or he is in such a pain that he cannot think (a reaction far in excess of what is needed in the situation) then this state is to be removed by treatment. The unsuitable posture is hidden behind physical and psychological symptoms So long as an unhealthy posture is held over from the past, the person is precluded from adopting an appropriate posture for the present situation. This is considered a state of disease in homeopathy, whether or not there are clear physical or psychological symptoms that warrant medical treatment. This means, on the one hand, that homeopathy is a powerful healing tool in cases where the patient feels distress yet there are no discernible medical abnormalities. On the other hand, during the clinical encounter between patient and homeopath the disease state does not automatically reveal itself as an unhealthy posture. In most clinical situations the patient will present with vague discomfort or with one or more physical and psychological complaints. During the homeopathic intake the homeopath must therefore ask many questions in order to lead the patient to reveal the unsuitable posture that he or she continuously adopts in all life situations. This posture, which most of us do not have a direct awareness of, is the underlying reason for the existence of the clinical complaint that induces people to seek homeopathic treatment in the first place. How do unsuitable postures arise? An unsuitable posture originates from an adaptation to a past situation that is maintained even though it is no longer applicable to the situation. This happens when the past situation has exceeded the organism’s resilience. Such situations generally fall into one of the following categories: - a past traumatic event, - childhood or cultural habits that have powerfully impressed themselves on the organism, or - inherited spiritual impressions — known in homeopathy as “miasms” — that long ago left their mark on one’s parents or earlier ancestors. Resilience can be understood by analogy with a steel spring: just as a steel spring can be bent and absorb many small shocks and still recover its original form, a person can absorb many stresses yet maintain his underlying state of health throughout the stressful period. But beyond a certain threshold, excessive stress deforms the spring and causes it to lose its elasticity. A person exposed to excessive stress will likewise carry the spiritual impression or ‘deformation’ due to the past stress and will no longer be fully ‘elastic’ and responsive to the present situation. Homeopathic treatment frees us from unsuitable postures We all continually adopt postures in order to survive in different life situations or in an attempt to create a reality that we imagine to be desirable. But if we remain fixed in a posture that is no longer appropriate for the situation (for any of the reasons cited earlier) to the point that we are unable to respond appropriately to situations that arise in the present, we may then become aware of an uncomfortable sensation at the level of our spirit. If we do not free ourselves of the fixed posture eventually we experience more obvious psychological discomfort, physical symptoms, or both. In Sankaran’s words: Disease is thus seen as an affection of the whole person, as a posture adopted as a survival mechanism to suit a particular situation which does not exist at the moment. This posture makes us react to the present in an unsuitable way due to our false perception of it. Such an unsuitable and disproportionate reaction to the situation naturally causes a constant stress on the organism, and the stress aggravates the pathology or brings the tendency to a particular pathology into activity. Health is the ability to feel OK in all situations. A posture is an adaptation for feeling OK under a specific situation. Unless one is able to switch postures freely from moment to moment, a person will only feel OK when the fixed posture happens to coincide with (be suitable for) the situation. In terms of the model I’ve just presented, homeopathic treatment releases the hold of the unsuitable posture that prevents free-flowing adaptation to the present moment. By raising awareness of the inappropriateness of the fixed posture to the point that a person can choose to abandon it in favour of another posture, homeopathic remedies assist in the release of inappropriate life habits that manifest physically or psychologically. Once this happens, full resilience is restored and the person is able to handle life as it comes — adopting appropriate postures as needed and shifting away from them as soon as the situation is over — without undue stress. Read related articles: - The 7 Essential Factors in Forecasting the Length of Homeopathic Treatment of Chronic Diseases - Medical Suppression of Symptoms and Its Homeopathic Cure - Diving Into “The Spirit of Homoeopathy” - This is Why Homeopaths Emphasize Clinical Results over Theory - The Influence of Vitalism on Naturopathic Medicine - The Distinction Between Classical Homeopathy and Naturopathic Medicine - The How and What of Homeopathic Remedies - The Followup Appointments - Basics of the Homeopathic Prescription - Basics of Homeopathic Case Analysis

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World Aids Day December 1st is World AIDS Day, which was established to increase awareness and education and remind the world that much more can be done in the fight against HIV. This World AIDS Day is all about encouraging individuals to Act Aware. This means finding out the facts about HIV and using this knowledge to protect yourself and others from HIV infection. Many people do not know how HIV is transmitted or how it can be prevented. Many more don’t know the reality of living with HIV, people living with HIV can also face stigma and discrimination. To learn about all this and more visit HIVaware, which is an interactive new website that provides all the information you should know about HIV.

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Presidential religious lives are, for the most part, rather unremarkable--just like the majority of Americans they represent. As the 2012 presidential race, and especially the Republican nomination, dominate the news, the religion of the sometimes-frontrunner Mitt Romney continues to be an issue for many Republican voters. Americans have a hard time imagining a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a Mormon, as President. Yet Mormonism is, perhaps, the most American of all religions, founded by an American citizen and based on a sacred text that tells the story of God's work in the Americas. As many question Romney's religious heritage, it would be enlightening to look at eight presidents whose religious lives have troubled and fascinated Americans, or whose faiths may surprise us even today. 1. Andrew Jackson. Our first Presbyterian president, Jackson's religious life is noteworthy because he conscientiously refused to allow his religion to be a part of his office. Long before the Presidential Prayer Breakfast or the National Day of Prayer, Jackson was called on by members of Congress and influential religious leaders to call for a national day of prayer and fasting in response to a cholera epidemic. Jackson refused, stating that to do so would be to transcend "those limits which are prescribed by the Constitution for the President," and he feared that this religious encroachment could "disturb the security which religion now enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government." 2. James K. Polk. Like Jackson, Polk also was reared in a Presbyterian community, though he was never a member of the church and was never baptized as a Presbyterian. The reason he was never baptized is that his father and grandfather were considered to be religiously suspect by the local Presbyterian church, "free-thinking radicals" who openly honored Deism and its proponents, like Thomas Paine. Polk's father refused to give a profession of faith, so Polk was not baptized until days before his death. This streak of independence, of not allowing others to dictate one's religion is certainly an American trait. Interestingly, Polk did have his own significant religious experience in a quintessentially-American way--at an open-air Methodist revival meeting where he "went away . . . a convicted sinner, if not a converted man," considering himself to be a Methodist (the first Methodist president) for the rest of his life. Out of deference to his wife's Presbyterianism, Polk waited until the week before his death to be baptized and confirmed into membership in the Methodist church, by the same pastor who had preached that open-air sermon years earlier. 3. Abraham Lincoln. Even though he is considered one of the greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln likely would be neither nominated nor elected today: he never joined a church, publicly confessed a creed, nor publicly uttered belief in God's endorsement of his policies. One should read Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, his "Meditation on the Divine Will," or his private letters in which he would declare simply, "The Almighty has his own purposes." Lincoln resides at the center of American political and religious history, and he seemed to ponder politico-theological matters more deeply than most ministers and theologians of his day. He never claimed to be born again, he never claimed Jesus as his favorite philosopher, and he loved to tell ribald stories and poke fun at himself. Yet he clearly sought the will of God and divine direction during what he called the "butchering business" of the Civil War. 4. Franklin D. Roosevelt. President Obama was not the first president to use the Gospels to justify social and economic policy. Roosevelt often drew on the Sermon on the Mount to promote the values of the New Deal and believed that service to God was best expressed in service to others. Also like President Obama (and many others), Roosevelt often refused to go to church while in Washington, saying, "It bothers me to feel like something in the zoo being looked at by all the tourists in Washington when I go to church." 5. Harry Truman. In his 1949 Inaugural Address, Truman stated, "We believe that all men are created equal because they are created in the image of God. From this faith we will not be moved." As he once wrote to his wife Bess, "I had a Presbyterian bringing up, a Baptist education, and Episcopal leanings, so I reckon I ought to get to heaven somehow, don't you think so?" While in the White House, Truman often attended the First Baptist Church in the District of Columbia, in part because its pastor made no show at all of Truman's attendance. As Truman wrote in his diary in 1948, "I go for a walk and go to church. The preacher always treats me as a church member and not as the head of a circus. That's the reason I go." He also penned in his diary: "If Jesus Christ were to return he'd be on the side of the persecuted all over the world. He'd most likely be wearing a ready made sack suit and be standing on a street corner preaching tolerance, brother love and truth." And Truman concluded that Christ would "probably be placed in a sanitarium in the free countries." However, it is troubling to read also in Truman's Memoirs that he saw that attainment of the atomic bomb (and the victory over Japan) as having "come with the help of God, who was with us in the early days of adversity and disaster, and who has now brought us to this glorious day of triumph." One might see why "Give em Hell" Harry kept these thoughts private. 6. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower may have been instrumental in bringing "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance and making "In God We Trust" the national motto, but he was reared in a religious tradition that does not allow its adherents to take oaths of office or to recite the Pledge of Allegiance--the Jehovah's Witnesses (a religion/denomination born in the United States, as was Mormonism). His home was the meeting place for fifteen Bible Students (an earlier name for Jehovah's Witnesses), where they had lessons and held services, until he left for college. However, Eisenhower became the only president to be baptized and join a church during his presidency--the Presbyterian church in this instance. 7. John F. Kennedy. On September 12, 1960, Kennedy delivered the speech of his political career in Houston, Texas, before a crowd of several hundred mostly Protestant ministers. Kennedy was addressing what he referred to as "the so-called religious issue." As Kennedy saw it, the nation was facing a raft of issues from the threat of Soviet communism to hunger and despair at home. "These are," he argued, "the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues---for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barrier." Nonetheless, JFK knew he had to address the question of his Catholicism. Kennedy famously (and for some, especially today, quite controversially) declared, "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the president----should he be Catholic---how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote," and he concluded, "I do not speak for my church on public matters; and the church does not speak for me." Earlier in his career in Congress, JFK once quipped that in Boston they learned their politics at home and their religion from Rome. As JFK put it, "I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office." 8. Jimmy Carter. During the 1976 North Carolina Primary, Carter made the statement that he was a "born-again" Christian, and most journalists and political pundits had little if any idea what this Southern Baptist, regular church-goer, Sunday School teacher was talking about. Soon almost every presidential aspirant was claiming to be born again or at least on pretty close speaking terms with God, if not having God on his campaign staff. In a short period of time, the president went from being seen as the nation's fire hydrant to our Chaplain-in-Chief, and we all wanted to know, religiously and/or theologically speaking, what made these candidates tick. The year Carter ran for the presidency a leading national magazine proclaimed "The Year of the Evangelical," and that November he beat President Ford in part due to strong evangelical support. Yet, many of those same voters would reject Carter four years later for his failure to seek to enact their views into public policy, as on abortion. As a Southern Baptist, Carter hewed strongly to his denomination's traditionally strong and sound commitment to the separation of church and state. For the first two hundred years of this country, most of its presidents worked diligently to keep their religious lives private and to keep some sort of wall between their religion and the office. But this presidential race has brought us the "Thanksgiving Family Forum" (featuring most of the Republican presidential candidates and sponsored by an Evangelical Christian policy group), and 2012 already has brought us a National Prayer Breakfast at which President Obama tied his faith to his tax policies. The men who have been president have often struggled to balance their private faith with their public duties, and this election year will likely continue to reveal that tension in a public way that would have likely shocked our founders and shaken many of our presidents. A Slideshow Of The Faith Of All American Presidents

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Today is the first-ever International Day of the Girl. This is a day to celebrate the fact that it is girls who will change the world; that the empowerment of girls holds the key to development and security for families, communities and societies worldwide. Child marriage is one of the most shocking and disturbing practices facing girls around the world today. Every year, ten million girls are forcibly married before the age of eighteen, many as young as twelve or thirteen-years-old. A delegation from the Council of Elders (veteran leaders of the freedom and peace movements of the mid-20th century) recently led an interfaith service at Zuccotti Park. Hundreds of OWS activists took part. Working to bring together non-governmental agencies from around the world, Girls Not Brides is confronting a practice that prohibits 10 million girls -- annually -- of the right to an education, health, and security. On a learning trip to Ethiopia, where 49 percent of girls are married before they are 18, I came face to face with one of the biggest challenges that holds back the world's female population and keeps countries mired in poverty: child marriage. There is a diverse, all-star cast of some of today's most treasured and charismatic leaders who have come together online and off in a group called the Elders. Their mission: to fight for social justice.

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[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] In reply to your question as to whether or not E coli 0157:H7 and the other verotoxin toxin strains acquired the toxin gene by laboratory genetic engineering. There has been serious discussion in the literature debating that point. There is evidence that the verotoxin genes can be transmitted born on a transducing bacteriaphage (meaning that the toxin genes may be transmitted between bacteria on a virus). It seems most likely that the transfer of the toxin genes is a natural phenomenon and one amplified by growing problem of the proximity of farm animals and people, feedlot fattening of range cattle in the corn county has created a lot of poop near fruit and vegetable farms and near main municipal wells. The people made ill have bloody diarrhea but most of those killed or crippled suffer kidney and later other organ damage from the verotoxin. It has been claimed that the pasture or feedlot run off of the bacteria can be greatly reduced by adding the plastic , polyacrylamide, to the Hope this discussion helps, Cheers, Joe Roberto Verzola wrote: My thanks to Joe Cummins and Frank Teuton for the E.coli So far, this is what I've learned: - most of hundreds of E.coli strains are harmless (in fact, we need the E.coli inside our gut because they produce some vitamins for - a few strains are harmful, and the one which has received the most coverage recently is the O157:H7 strain, which causes a form of diarrhea which can be fatal. - the presence of E.coli in water is used as *indicator*. While the E.coli itself may not be harmful, its presence implies possible fecal contamination of the water. Such fecal contamination means other contaminants -- this time pathogenic -- may also be present. - E.coli is both aerobic and anaerobic (ie, it can survive in either environment); this seems to contradict recent exchanges on Sanet re compost teas which implied that aeration kills E.coli. Apparently not. Can Elaine Ingram clarify this? - E.coli has been the most common target of bacterial genetic engineering. ie, all kinds of genes and plasmids have been inserted into E.coli. Another question for Joe Cummins: is it possible that these genetic manipulations created the pathogenic strains of Regards to all,

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Construction (NAICS 23) Under this topic you will find the North American Industry Classification System definition of the Construction (NAICS 23) sector. You can use this definition to properly identify the segment of the industry you wish to study further in other sections of Canadian Industry Statistics. Definition of the Sector This sector comprises establishments primarily engaged in constructing, repairing and renovating buildings and engineering works, and in subdividing and developing land. These establishments may operate on their own account or under contract to other establishments or property owners. They may produce complete projects or just parts of projects. Establishments often subcontract some or all of the work involved in a project, or work together in joint ventures. Establishments may produce new construction, or undertake repairs and renovations to existing structures. A construction establishment may be the only establishment of an enterprise, or one of several establishments of an integrated real estate enterprise engaged in the land assembly, development, financing, building and sale of large projects. There are substantial differences in the types of equipment, work force skills, and other inputs required by establishments in this sector. To highlight these differences and variations in the underlying production functions, this sector is divided into three subsectors. Establishments are distinguished initially between those that undertake projects that require several different construction activities (known as trades) to be performed, and establishments that specialize in one trade. The former are classified in Subsectors 236, Construction of Buildings and 237, Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction, depending upon whether they are primarily engaged in the construction of buildings or in heavy construction and civil engineering projects. Establishments in these subsectors complete projects using their own labour force, by subcontracting, usually to trade contractors, or a combination of own account and subcontracting activities. Establishments classified in these subsectors are known by a variety of designations, such as general contractor, design-builder, speculative builder, operative builder and construction manager. The designation depends on the scope of the projects they undertake, the degree of responsibility and risk that they assume, the type of structure that they produce, and whether they work on contract for an owner or on their own account. General contractors typically work under contract to a client (the owner of the land and the building or structure to be constructed), and undertake projects that require several specialized construction activities to be performed. Often the general contractor will subcontract some of the specialized tasks to other establishments. Design-builders are similar to general contractors. However, in a design-build project a single contract is signed with the owner that makes the contractor responsible for providing the architectural and engineering designs. The design-builder therefore is responsible for the design of the project as well as its construction. Construction establishments that build on their own account, for sale to others, are known as speculative builders, operative builders or merchant builders. They are most often engaged in the construction of residential buildings. Construction managers provide oversight and scheduling services to the owner, for the most part during the actual construction process. This type of service is sometimes referred to as agency construction management, to distinguish it from a type of general contracting known as at-risk construction management. On the other hand, project management, which is a turnkey-type service involving the entire project, including feasibility studies, the arranging of financing, and the management of the contract bidding and selection process, is classified in 54133, Engineering Services when it is the primary activity of an establishment. Establishments that specialize in one particular construction activity, or trade, are generally classified in Subsector 238, Specialty Trade Contractors. However, in order to conform to the generally accepted distinctions made by construction businesses themselves, some types of specialized establishments involved in road building and civil engineering are classified in Subsector 237, Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction. Subsector 238, Specialty Trade Contractors, comprises establishments engaged in trade activities generally needed in the construction of buildings and structures, such as masonry, painting, or electrical work. Specialty trade contractors usually work under contract to another construction establishment but, especially in renovation and repair construction, they may contract directly with the owner of the property. A significant amount of construction work is performed by enterprises that are primarily engaged in some business other than construction, for these enterprises’ own use, using employees and equipment of the enterprise. This activity is not included in the construction sector unless the construction work performed is the primary activity of a separate establishment of the enterprise. However, if separate establishments do exist, they are classified in the construction sector. Establishments primarily engaged in: - manufacturing and installing building equipment, such as power boilers; manufacturing pre-fabricated buildings (31-33, Manufacturing) - operating highways, streets and bridges (48-49, Transportation and Warehousing) - project management services, when it is a primary activity (54133, Engineering Services) - maintenance of rights of way for power, communication and pipe lines; and cleaning building exteriors, after construction (56, Administrative and Support, Waste Management and Remediation Services)

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From US News and World Report Starting this week, pregnant women in Duplin County, N.C., and Queens, N.Y., will be getting letters and phone calls asking them to be part of the National Children’s Study. This first-ever effort, 10 years in the making, will follow thousands of children from the womb to age 20, with the goal of finding the causes of major health problems like asthma, autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, low birth weight, birth defects, and premature birth. In the months and years to come, 103 more areas of the country will be included in this first large-scale, long-term study to investigate environmental factors like pollution and pesticides as possible causes. “We’ll be able to amass information on the environmental causes of these diseases within three to five years,” says Philip Landrigan, a principal investigator for the study, based at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. He pioneered research on the health effects of air pollution on children, proving in the 1970s that children could suffer IQ loss and other serious damage from exposure to low levels of lead previously thought safe

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Cyclohexane overview Transcript Cyclohexane is a chemical that is mostly used really as a feedstock for other chemicals. The feedstocks for cyclohexane, there’s really one, its benzene. Cyclohexane production is mostly based on the catalytic hydrogenation of benzene because of its simplicity and high efficiency. Nearly all cyclohexane in North America is consumed internally. These products are mostly used to make nylon 6, or nylon 6,6 or even caprolactam. The key driver in this market, of course is benzene, which is factored in to an industry-based formula which is used by ICIS. ICIS has a contract price for the US which is updated monthly.

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Because many rural poor live in areas far away from markets, we investigate whether better road access could help improve their livelihood and reduce rural poverty. We use three waves of a primary panel survey at the household level conducted in 18 remote natural villages in China to study how road access shapes farmers’ agricultural production patterns and input uses and affects rural poverty. Our results show that access to roads is strongly associated with specialization in agricultural production. In natural villages with better road access, farmers plant fewer numbers of crops, purchase more fertilizer, and invest more money in labor. In combination with such factors, road connections improve household agricultural income—in particular, cash income—and contribute to poverty reduction in the surveyed villages. However, better access to rural roads does not appear to bring about significant changes in nonagricultural income. Evidence from rural China International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

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We work to reduce our environmental impact and use natural resources efficiently through the adoption of management systems for the main environmental aspects of our activities. - We pump underground water to keep our quarries in good condition and use water to transform our minerals. The Group encourages the operations to reduce consumption, increase recycling and control the quality of water discharged. - Our activities produce relatively small quantities of industrial waste. This is because minerals are mainly converted by mechanical (e.g. grinding) and physical (e.g. density separation) processes. - Fuel use is the main source of CO2 emissions in the physical transformation of minerals. The Group aims to improve its energy efficiency and it is looking for ways to replace fossil fuels with alternative energies. - Oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and sulfur dioxide (SOx) are also emitted from the combustion of fuel in our conversion processes. Controls on the emissions of these materials are becoming stricter in many countries. We intend to be proactive with respect to those controls. - The surface area affected by mining is kept to a minimum and it is continuously restored whenever possible. In addition to the compensating measures taken, quarries offer many opportunities to enhance biodiversity, especially through their end-of-life remediation. Imerys is an essential partner for its customers. As such, Imerys supports their Sustainable Development processes. The Group’s Research & Development team increasingly considers raw material savings and carbon footprint reduction when designing new products. As a global industrial group, Imerys is accountable for the environmental consequences for its activities. Sound Environmental Management Systems (EMS) and compliance with the laws, regulations and internal protocols that apply to its activities are essential to its performance and long-term future. Manage properly water usage and limit waste production are part of our Sustainable Development goals. We have implemented action programs to improve the energy efficiency of its industrial activities and, as a result, reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. We strive to lessen negative impacts of our mining and processing activities on biodiversity along three main lines: keeping affected surface area to a minimum, continuous restoration whenever possible and taking offset measures. Constantly improving the environmental impact of our products and processes is a priority for our R&D programs. In 2011, Imerys launched around 50 new products, a large number of which offered an environmental, health or safety benefit.

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NASA Cyber Attacks On The Increase: Report According to NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration), in recent years, it has become an increasingly popular target for high-tech hackers. In 2007 and 2008, China was suspected to have hacked into NASA satellites, though no formal evidence linking China to the attacks has been brought forward. The agency says its systems were hacked approximately thirteen times in 2011 alone. "The threat to NASA's information security is persistent and ever-changing," noted Congressman Paul Braun at a recent meeting of the House Science, Space and Technology subcommittee. "Unless NASA is able to continuously innovate and adapt, their data systems and operations will continue to be in danger." (Source: usatoday.com) Nature of Attacks Varies Widely The number of hacker infiltrations into NASA data systems continues to grow. Since 2010, for example, there have been a variety of startling breaches of NASA's security networks. These include such issues as interference with Earth observation satellites Terra and Landsat-7, and the cyber theft of personal records associated with 150 NASA employees. In a separate attack, hackers gained access to the personal records of those associated with NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, located in Pasadena, California. Then there was the very public case of a Texas man who last year plead guilty to hacking NASA computers and then preventing the agency's workers from accessing important oceanographic information. NASA Too Big for Security Budget? The problem with lack of security appears to be associated with NASA's enormous organizational size. Although the space organization is popularly linked with the space shuttle program, NASA's scope is actually much larger: online, it manages roughly 3,400 websites and maintains approximately 176,000 unique email addresses. Protecting these assets is a huge challenge, and many observers are starting to wonder if the $58 million NASA spends annually on network security is going to be enough, moving forward. "Some NASA systems house sensitive information which, if lost or stolen, could result in significant financial loss, adversely affect national security, or significantly impair our nation's competitive technological advantage," said Paul Martin, NASA's inspector general. (Source: reuters.com) Free eBook: The Windows 7 Guide: From Newbies to Pros. In this 46 page guide you will be introduced to Windows 7 and what it has to offer. It will teach you about the new taskbar, how to resolve software compatibility issues, how to customize Windows Aero, and explain what the Windows 7 Libraries are all about. Also included: a detailed list of what software is included in Windows 7, and how easy networking is with Windows 7 along with other topics. The advice within this guide will help new users become acquainted with Windows 7 and can also help those who are on the fence about purchasing Windows 7 decide if it would be a good idea. Click here to download this eBook now! Note: this eBook is free, but registration is required; after that, you can select more ebooks and videos for download without registering again. If you have questions / problems with the registration form, please read this.

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| ||Minding Your Mind || | Time To Stop Just Saying No Last reviewed and revised on June 17, 2011 By Michael Craig Miller, M.D. Harvard Medical School Just say no? It turns out that such an approach to treating addictions never made much sense. What scientists have learned about the biology of addiction should help them persuade policy makers if they're listening to move resources off the borders, out of courts and prisons, and into the clinic. Addiction is a chronic illness that is as expensive as it is tragic. It affects more than 20 million Americans and costs our nation almost $500 billion per year more than diabetes and cancer combined. The difficulty with addiction is not the product of bad character or weak moral fiber. Rather, it results from brain circuits being on the blink. Back to top Hijacking the Reward System Addictive substances commandeer the brain's reward system and undermine people's determination to make wise choices, even when they know they are likely to suffer as a result. Since faulty brain circuits don't return to normal right away, if ever, detoxification is rarely enough to keep someone sober. Long-term treatment is essential, and usually requires psychotherapy (to provide emotional support, enhance motivation and reduce stress) along with medication to counter the brain changes shaped by the addictive drug. A feature common to all addictive drugs is that they stimulate the release of the chemical messenger dopamine into a cluster of nerve cells deep in the brain called the nucleus accumbens. This yields a sensation of pleasure that many people want to experience again and again. Cocaine and other stimulants cause this change directly, but other substances alcohol, narcotics, nicotine and marijuana all do so at least indirectly. Could we ever find one treatment to cure every addiction? Probably not, because the cycle of addiction is too complicated it upsets a dynamic balance between reward circuits and fear circuits. Addiction also stifles activity in the front part of the brain, where people decide what action is most important for survival. Multiple chemical messengers and their receptors are involved, not just dopamine. Back to top Medications to Cut Cravings Scientists have used newer models of addiction to develop treatments that can make it a little easier to manage these disorders. The most conspicuous of these are the anti-craving medications. The best known is naltrexone. Naltrexone, which blocks receptors for narcotics in the brain, has long been used to negate the effects of drugs like heroin. Now it also is being used to help alcoholics who want to stop drinking. How could a medication that fights addiction to heroin, an opiate drug, also help an alcoholic? Alcohol boosts endorphins, the opioid chemicals that are produced by our brains. The endorphin boost is instrumental to how alcohol causes pleasurable sensations. By blocking opioid receptors, naltrexone makes drinking less rewarding, so there is less incentive to drink. Another drug, acamprosate, interacts with receptors for another chemical messenger called glutamate. Because it has a different mechanism from naltrexone, patients can be given both drugs a one-two punch against alcoholism. There are several other drugs being investigated to cut down craving for alcohol, narcotics, stimulants like methamphetamine, and nicotine. Back to top Genes at the Root of the Problem As with many medical problems, scientists are hunting for the genes that control the whole apparatus. About half of the vulnerability to addiction is attributed to heredity. Genes determine how sensitive you are to the drug's effects. Let's use alcohol again to illustrate: - In people with a family history of alcoholism, the level of endorphins goes higher after a drink than it does in people without alcoholism in the family. - People with a gene variation labeled Asp40 get more benefit from naltrexone than those with a different variant of the gene. - Serotonin is a chemical that carries messages from nerve cell to nerve cell and is involved in regulating mood. There is a gene (5-HTTLPR) that influences serotonin concentrations by controlling how efficiently it is pumped back into nerve cells. Depending on which copies of that gene you get from your mother and father, you may be more or less likely to binge drink. It's too early for these genetic differences to be useful to doctors. But markers like these, once better established, will help doctors choose the best treatment for individual patients. Back to top What's the Future? For all addictions, we're still a long way from pills that will make treatment easy. The best treatment is still a combination of medication and psychotherapy over the long term. Long experience of the difficulties of addiction may make us cautious, but the advances in science should leave us feeling optimistic nonetheless. As we get better educated about the science behind these illnesses, we will do a better job of just saying yes to people who need help with their addictions. Back to top Michael Craig Miller, M.D., is the editor in chief of the Harvard Mental Health Letter. He is also associate physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. He has been practicing psychiatry for over 25 years at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is an active teacher in the Harvard Longwood Psychiatry Residency Program.

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In May 2003, the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC) defined the following categories for blood pressure, based on extensive reviews of scientific literature. The figures are updated periodically to keep pace with new research. The biggest change is the addition of a new category called prehypertension, which identifies people at higher risk for high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke. |Category ||Systolic Blood | Pressure (mm Hg) | ||Diastolic Blood | Pressure (mm Hg) |Normal ||Less than 120 ||and ||Less than 80 | |Prehypertension ||120-139 ||or ||80-89 | |Hypertension || || || | |Stage 1 ||140-159 ||or ||90-99 | |Stage 2 ||160 or higher ||or ||100 or higher | To classify your blood pressure, your doctor averages two or more readings. For example, if you have 135/85 mm Hg on one occasion and 145/95 mm Hg on another, your doctor will say you have an average blood pressure of 140/90 mm Hg, which is stage 1 hypertension. When systolic and diastolic pressures fall into different categories, the JNC advises doctors to rate the blood pressure by the highest category. For example, 150/85 mm Hg is classified as stage 1 hypertension, not as prehypertension. Systolic hypertension is defined as a systolic pressure of 140 mm Hg or higher and a diastolic pressure below 90 mm Hg. People in the normal category those with a blood pressure below 120/80 mm Hg have the lowest risk of developing cardiovascular disease. People in the prehypertension category have a greatly increased risk of developing hypertension. These people require lifestyle changes to reduce their risk. People with stage 1 hypertension generally require medication, although aggressive lifestyle changes (in diet and fitness) can sometimes help people avoid the need for medication. Your doctor might recommend different numbers based on special circumstances, such as: - Coronary artery disease: 140/90; lower if possible, especially if your symptoms of angina still occur. However, your blood pressure should be reduced gradually. Blood pressure that is lowered too quickly over a short time decreases blood flow in the coronary arteries and stimulates the heart to beat more rapidly. This combination of increased work by the heart muscles with less delivery of oxygen and nutrients can cause more angina symptoms and possibly a heart attack. - Kidney disease: 125/75, especially if your doctor informs you that protein is spilling in your urine. This is determined by a simple urine test. - Diabetes (without kidney disease): 130/80 - Pregnancy: Blood pressure normally stays well below 140/90 during pregnancy. Women at risk of preeclampsia or who have chronic diseases, such as diabetes, will have a lower goal below 130/80.

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The Soul of a New Hand Tool Hand levels are one of the standard tools in the kits of house builders, plumbers, and many other tradespeople. Until 1990, all levels were bubble-type spirit levels. But in that year, a California carpenter, Andy Butler, and some Silicon Valley engineers patented a new level that depended on high-tech electronics to show digitally the precise angle of the surface being checked. The "SmartLevel," as the new tool was named, found a market among users of traditional levels who needed precise degree measurements. Butler and his colleagues, more interested in developing a new idea than amassing a fortune, sold the SmartLevel line and moved onto new projects. In 1995, the Lemelson Center supported oral history interviews with Andy Butler and other key individuals involved with the development, manufacture, and marketing of this new generation of digital hand tool. Additional interviews with SmartLevel principles outside California are forthcoming. At the conclusion of the project, the interviews, an archive of original documents, drawings, photographs, and other records, several generations of SmartLevels, hardware store display elements, and sales training videotapes will be preserved in the Archives Center of the National Museum of American History. For more information on this collection, email the Archives Center. Originally published in Fall 1995.

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The Invisible Gardener's Natural Pest Control Center Click here to hear Andy talk about Organic and Natural Home Pest Controls on his radio shows. If you decide not to use a raised bed then you must prepare the area first. Draw a plan for what you want to grow in your raised bed. Keep the tallest on one side with the smallest to the opposite side. If you have more then one raised decide which plants will grow where. Change this design every year so as not to grow the same plants in the same place year after Choosing a location for your raised bed is very important. The location needs to be close to the kitchen to provide easy access for the cook. The location must provide at least 6 to 8 hrs direct sun, with the more the better. Must have proper drainage. So take a walk around your place and see if you can pick the perfect spot. Another consideration is water, it must have a close source. Never use city water in your raised bed. Many cities have chlorine (or ?) in their city water. Chlorine kills bacteria, that is what it does best. However an organic garden requires natural bacteria in order to function correctly. A garden filter will help keep your garden alive! You will notice an increase in in worms and in the gardens overall health. You can make your own garden filter by converting your shower filter. Info on a gardening filter is coming, ask me about it. Putting together the Raised Bed A good raised bed should be at least 4ft x 10 ft x 12 inches high x at least 2 inches thick. Use non treated wood. The wood can be screwed together for easy break down when needed. If you have gophers in your area, you will want to screen the bottom with extra heavy chicken wire. The size of the bed depends on the area and amount of space you have to use. An ideal situation is to have two or more raised beds. One 4ft x 12ft x 12 inches x 2 inches can produce enough food for a family of four. More beds allow you to rotate the beds and allow one bed to grow green cover which can be turned over. Filling in the Raised Bed The following should fit just right into the raised bed. You will have to use what you find in your area. Start out with a good layer of old horse manure. To this I add either LLama pellets or Rabbit pellets (nature's time released fertilizer). Add 20 lbs of rock dust or any other trace mineral source. Add 20 lbs bone meal, 20 lbs alfalfa meal and 2 bales aged wood. Mix well. Water well (water slowly to allow soil to absorb). To this mixture add 500 lbs compost (if you have it) other wise add enough old horse manure to fill up to 4 inches from the top. Add another 2 bales aged wood or KRA wood product or any light soil. Add another 20 lbs rock dust, 20 lbs bone meal, 20 lbs alfalfa meal. The aged wood will insure the PH will be at the right place. A good PH for the garden is 6.5 to 6.8. Blend everything in together, watering as you go. Finally add enough mulch to fill the raised bed up to the top. Remember that this soil will settle after a few days, so keep a few bags of mulch handy to fill to top when needed. The Invisible Gardener Tell Em Andy Sent Ya! March 9, 2013 dont panic its organic gardening

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Andrew Jackson's Mouth/Barton Letter/Spybook (#804) This episode has not aired in the past few months on Iowa Public Television. How is this fragment connected a political protest in the 19th century? 16:03 What does this little black book reveal about spying on the home front during World War I? 18:34 What does this letter reveal about America's early efforts to honor its war dead? 17:31 Full Program: Barton Letter; Andrew Jackson's Mouth; Spybook 55:10 Full Program: Eduardo investigates the story behind a Bill of Sale for a 17-year old “negro girl". 53:41 - Watch more video from this program » Information For Teachers - Grade Levels - Curricular Areas - Social Studies - Series Length - 128 episodes - Average Episode Length - 56 minutes - Record Rights - Record and retain for 1 year from each broadcast. No duplication allowed. - Visit the Website for Teacher Resources Visit the IPTV Education website to access timely, relevant resources for your classroom. News & Announcements - more » - more » Series Description: HISTORY DETECTIVES returns to explore the stories behind historic sites, artifacts and tall tales told in cities across the country, with the help of an inquisitive team of fact-finders with an uncanny talent for uncovering the truth. All Upcoming Episodes There are no broadcasts currently planned. Please check back for future broadcast dates. These episodes of History Detectives aired in the last few months on Iowa Public Television.

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THE HOLOCAUST JUST GOT MORE SHOCKING By Eric Lichtbau, The New York Times, March 1, 2013 Thirteen years ago, researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum began the grim task of documenting all the ghettos, slave labor sites, concentration camps and killing factories that the Nazis set up throughout Europe. What they have found so far has shocked even scholars steeped in the history of the Holocaust. The researchers have cataloged some 42,500 Nazi ghettos and camps throughout Europe, spanning German-controlled areas from France to Russia and Germany itself, during Hitler’s reign of brutality from 1933 to 1945. The figure is so staggering that even fellow Holocaust scholars had to make sure they had heard it correctly when the lead researchers previewed their findings at an academic forum in late January at the German Historical Institute in Washington. “The numbers are so much higher than what we originally thought,” Hartmut Berghoff, director of the institute, said in an interview after learning of the new data. “We knew before how horrible life in the camps and ghettos was,” he said, “but the numbers are unbelievable.” The documented camps include not only “killing centers” but also thousands of forced labor camps, where prisoners manufactured war supplies; prisoner-of-war camps; sites euphemistically named “care” centers, where pregnant women were forced to have abortions or their babies were killed after birth; and brothels, where women were coerced into having sex with German military personnel. Auschwitz and a handful of other concentration camps have come to symbolize the Nazi killing machine in the public consciousness. Likewise, the Nazi system for imprisoning Jewish families in hometown ghettos has become associated with a single site — the Warsaw Ghetto, famous for the 1943 uprising. But these sites, infamous though they are, represent only a minuscule fraction of the entire German network, the new research makes painfully clear. The maps the researchers have created to identify the camps and ghettos turn wide sections of wartime Europe into black clusters of death, torture and slavery — centered in Germany and Poland, but reaching in all directions. The lead editors on the project, Geoffrey Megargee and Martin Dean, estimate that 15 million to 20 million people died or were imprisoned in the sites that they have identified as part of a multivolume encyclopedia. (The Holocaust museum has published the first two, with five more planned by 2025.) The existence of many individual camps and ghettos was previously known only on a fragmented, region-by-region basis. But the researchers, using data from some 400 contributors, have been documenting the entire scale for the first time, studying where they were located, how they were run, and what their purpose was. The brutal experience of Henry Greenbaum, an 84-year-old Holocaust survivor who lives outside Washington, typifies the wide range of Nazi sites. When Mr. Greenbaum, a volunteer at the Holocaust museum, tells visitors today about his wartime odyssey, listeners inevitably focus on his confinement of months at Auschwitz, the most notorious of all the camps. But the images of the other camps where the Nazis imprisoned him are ingrained in his memory as deeply as the concentration camp number — A188991 — tattooed on his left forearm. In an interview, he ticked off the locations in rapid fire, the details still vivid. First came the Starachowice ghetto in his hometown in Poland, where the Germans herded his family and other local Jews in 1940, when he was just 12. Next came a slave labor camp with six-foot-high fences outside the town, where he and a sister were moved while the rest of the family was sent to die at Treblinka. After his regular work shift at a factory, the Germans would force him and other prisoners to dig trenches that were used for dumping the bodies of victims. He was sent to Auschwitz, then removed to work at a chemical manufacturing plant in Poland known as Buna Monowitz, where he and some 50 other prisoners who had been held at the main camp at Auschwitz were taken to manufacture rubber and synthetic oil. And last was another slave labor camp at Flossenbürg, near the Czech border, where food was so scarce that the weight on his 5-foot-8-inch frame fell away to less than 100 pounds. By the age of 17, Mr. Greenbaum had been enslaved in five camps in five years, and was on his way to a sixth, when American soldiers freed him in 1945. “Nobody even knows about these places,” Mr. Greenbaum said. “Everything should be documented. That’s very important. We try to tell the youngsters so that they know, and they’ll remember.” The research could have legal implications as well by helping a small number of survivors document their continuing claims over unpaid insurance policies, looted property, seized land and other financial matters. “HOW many claims have been rejected because the victims were in a camp that we didn’t even know about?” asked Sam Dubbin, a Florida lawyer who represents a group of survivors who are seeking to bring claims against European insurance companies. Dr. Megargee, the lead researcher, said the project was changing the understanding among Holocaust scholars of how the camps and ghettos evolved. As early as 1933, at the start of Hitler’s reign, the Third Reich established about 110 camps specifically designed to imprison some 10,000 political opponents and others, the researchers found. As Germany invaded and began occupying European neighbors, the use of camps and ghettos was expanded to confine and sometimes kill not only Jews but also homosexuals, Gypsies, Poles, Russians and many other ethnic groups in Eastern Europe. The camps and ghettos varied enormously in their mission, organization and size, depending on the Nazis’ needs, the researchers have found. The biggest site identified is the infamous Warsaw Ghetto, which held about 500,000 people at its height. But as few as a dozen prisoners worked at one of the smallest camps, the München-Schwabing site in Germany. Small groups of prisoners were sent there from the Dachau concentration camp under armed guard. They were reportedly whipped and ordered to do manual labor at the home of a fervent Nazi patron known as “Sister Pia,” cleaning her house, tending her garden and even building children’s toys for her. When the research began in 2000, Dr. Megargee said he expected to find perhaps 7,000 Nazi camps and ghettos, based on postwar estimates. But the numbers kept climbing — first to 11,500, then 20,000, then 30,000, and now 42,500. The numbers astound: 30,000 slave labor camps; 1,150 Jewish ghettos; 980 concentration camps; 1,000 prisoner-of-war camps; 500 brothels filled with sex slaves; and thousands of other camps used for euthanizing the elderly and infirm, performing forced abortions, “Germanizing” prisoners or transporting victims to killing centers. In Berlin alone, researchers have documented some 3,000 camps and so-called Jew houses, while Hamburg held 1,300 sites. Dr. Dean, a co-researcher, said the findings left no doubt in his mind that many German citizens, despite the frequent claims of ignorance after the war, must have known about the widespread existence of the Nazi camps at the time. “You literally could not go anywhere in Germany without running into forced labor camps, P.O.W. camps, concentration camps,” he said. “They were everywhere.”

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Knowledge drives action 24 August 2012 | News story The ground-breaking work of IUCN’s six commissions is highlighted in the latest issue of the journal S.A.P.I.EN.S. Set up as “networks of expert volunteers entrusted to develop and advance the institutional knowledge, experience and objectives of IUCN”, the Commissions enable IUCN to link to cutting-edge science to advance knowledge and learning. SAPIENS (Surveys and Perspectives Integrating Environment and Society), is a peer-reviewed, open access, multidisciplinary journal focused on integrating knowledge to promote sustainability research. This special issue shows how knowledge drives action. It explores how the knowledge generated by the Species Survival Commission (SSC) is helping fight the global biodiversity crisis through the examples of amphibians worldwide and mammals in South-East Asia; how the debate in the Commission on Environmental Law on the so-called “non-regression principle” is pushing the boundaries of law and policy; and how the Commission on Ecosystem Management is tackling existing knowledge gaps on the status of the world’s ecosystems. The World Commission on Protected Areas presents its work on defining and applying the new concept of “nature-based solutions” to global challenges while the Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy focuses on an emerging framework for sustainable rural development. Last but not least, the Commission on Education and Communication looks at pathways to resilient people and a resilient planet. “There is no question that the need for up-to-the-minute, user-friendly and comprehensive knowledge about biodiversity is greater now than it was 50 years ago when the first IUCN Commission, the SSC, was born,” says IUCN Director General, Julia Marton-Lefèvre. “What we also need more than ever today is to reach out beyond the conservation community, to other scientific and academic networks – and this is precisely what we are hoping to achieve through this joint publication between IUCN and the Institut Veolia Environnement.”

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On a bright, airy classroom on the West Side, six youngsters are grooving to Miles Davis, their feet gently tapping, their bodies swaying a bit as they savor the trumpet sighs wafting out of a portable stereo system. Meanwhile, at the tony Symphony Center downtown, a much larger group of kids is hanging on to every note that jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis is playing, as he re-creates the clarion sound of Louis Armstrong hitting a glorious series of high Cs. The day's topic may be vintage Miles or classic Satchmo, but the subliminal message -- the one that the instructors are trying to get across -- is that music can save their lives and open up their futures, whether or not they decide to become musicians. If jazz long ago was the music of the street and the brothel, lately it has taken on a considerably more heroic role in the lives of some urban schoolchildren, thanks to two daring new projects. One, based in Chicago and headed by the protean trumpeter Orbert Davis, uses jazz to save "at-risk" children. To date, Davis' MusicAlive program has been adopted in more than a dozen Chicago schools and in classrooms as far away as Mobile, Ala. If Davis has his way, MusicAlive eventually will be swinging in every state. The other, a Jazz for Young People Curriculum conceived in New York and headed by Marsalis, can give kids "the tools to speak to one another," as Marsalis puts it. The lessons may cover the basics of Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington, but -- in profound ways -- they show kids how to respect one another other, how to negotiate and how to get along. So far as Davis and Marsalis are concerned, no music can do more to give kids hope than America's only homegrown art form, jazz. Moreover, in an era when arts programs rapidly are disappearing from financially hard-pressed school districts, the need for music education never has been greater, argue artists such as Davis and Marsalis. And at a time when science is discovering that musical training improves intellectual abilities and deters against anti-social behavior, they appear to have a point. "The intrinsic value and enjoyment of the music is important, but it's also a beautiful way to teach about democracy and about people working together," says educator Sandy Feldstein, who helped create Marsalis' jazz curriculum. "Because that's what jazz is all about -- a group of musicians trying to play together, improvising, being creative. "Teach kids jazz, and you're teaching them history, because of all that has happened in this music in the past 100 years. And you're teaching them social studies, because you cover all the places that the jazz musicians traveled to, on the road. "Really, you're teaching them about life." Easygoing approach "So what's new?" Davis asks the kids awaiting him in Room 307 of the Victor Herbert School, located just a few blocks west of the United Center, which most of these kids never have seen on the inside. "Band," answers one of the youngsters. "Basketball," says another. "Girls," jokes a third. The approach may seem informal, but that's precisely the way Davis prefers it. The idea is to establish a real rapport with these kids -- to talk about everyday life and its problems and its possibilities -- before a single note is played. Davis knows that the youngsters sitting in front of him have had trouble in school. Some have been failing their classes. Some haven't been showing up. Some have been showing up but haven't said a word. Or at least that's what they were like a year ago, before the school picked them as prime candidates for Davis' MusicAlive, an innovative program that focuses as much on communication and coping as it does onBuddy Bolden and King Oliver. Between discussions about jazz and related musical forms, Davis and the instructors he trains teach kids why it's important to show up for a job interview looking good, just as musicians do when they have a gig; why it's critical to "speak the `King's English' in proper settings," says Davis,to keep phrases as beautiful as those a trumpeter makes when he's standing in front of the public. "Over the years, I've come to realize that students who are involved in the arts learn the life skills of discipline, focus, self-confidence, expression, group dynamics, coping, communication and racial reconciliation," says Davis, who spent 14 years teaching at Columbia College Chicago and received a master's degree in music education from Northwestern University. "These are skills that enable us to function in society and become responsible citizens -- and employable. So why is music the first thing cut in school curricula?" Taking action A few years ago he decided that he wasn't going to sit around watching it happen. So he spent his own time and money developing MusicAlive, which he conceived as a 15-session curriculum "for at-risk youth grades K-12" and unveiled in 1999. The project, which includes workbooks for students and teachers, was designed specifically to connect "every day life and music," according to MusicAlive's mission statement. Ultimately, the goal was to improve kids' self-esteem, teach them how to express themselves verbally and show them how to solve problems and make decisions -- all through hands-on activities in music. Thus the student workbooks that Davis created include both Miles Davis' recording of "On Green Dolphin Street" and Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.Since Davis brought MusicAlive to Victor Herbert, the kids have formed a jazz band and jam together at least once a week, even when no one from MusicAlive is around to hear them. In effect, these youngsters are being transformed. "That music program has saved my boy's life," says Donna Thadison, whose youngest son, 7th grader Jerome, had problems before he started MusicAlive. "He was hanging with the wrong kids, he wasn't getting along with the other kids. Now he's staying out of trouble and getting kids into the program and hardly listening to rap music at all. His life changed."Says Jerome, "When I first came in here, I didn't know a single thing about Louis Armstrong or Miles Davis or any of that," says Jerome, after class. "Now I'm trying to play like him, which is not easy." The magic of music There's more than just anecdotes supporting the notion that music education of almost any sort can turn a kid's life around. Recent scientific studies confirm what Jerome's mother has noticed. A few studies stand out: - Second graders who used piano keyboard training in conjunction with computer software designed to teach math scored 27 percent higher on math tests than children who used only the computer software, according to Neurological Research journal, March 1999. - Students who were involved in instrumental music in middle school and high school had "significantly higher levels of mathematics proficiency by grade 12," according to data from the U.S. Department of Education. Moreover, this was true regardless of the students' socioeconomic status. - Students with music performance experience scored 57 points higher on the verbal and 41 points higher on the math SAT tests than those who had no such experience, while students with music appreciation coursework scored 63 points higher on verbal and 44 points higher on math than those who took no such courses, according to the College Entrance Examination Board. Davis does not pretend to have a magic wand. Some kids drop out of the MusicAlive program. Many schools cannot afford it (at the Victor Herbert School, in fact, Davis provided the program for free, as a kind of pilot venture). But Davis and his longtime business partner, Mark Ingram, believe they're on to something. "We began to realize that there was a problem out there in America's schools, and that we were subconsciously ignoring it," says Ingram. "Whole generations of kids have been lost. Kids are failing. They're disconnected from learning for a lot of reasons, so we needed to find a way to reconnect them to learning. And we believe we have found it by using their favorite tool -- music." The results, says Victor Herbert music teacher Milton Gardner, are unmistakable. "You can see the kids changing," says Gardner. "I just wish more kids could get a chance to get involved." A different approach Realistically speaking, however, struggling, inner-city schools that need jazz instruction the most are, by definition, the ones least able to afford it. Which is why the Jazz for Young People Curriculum created by Jazz at Lincoln Center, in New York, may come as a godsend to schoolkids across the country (including those at the Chicago Public Schools, where it currently is being evaluated by administrators). Unlike Davis' MusicAlive, which was explicitly created to save at-risk kids, the Lincoln Center program has been conceived to increase jazz literacy among youngsters of all kinds. And while Davis' program emphasizes the role that teachers or mentors play in teaching life skills (its instructors trained by Davis himself), the Lincoln Center program is a self-contained collection of materials that almost anyone can use, regardless of how much or how little the teacher knows about jazz. Designed by Marsalis, the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, in conjunction with a team of educators, scholars, musicians and graphic designers, the Jazz for Young People Curriculum kit includes 10 CDs (one of which is a CD ROM), video, student workbook and teacher's guide. It defines the "jazz lingo" and nearly everything else a youngster needs to know. More important, it teaches kids "to listen to one another with empathy," notes Marsalis in his introductory letter to teachers, "to understand and enjoy the individuality of each person." You can see as much as Marsalis stands before a group of school kids in Symphony Center's Buntrock Hall, where he somehow has persuaded a group of 300-plus youngsters to pipe down for a moment. "We're hear to talk about jazz music," says Marsalis, who shrewdly speaks at almost a whisper, so that the kids will have to keep quiet to hear him. "We're going to talk about Buddy Bolden," adds Marsalis, referring to the nearly mythic precursor of the great Satchmo. "Buddy Bolden is the beginning of jazz. Before Buddy Bolden, New Orleans music was about society dances and marches, but Buddy Bolden had another idea. "And that's what jazz is all about -- playing it your way. But it's also listening closely while someone else plays it their way. It's respecting someone else and them respecting you." Later, in a larger session in Orchestra Hall, where a couple thousand kids and their parents have gathered to learn about John Coltrane, Marsalis cuts to the heart of the matter. "For a while, John Coltrane used drugs," says Marsalis, knowing that kids face this temptation, and others, every day they go to school. "But once Coltrane licked drugs, he found God in his own way. He had a spiritual awakening. And he hooked up with another serious musician, the high priest of bebop, Thelonious Monk." Planting a seed And so the point has been made, tucked in amid the glorious tunes of Coltrane that Marsalis and friends unfurl. If a great artist such as Coltrane can find salvation away from vice and inside the discipline and rigor of music, Marsalis is intimating, maybe the youngsters in the audience can, too. "We're trying to reach the kids with ideas and with music that they don't hear on the radio very much," says Marsalis later. "We're trying to teach them in a very plainspoken way, a very accessible way. But we can't be in all the classrooms in America at once, so we came up with the Jazz for Young People Curriculum, and we believe it makes it possible for kids to hear us even when we can't be with them." According to Laura Johnson, education director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, the program is trying to fill a void. "Jazz has been around for 100 years, but outside of the jazz bands in many schools, there is no real school instruction in this music," Johnson says. "And you can't help but conclude that that has something to do with race. American schools mostly have taught music by white composers, and it's time for the schools to show the kids that great art comes from other races, as well. Even apart from music, I think that's a worthwhile lesson." So is the entire Jazz for Young People Curriculum, which stands as by far the most exhaustive, interactive jazz course ever made available to primary and secondary schools. "This is very good stuff indeed," says Michael Blakeslee, deputy executive director of the Music Educators' National Conference. "It's estimable." Adds Henry Chapin, arts coordinator for a Brooklyn school district that has embraced the Jazz for Young People project: "I think this curriculum could fill a vacuum that never even has been acknowledged." By Howard Reich Tribune arts critic March 31, 2002 Copyright (c) 2002, Chicago Tribune

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Many years ago, the Philistines and the Israelites were going to fight each other in a war. The Philistines were on one mountain and the Israelites were on another mountain. The valley of E'-lah was in between them. The Israelites were God's choosen people, but the Philistines had a secret weapon--his name was Goliath. Goliath was the champion of the Philistines. He was a man who was 9 feet tall! Goliath's coat weighed 150 pounds, he wore brass on his legs for protection and had a spear with a tip that weighed 20 pounds. Only a very strong man could fight with such heavy armour and weaponry. Because he was such a huge, fearsome man, Goliath was very bold. He stood on the mountain across from the Israelites and cried to the armies of Israel saying, "Why are ye come out to set your battle in array? am not I a Philistine, and ye servants to Saul? choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants: but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us." And the Philistine said, "I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together. " When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid. Goliath kept saying this every morning and every evening for forty days. King Saul and the rest of the Israelites were scared. No one wanted to fight Goliath by himself! Even King Saul, the King of Israel, was sore afraid and dismayed. What were they going to do? Now at this time, there was a man named Jesse who had eight sons. His three oldest sons were in King Saul's army. His youngest son, David, lived with his father Jesse and tended the sheep. David was a young shepherd with ruddy cheeks and a comely appearance. One day Jesse told David to go the army camp where his brothers were and give them some roasted corn and ten loaves of bread. He also told him to give ten cheeses to their captain. Jesse wanted to find out how David's brothers were doing. So David got up early in the morning and left the sheep with a keeper and went to the valley of Elah as his father had commanded him. When he got there, the Philistines and the Israelites were about to fight. David got out of his carriage and the man who was driving stayed with the carriage. David ran to the Israelite army and saluted his brothers. As he talked with them, Goliath cried to the armies of Israel again daring someone to fight with him. David heard him. All the soldiers got really scared and fled away running as fast as they could. What a sight that must have been! After things had settled down, the soldiers explained the situation to David. They told David that the man who cried was named Goliath. They told David that Goliath was is defying Israel. They told David that if any man would kill Goliath, King Saul would give him great riches and would give the man his daughter to marry and would make that man's family free in Israel. David had a question--...What shall be done to the man that killeth this Philistine, and taketh away the reproach from Israel? for who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God? (1 Samuel 17:26) 27 And the people answered him after this manner, saying, So shall it be done to the man that killeth him. 28 And Eliab his eldest brother heard when he spake unto the men; and Eliab's anger was kindled against David, and he said, Why camest thou down hither? and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart; for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle. 29 And David said, What have I now done? Is there not a cause? 30 And he turned from him toward another, and spake after the same manner: and the people answered him again after the former manner. 31 And when the words were heard which David spake, they rehearsed them before Saul: and he sent for him. 32 And David said to Saul, Let no man's heart fail because of him; thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine. 33 And Saul said to David, Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him: for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth. 34 And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: 35 And I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth: and when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him. 36 Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God. 37 David said moreover, The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, Go, and the LORD be with thee. 38 And Saul armed David with his armour, and he put an helmet of brass upon his head; also he armed him with a coat of mail. 39 And David girded his sword upon his armour, and he assayed to go; for he had not proved it. And David said unto Saul, I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them. And David put them off him. 40 And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag which he had, even in a scrip; and his sling was in his hand: and he drew near to the Philistine. 41 And the Philistine came on and drew near unto David; and the man that bare the shield went before him. 42 And when the Philistine looked about, and saw David, he disdained him: for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and of a fair countenance. 43 And the Philistine said unto David, Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44 And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field. 45 Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. 46 This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. 47 And all this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD'S, and he will give you into our hands. 48 And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose, and came and drew nigh to meet David, that David hasted, and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. 49 And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth. 50 So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David. 51 Therefore David ran, and stood upon the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith. And when the Philistines saw their champion was dead, they fled. 52 And the men of Israel and of Judah arose, and shouted, and pursued the Philistines, until thou come to the valley, and to the gates of Ekron. And the wounded of the Philistines fell down by the way to Shaaraim, even unto Gath, and unto Ekron. 53 And the children of Israel returned from chasing after the Philistines, and they spoiled their tents. 54 And David took the head of the Philistine, and brought it to Jerusalem; but he put his armour in his tent. 55 And when Saul saw David go forth against the Philistine, he said unto Abner, the captain of the host, Abner, whose son is this youth? And Abner said, As thy soul liveth, O king, I cannot tell. 56 And the king said, Enquire thou whose son the stripling is. 57 And as David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him, and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand. 58 And Saul said to him, Whose son art thou, thou young man? And David answered, I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Bethlehemite. Did you know that the God of David can be your God? God sent His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for your sins. If you will admit that you are a sinner and believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead, David's God will be your God. You will become a Christian and you will have the power of God on your side. Go to Children's Bible Stories On-line! | Eternal Life | Hell is Real | The Gospel According to John | | My Testimony |Why I Read the Authorized KJV Bible| | The Hymnal | Messianic Prophecies Fulfilled by Jesus Christ | | Epistle Dedicatory to the Authorized King James of 1611 | Home for hundreds of articles

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March 22, 2012 Looking into Anne Frank’s unblinking eyes Is the image of Anne Frank heading in the same commercial direction as Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”? Munch’s Expressionist painting, once an iconic representation of horror, for years has been available as a party inflatable, an action figure mask, even a bobblehead. With the installation of a lifelike wax figure of the famed Holocaust diarist on display in Madame Tussauds in Berlin, could Frank’s image be susceptible to the same misappropriation and exploitation? Considering that a 1999 issue of Time magazine listed Anne Frank as one of the most important people of the 20th century, and that the “Diary of Anne Frank” is one of the best-selling books of all time, it probably should not be surprising us that publishers and manufacturers are cranking out Anne Frank posters, postcards, limited edition T-shirts and key chains in an effort to cash in on her celebrity. The fact that Madame Tussauds has locations worldwide indicates tourist acceptance of the museums, which are filled with kitschy wax likenesses of celebrated personalities such as John Kennedy, Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe and Rihanna—all done up in unblinking cosmetic perfection. But are we ready for a young Jewish martyr and personification of the Holocaust to be melted into the waxy mix? It’s not entirely clear. The German publication Der Spiegel noted that the wax figure of Adolf Hitler, which the museum reintroduced after it was beheaded by a visitor in 2008, is in the next room. Chris Hale, a producer who lives in Berlin, wrote on his blog that Frank’s likeness is displayed in “the city where the diabolical plan to murder all the Jews of Europe was hatched.” But with several metal sculptures of Frank already on display in the U.S. and Europe—there’s even one near the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam—why all the fuss? Isn’t a wax figure just a sculpture done in a different medium? Madame Tussauds did not respond to JTA’s request for comment. But museum spokeswoman Nina Zerbe told Der Spiegel that the museum wanted to convey a “sense of optimism” with the figure and that “It’s important to let the story continue.” Perhaps it is the motionless three-dimensional quality of the wax likeness. Frank is shown seated at her writing desk in the attic room made famous in her diary, complete with frozen smile that adds a dimension of jittery concern. The projects that put her and her world into motion—a Tony Award-winning Broadway play, a movie, a Japanese animation, a PBS movie of her life and a CD with a virtual tour of the house where she hid—all escape this effect. An Anne Frank comic book even seems to capture her spirit better. In 2010, The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam approached two American comic book artists, writer Sid Jacobson and illustrator Ernie Colon, to create “Anne Frank, The Anne Frank House Authorized Graphic Biography.” Published that year by Hill and Wang, the book was among the first major projects in print to move beyond the boundaries of presenting Frank simply in word and in photos. “Can Anne Frank’s Story Be Told in a Comic Book?” Time magazine asked when the book first came out, foreshadowing some of the concern that the boundary-breaking Frank wax figure has received. “With a graphic format we could make a more truthful presentation of the story,” Jacobson said in a recent interview from his home in Los Angeles. From traveling to Amsterdam and seeing the house and the research, he knew he wanted to put the Frank story in context by also telling the story of the rise of Nazism. “Seeing a person that you know introduced in a few quick panels is so much more effective than reading,” said Jacobson, a former executive with Marvel and Harvey Comics and one of the writers of the comic book classic “Richie Rich.” Jacobson also was the author of another retelling of tragedy, “The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation.” The book, even in its two-dimensional comic book flatness, is better able than a wax statue to take the viewer inside the attic where Frank hid from the Nazis. It graphically illustrates where the rooms were situated. It also shows us the joy of Frank’s first kiss with fellow hider Peter Van Pels, the horror of her discovery by the SS, and her mother and sister’s awful death from typhus in Bergen-Belsen. As the book had broken boundaries when it was published—it has since been translated into Dutch, German, French, Italian and Spanish with plans for a Hebrew edition—I wondered what its author thought about the Frank wax likeness. “I found it offensive, I think they should have stayed away from it,” Jacobson said, adding that “Ours was done with dignity.” On the Madame Tussauds website there is this introduction to a museum visit: “You’ll find yourself saying sorry to someone for nearly bumping into them before realizing it’s a wax figure of Penelope Cruz or Johnny Depp. That’s the skill of our sculptors.” But what if you are not ready for waxen verisimilitude or simply don’t want to bump into Anne Frank? A few years ago while visiting the Hollywood Forever cemetery in Los Angeles, I was startled by the engraved lifelike images in a section where many Russian Jews were buried. I had never seen an image of the dead on a headstone. They were done in such realistic detail that they creeped me out. I had a similar feeling at an open casket funeral, which is not a Jewish tradition. On both occasions I was ready to honor the dead and was curious about their life story. But did I want to encounter them? No. In Judaism, the viewing of a dead person is considered a violation of their modesty. We can look at them, but they cannot gaze back. In Madame Tussauds, when we look into those unblinking Anne Frank eyes, there is no return teenage glare that says, “How could you let this happen?” And there can be no look that says, “Don’t let this happen again.” Anne Frank, The Anne Frank House Authorized Graphic Biography, $11.29, Amazon.com. Madame Tussauds, Berlin: Admission, age 15 and older, 18.85 euro (about $25); ages 3-14, 14.35 euro (about $19). Have something that might be good for Goods for the Jews? Contact Edmon J. Rodman at [email protected].

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Diver A is lowered 28 feet below the surface of the ocean. She swims down another 6 feet. What integer expresses her position compared to the ocean's surface? Find the curve's unit tangent vector. Also, find the length of the indicated portion of the curve. r(t) = (t)i + (2/3)t^(3/2)k, 0 less than or equal to t less than or equal to 8 how do you simplify 29 over 9 I am in 5th grade and we are to find out who invented the order of operation. I understand how to use it and found web sites, but I am unable to locate who invented it. What about this Science is great fun you get to use chemicals but safety is first is this better? Had to write a haiku related to science, is this ok? Chemicals make boom Chemicals should not be ate It makes good science Thank you! I have to write a Haiku related to science, not sure what I need to do. Please help. are the prime factors 2,2,3? what are the prime factors of 12? In photosynthesis, plants form glucose and oxygen from carbon dioxide and water. 6CO_2+6H_2O --> C_6H_12_O_6+6O_2 a) Calculate deltaH rxn at 15 degree C b) Calculate deltaS rxn at 15 c) Calculate deltaG rxn at 15 thanks! For Further Reading

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EARTH, The. Arabic arz ارض Muhammad taught his followers that hust as there are seven heavens [HEAVEN.] on above another, so there are seven earths one beneath another, the distance between each of these regions being five hundred years’ journey. (Mishkat, book xxiv c I part 3) In the Qur’an the earth is said to be stretched out like a carpet or bed (Surah ii 20; xiii 8; xxviii, 6), which expression the ancient commentators understood to imply that the earth was a vast palne, but circular; and (Surah xxxix 67) to be but a handful in the sight of God, which in the last day shall be changed with another earth (Surah xiv 49). The earth is believed by Muslim writers to be surrounded by a great sea called al-Bahru ‘l-Muhit, or the circumambient ocean which is bounded by the mountains of Qaf. The extent of the earth is said to be two hundred years journey being allotted to the sea two hundred to the uninhabited desert, eighty to the country of Gog and Magog (Yajuj wa Majuj) and the rest to the civilized world. Certain terrae incognitae in the midst of the mountains of Qaf are said to be inhabited by the jinn or genii. According to some, Makkah (or Jerusalem according to others) is situated in the centre of the earth. On the Muhit is the Arshu ‘l-Iblis, or “Throne of Satan.” The western portion of the Muhit is often called the Bahru ‘z-Zulmat, or “Sea of Darkness,” and in the south-west corner of the earth is the Fountain of Life of which al-Khizi drank, and in virtue of which he still lives, and will live till the Day of Judgement. The mountains of Qaf which bound the great sea Muhit, form a circular barrier round the whole earth, and are said to be of green chrysolite, the color of which the Prophet said imparts a greenish tint to the sky. The general opinion is that the mountains of Qaf bound our earth, but some say there are countries beyond, each country being a thousand years’ journey. The seven earth, which are five hundred years’ journey from each other, are situated one beneath the other, and each of these seven regions has its special occupants. The occupants of the first are men, genii, and animals; the second is occupied by the suffocating wind which destroyed the infidel tribe of ‘Ad (Surah lxix 6); the third is filled with the stones of hell, mentioned in the Qur’an (Surah ii 22; lxvi 6) as “the fuel of which is men and stones”; the fourth by the sulphur of hell; the fifth by the serpents of hell; the sixth by the scorpions of hell, which are in size and color like black melons, and have tails like spears; and the seventh by the devil and his angels. Out earth is said to be supported on the shoulders of an angel, who stands upon a rock of ruby, which rock is supported on a huge bull with four thousand eyes, and the same number of ears, noses, mouths, tongues, and feet between every one of each is a distance of five hundred years’ journey. The name of this bull is Kujuta, who is supported by an enormous fish, the name of which is Bahamut. The above is but a brief outline of the Muslim belief as regards the earth’s formation; but the statements of Muslim commentators are so wild on the subject, that it seems quite useless to quote them as authorities, for they contradict each other in endless variety. Based on Hughes, Dictionary of Islam

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Federal and state fair housing laws were put into effect to create an even playing field for homebuyers in all areas of a real estate transaction. These laws prohibit discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, and national origin. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibits all racial discrimination in the sale or rental of property. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 makes fair housing a national policy. It prohibits discrimination in the sale, lease or rental of housing, or making housing otherwise unavailable because of race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status or national origin. Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities in commercial facilities and places of public accommodation. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act makes it unlawful to discriminate against anyone on a credit application due to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age or because all or part of an applicant's income comes from any public assistance program. The home seller, the home seeker, and the real estate professional all have rights and responsibilities under the law. You should know that as a home seller or landlord you are obligated not to discriminate in the sale, rental and financing of property on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, or national origin. You may not instruct the licensed broker or salesperson acting as your agent to convey for you any limitations in the sale or rental, because the real estate professional is also obligated not to discriminate. Under the law, a home seller or landlord cannot establish discriminatory terms or conditions in the purchase or rental; deny that housing is available or advertise that the property is available only to persons of a certain race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, or national origin. You have the right to expect that housing will be available to you without discrimination or other limitations based on race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, or national origin. This includes the right to expect: Agents in a real estate transaction may not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status or national origin. They also may not follow such instructions from a home seller or landlord. Discrimination complaints about housing may be filed with the nearest office of the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) or by calling HUD's toll-free numbers, 1-800-669-9777 (voice) or TTY (800) 927-9275 contact HUD on the Internet at http://www.hud.gov/offices/fheo/index.cfm

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This is one in a series of vignettes celebrating history. The series name comes from the state motto, Ad astra per aspera: To the stars through difficulties. Her Indian name was Windagamen. It meant Sweetness. Her white name was Anna. She was a Lenape Delaware Indian who married Moses Grinter, and when she died in 1905, she was a wealthy, prominent woman in Kansas City. Moses Grinter was among the first whites who settled in Kansas; first, operating a ferry across the Kansas River and later opening a trading post for travelers, soldiers and freighters along the Oregon-California and Santa Fe Trails. Together, the couple built a farm and an orchard. Their two-story brick house, built in the late 1850s, is the oldest unaltered building in Wyandotte County. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is operated as a museum by the Kansas State Historical Society. In the early 1830s, the Lenape Delaware tribe was one of several relocated from the Eastern United States to the Fort Leavenworth Indian Agency. In 1836, Moses Grinter married Anna. At that time, Kansas was Indian Territory. More than 10,000 Indians from nearly two dozen tribes emigrated to the Kansas Territory. Two forts were built to oversee the tribes Fort Leavenworth and Fort Scott. Some of those tribes were the Wyandot, Munsee and Shawnee. The military hired Grinter to operate his ferry on the Kansas River near Fort Leavenworth. Some of the earliest records giving an indication of what Grinter charged to carry people across the river can be found in James Kennedys list of expenditures for conducting Kickapoo immigrants to their reservation above Fort Leavenworth, written in May, 1833: Moses R. Grinter, for ferriage of Indians, four wagons and baggage, across the Kansas River [the amount of $38.75] and Moses Grinter for ferriage of 5 wagons and teams across the Kansas river [the amount of] $9.25. The venture was not without hazards. The Rev. Isaac McCoy wrote of a cholera threat that so alarmed the Delawares, that they removed their ferry boat to prevent travelers from crossing to them. Still, the Grinters survived and prospered. They built a store . A government-run blacksmith shop was located nearby. A post office opened in 1849. The Grinter land was part of the Delaware reservation, covering what is now several counties in northeastern Kansas. When the federal government moved the Indian tribes from Kansas into Oklahoma in 1867, the Grinters chose to stay behind. Anna became a U.S. citizen. She was one of 26 adult Delaware who elected to remain in Kansas and become citizens of the United States. And, when her husband died in 1878, he left her a wealthy woman. She had 200 acres 90 of which were being cultivated on a farm that was then valued at $10,000. It is in the Muncie neighborhood of Kansas City, Kan. When she died on June 28, 1905, Anna Ginters last words were a prayer she said in Delaware.

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Information contained on this page is provided by NewsUSA, an independent third-party content provider. WorldNow and this Station make no warranties or representations in connection therewith. /National Pest Management Association NPMA) - Signs of spring often include flowers sprouting out of the ground, leaves emerging on trees, increased animal activity and a general feeling of renewal. However, one of the more unpleasant signs that spring has sprung is the emergence of termites . As this is the time of year termites come out in search of a new habitat, the National Pest Management Association (NPMA) has declared March 25-29 Termite Awareness Week. This designation serves to warn homeowners about termite dangers and to educate them about ways to ensure their home isn't the next feeding ground for these voracious pests. "As many homeowners typically take stock of their homes in the spring time and plan for improvement projects, the NPMA has designated this week after the official start of the season as the perfect time to inform them about why their homes may be vulnerable to termites and how to protect their most expensive investments," noted Missy Henriksen, vice president of public affairs for NPMA. Termites are known as "silent destroyers" because of their ability to chew through wood, flooring and even wallpaper undetected. Swarmers, looking to start a new colony, are typically the first sign of termite season as these winged pests show up inside homes in early spring. It is important that homeowners do not mistake swarmers for flying ants, as the two species look alike to an untrained eye. Discarded wings near windowsills and doors signal that swarmers have already found their way in. As termites cause $5 billion in property damage every year, the NPMA offers these termite-prevention tips for homeowners: * Avoid water accumulation near the home's foundation. * Keep mulch at least 15 inches from the foundation. * Repair leaking faucets, water pipes and AC units. * Replace weather stripping, and repair loose mortar around basement foundation and windows. * Store firewood at least 20 feet away from the house and 5 inches off the ground. * Routinely inspect the foundation of your home for signs of mud tubes (used by termites to reach a food source), cracked or bubbling paint and wood that sounds hollow when tapped. Find more information about pest prevention, identifying an infestation and locating a pest control professional at www.pestworld.org

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Look out for Asteroid 2012 DA14. It is heading toward Earth at 17,450 miles per hour, according to NASA, and the tug of our planet's gravitational field will cause it to accelerate when it gets here. But it's not going to strike us, when it passes by on Feb. 15. NASA is adamant about this. "It's orbit is very well-known," said Dr. Don Yeomans, NASA specialist for near-Earth objects. "We know exactly where it's going to go, and it cannot hit the Earth." But it will give the Blue Planet the closest shave by any object it's size in known history, Yeomans said. Gravity will cause it to fly a curved path, tugging it closer to Earth's surface than most GPS or television satellites. While the asteroid is moving at a good clip, space rockets have to accelerate to an even higher speed to escape Earth's gravity and make it into space. Though 2012 DA14 will be flying more slowly, its trajectory will keep it from falling to Earth. Getting a look at 2012 DA14 Star gazers in Eastern Europe, Asia or Australia might be able to see it with binoculars or consumer telescopes. It will not be visible to the naked eye, because it's small, "about half the size of a football field," Yeomans said. There are millions of asteroids in our solar system, and they come in all dimensions -- from the size of a beach ball to a large mountain, NASA said. Researchers are looking forward to getting such a close look at an asteroid, as it flies from south to north past Earth, coming as close as 17,200 miles to our planet's surface. NASA will ping it with a signal from a satellite dish for a few days to get a better idea of its makeup. Astronomers think there are about half a million asteroids the size this one near Earth, NASA said, but less than one percent have been detected. Twenty years ago, no one would likely have discovered 2012 DA14, Yeomans said. Scientists spotted it nearly a year ago from an observatory in the south of Spain. Today, specialists track asteroids' paths 100 years into future. They do so less to assess any possible threat of impact with Earth and more to explore what opportunities they offer. "These objects are important for science. They're important for our future resources," Yeomans said. Asteroids are potential gold mines Asteroids can be chock full of metals and other materials, which could be mined for use on earth or on space stations. NASA has discussed the possibility of capturing near-Earth asteroids and placing them into Earth's orbit to study them and extract their resources. At least two start-up companies, Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, plan to mine asteroids and sell the acquired bounty on Earth and in space. Being able to exploit asteroids' resources would allow humans to fly farther out into the solar system, build stations a long way from Earth and supply them with materials gathered out in space. Some asteroids, for example, are made of ice, NASA said, which could be used as drinking water for a distant space platform. What if one like this did hit us? An asteroid this size passes this close to Earth only every 40 years and collides with it only once every 1,200 years. If NASA turns out to be wrong about this one not hitting the planet -- and they won't be -- then Asteroid 2012 DA14 would not destroy the world in any case, Yeomans said. An asteroid made of metal that was about the same size collided with Earth 50,000 years ago, creating the mile wide "Meteor Crater" in Arizona and obliterating everything for 50 miles around, he said. 2012 DA14 is likely made of stone, which would do much less damage. In 1908 a similar type asteroid entered the atmosphere and exploded over Tunguska, Russia, leveling trees over an area of 820 square miles -- about two thirds the size of Rhode Island. Not Earth shattering, but you still wouldn't want to live nearby.

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Given that SAD is so tied to the seasons and to sunlight in particular, you might predict that people who live in places with cold, dark winters would be more likely than people living in sunny climes to experience SAD. You'd be right. For example, the rate of SAD in New Hampshire has been estimated at 10%, whereas less than 2% of people living in Florida suffer with the condition. In fact, I've known many patients over the years who only developed SAD when they left places like Florida to live further north. In this way, SAD is the quintessential environmental disorder -- no winter, no SAD. But that is not the whole story. Like all psychiatric conditions, SAD occurs at the intersection of genes and environment, of nature and nurture. This point has been brought home by several remarkable studies showing that people in Iceland have remarkably low rates of SAD, despite living in one of the darkest winter environments on earth. Even more remarkably, people of Icelandic descent living in the prairie provinces of Canada have far lower rates of SAD than their fellow non-Icelandic Canadians, which greatly strengthens the argument that Icelandic people carry an as-yet-undiscovered genetic factor that protects against SAD. We don't know what causes SAD, although abnormalities in multiple brain regions have been repeatedly observed in studies. The neurotransmitter serotonin seems to be implicated, as does melatonin, one of the hormones most involved in the onset and offset of sleep. Perhaps most intriguingly, several studies suggest that the eyes themselves might contribute to the risk of developing SAD, given that the eyes of people with SAD respond differently to light. There also seems to be a strong association between being affected by the seasons and having heightened creative abilities. I was a practicing psychiatrist before I fully admitted to myself that I suffered from mild SAD. In fact, I didn't really believe it until I bought my first light box and turned it on one fall. The results were amazing. Thirty minutes in front of a bright light (10,000 lux to be exact) and my brain and body felt like they'd been transported back to summer. My mind knew it wasn't true, but that didn't matter; the melancholy was gone. Of course, my experience is hardly unique, and if you suffer from winter depression you really owe it to yourself to buy a light box and give it a try. You might also look into dawn simulators, which have also been shown to treat SAD.

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5 Wolf Cubs Narrator: Once upon a time, in the middle of the jungle, there was great silence. Suddenly, the tiger roared furiously. (roaring) That night, he was watching a group of campers, and specially a little boy who made him really hungry. Tiger: Hmmm… I have to eat that little boy… he looks so delicious! Narrator: The boy started to walk away from the camping group, and headed to the wolves’ cave. As soon as Mother Wolf saw him, he took him inside the cave along with her cubs. Mother Wolf: Try to be quiet…I’m sure that the tiger must be around here. I know he can smell you from a very long distance. Narrator: A few minutes later, the tiger came to the cave. Tiger: Mother Wolf… give me the little boy! Mother Wolf: Never! Narrator: The tiger knew how well protected the little boy was, so he decided to leave. Tiger: Some day I’ll be back… I swear it! Narrator: Mother Wolf took care of the little boy, and she even taught him how to howl like a wolf (wolves howling). When the boy grew up, she introduced him to some of the animals of the jungle. Mother Wolf: She is black panter… he is the great bear… and he is the brave elephant. Narrator: The panter, the bear, and the brave elephant became the little boy’s tutors. They taught him to listen and understand all the languages of the different animals of the jungle. (Sound of the bear, the elephant, and the roaring of the panter). They also taught him to love, respect, and to have fun with the other animals, the Giraffe, the Zebra, the Rhinoceros, the Rabbit, the Eagle, and the Snake. Narrator: One day the boy asked the Eagle. Boy: Listen, Eagle… how is life over there in the sky? Eagle: Wonderful! … from over here I can see some of the animals I will hunt to live. Narrator: Then he asked the Snake. Boy: How do you spend your time? Snake: I like to lie over the rocks and rest. Narrator: Next, he asked the Giraffe. Boy: What do you do to grow up so much? Giraffe: I don’t know. My parents say that’s the way we are… and at night we get together to eat all the delicious leaves from the trees… that nobody can reach! Narrator: He also asked the Zebra. Boy: What do you do to have fun? Zebra: I run throughout the jungle… Nobody runs as fast as I do! … But you look so strange…. And you’re so small. Narrator: He asked the Rhinoceros. Boy: Why do you have that big horn? Rhinoceros: It’s my protection from the big animals who want to harm me. Narrator: Finally, he asked the Rabbit. Boy: What do you eat to jump so high, and run so fast? Rabbit: I eat many carrots, and I excercise every day. Boy: Well, it’s late and I have to go back to the cave. I’ll see you all tomorrow… have fun and have a good night sleep. Giraffe, Zebra, Rhinoceros, Rabbit, Eagle, Snake: Good night… take care! Narrator: A few days later, while the boy was taking a nap in the jungle, a very funny monkey approach him. Funny Monkey: Hello… who are you? Narrator: Without waiting for an answer, the monkey started to jump up and down just to get the boy’s attention. Then more monkeys came, and took him to the abandoned city where they made him prisoner. The eagle saw what was happening, and he quickly went to see his friends, who immediately organized a rescue team. Giraffe: I have an idea! Rabbit: What is it? Giraffe: The monkeys are scared of the snake… we have to go see her! Narrator: So they went to see the Snake. Panter: Hello… anybody home? Snake: Yes, yes, I’m here. What’s wrong? Panter: The monkeys took the boy prisoner, and we need your help to save him. Snake: Where is he? Elephant: In the old abandoned city. Snake: Let’s go! Narrator: When they arrived to the city, the Snake chased the Monkeys, while the Bear and the Elephant set free the poor little boy. As they were celebrating, the Tiger suddenly appeared. Tiger: At last I found you! Now you are mine little boy! Narrator: The tiger furiously jumped over the boy, but the Panter got in the middle and saved the little boy. Then the Bear, the Elephant, and the Snake approached silently, and the Panter with a tremendous roaring said. Panter: (roaring) You are stronger than each one of us… but take a closer look… there are four of us… against you! Narrator: At that moment the four of them jumped over the tiger, but unfortunately he managed to escape to the jungle promising never to come back. Tiger: I’ll never come back! I swear it! Giraffe, Zebra, Rhinoceros, Rabbit, Eagle, Snake: Ha, ha, ha, ha… good-bye Tiger! Narrator: And so the boy and his friends finally lived happily in peace. Author: Rudyard Kipling (Bombay, 1865 – Londres, 1936) Adapted by: Adriana Guadalupe García Cortes – Teacher Published by K I D S I N C O Go to Complete List of Playscripts Page 1 We Appreciate Your Visit!

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Those of us with responsibility for the health of canine athletes need to continually read and evaluate new scientific studies to ensure that we are taking the most appropriate care of our performance dogs. This article provides evidence through a number of recent studies to suggest that veterinarians and owners working with canine athletes should revisit the standard protocol in which all dogs that are not intended for breeding are spayed and neutered at or before 6 months of age. A study by Salmeri et al in 1991 found that bitches spayed at 7 weeks grew significantly taller than those spayed at 7 months, who were taller than those not spayed (or presumably spayed after the growth plates had closed).(1) A study of 1444 Golden Retrievers performed in 1998 and 1999 also found bitches and dogs spayed and neutered at less than a year of age were significantly taller than those spayed or neutered at more than a year of age.(2) The sex hormones, by communicating with a number of other growth-related hormones, promote the closure of the growth plates at puberty (3), so the bones of dogs or bitches neutered or spayed before puberty continue to grow. Dogs that have been spayed or neutered well before puberty can frequently be identified by their longer limbs, lighter bone structure, narrow chests and narrow skulls. This abnormal growth frequently results in significant alterations in body proportions and particularly the lengths (and therefore weights) of certain bones relative to others. For example, if the femur has achieved its genetically determined normal length at 8 months when a dog gets spayed or neutered, but the tibia, which normally stops growing at 12 to 14 months of age continues to grow, then an abnormal angle may develop at the stifle. In addition, with the extra growth, the lower leg below the stifle likely becomes heavier (because it is longer), and may cause increased stresses on the cranial cruciate ligament. In addition, sex hormones are critical for achieving peak bone density.(4) These structural and physiological alterations may be the reason why at least one recent study showed that spayed and neutered dogs had a higher incidence of CCL rupture.(5) Another recent study showed that dogs spayed or neutered before 5 1/2 months had a significantly higher incidence of hip dysplasia than those spayed or neutered after 5 1/2 months of age, although it should be noted that in this study there were no standard criteria for the diagnosis of hip dysplasia.(6) Nonetheless, breeders of purebred dogs should be cognizant of these studies and should consider whether or not pups they bred were spayed or neutered when considering breeding decisions. A retrospective study of cardiac tumors in dogs showed that there was a 5 times greater risk of hemangiosarcoma, one of the three most common cancers in dogs, in spayed bitches than intact bitches and a 2.4 times greater risk of hemangiosarcoma in neutered dogs as compared to intact males.(7) A study of 3218 dogs demonstrated that dogs that were neutered before a year of age had a significantly increased chance of developing bone cancer.(8) A separate study showed that neutered dogs had a two-fold higher risk of developing bone cancer.(9) Despite the common belief that neutering dogs helps prevent prostate cancer, at least one study suggests that neutering provides no benefit.(10) There certainly is evidence of a slightly increased risk of mammary cancer in female dogs after one heat cycle, and for increased risk with each subsequent heat. While about 30 % of mammary cancers are malignant, as in humans, when caught and surgically removed early the prognosis is very good.(12) Luckily, canine athletes are handled frequently and generally receive prompt veterinary care. The study that identified a higher incidence of cranial cruciate ligament rupture in spayed or neutered dogs also identified an increased incidence of sexual behaviors in males and females that were neutered early.(5) Further, the study that identified a higher incidence of hip dysplasia in dogs neutered or spayed before 5 1/2 months also showed that early age gonadectomy was associated with an increased incidence of noise phobias and undesirable sexual behaviors.(6) A recent report of the American Kennel Club Canine Health Foundation reported significantly more behavioral problems in spayed and neutered bitches and dogs. The most commonly observed behavioral problem in spayed females was fearful behavior and the most common problem in males was aggression. (12) Other Health Considerations A number of studies have shown that there is an increase in the incidence of female urinary incontinence in dogs spayed early (13), although this finding has not been universal. Certainly there is evidence that ovarian hormones are critical for maintenance of genital tissue structure and contractility.(14, 15) Neutering also has been associated with an increased likelihood of urethral sphincter incontinence in males.(16) This problem is an inconvenience, and not usually life-threatening, but nonetheless one that requires the dog to be medicated for life. A health survey of several thousand Golden Retrievers showed that spayed or neutered dogs were more likely to develop hypothyroidism.(2) This study is consistent with the results of another study in which neutering and spaying was determined to be the most significant gender-associated risk factor for development of hypothyroidism.(17) Infectious diseases were more common in dogs that were spayed or neutered at 24 weeks or less as opposed to those undergoing gonadectomy at more than 24 weeks.(18) Finally, the AKC-CHF report demonstrated a higher incidence of adverse reactions to vaccines in neutered dogs as compared to intact.(12 )I have gathered these studies to show that our practice of routinely spaying or neutering every dog at or before the age of 6 months is not a black-and-white issue. Clearly more studies need to be done to evaluate the effects of prepubertal spaying and neutering, particularly in canine athletes. Currently, I have significant concerns with spaying or neutering canine athletes before puberty. But of course, there is the pet overpopulation problem. How can we prevent the production of unwanted dogs while still leaving the gonads to produce the hormones that are so important to canine growth and development? One answer would be to perform vasectomies in males and tubal ligation in females, to be followed after maturity by ovario hysterectomy in females to prevent mammary cancer and pyometra. One possible disadvantage is that vasectomy does not prevent some unwanted behaviors associated with males such as marking and humping. On the other hand, females and neutered males frequently participate in these behaviors too. Really, training is the best solution for these issues. Another possible disadvantage is finding a veterinarian who is experienced in performing these procedures. Nonetheless, some do, and if the procedures were in greater demand, more veterinarians would learn them. I believe it is important that we assess each situation individually. For canine athletes, I currently recommend that dogs and bitches be spayed or neutered after 14 months of age. 1. Salmeri KR, Bloomberg MS, Scruggs SL, Shille V.. Gonadectomy in immature dogs: effects on skeletal,physical, and behavioral development. JAVMA 1991;198:1193-1203 3. Grumbach MM. Estrogen, bone, growth and sex: a sea change in conventional wisdom. J Pediatr EndocrinolMetab. 2000;13 Suppl 6:1439-55. 4. Gilsanz V, Roe TF, Gibbens DT, Schulz EE, Carlson ME, Gonzalez O, Boechat MI. Effect of sex steroids onpeak bone density of growing rabbits. Am J Physiol. 1988 Oct;255(4 Pt 1):E416-21. 5. Slauterbeck JR, Pankratz K, Xu KT, Bozeman SC, Hardy DM. Canine ovariohysterectomy and orchiectomyincreases the prevalence of ACL injury. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2004 Dec;(429):301-5. 6. Spain CV, Scarlett JM, Houpt KA. Long-term risks and benefits of early-age gonadectomy in dogs. JAVMA2004;224:380-387. 7. Ware WA, Hopper DL. Cardiac tumors in dogs: 1982-1995. J Vet Intern Med 1999 Mar-Apr;13(2):95-103 8. Cooley DM, Beranek BC, Schlittler DL, Glickman NW, Glickman LT, Waters D, Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2002 Nov;11(11):1434-40 9. Ru G, Terracini B, Glickman LT. Host related risk factors for canine osteosarcoma. Vet J. 1998 Jul;156(1):31 10. Obradovich J, Walshaw R, Goullaud E. The influence of castration on the development of prostatic carcinomain the dog. 43 cases (1978-1985). J Vet Intern Med 1987 Oct-Dec;1(4):183-7 12. Meuten DJ. Tumors in Domestic Animals. 4th Edn. Iowa State Press, Blackwell Publishing Company, Ames,Iowa, p. 575 13. Stocklin-Gautschi NM, Hassig M, Reichler IM, Hubler M, Arnold S. The relationship of urinary incontinence toearly spaying in bitches. J. Reprod. Fertil. Suppl. 57:233-6, 2001 14. Pessina MA, Hoyt RF Jr, Goldstein I, Traish AM. Differential effects of estradiol, progesterone, andtestosterone on vaginal structural integrity. Endocrinology. 2006 Jan;147(1):61-9. 15. Kim NN, Min K, Pessina MA, Munarriz R, Goldstein I, Traish AM. Effects of ovariectomy and steroidhormones on vaginal smooth muscle contractility. Int J Impot Res. 2004 Feb;16(1):43-50. 16. Aaron A, Eggleton K, Power C, Holt PE. Urethral sphincter mechanism incompetence in male dogs: aretrospective analysis of 54 cases. Vet Rec. 139:542-6, 1996 17. Panciera DL. Hypothyroidism in dogs: 66 cases (1987-1992). J. Am. Vet. Med. Assoc., 204:761-7 1994 18. Howe LM, Slater MR, Boothe HW, Hobson HP, Holcom JL, Spann AC. Long-term outcome of gonadectomyperformed at an early age or traditional age in dogs. J Am Vet Med Assoc. 2001 Jan 15;218(2):217-21

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The debate in Washington has been focused for months on income tax rates. But the way politicians and media frame the issue of the Bush tax rates is at odds with one of the fundamental principles of the income tax system, and it unnecessarily warps public understanding of what’s on the table. Facing record deficits and growing debt, President Barack Obama has proposed letting the Bush tax cuts, enacted as a temporary measure in 2001, expire for income over $250,000, raising that rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, though he has indicated flexibility on the rate if new revenue can be found elsewhere. The problem is in the way this decision is too often formulated. The shorthand used by politicians of both parties as well as in the press, says that “President Obama wants to raise taxes on families earning more than $250,000.” Put that way, the idea is understandably disturbing to people who earn anywhere near $250,000. It offends their sense of fairness, raising complaints of class warfare. “But we’re not rich,” they say. Why should we pay at a higher rate than other people?” Worse, some threaten to keep their earnings under $250,000, so they won’t be taxed at a higher rate. But tax rates don’t apply to families. They apply to income. The system is built on “marginal tax rates.” Under the current schedule, that means everyone pays the same tax rate — 10 percent — on the first $17,400 of income (figures for married couples filing jointly). They pay 15 percent on taxable income between $17,401 and $70,700, and the brackets edge up from there to income over $388,351, which is taxed at 35 percent. The point too few understand is that, under Obama’s plan, all taxable earnings under $250,000 — remember, that’s earnings after deductions, not gross pay — would still be taxed at the current Bush rates. It’s only the amount over $250,000 that would be taxed at a higher rate. In other words, if your taxable income is $251,000, don’t worry that you’ll be punished for being rich. You’ll pay the same old tax rate on everything except the final $1,000. The tax rate for the highest earners has been all over the map in the last half-century. It was 91 percent on income over $400,000 when John F. Kennedy was president, 70 percent on income over $200,000 during Lyndon Johnson’s second term, 50 percent on income over $106,000 when Ronald Reagan was president, and dropped to 28 percent on income over $32,000 under George H.W. Bush. Under Bill Clinton, the top rate rose to 39.6 percent on income over $250,000, and under George W. Bush, it dropped to 35 percent on income over $379,000, which is about where it stands today. Yes, it’s difficult to explain to people unfamiliar with marginal tax rates that different dollars of their income are taxed at different rates. Since these calculations are incorporated in the tax tables, it’s not something people really need to know. Filling out tax forms is complicated enough as it is. But politicians and the press could make things a little less confusing if they would stop talking about raising taxes on households above $250,000 and instead talk about raising rates on income above $250,000. MetroWest Daily News, Framingham, Mass. Kirksville Daily Express - Kirksville, MO Posted Dec. 3, 2012 @ 4:26 pm » EVENTS CALENDAR Connect with Kirksville Daily Express - Kirksville, MO

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With the recent landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars, interest in our planetary neighbor has never been greater. And why not? Mars has long been believed the most viable planet to support life, and if we ever send mankind to another planet, it makes sense that we see what's next door. The purpose of the Curiosity mission, in fact, is to investigate whether Mars is, or ever was, capable of hosting microbial life. If they find it, let me be the first to welcome our Martian microbial overlords. In the meantime, let's complete our journey that began with Part 1 and Part 2, and take a look at how Mars was seen through the imaginative lens of science fiction. Mars is of interest to us because it offers the nearby possibility of supporting life. But colonizing another planet is far from easy. Want examples? Check out The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, a 1950 collection of stories that, taken together, depict mankind's colonization of Mars and the conflict with the indigenous population of Martians. 1976's Man Plus by Frederik Pohl features a man engineered into a cyborg meant to survive living on Mars, mankind's only alternative to extinction. The 1994 sequel Mars Plus takes place 50 years later, and the now-firmly-established human population on the Red Planet must contend with a society mixed with humans and cyborgs...and a computer on which all Martian life depends that has now gone rogue. Besides his previously discussed Mars trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson also wrote Icehenge (1984) which features a colonized Mars. In Octavia E. Butler's Xenogenesis series (1980s, comprised of Dawn, Adulthood Rites and Imago; and collected as the omnibus Lilith's Brood) the human race, nearing rendered extinct from a nuclear war, becomes the subject of an alien-sponsored breeding program. The aliens intend to genetically merge their tri-gendered race with humans, except for (as featured in Imago) a group of unaltered human living on a Martian colony set up by the aliens. Alien incursion begins the end of the world in Greg Bear's The Forge of God (1987). A second alien faction intercedes—through spider-like robotic mind control!—but not soon enough to prevent the forced evacuation of Earth and a relocation to a newly terraformed Mars. Mars get the magic-realist treatment in Desolation Road (1988) and Ares Express (2001) by Ian McDonald, which depicts the life of a colony on a partially-terraformed Mars across many years. Greg Bear's Moving Mars (1993) focuses on the emancipation of a colonized Mars amidst political tensions over revolutionary scientific discoveries. Martian colonies are not exempt from the forces of politics. Mars' almost Earth-like environment is in jeopardy in the Chinese-dominated 26th century of Paul J. McAuley's Red Dust (1993), which also features cool tech like artificial intelligence, personality downloads, virtual reality, and nanotechnology. In Climbing Olympus by Kevin J. Anderson (1994), a group of exiles who are surgically altered so that they can survive the Martian atmosphere (but no longer survive on Earth) seek to destroy the corrupt Mars colonization project. The Empress of Mars by Kage Baker (2010), is a novel-length adaptation of her award winning short story about a twenty-fourth-century Mars under development by a heartless company who cares little about the settlers it exploits. Good Old-Fashioned Adventure What good is featuring another planet if you don't have adventures there? Besides the aforementioned Burroughs classic A Princess of Mars, there's plenty of other examples of adventures on Mars. In a similar vein is Leigh Brackett's Eric John Stark planetary adventures featured her hero traipsing around the galaxy...including Mars in The Secret of Sinharat (1949) and People of the Talisman (1951), both collecting as Eric John Stark: Outlaw of Mars. Also by Brackett is The Sword of Rhiannon (1953), where a man of questionable morals profiting from Martian treasure is thrust back in time to fight a tyrant with a sword. In the Courts of the Crimson Kings by S.M. Stirling (2008), a pastiche to Burroughs' Barsoom stories, is a planetary romance in an alternate solar system where intelligent life can be found on Mars (and Venus, as depicted in the first book in the series, The Sky People). Philip K. Dick's Martian Time-Slip (1964) features a 10-year-old schizophrenic boy named Manfred Steiner who is marked by law for deportation and destruction, but is believed by some to be a window into seeing the future. Speaking of time, Larry Niven's Rainbow Mars (1999, the title a nod to Robinson's Mars trilogy) utilizes a time machine to visit Mars' ancient past. But here's the rub: true time travel is actually impossible, so the traveler, a time agent in search of extinct animals, actually visits alternate, fictitious Martian histories. Labyrinth of Night by Allen Steele is based on the idea that aliens once lived on Mars and left behind artifacts accessible only by passing a series of tests that would prove a lifeform's intelligence. Ilium and Olympus by Dan Simmons features far-future post-humans taking on the roles of the Greek gods and overseeing the re-enactment of the Trojan war from their home on Mars' Olympus Mons. Theodore Judson leverages real-life history in The Martian General's Daughter, which, although structured like the memoirs of the illegitimate daughter of a general of the fictional Pan-Polarian Empire, is based on history's Roman Empire. Finally, the Warhammer 40K novel Mechanicum by Graham McNeill (2008) is a military sci-fi adventure that depicts a civil war on Mars. And Yes, Mars Can Be Funny, Too For the length of this series on Mars in science fiction, all of the stories listed have been relatively serious, but who says Mars can't be funny? Certainly not Fredric Brown, author of Martians, Go Home (1955), which features a pesky little green man who makes all sorts headaches for a science fiction writer. It's a parody of the genre itself and is played for laughs. The Road to Mars by Month Python alum Eric Idle (1999) is a comedic science fiction novel involving the exploits of two interplanetary stand-up comedians and their robotic secretary. How's that for a laugh?John DeNardo is the editor of SF Signal, a Hugo-nominated group science-fiction and fantasy blog featuring news, reviews and interviews. He also like bagels.

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WILLIAMSPORT, Md. (AP) — If Scott Bragunier has his way, cannon tubes that sat for more than a century on Doubleday Hill, a spot in Riverview Cemetery named for Union Gen. Abner Doubleday, will be returned to the same spot by spring. The cannon tubes — the barrels of a cannon — were procured for the town in 1896 to honor local men who fought and died in the Civil War. They were dedicated on Doubleday Hill on July 4, 1897, said Bragunier, a Williamsport native and local firefighter who has spent a lot of time studying local Civil War history. "There was a parade, and there was a big to-do in town for it," Bragunier said. Three brick supports were built for the cannon tubes, and for more than 100 years, they served as a popular remembrance of the Civil War and the Williamsport men who died in it. "As a child, I went to Doubleday Hill and played on the cannons. I sat on top of them and pretended I fired them. My dad and mom did the same thing," Bragunier said. The spot chosen for the tubes related to Doubleday's military duty. History has it that Doubleday was assigned the duty of setting up a western defense for the Union army at the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, Bragunier said. Doubleday was in charge of setting up a defense over a broad area that stretched to Washington, D.C., but Williamsport became a "collection point" because it was a major crossing point along the Potomac River, according to Bragunier. At Williamsport, he said, there was a ferry across the river and two fords for making the crossing. On a hill above Salisbury Street, three 32-pound siege cannons were set, pointing across the Potomac River. The Union army eventually moved into Virginia and it is not known whether the cannons on what today is known as Doubleday Hill were ever fired, Bragunier said. But it has been a lasting memorial to the men in Williamsport who fought and died in the Civil War. After the war ended, cannon tubes that survived the fighting often were donated to towns in honor of war dead from their communities. Three cannon tubes were donated to Williamsport in honor of local war dead, Bragunier said. Over the years, however, they fell victim to vandalism and the steel became pitted from exposure to the weather, Bragunier said. "People would stuff all kinds of stuff down the tubes," he said. In about 2000, a collector offered the town money for the tubes, Bragunier said. It was at that point, Bragunier said, that the town began to realize their value and former Mayor John Slayman had the tubes moved to the basement in town hall. They were replaced by plastic replicas that were set on the brick mounts on Doubleday Hill. Bragunier worked on an effort to have the cannon tubes refurbished. In July, the town was awarded a $23,000 grant for the work through the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority, Bragunier said. In August, the tubes were loaded on a flatbed truck and sent to the Steen Cannon & Ordnance Works in Ashland, Ky., to be refurbished, Bragunier said. There, the company smoothed out the rough finish on the tubes and made aluminum cannon carriages for them, he said. The insides of the tubes were coated with oil to preserve them and the ends were plugged so no one could shove items inside, he said. Bragunier said it is his hope that by the beginning of May, the cannons will be rolled back onto the exact spot where cannons stood during the Civil War. As the town did 116 years ago, Bragunier said he hopes to have the cannons dedicated July 4 in a ceremony with local elected officials. Bragunier said he would like to have a split-rail fence erected around the site, stairs leading up to the site from Salisbury Street and interpretive signs. Williamsport Town Council member Joan Knode said she is looking forward to the cannon tubes being returned. "I think it's going to be a great day for Williamsport," Knode said.

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URGENT - Japan Earthquake Tsunami Threat (CNN)--The 7.3 magnitude earthquake that struck off the east coast of Japan on Friday hasn't created a widespread threat of a tsunami in the Pacific, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. The agency said its forecast was based on historical earthquake and tsunami data. But it added that earthquakes of this size can create local tsunamis. Copyright 2012 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Chicago (CNN) - New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows more people are moving downtown. The report defined downtowns as within a two-mile radius of a city hall, and the 2010 census shows 16 million people were living downtown. That's about six percent of the 258 million metro-area dwellers. Chicago saw the biggest downtown population boom, which saw 48,000 new residents over 10 years. New Orleans saw the largest decline, losing 35,000 people from 2000 until 2010. Researchers believe the move is due to people wanting to live closer to their jobs.

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Most Active Stories Shots - Health News Wed November 14, 2012 I, Robot: Paraplegics Get An Assist Originally published on Wed November 14, 2012 9:41 am A robotic suit that gives the wearer superhuman powers sounds like the stuff of science fiction. But technology like that is making the leap from fantasy to reality. Though much of the gear is still experimental, the equipment is giving some paraplegics a chance to walk again. Researchers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., for instance, have developed a robotic exoskeleton that straps over paralyzed limbs. With crutches, paraplegics can stand, walk and even climb stairs. "It's really a lot like a legged-Segway," says Michael Goldfarb, an engineer at Vanderbilt and head of the exoskeleton project. "You lean forward to walk forward, lean less forward and cause it to stop, lean back and cause it to sit." The researchers have tested the model with patients at the Shepherd Center, an Atlanta hospital that specializes in spinal cord and brain injuries. And the developers have licensed their model to Parker Hannifin Corp., a maker of industrial equipment, which aims to get a product on the market by 2014. The Ekso device and Argo's exoskeleton called ReWalk are only available in rehabilitation centers and hospitals in the U.S. for now. To move wearable robots like these from hospital to home will require approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. And clinical trials to show there are health benefits for the exoskeletons are already under way. "What we really are selling until we have clinical proofs is a gadget," Eythor Bender, Ekso's CEO, tells Shots. How do these contraptions work? The Vanderbilt model is powered by four motors — one at each hip and knee joint — that are controlled by two micro-computers. With crutches for balance, users lean forward to stand up and control their steps with hip placement. To take a step with their right foot, they shift their weight onto their right hip. The battery lasts for about two hours of continuous walking. The ReWalk and Ekso devices employ similar but slightly different designs. ReWalk uses a wrist band to control movement, and Ekso includes a control pad to adjust various walking factors. The Rex exoskeleton is heavier (84 pounds), but it stabilizes the body, leaving the hands free. The Vanderbilt device incorporates electrodes that are affixed to the skin and tell a person's muscles when to contract and relax to move the device. When the user's legs get tired, the motors kick in based on an adaptive computer algorithm that Goldfarb's team developed. "It looks at what you did during your last few steps, and it alters from person to person and within a person from day to day and hour to hour," explains Goldfarb. The companies want to take their devices mainstream. But, the prices are high. Ekso's rehab model runs $140,000 plus a $10,000 yearly service fee. The ReWalk devices costs $87,500. Argo plans to submit a personal version of ReWalk (expected price around $52,500) for FDA clearance by the end of the year. Until the devices receive the regulatory stamp of approval from the FDA, it's unclear how much insurance companies would cover, says Vanderbilt's Goldfarb. Most companies have models for everyday personal use in the works, but none have received FDA's OK yet. "All these systems are designed differently," says Jose Contreras-Vidal, an engineer at the University of Houston in Texas. "We don't know which system is best for whom." Developers hope to tailor exoskeletons for those suffering from paralysis due to stroke or muscular dystrophy, as well. Regulatory hurdles aside, the next technological step is controlling the robot with the mind. Contreras-Vidal has already developed a cap that measures brain signals and translates them into instructions for the Rex exoskeleton. "By augmenting these exoskeletons, we can reach a larger population," says Contreras-Vidal. "At the same time we can learn more about how the brain works."

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What: Aloe vera, a succulent related to the Lily, long used for its ability to heal wounds, burns, and dry skin, as well as treat bug bites, sunburn, and bee stings. The gel from the Aloe plant provides a protective layer said to inhibit infection, soothe, and heal. When cut or broken the plant heals itself rapidly, the would barely detectable after only a few minutes. Aloe contains over 200 acitve compounds, including vitamins A, B, C, and E, amino acids, enzymes, minerals, and polysaccharides said to stimulate cell renewal and boost circulation. Aloe is both hydrating and gentle, making it a suitable for choice for sensitive skin. Origin: Aloe vera grows in arid climates and is widely distributed in Africa, India and other arid areas. To process Aloe, the juice is allowed to drain from the cut leaves and then concentrated by evaporation (DMARP). Aloe is sold for use in this dried juice form or as a gel. Aloe gel is made from the leaf pulp of the plant. (Wiki). Products Found In: Aloe vera is commonly found in facial moisturizers, serums, treatments, healing ointments, body lotions and creams, sunscreens, and after-sun products. Aloe can also be used on its own. Variations: Aloe vera is one of about 250 species of Aloes. (UCC Biology Department).

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In the federal courts, disclosure requires parties to automatically share routine evidentiary information that would otherwise be available during discovery. Disclosure comes in three stages. First, at the beginning of the suit, each party must disclose: - • Basic information about each witness the party plans to call - • Copies of documents and things supporting the party's claims or defenses - • The party's computations of the damages it plans on requesting - • Information about any insurance agreements that might cover part or all of a judgment against the party. Later in the pre-trial process, each party must disclose the identity and qualifications of their expert witnesses. In addition, they must give the other parties a summary of their expert witnesses' reasoning and conclusions regarding the case. Finally, shortly before trial, each party must disclose what evidence they plan to use at trial. This allows the court to address evidentiary objections before trial. Disclosure is governed by Rule 26(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Parties are not required to disclose evidence that they plan to use solely for impeachment. See Civil Procedure. Definition from Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary The making known of a fact that had previously been hidden; a revelation. For example, in many states you must disclose major physical defects in a house you are selling, such as a leaky roof or potential flooding problem; and in all states, you must disclose the presence of lead-based paint hazards in buildings constructed before 1978. Definition provided by Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary. August 19, 2010, 5:14 pm

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International trade law: an overview International trade is “the exchange of goods [or] services” “between nations.” Black’s Law Dictionary 285, 1529 (8th ed. 2004). Sources of international trade law Constitutional, federal, and international laws govern international trade between the United States and foreign nations (or persons or entities therefrom). Federal and international laws address a wide range of trade issues, such as customs duties, dumping, embargoes, free trade zones, intellectual property, quotas, and subsidies. The Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution empowers Congress to “regulate commerce with foreign nations,” U.S. Const. Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, while other Article I provisions empower Congress to “lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises,” id. at Art. I, § 8, cl. 1, and prohibit states from doing the same without congressional approval, id. at Art. I, § 10, cl. 2. Pursuant to this authority, Congress has enacted numerous federal statutes, including the Tariff Act of 1930, the Trade Act of 1974, and the Trade Agreements Act of 1979. Article II of the U.S. Constitution empowers the President, “by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of Senators present concur.” U.S. Const. Art. II, § 2, cl. 2. Pursuant to this authority, presidents have negotiated numerous international treaties and trade agreements, including the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization, the Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures (regarding trade in goods), the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (regarding intellectual property), and the North American Free Trade Agreement. Currently, the United States has free trade agreements in force with 17 nations. International Trade Administration The International Trade Administration ("ITA"), a bureau of the U.S. Department of Commerce, aims to "strengthen the competitiveness of U.S. industry, promote trade and investment, and ensure fair trade through rigorous enforcement of [U.S.] trade laws and agreements." ITA, About the International Trade Administration (last visited Oct. 23, 2010). The ITA is comprised of four distinct business units: (1) U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service, (2) Manufacturing and Services, (3) Market Access and Compliance, and (4) Import Administration. Id. World Trade Organization The United States is a member of the World Trade Organization ("WTO"). The WTO is an international organization that only recently (1995) came into being, succeeding the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ("GATT"). WTO, The Multilateral Trading System — Past, Present and Future (2010). The WTO provides a forum and a "legal and institutional framework" for its member to negotiate, implement, monitor, and resolve disputes relating to international trade agreements. See Pascal Lamy, About the WTO — A Statement by the Director General (last visited Oct. 23, 2010). As of July 23, 2008, 153 nations and customs territories were members of the WTO and 31 were observers. WTO, Members and Observers (last visited Oct. 23, 2010).

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Lawrence County, Missouri is located in southwest Missouri which is also referred to as the Ozarks. The county was organized February 14, 1845, although settlers first began moving into the territory as early as 1831. The county was named after Captain James Lawrence who was killed in the War of 1812. The county seat is Mt. Vernon. Lawrence County is approximately 625 square miles with a population of just under 40,000. It borders seven other counties in southwest Missouri and is located in-between two much larger counties with Jasper County to the west and Greene County to the east. Lawrence County is primarily a rural county with many family owned and operated farms which produce a variety of livestock and crops. The county has seen an increase in population over the years because of the rural lifestyle. Many people are moving out of the big city and finding this area a great place to live while still having access to the big city amenities thanks to major highways such as Interstate 44 and U.S. highway 60 traveling through the county. Lawrence County is also host to many seasonal festivals put on by many of the towns within the county drawing several thousand people each year to these fun activities. Attractions such as Branson, Springfield, Joplin, and area lakes are within a couple of hours driving distance making this an ideal place to live. Missouri Courts | Missouri Sheriffs' Association | Missouri State Highway Patrol | VINE

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Behavioural (or "behavioral") theory in psychology is a very substantial field: follow the links to the left or right for introductions to some of its more detailed contributions impinging on how people learn in the real world. How I have the effrontery to produce a single page on it amazes even me, whatever my reservations about it! - Behaviourism is dominated by the constraints of its (naïve) attempts to emulate the physical sciences, which entails a refusal to speculate about what happens inside the organism. Anything which relaxes this requirement slips into the cognitive realm. - Much behaviourist experimentation is undertaken with animals and generalised. - In educational settings, behaviourism implies the dominance of the teacher, as in behaviour modification programmes. It can, however, be applied to an understanding of unintended learning. For our purposes, behaviourism is relevant mainly to: - Skill development, and - The "substrate" (or "conditions", as Gagné puts it) of learning is the process of reflex learning—investigated by Pavlov—through which an unconditioned stimulus (e.g. food) which produces an unconditioned response (salivation) is presented together with a conditioned stimulus (a bell), such that the salivation is eventually produced on the presentation of the conditioned stimulus alone, thus becoming a conditioned response. This is a disciplined account of our common-sense experience of learning by association (or "contiguity", in the jargon), although that is often much more complex than a reflex process, and is much exploited in advertising. Note that it does not depend on us doing anything. Such associations can be chained and generalised (for better of for worse): thus "smell of baking" associates with "kitchen at home in childhood" associates with "love and care". (Smell creates potent conditioning because of the way it is perceived by the brain.) But "sitting at a desk" associates with "classroom at school" and hence perhaps with "humiliation and failure"... If, when an organism emits a behaviour (does something), the consequences of that behaviour are reinforcing, it is more likely to emit (do) it again. What counts as reinforcement, of course, is based on the evidence of the repeated behaviour, which makes the whole argument rather circular. Learning is really about the increased probability of a behaviour based on reinforcement which has taken place in the past, so that the antecedents of the new behaviour include the consequences of previous behaviour. The schedule of reinforcement of behaviour is central to the management of effective learning on this basis, and working it out is a very skilled procedure: simply reinforcing every instance of desired behaviour is just bribery, not the promotion of learning. Withdrawal of reinforcement eventually leads to the extinction of the behaviour, except in some special cases such as anticipatory-avoidance learning. Two points are often misunderstood in relation to behaviourism and human learning: - The scale: Although later modifications of behaviourism are known as S-O-R theories (Stimulus-Organism-Response), recognising that the organism's (in this case, person's) abilities and motivations need to be taken into account, undiluted behaviourism is concerned with conditioning and mainly with reflex behaviour. This operates on a very short time-scale — from second to second, or at most minute to minute — on very specific micro-behaviour. To say that a course is behaviourally-based because there is the reward of a qualification at the end is stretching the idea too far. - Its descriptive intention: Perhaps because behaviourists describe experiments in which they structure learning for their subjects, attention tends to fall on ideas such as behaviour modification and the technology of behaviourism. However, behaviourism itself is more about a description of how [some forms of] learning occur in the wild, as it were, than about how to make it happen, and it is when it is approached from this perspective that it gets most interesting. It accounts elegantly, for example, for ways in which attempts to discipline unruly students actually make the situation worse rather than better. (This point is heretical!) For human beings, reinforcement has two components, because the information may be cognitively processed: in many cases the "reward" element is less significant than the "feedback" information carried by the reinforcement. Applied to the theory of teaching, behaviourism's main manifestation is "instructional technology" and its associated approaches: click below for useful guides. Up-dated 26 Feb 2011

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Estonian Aviation Museum (EAM) was founded by a private initiative for public use and it has to meet the founder-assigned tasks and objectives, it has to fulfil a special mission: - Estonian Aviation Museum must become an innovative technical centre of interest to balance the prevailing tendency in our society toward humanitarian education. It must encourage young people to acquire an engineering education. - Estonian Aviation Museum must provide technical support for the students of the Estonian Aviation Academy for the training of aviation specialists - Estonian Aviation Museum must become an attractive free-time centre of interest for young people and an internationally- known knowledge-based tourist attraction. It must advocate aviation and flying. - Estonian Aviation Museum must perpetuate the history of Estonian aviation and identify Tartu as the birthplace of flying in Estonia. (the 1st demo flight in Estonia took place in 1912 in Tartu). Estonian Aviation Museum fills the vacuum beside the Estonian Maritime Museum and the Estonian Road Museum. See the 1st page of TLM website: Vision, Development Programme of Aviation Museum, and a development project "3rd Stage of Development of Aviation Museum"

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There are several problems with TE modules used in waste heat recovery applications. First, the TE modules themselves are not very efficient; although some heat energy gets converted into electricity, still much of it is wasted. The next problems have to do with construction of the module itself and durability in its desired environment. Inside a TE module, semiconductors are soldered in series to copper pads to conduct the electricity. They are limited by temperature; in many situations where waste heat recovery would be the most desirable, higher temperatures exist than the melting point of the solder used to hold the modules together. The modules would literally melt and fall apart. Another problem has to do with the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE). When the module is heated, brittle intermetallics form due to the diffusion of Ni (the coating) into the substrate (Bi2TE3). The CTE of the newly formed Ni2Te3 is drastically different from the CTE of the surrounding materials. It is easy to see how the shear stresses at the interface generated by high or cyclic temperatures would have a tendency to crack the brittle intermetallic that forms in the modules. See project details. Currently, most of the processes commonly used in bridge fabrication are fusion welding processes. The problem with fusion welding is that molten and resolidified metal in the weld deposit remains as-cast microstructure in the structure and has mechanical properties greatly dependent on chemistry/dilution and cooling rates. These processes inherently have a potential for creating weld discontinuities such as solidification cracking in the fusion zone [figure 1] or gas and slag entrapment. Generic concerns remain in HAZ grain coarsening and loss of toughness in fusion welds.See project details.

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Definition of Cires 1. cire [n] - See also: cire Click the following link to bring up a new window with an automated collection of images related to the term: Cires Images Lexicographical Neighbors of Cires Literary usage of Cires Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature: 1. Letters on South America: Comprising Travels on the Banks of the Paraná and (1843) "... Martinez y cires—Don Agustin Saenz and his polacca— Smuggling—The way of endowing brides. THE population of Corrientes, in character and class, ..." 2. The Policy Paradox in Africa: Strengthening Links Between Economic Research by Elias Ayuk, Mohamed Ali Marouani (2007) "To date, about 120 rural economy PhD-holders have been trained through this program and cires gained international recognition in research and training. ..." Other Resources Relating to: Cires

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Definition of Indigo bird 1. Noun. Small deep blue North American bunting. Generic synonyms: Bunting Group relationships: Genus Passerina, Passerina Indigo Bird Pictures Click the following link to bring up a new window with an automated collection of images related to the term: Indigo Bird Images Lexicographical Neighbors of Indigo Bird Literary usage of Indigo bird Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature: 1. Ornithological Biography by John James Audubon (1832) "The indigo bird arrives in the southern States from the direction of Mexico, along with its relative the Painted Finch, and is caught in trap- cages, ..." 2. The American Cyclopaedia: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge by Charles Anderson Dana (1874) "Indican has occasionally been found in tho urine when no indigo has been taken. The dose is from 30 to 120 grains. indigo bird ..." 3. The New England Farmer by Samuel W. Cole (1854) "The beautiful and cheerful songster known to our ornithologists as the Purple linen or American Linnet, is now frequently seen with the indigo bird, ..." 4. The United States of America: Their History from the Earliest Period; Their by Hugh Murray, James Nicol (1844) "... Oriole — Rice-birds — Indigo-bird — Nonpareil — Carolina Parrot—Woodpecker—Cuckoo—Passenger Pigeon —Turtle-dove—Turkey—Quail— Ruffed Grouse — Crane— ..." 5. The Review of Education (1902) "... printed the following, size 7x10, suitable for framing. Two cents each; the twelve for 20 cents. 1001 Gold-finch Tanager, indigo bird. 1007 Red Fox. ..." Other Resources Relating to: Indigo bird

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W.E.B. Du Bois Papers, 1803-1984. 328 boxes (168.75 linear feet). Scholar, writer, editor of The Crisis and other journals, co-founder of the Niagara Movement, the NAACP, and the Pan African Congresses, international spokesperson for peace and for the rights of oppressed minorities, W.E.B. Du Bois was a son of Massachusetts who articulated the strivings of African Americans and developed a trenchant analysis of the problem of the color line in the twentieth century. The Du Bois Papers contain almost 165 linear feet of the personal and professional papers of a remarkable social activist and intellectual. Touching on all aspects of his long life from his childhood during Reconstruction through the end of his life in 1963, the collection reflects the extraordinary breadth of his social and academic commitments from research in sociology to poetry and plays, from organizing for social change to organizing for Black consciousness. - African Americans--Civil rights - African Americans--History--1877-1964 - Crisis (New York, N.Y.) - Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963--Views on democracy - National Association for the Advancement of Colored People - United States--Race relations - Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963

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From Irish Pedigrees; or the Origin and Stem of the Irish Nation by John O'Hart THE chiefs and clans of Brefney and the territories they possessed in the twelfth century, are, according to O'Dugan, as follows:— 1. O'Ruairc or O'Rourke; 2. O'Raghallaigh or O'Reilly: these were the princes of the territory of Brefney. 3. MacTighearnain (tighearna: Irish, a lord or master), anglicised MacTernan, McKiernan, and Masterson, were chiefs of Teallach Dunchada (signifying the tribe or territory of Donogh), now the barony of "Tullyhunco," in the county Cavan. 4. The MacSamhradhain (anglicised MacGauran, Magauran, and Magovern) were chiefs of Teallach Eachach (which signifies the tribe or territory of Eochy), now the barony of " Tullaghagh," county Cavan. This sirname is by some rendered "Somers," and "Summers," from the Irish word "Samhradh" [sovru], which signifies summer. 5. MacConsnamha (snamh: Irish, to swim; anglicised "Ford" or "Forde"), chief of Clan Cionnaith or Clan Kenny, now known as the Muintir Kenny mountains and adjoining districts near Lough Allen, in the parish of Innismagrath, county Leitrim. 6. MacCagadhain or MacCogan, chief of Clan Fearmaighe, a district south of Dartry, and in the present barony of Dromahaire, county Leitrim. O'Brien states that the MacEgans were chiefs of Clan Fearamuighe in Brefney: hence MacCagadhain and MacEgan may, probably, have been the same clan. 7. MacDarchaidh or MacDarcy, chief of Cineal Luachain, a district in the barony of Mohill, county Leitrim, from which the townland of Laheen may be derived. 8. MacFlannchadha (rendered MacClancy), chief of Dartraidhe or Dartry, an ancient territory co-extensive with the present barony of Ross-Clogher in Leitrim. 9. O'Finn and O'Carroll, chiefs of Calraighe or Calry, a district adjoining Dartry in the present barony of Dromahaire, and comprehending, as the name implies, an adjoining portion of Sligo, the parish of "Calry" in that county. 10. MacMaoilliosa or Mallison, chief of Magh Breacraighe, a district on the borders of Leitrim and Longford. 11. MacFionnbhair or Finvar, chief of Muintir Gearadhain (O'Gearon or O'Gredan), a district in the southern part of Leitrim. 12. MacRaghnaill or MacRannall (anglicised Reynolds), who were chiefs of Muintir Eoluis, a territory which comprised almost the whole of the present baronies of Leitrim, Mohill, and Carrygallen, in the county Leitrim, with a portion of the north of Longford. This family, like the O'Farrells, princes of Annaly or Longford, were of the race of Ir or Clan-na-Rory; and one of their descendants, the celebrated wit and poet, George Nugent Reynolds, Esq., of Letterfian, in Leitrim, is stated to have been the author of the beautiful song called "The Exile of Erin," though its composition was claimed by Thomas Campbell, author of "The Pleasures of Hope." 13. O'Maoilmiadhaigh or Mulvey, chief of Magh Neise or Nisi, a district which lay along the Shannon in the west of Leitrim, near Carrick-on-Shannon. The following clans in the counties of Cavan and Leitrim, not given by O'Dugan, are collected from other sources: 14. MacBradaigh or MacBrady, was a very ancient and important family in Cavan; they were, according to MacGeoghagan, a branch of the O'Carrolls, chiefs of Calry. 15. MacGobhain, MacGowan, or O'Gowan (gobha: Irish, a smith), a name which has been anglicised "Smith," etc., were of the race of Ir; and were remarkable for their great strength and bravery. Thus Smith, Smyth, Smeeth, and Smythe, may claim their descent from the Milesian MacGowan, originally a powerful clan in Ulidia. 16. MacGiolladuibh, MacGilduff, or Gilduff, chiefs of Teallach Gairbheith, now the barony of "Tullygarvey," in the county Cavan. 17. MacTaichligh or MacTilly, chief of a district in the parish of Drung, in the barony of Tullygarvey. 18. MacCaba or MacCabe, a powerful clan originally from Monaghan, but for many centuries settled in Cavan. 19. O'Sheridan, an ancient clan in the county Cavan. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, one of the most eminent men of his age, as an orator, dramatist, and poet, was of this clan. 20. O'Corry was a clan located about Cootehill. 21. O'Clery or Clarke was a branch of the O'Clerys of Connaught and Donegal, and of the same stock as the authors of the Annals of the Four Masters. 22. O'Daly and O'Mulligan, were hereditary bards to the O'Riellys. 23. Fitzpatrick, a clan originally of the Fitzpatricks of Ossory. 24. Fitzsimon, a clan long located in the county Cavan, are of Anglo-Norman descent, who came originally from the English Pale. 25. O'Farrelly, a numerous clan in the county Cavan. 26. Several other clans in various parts of Cavan, as O'Murray, MacDonnell, O'Conaghy or Conaty, O'Connell or Connell, MacManus, O'Lynch, MacGilligan, O'Fay, MacGafney, MacHugh, O'Dolan, O'Drom, etc. 27. And several clans in the county Leitrim, not mentioned by O'Dugan, as MacGloin of Rossinver; MacFergus, who were hereditary erenachs of the churches of Rossinver, and whose name has been anglicised "Ferguson;" O'Cuirnin or Curran, celebrated bards and historians; MacKenny or Keaney, MacCartan, O'Meehan, etc. Brefney: In Irish this word is "Breifne" or "Brefne," which signifies the Hilly Country; it was called by the English "The Brenny," and has been Latinized "Brefnia" and "Brefinnia." This ancient territory comprised the present counties of Cavan and Leitrim, with a portion of Meath, and a part of the barony of Carbury in Sligo; O'Rourke being prince of West Brefney or Leitrim; and O'Rielly, or O'Reilly, of East Brefney or Cavan. Brefney extended from Kells in Meath to Drumcliff in the county Sligo; and was part of the Kingdom of Connaught, down to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when it was formed into the Counties of Cavan and Leitrim, and Cavan was added to the province of Ulster. In this territory Tiernmas, the 13th Monarch of Ireland, was the first who introduced Idol worship into Ireland; and set up at Moy Slaght (now Fenagh, in the barony of Mohill, county Leitrim) the famous idol, Crom Cruach, the chief deity of the Irish Druids, which St. Patrick destroyed. Brefney was inhabited in the early ages by the Firvolgians (who are by some writers called Belgae and Firbolgs), who went by the name of "Ernaidhe," "Erneans," and "Ernaechs;" which names are stated to have been given them from their inhabiting the territories about Lough Erne. These Erneans possessed the entire of Brefney. The name "Brefney" is, according to "Seward's Topography," derived from "Bre," a hill, and therefore signifies the country of hills or the hilly country: a derivation which may not appear inappropriate as descriptive of the topographical features of the country, as innumerable hills are scattered over the counties of Cavan and Leitrim. On a vast number of these hills over Cavan and Leitrim are found those circular earthen ramparts called forts or raths, and some of them very large; which circumstance shows that those hills were inhabited from the earliest ages. As several thousands of these raths exist even to this day, and many more have been levelled, it is evident that there was a very large population in ancient Brefney. The erection of these raths has been absurdly attributed to the Danes, for it is evident that they must have formed the chief habitations and fortresses of the ancient Irish, ages before the Danes set foot in Ireland; since they abound chiefly in the interior and remote parts of the country, where the Danes never had any permanent settlement. Ancient Brefney bore the name of Hy Briuin Breifne, from its being possessed by the race of Brian, King of Connaught, in the fourth century, brother of Niall of the Nine Hostages, and son of Eochy Moyvane, Monarch of Ireland from A.D. 357 to 365, and of the race of Heremon. That Brian had twenty-four sons, whose posterity possessed the greater part of Connaught, and were called the "Hy-Briuin race." Of this race were the O'Connors, kings of Connaught; O'Rourke, O'Rielly, MacDermott, MacDonogh, O'Flaherty, O'Malley, MacOiraghty (MacGeraghty, or Geraghty), O'Fallon, O'Flynn (of Connaught), MacGauran, MacTiernan, MacBrady or Brady, etc. In the tenth century Brefney was divided into two principalities, viz., Brefney O'Rourke or West Brefney, and Brefney O'Rielly or East Brefney. Brefney O'Rourke comprised the present county Leitrim, with the barony of Tullaghagh and part of Tullaghoncho in the county Cavan; and Brefney O'Rielly, the rest of the present county Cavan: the river at Ballyconnell being the boundary between Brefney O'Rourke and Brefney O'Rielly; the O'Rourkes being the principal chiefs. "O'Rourke's Country" was called Brefney O'Rourke: and "O'Rielly's Country" Brefney O'Rielly. The O'Rourkes, and O'Riellys maintained their independence down to the reign of James the First, and had considerable possessions even until the Cromwellian wars; after which their estates were confiscated.—CONNELLAN. O'Carroll: According to the De La Ponce MSS., "O'Carroll" of Calry, has been modernized MacBrady. From a sad, comfortless childhood Giles Truelove developed into a reclusive and uncommunicative man whose sole passion was books. For so long they were the only meaning to his existence. But when fate eventually intervened to have the outside world intrude upon his life, he began to discover emotions that he never knew he had. A story for the genuine booklover, penned by an Irish bookseller under the pseudonym of Ralph St. John Featherstonehaugh. FREE download 23rd - 27th May Join our mailing list to receive updates on new content on Library, our latest ebooks, and more. You won't be inundated with emails! — we'll just keep you posted periodically — about once a monthish — on what's happening with the library.

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What are infectious diseases? Infectious diseases are contracted due to microscopic organisms (bacteria, viruses, fungi and animal parasites) that invade the body’s natural barriers and immune system to create a wide range of symptoms – from undetectable to severe. Who are infectious disease specialists and what do they do? An infectious disease specialist (or “ID” specialist) is an internal medicine doctor (also called an internist), or sometimes a pediatric doctor, with additional specialty training in the diagnosis, treatment and management of infectious diseases. Infectious diseases may first be diagnosed by a patient’s primary care doctor or other healthcare professional who may request a specialty consultation from an ID physician. An infectious disease specialist has extensive knowledge of bacteria, parasites, fungi and viruses – whether airborne, communicable, contagious, food-borne or sexually transmitted. ID specialists treat conditions in many areas of the body including infections in the bones, bowel, brain, heart and lungs, pelvic organs, sinus, and urinary tract, with many of the conditions treatable with medications, procedures or surgery. They have special insight into antibiotics and their side effects, along with specialized training in immunology (how infection is fought), epidemiology (how infection spreads) and infection control. Many infectious disease doctors also specialize in treating infections due to HIV/AIDS. What sort of training does an infectious disease specialist undergo? In addition to four years of college, four years of medical school and three years of training as a doctor of internal medicine, an infectious disease doctor also undergoes 2-3 years of specialized training in infectious diseases. Many are also board certified and have passed a certification examination by the American Board of Internal Medicine in both internal medicine and infectious diseases. When would I need an infectious disease specialist? Your primary care physician can take care of most infectious conditions, but sometimes an expert is required to make a diagnosis or suggest treatment. You may need to see an infectious disease specialist when you have a potentially serious infection or when treatment for an infection causes problems. An infectious disease specialist can order tests to diagnose the problem, as well as offer special insight into those tests to prescribe treatment, if needed. If you’re hospitalized with an infection or an infection occurs while you’re hospitalized, an infectious disease specialist will direct your care and may continue to provide follow-up care after you’re discharged from the hospital. When your infection is cured or stabilized, you’ll typically resume seeing your regular primary care physician. If you’re planning on traveling abroad, you may be referred to an infectious disease doctor to ensure you will get the necessary special immunizations to help fend off infectious diseases while traveling. What are some common types of infectious diseases that ID physicians treat? How Vaccines Work 7 Coping Skills to Fight Chronic Pain 10 Things You Need to Know About STDs Talking to Your Doctor About Chickenpox Allergy Cures: The Truth Behind 10 Myths

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What is optometry? Optometry focuses on the study of vision and eye health . An optometrist conducts eye examinations, prescribes corrective lenses, and diagnoses and prescribes treatment for eye conditions. Optometrists should not be confused with ophthalmologists, who are medical doctors trained to perform corrective eye surgery, or opticians, who are trained to grind lenses but not licensed to examine or treat patients. Optometry is tightly regulated by boards that vary by state. An optometrist may practice a subspecialty, such as pediatric optometry, ocular disease and noninvasive vision therapy.When should I visit an optometrist, and what conditions does an optometrist treat? Visit an optometrist for annual eye examinations to ensure healthy eyes, good vision and to catch any problems early. Visit the optometrist immediately if you are experiencing eye problems such as red and painful eyes, swollen or flaky eyelids, spots or floaters in your eyes, sensitivity to light, blurred vision or any other discomfort, as these may indicate a serious eye problem. Common eye conditions an optometrist treats include acanthamoeba (bacterial infection), myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness), astigmatism (blurred vision), computer vision syndrome, blepharitis (inflammation of the eyelids), cataracts, conjunctivitis (“pink eye”), diabetic retinopathy (a sight-threatening condition brought on by diabetes), dry eye, glaucoma, or macular degeneration (vision loss). Optometrists also test peripheral awareness (side vision), eye coordination, depth perception, the ability to focus on an object, and color vision.What is considered good vision? While the term “20/20” is the standard by which normal vision is measured, it does not refer to perfect vision. It is a term used to express a normal level of clarity of vision, which is measured at a distance of 20 feet. If you have 20/20 vision, you can see clearly at 20 feet what a person with normal vision should be able to see at that distance. If you have 20/80 vision, you must be as close as 20 feet to see what someone with normal vision can see at 80 feet.What preventative measures can I take to preserve my eyesight? Certain vitamins and nutrients contribute to healthy eyes and good vision, including lutein/zeaxanthin (green leafy vegetables), vitamin C (fruits and vegetables), vitamin E (nuts and sweet potatoes), and zinc (liver or zinc supplements). These nutrients are credited with reducing the risk of certain eye diseases, including cataracts and age-related macular degeneration. On the job, be sure to wear eye protective gear if you work around dust, projectile objects, etc. If you are working at a computer all day, there is risk of developing computer vision syndrome due to eye strain. To prevent this condition, position the center of the computer screen at least 4 to 5 inches below eye level and at least 20 inches away from your face. Use an anti-glare screen to minimize glare. For every 20 minutes you are on the computer, look into the distance for 20 seconds to rest your eyes, and also rest your eyes for 15 minutes after every two hours of computer use.

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slot-missing class object slot-name operation &optional new-value => result* slot-missing (class t) object slot-name operation &optional new-value Arguments and Values: class---the class of object. slot-name---a symbol (the name of a would-be slot). operation---one of the symbols setf, slot-boundp, slot-makunbound, or slot-value. The generic function slot-missing is invoked when an attempt is made to access a slot in an object whose metaclass is standard-class and the slot of the name slot-name is not a name of a slot in that class. The default method signals an error. The generic function slot-missing is not intended to be called by programmers. Programmers may write methods for it. The generic function slot-missing may be called during evaluation of slot-value, (setf slot-value), slot-boundp, and slot-makunbound. For each of these operations the corresponding symbol for the operation argument is slot-value, setf, slot-boundp, and slot-makunbound respectively. The optional new-value argument to slot-missing is used when the operation is attempting to set the value of the slot. If slot-missing returns, its values will be treated as follows: Affected By: None. The default method on slot-missing signals an error of type error. defclass, slot-exists-p, slot-value The set of arguments (including the class of the instance) facilitates defining methods on the metaclass for slot-missing.

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Earth from Space: The Tibesti Mountains About this Image The Tibesti Mountains, located mostly in Chad with the northern slopes extending into Libya, are captured in this image, acquired on March 4, 2012 by Envisat’s MERIS instrument. The mountains’ highest peak is Emi Koussi – pictured here as a circular structure in the lower-right portion of the dark area. The westernmost volcano is Toussidé. Our satellite view shows the dark peak with lava flows extending to the left. The white depression to the southeast gets its colour from the accumulation of carbonate salts, creating a soda lake. Surrounding the Tibesti Mountains, the sands of the Sahara appear like orange, yellow and white brushstrokes.

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To link to this article, copy this persistent link: (Jul 02, 2008) Twenty-eight years after acceding to the United Nations Convention on Refugees, on June 5, 2008, Nicaragua approved the Law on Protection of Refugees. The legislature passed the Law by a nearly unanimous vote. The Law mandates the creation of a National Commission for Refugees (CONAR), which will be in charge of studying each application and granting the status of "refugee" to those persons it considers meet the legal requirements. The representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, Kevin Allen, stated that the new Nicaraguan statute is one of the most modern in the region. He pointed out the importance for the country to finally have a legal framework regulating the status of refugees. (Ary Pantoja, Aprueban Ley de Protección a Refugiados, EL NUEVO DIARIO, June 3, 2008, available at http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni.) |Author:||Norma Gutierrez More by this author| |Topic:||Immigration More on this topic| |Jurisdiction:||Nicaragua More about this jurisdiction| Search Legal News Find legal news by topic, country, keyword, date, or author. Global Legal Monitor RSS Get the Global Legal Monitor delivered to your inbox. Sign up for RSS service. The Global Legal Monitor is an online publication from the Law Library of Congress covering legal news and developments worldwide. It is updated frequently and draws on information from the Global Legal Information Network, official national legal publications, and reliable press sources. You can find previous news by searching the GLM. Last updated: 07/02/2008

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(WVLT) -- With November being Diabetes Awareness Month, it's important for everyone to be aware of the risks associated with the disease and how to prevent it. Type two diabetes can often be prevented with a gradual weight loss plan and proper diet. That's why we talked with Molly Gee, a registered dietitcian for education on diabetes and tips to prevent it. Here are some facts and myths about the disease: Myth: Diabetes is not that serious of a disease and only affects a small portion of the U.S. population. Fact: Diabetes affects 25.8 million Americans and causes more deaths a year than breast cancer and AIDS combined. Diabetes is the leading cause of heart disease and stroke. Myth: Eating too much sugar causes diabetes. Fact: Foods do not cause diabetes but eight in 10 people with diabetes are overweight or obese. Studies have shown the benefits of weight loss for people with or at risk of developing diabetes: a slight 5-7% weight loss, plus regular exercise can reduce the rate of onset of type 2 diabetes by 58 percent. Gee says, "Just small changes, a modest weight loss, 10 to 20 pounds which translates to about 5 to 10% can make a real difference in controlling your diabetes and really improving your quality of life." By providing structure around daily eating plans and controlling calorie intake, people can take better control of their diabetes and/or minimize the risks. "Having a balanced diet that includes protein, whole grains, fiber is very important, and then most of my patients tell me they'd love to do it but they run out of time and this is where portion control, calorie control is really important. Monitoring their blood sugar is so important, especially when theyre trying to lose weight. I do remind my patients to check with your doctors before you start on a weight loss diet or an exercise diet, but usually monitoring it right before you go to bed or when you get up is a pretty good standard." Also, get active by starting physical activity on a gradual basis. Gee says, "The weight control registry really has some clear ideas and one of course is to really keep moving. Keeping with the theme of small steps, just starting out with ten minutes a day of walking will put you on the road of good activity and working up gradually to 30 minutes. You really find that you feel better and really, physical activity helps control that blood sugar as well." For more information on controlling diabetes, visit Glucerna.com.

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Alcohol and Pregnancy The risks involved with alcohol use during pregnancy:Alcohol consumption by the mother is a leading cause of preventable birth defects in the fetus and is the only cause of mental retardation that is completely preventable. Everything a mother drinks also goes to the fetus. Alcohol is broken down more slowly in the immature body of the fetus than in an adult's body. This can cause the alcohol levels to remain high and stay in the baby's body longer. In addition, the risk of miscarriage and stillbirth increases with alcohol consumption. Even light or moderate drinking can affect the developing fetus. Because no amount of alcohol is safe, the US Surgeon General recommends that pregnant women avoid alcohol during pregnancy. An infant born to a mother who drinks alcohol during pregnancy can have problems included in a group of disorders called fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs). FASDs include the following: - Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS): these are the most severe effects that can occur when a woman drinks during pregnancy,and include fetal death. Infants born with FAS have abnormal facial features and growth and central nervous system (CNS) problems, including mental retardation. - Alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder (ARND): children with ARND may not have full FAS but have learning and behavioral problems due to prenatal exposure to alcohol. These problems may include mathematical difficulties, impaired memory or attention, impulse control and/or judgment problems, and poor school performance. - Alcohol-related birth defects (ARBD): birth defects related to prenatal alcohol exposure can include abnormalities in the heart, kidneys, bones, and/or hearing. - Small for gestational age at birth or small stature compared with their peers - Facial abnormalities such as small eyes and thin mouth - Poor physical coordination - Hyperactive behaviors - Learning disabilities - Developmental disabilities (e.g., speech and language delays) - Mental retardation or low IQ - Problems with daily living - Poor reasoning and judgment skills - Sleep and sucking problems in infancy There is no cure for FASDs, but children who are diagnosed early and receive appropriate physical and educational interventions, especially those in a stable and nurturing home, are more likely to have better outcomes than those who are not. The information on this Web page is provided for educational purposes. You understand and agree that this information is not intended to be, and should not be used as, a substitute for medical treatment by a health care professional. You agree that Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital is not making a diagnosis of your condition or a recommendation about the course of treatment for your particular circumstances through the use of this Web page. You agree to be solely responsible for your use of this Web page and the information contained on this page. Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital, its officers, directors, employees, agents, and information providers shall not be liable for any damages you may suffer or cause through your use of this page even if advised of the possibility of such damages.

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|Back Behavioral Enrichment| Animals have emotions and feelings. In some respects, animals have basic physical and mental health needs which are similar to our own. They include food, shelter, and in many cases, privacy for breeding as well as general peace and quiet for just doing 'their own thing'. In the wild, much of the animal's mental health has to do with eating, or being eaten. In the comfortable environment of a zoo, devoid of predators and competitive pressures, animals get bored easily. And boredom is a zoo animals greatest enemy, affecting both their physical and mental health. Behavioral enrichment tries to evoke the natural stresses of the wild and bring out the animals natural instincts and reflexes. These techniques aim to stimulate all of the senses, mostly through the use of food and feeding styles. One enrichment technique is to suddenly change the features of an animal's enclosure. This adds zest to the animal's life as it tries to figure out what happened, and to reclaim the enclosure as its territory. In many species, especially the mammals, play is serious business. It is vital to ensure a good state of mental health in the animals. An essential element for most wild animals is competition with other species. This is the thinking that lies behind Lupazoo's preference for mixed exhibits, displaying more than one species together. The resulting heightened alertness leads to livelier behavior.

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The instruction will be influenced by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Principles and Standards for School Mathematics, Liping Ma’s Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics, the National Research Council report Knowing and Learning Mathematics for Teaching, and other such sources. Early in the week participants will be in student mode, experiencing first hand active, standards-based learning. As the week progresses, the participants will move into instructor mode, planning how they will adopt and adapt what they have learned for use in their own teaching. At Appalachian State University, the Departments of Mathematical Sciences and Curriculum and Instruction are developing a three-semester course sequence that is now required for prospective teachers of Grades K-6: MAT 2030, CI-MAT 3030, and CI 4030. This sequence is aligned with recommendations of the Mathematical Association of America, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, and will serve as the basis for many of the ideas and activities of the short course. Also featured will be materials from the Teachers Teaching with Technology Mathematics Teacher Educator College Short Course, which Dr. Crocker is currently editing. Click here for the workshop application. Return to the PREP front page

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Date Uploaded: November 1, 2008, 12:56 pm Last Edited: December 11, 2012, 12:10 am Print this Article Article © MAIL User: Inventor There are different ways to weave spheres in chainmaille. You can weave triangles and stitch them together or make reductions of increasing frequency to get something fairly spherical, or you can wrap a spherical object with maille. These techniques work well enough given the appropriate weave as the rings will relax into an approximately spherical shape. But what if we want to make really small spheres, or really spherical spheres? What if we want a sphere that is hollow yet solidly rigid instead of flexible? In that case we need to use the right weave, ring, and material combination, and we also need to know the exact number of rings per row that will create a true sphere. I once created a basket using the reduction method. It turned out nice and round, kind of hemispherical, but not exactly. The night after completing it, I dreamed and awoke with an epiphany! I had realized the math behind making a perfectly spherical chainmaille sphere, or at least as perfect as you can reasonably get. I owe my undergrad calculus teachers a debt of gratitude for teaching me how to set up calculus problems, because the sphere math is based on the way that you set up a spherical surface area calculation. Actually you can understand it with only trigonometry, no calculus required (whew). The math that caused a light bulb to turn on above my head is illustrated in the figure below. I'll spare you the derivation details, but basically the four equations on the upper right are obtained from the drawing on the left, and when you solve them you get the equation in the box, which is repeated below: m = ( 2*pi*r / (kh*d) ) * cos( (kv*d/r) * n ) where the variables are: r is the radius of the sphere d is the inside diameter of the rings kh is the horizontal proportionality constant of the weave kv is the vertical proportionality constant of the weave n is the row index m is the number of rings to put on the nth row. The proportionality constants are a measure of how dense the weave is in each direction. Well, technically they are inversely proportional to ring density so they are a measure of how loose the weave is. Whatever. You find the proportionality constants for a given weave and ring combination by weaving a rectangular patch and then calculating how much of an inside diameter each ring spans. So the simplest possible weave, ordinary chain link, has a proportionality constant of exactly 1 because each ring spans one inside diameter. For a more practical explanation, let's say you are using 1 inch rings (for simplicity's sake) and you observe that it takes 20 rings to span 10 inches. Then your proportionality constant would be (10"/1")/(20 rings) which equals 0.5. Clear as mud? Good. For an example we will use Kingsmaille (European 8 in 2) with 14 ga 3/8" rings. Because we are working with Kingsmaille, which is a double weave, we will call each double ring of the Kingsmaille a pair and do all our calculations in terms of pairs, not rings. Otherwise it gets even more confusing than it already is, sheesh! I have experimentally determined the values of kh=0.74 and kv=0.895 for this weave. We will make a three inch diameter sphere, so r=1.5". The inside diameter of the rings, d, is 3/8". Plugging these into the equation we get: m = 34 * cos( n / 4.5 ) We start with the equator at n=0 and calculate m which is the number of pairs to weave into the equator. Then we increment n to 1 and solve for the number of pairs to weave into the rows that are adjacent to the equator. Then we do n=2, and so on until we get either zero or a negative number at which point we stop and discard that last value of m because it is non-physical. If we were to solve for theta and plug in those values of n, we would find that m=0 corresponds to theta equal to exactly 90 degrees, and negative values of m correspond to theta greater than 90 degrees. We are only interested in the region of theta from 0 to 90 degrees. The table for this example is shown below: 0 | 34 1 | 33 2 | 31 3 | 27 4 | 21 5 | 15 6 | 8 7 | 1 This means that we will make a sphere starting at the equator with 34 pairs, then weave rows above and below the equator that get smaller and smaller until we reach row 7 with 1 pair. That 7th row presents us with a problem: how is a row with only one pair going to look? It would be kinda weird to just have two rings on a row at each pole of the sphere. The solution is to adjust the radius of the sphere to a slightly smaller value than 1.5, say 1.45 for example. Then we get six pairs on the row six and a negative value for row 7. This will leave us with a circle of rings with a small hole at the poles of the sphere, and due to the tightness of the weave the rings will hold each other in place without the need for a specially sized ring to gather them together. I find that to be kinda kewl that it works out that way. A sphere similar to the example sphere is shown below: Obviously the sphere will have an odd number of rows. There is a different form of the equation for making a slight variation on the theme, spheres that have an even number of rows such that the equator actually lies on the joining boundary between two rows instead of the center of the largest row. The equation for a sphere with an even number of rows is: m = ( 2*pi*r / (kh*d) ) * cos( (kv*d/r) * (2n+1) / 2 ) where you begin with n=0 as before, but n=0 corresponds to the two rows that surround the equator. Really, though, you wouldn't want to make a sphere with an even number of rows unless you had a special reason to do so. That's because for a European weave sphere, an odd number of rows allows you to weave the first three rows all at once using the ordinary way of starting a European weave. After that it's pretty much going to be ORAAT (One Ring At A Time), unfortunately. I suppose in special cases if you got to where you were mass-producing a specific sphere design, you could slip in some closed rings at the right locations between reductions, but aside from that it's ORAAT for spheres. There are some details about the weaving technique that will help you make the most spherical sphere possible. These suggestions will help smooth out irregularities in the spherical surface. If you follow these instructions you will be learning from the mistakes of others, namely me, which will reduce the possibility of creating a useless jumble of rings instead of a spherical sphere. First, you should space the reductions out as evenly as you can around the row. Second, you should arrange the reductions so that they do not line up on adjacent rows. In fact, it's best if they do not line up on the row after that either. Note that you can make slight adjustments to the sphere radius in the equation to create a rings per row table that works out better. For example, if you have three reductions on a row and five reductions on the next row, that is not very good because they are both prime numbers and therefore have no common factors. In other words, an equilateral triangle and a pentagon do not line up elegantly if you are trying to prevent their vertices from overlapping. Better would be a situation where you have three reductions on a row and six reductions on the next row because three divides into six and that means that things can line up nicely without overlapping reductions. You can also "cheat" to make your rings per row table work out nicely by changing the number of rings on one or more of the rows. Although it is not mathematically kosher to add or subtract a ring or two on any given row, you may find that the overall roundness of the sphere is enhanced by doing this. It is especially useful for weaving really small spheres of very few rings. In any case, having things line up nicely is a lot easier when it comes to counting out ring positions and such. It is possible to find spherical spheres with rings per row such that all of the reductions line up nicely like this, but that is rare. Try to at least get the poles of the sphere to line up well since you have less room to space out the reductions there. Also, when working with Kingsmaille, it is ideal for the last row to have half of the ring pairs as the next-to-last row, and avoid spheres with very low ring count in the last row. Third, with a Kingsmaille sphere you make the reductions by putting a single ring in place of a pair in two adjacent pair positions, or in other words you space the reduction over two adjacent pairs. If you make your reductions by removing a whole pair then you may have trouble getting the rings in the next row to span the gap properly, or at least I did. Fourth, when you get to the final row or the final few rows at the poles of a Kinsmaille sphere, you can spread out the pairs into twice as many single rings. If you look closely at the photos you will see the last row is woven with individual rings instead of more sparsely positioned ring pairs. Unless you have a huge sphere, there is typically a large number of reductions relative to the number of rings on the last row, so you can do that and it works out well. Oh, one more trick: for a European weave such as Kingsmaille, start by weaving a band with the number of pairs in the equator, then *remove* rings to form the reductions on the rows adjacent to the equator. If you don't do it that way you'll probably get a tangled mess like I did until I figured that trick out. Along the same lines, you may find it easier to remove those row 1 reduction rings on one side only, add row 2 on that side, then remove the reduction rings on the other side and finally add row 2 to the second side. This way the reduction rings of row 1 help to hold the equator together while you weave row 2 and this prevents unwanted twisting of the equator at the reduction sites. Also, unless you are making a hemisphere, I recommend weaving equally in both directions as you move away from the equator. That is, weave the equator and its adjacent rows as a band first, then weave row 2 on both sides of the band before moving on to row 3. This way you will have your reduction spacing fresh in memory and you can make both hemispheres precise mirror images of each other. This also helps the rings relax into the correct positions relative to each other so you get a sphere, not an egg. To further help the rings relax into position, smoosh the work around a bit after adding each row. In addition to causing the rings to equalize in position, smooshing or rolling or squeezing the band is a nice relaxing thing to do in between all that tedious weaving - it's very tactile, like squeezing a stress reliever ball. Wait, there's one more tip. You may find that using tie wraps to mark the reduction locations is very helpful. That way you only have to count once, not repeatedly count as you go along. This also reduces annoying mistakes, which minimizes the chance that you will throw the dang thing across the room in frustration! I save my bread tie-wraps for this purpose, didn't you always wonder what you could do with those things besides throw them away? At this time the only weave and ring combination that I have discovered to work is Kingsmaille with 14 ga 3/8" rings, and I have had success with both aluminum and bronze. You can also mix aluminum and bronze on the same sphere. Materials with more springback may not work. I tried 12 ga 1/2" rings but that made a loose sphere that collapsed into a pumpkin shape. An even worse mistake in a European 6-in-1 attempt made such a loose, flexible sphere that I just left one end off and declared it to be a small spherical bag. My suggestion for experimenting with new weave and ring size / material combinations for spherical spheres is to select combinations that produce a semi-rigid sheet. Too loose and you get a bag, too rigid and your sphere will become too tight to weave at some point and you will end up with something akin to a bracelet. Of course, you might actually *want* a spherical bag or a spherically shaped rigid bracelet, in which case I say go for it! If you really want to discover new spherical sphere weave / ring combinations, I suppose you could start by weaving a rectangle of the known good combination (Kingsmaille with 14 ga 3/8" rings). Then you can make rectangles of proposed choices and compare them in terms of flexibility. After all, you're going to need a small patch anyway to measure for the values of the horizontal and vertical proportionality constants. (Shouldn't you be able to base good combinations for the same weave off of the AR? That is, use the AR of your 14 ga 3/8" rings to find other Kingsmaille combos -- Ed.) In my early attempts I made just tiny patches to estimate the constants, then jumped ahead into making the spheres. This didn't work out all that well because the constants were not accurate since they were measured from too small a patch (or just guesstimated, yikes!), and also because I had no feel for the flexibility of the weave in sheet form compared to the known good weave / ring combination. So once again I suggest that you learn from my mistakes and make patches with about 50 or 100 rings first - save yourself the grief of weaving failed spheres! The spherical derivation assumes a constant radius and a row slope with a tangent that passes through the origin, but you can break those rules if you want. If you can mathematically describe another shape in spherical or cylindrical coordinates such as an egg or an ellipse, or a Ming dynasty vase, then you can derive a mathematical expression that tells you exactly how many rings per row to weave in order to create that shape. In my case, college was about 20 years ago and I have forgotten most of the math that I used to know, so I will leave that exercise to the more mathematically inclined among us. Also, I imagine that you may not need to describe the entire shape mathematically, just each row. For example you could draw a cross-section of a vase and measure the radius at each row height with a ruler, then calculate the rings per row from that by multiplying by 2*pi and dividing by kh*d. For this approach to work, you would have to account for sloped rows not having the full row height because they are leaning to one side or the other. That could be done by simply breaking up the curve into equal line segments of the appropriate length for the proportionality constant that you are using. For example draw your cross-section with line segments equal to the vertical proportionality constant times the inside diameter of your rings. That way you get both the horizontal *and* the vertical measurements correct. Now I really should stop there, but I'll go just one step further. If we abandon the cylindrical symmetry altogether, we could possibly create a way to describe just about *any* contoured shape we want. It might be practical to do the shape of a person's head with nose, eyes, mouth, chin, hair, etc. all described as a very complicated set of reductions. A wide variety of sculpture could be created in rigid sheet maille using this method. In fact, I believe that someone with enough education and programming skill could turn any arbitrary mesh description of a surface into chainmaille form. I'll leave that epiphany to someone else though, just doing spheres was challenging enough for me! You can make really round, rigid-shell, spherical spheres with a little math and a lot of patience by following the instructions in this article. The technique works well even for small spheres that cannot be made with other techniques such as weaving triangular sections together. There are many suggested tricks and techniques for ensuring that your spheres turn out well and don't end up as unfinished lumps of rings. So far the trusted weave is Kingsmaille with 14 ga 3/8" aluminum or bronze rings, but you should be able to utilize your personal mailling wisdom to create spheres of other weaves, ring sizes, and materials. Also, it should be possible to create non-spherical objects such as eggs, ellipses, and vases by using math and/or drawing it out on paper. Be creative, have fun, and don't weave too much or you'll start dreaming about the intricate dance of math and rings like I did! Enjoy your sphere-weaving adventure! Original URL: http://www.mailleartisans.org/articles/articledisplay.php?key=507

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Culture and Religion The culture of the Maldives is influenced by different visitors who arrived in Maldives throughout the times. However, acting as a melting point the Maldives assimilated these influences and has created a unique cultural identity. Archaeological evidence suggests the existence Hinduism and Buddhism before the country embraced Islam in 1153 A.D. Since then, Islam is a way of life for Maldivians. Islam is now the state religion and it is a stipulation of the Maldivian law, which is based on the Islamic Sharia that all citizens of the country be Muslims. Today, the main events and festivals of Maldivian life follow the Muslim (lunar) Calendar. From infancy children are taught the Arabic alphabet. Religious education is provided both at home and at school. Islam is part of the school curriculum and is taught concurrently with other subjects. The golden dome of the Islamic centre dominates the skyline of Male’ whether first viewed by air or from sea. This imposing mosque, said to be one of the most beautiful mosques in Asia, was inaugurated in 1984 – a result of the commitment of President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s government to uphold and strengthen the character of the nation.

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10 times as many prostate cancers in 2021? MANAGED CARE May 2011. ©MediMedia USA Canadian researchers say there could be as many as 267,329 new cases of prostate cancer diagnosed each year by 2021. That would be 10 times as many as in 2009 (25,355 cases). Researchers in the department of radiation oncology at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center at the University of Toronto calculated prostate cancer cases using best-, most likely-, and worst-case scenarios. “The trends we’re anticipating in Canada are going to be very similar to the United States,” says Andrew Loblaw, MD, lead author. He’s a staff radiation oncologist and clinician scientist at the center. “For clinical executives, this would mean about 650,000 men diagnosed in the United States. So there’s going to be the need for increased capacity to diagnose these men. You’re going to need better quality in active surveillance. You’re going to have to increase your treatment capacity — both surgery and radiation. And lastly, it’s about cost. Both countries are struggling to effectively manage those health care dollars,” he says. The four factors likely to affect the incidence of prostate cancer are an increase in the aging population, increased prevalence of PSA screening, lowered PSA cutoff to recommend biopsy, and improved sensitivity to prostate biopsy. Of the four factors, the aging population and the possible lowering of the PSA threshold before biopsy are expected to be the major influencers in new cases. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention makes no such predictions. Jun Li, MD, PhD, MPH, an epidemiologist at the CDC, says the latest data available for prostate cancer incidence are from 2006. The agency reports that the incidence of prostate cancer has decreased significantly, by 2.4 percent per year from 2000 to 2006. With better screening, physicians are better equipped at finding prostate cancer earlier, and plotting an effective treatment plan. Loblaw points out that the “men who died this year from prostate cancer were diagnosed 17 years ago. And those men who are diagnosed today are going to have markedly different treatments, so these men will have different mortality rates 17 years from now.” Source: Quon H, Loblaw A, Nam R. Dramatic increase in prostate cancer cases by 2021. BJUI. Apr 20. doi: 10.1111/j.1464-410X.2011.10197.x. [Epub ahead of print] Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. United States Cancer Statistics. 2007

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Inspired by Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are, pupils embark on mini adventures around the gallery. They explore artworks to discover real and imaginary animals and then create their own fantastical puppet creatures. Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are”, is read to the children and the opposing concepts of wild and tame, imagination and reality are discussed. In the gallery, we look at paintings and sculptures of ‘Wild Things’ and collect and draw ideas for puppets. In the studio, the pupils then have the opportunity to use the Interactive Whiteboard to further explore and develop ideas for their puppets using images created by Jim Medway. Pupils then create their own ‘Wild Thing’ puppets using a variety of resources and use their puppets to act out the poem “Let’s Make a Rumpus”, joining in with actions, sounds and words. "Your passion and enthusiasm really inspired us and the programme you put together is superb.” Jo Probert, Gallery Educator

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- Join over 1.2 million students every month - Accelerate your learning by 29% - Unlimited access for just £4.99 per month Comparing 'Cousin Kate' and 'The seduction', two poems about pregnancy. The first 200 words of this essay... GCSE Comparative poetry essay The genre of both the poems are about pregnancy, fathering and how pregnancy has effected the lives of virtuous, innocent young women. The main difference between the two poems is that the first one called 'Cousin Kate' is set in the past, around the 1914's, while the other one called 'The seduction' is more modern. This is because of the language used and how the words use syntax. "Not mindful I was fair." "She had met him at the party " The first line was taken from the poem called "Cousin Kate" while the other one was taken from "The Seduction" poem. The sentence structure of the first line has been changed around because, if it were written as a sentence than the poem would not sound correct because the number of syllables would not match the line before or after it. (I was not mindful, I was fair). If the second half of the line was not there (I was fair) the sentence would not make sense because the reader would not know what the writer is talking about as there is No first, second or third person narrative Found what you're looking for? - Start learning 29% faster today - Over 150,000 essays available - Just £4.99 a month Not the one? We have 100's more Comparisons (view all) - GCSE English Spec B - War Poetry - Still I rise and Mid Term Break Analysis - Poetry Analysis - Comparing Ozymandias to Khubla Khan - am going to look at four poem; Hitcher (Simon Armitage); My ... - London 1802 by William Wordsworth Ode to a Nightingale by Jo... - How does John Donne and Emily Dickinson portrays the theme o... - Compare and contrast the presentation of seduction in Marve... - How have emotional voices in Romeo and Juliet and The Labora... - Compare and Contrast how Blake and Wordsworth depict London - Compare and Contrast the poem "Father and Son" by ... ""Yoel Lax. Religious Studies. GCSE Student. ""M Singh. English. A Level Student.

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Each school system is required by the Code of Maryland Regulations to provide school psychological services. (COMAR 13A.05.05.04. 04) The School Psychology Program is a comprehensive continuum of services and activities based on psychological principles. The goal of the program is to prevent or remediate educational, emotional, or behavioral problems by identifying, analyzing, and reporting psychoeducational needs through consultation, observation, or through psychological and educational assessment. Comprehensive school psychological services are comprised of diverse activities in concert with the activities of teachers, administrators, school counselors, and other school staff. These activities complement each other and are most accurately viewed as being coordinated rather than as separate services. The continuum of services and activities include but are not limited to; q Consultation --Meeting with school staff and parents on issues involving psychological principles related to curriculum development, learning, and student development. q Psychological Counseling—Providing individual or group evidence-based interventions with students or parents. q Psychological Assessments—The process of obtaining data about an individual student in accordance with acceptable, valid practices with the purpose of identifying factors that may impact on a student’s ability to learn or function in a school setting. q Professional Development—Provide training for school staff and parents to enhance their capacity to implement strategies and create learning environments that maximize the ability of students to learn in school. q Program Development—Assist school systems in implementing innovative practices such as Instructional Consultation and Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports. The school psychology specialist at the Maryland State Department of Education assists the local school systems in promoting students' learning and mental health, and developing the skills of school psychologists across the state through technical support and consultation.

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At the bottom of the code page is a text area where you can enter the URL for a Web accessible dataset and a browse button for selecting a dataset on your computer. Either way, the dataset will be read in using read.table with header=T and stored in a dataframe called X. The dataframe, X, will then be attached so you can use the variable names. After your code has be executed three more browser windows will open to display the results. Once all of the window are open you can keep typing code into the code window, edit what's there, or erase everything and start over. You can cut and paste between an editor window and the code window. You can also cut text or images out of the Rweb windows and paste them into documents (if the document editor supports pasting images). Here is some R code you can use to test things out. # A little Regression x <- rnorm(100) # 100 random numbers from a normal(0,1) distribution y <- exp(x) + rnorm(100) # an exponential function with error result <- lsfit(x,y) # regress x on y and store the results ls.print(result) # print the regression results plot(x,y) # pretty obvious what this does abline(result) # add the regression line to the plot lines(lowess(x,y), col=2) # add a nonparametric regression line (a smoother) hist(result$residuals) # histogram of the residuals from the regression ## Boxplots n <- 10 g <- gl(n, 100, n * 100) x <- rnorm(n * 100) + sqrt(codes(g)) boxplot(split(x, g), col = "lavender", notch = TRUE) # Scatter plot matrix data("iris") pairs(iris[1:4], main = "Edgar Anderson's Iris Data", font.main = 4, pch = 19) pairs(iris[1:4], main = "Edgar Anderson's Iris Data", pch = 21, bg = c("red", "green3", "blue")[codes(iris$Species)]) #Coplots data(quakes) coplot(long ~ lat | depth, data = quakes, pch = 21, bg = "green3") #Image and contour plots (These are Owww-Ahhh plots) opar <- par(ask = interactive() && .Device == "X11") data(volcano) x <- 10 * (1:nrow(volcano)) x.at <- seq(100, 800, by = 100) y <- 10 * (1:ncol(volcano)) y.at <- seq(100, 600, by = 100) image(x, y, volcano, col = terrain.colors(100), axes = FALSE) rx <- range(x <- 10*1:nrow(volcano)) ry <- range(y <- 10*1:ncol(volcano)) ry <- ry + c(-1,1) * (diff(rx) - diff(ry))/2 tcol <- terrain.colors(12) par(opar); par(mfrow=c(1,1)); opar <- par(pty = "s", bg = "lightcyan") plot(x = 0, y = 0,type = "n", xlim = rx, ylim = ry, xlab = "", ylab = "") u <- par("usr") rect(u, u, u, u, col = tcol, border = "red") contour(x, y, volcano, col = tcol, lty = "solid", add = TRUE) title("A Topographic Map of Maunga Whau", font = 4) abline(h = 200*0:4, v = 200*0:4, col = "lightgray", lty = 2, lwd = 0.1) par(opar)

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Welcome to the Learning Centre Here you'll find all of the Maths on Track support materials - Practice sheets (answers), videos and Wee Red Box flash cards. The support materials are separated into four levels (as per Curriculum for Excellence). Choose a level to find everything you'll need to improve numeracy and mental agility skills at this level.... - Level 1 – mainly P2, P3, P4 - Level 2 – mainly P5, P6, P7 - Level 3 – mainly P7, S1, S2, S3 - Level 4 – mainly S2, S3 The primary levels (1 and 2) are subdivided into ‘starting', ‘towards’, and ‘at' the level.

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Originally Posted by Chris F Early America school system ( after the war about the time of Jefferson)actually took only the best of the best and the others were required to become trade apprentices. So Preachers, doctors, lawyers were hand picked and the rest were sent to shop class. Just imagine if we did that today. Kids who were bright and could excel were pushed. Kids who were Kardashians were sent to learn a career. The public school system today is severely flawed. This is why other countries beat us in science, math, etc etc. I believe most kids in those days were home-schooled as well, not processed through a government-run public school system like cattle. Ben Franklin was also a self-taught writer. So there is something to be said for ambition. I think parents need to instill in their kids an intrinsic motivation for achievement. Simply upping the pay scale of certain jobs only creates extrinsic motivation. For those who might not be familiar with the differences. When someone is extrinsically motivated to do something, then they are only doing it to receive some kind of external reward (like a big paycheck). When they are intrinsically motivated, they do it because they love it and the satisfaction they get from the action itself is all the reward they need.

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This article is - freely available Epidemiology, Molecular Epidemiology and Evolution of Bovine Respiratory Syncytial Virus Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Circuito Exterior, Ciudad Universitaria, Delegación Coyoacán, México D.F. 04510, Mexico Consejo Estatal para la Prevencion y Control del Sida-Centro Ambulatorio para la Prevencion y Atencion del Sida e ITS (COESIDA-CAPASITS) Oaxaca, Mexico Instituto de Diagnóstico y Referencia Epidemiológicos, Carpio 470, Col. Santo Tomas, Mexico D.F. 11340, Mexico * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Received: 29 October 2012; in revised form: 22 November 2012 / Accepted: 23 November 2012 / Published: 30 November 2012 Abstract: The bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV) is an enveloped, negative sense, single-stranded RNA virus belonging to the pneumovirus genus within the family Paramyxoviridae. BRSV has been recognized as a major cause of respiratory disease in young calves since the early 1970s. The analysis of BRSV infection was originally hampered by its characteristic lability and poor growth in vitro. However, the advent of numerous immunological and molecular methods has facilitated the study of BRSV enormously. The knowledge gained from these studies has also provided the opportunity to develop safe, stable, attenuated virus vaccine candidates. Nonetheless, many aspects of the epidemiology, molecular epidemiology and evolution of the virus are still not fully understood. The natural course of infection is rather complex and further complicates diagnosis, treatment and the implementation of preventive measures aimed to control the disease. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms by which BRSV is able to establish infection is needed to prevent viral and disease spread. This review discusses important information regarding the epidemiology and molecular epidemiology of BRSV worldwide, and it highlights the importance of viral evolution in virus transmission. Keywords: BRSV; global distribution; genotypes; evolution Article StatisticsClick here to load and display the download statistics. Notes: Multiple requests from the same IP address are counted as one view. Cite This Article MDPI and ACS Style Sarmiento-Silva, R.E.; Nakamura-Lopez, Y.; Vaughan, G. Epidemiology, Molecular Epidemiology and Evolution of Bovine Respiratory Syncytial Virus. Viruses 2012, 4, 3452-3467. Sarmiento-Silva RE, Nakamura-Lopez Y, Vaughan G. Epidemiology, Molecular Epidemiology and Evolution of Bovine Respiratory Syncytial Virus. Viruses. 2012; 4(12):3452-3467. Sarmiento-Silva, Rosa E.; Nakamura-Lopez, Yuko; Vaughan, Gilberto. 2012. "Epidemiology, Molecular Epidemiology and Evolution of Bovine Respiratory Syncytial Virus." Viruses 4, no. 12: 3452-3467.

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In this Article Interaction Rating: Moderate Be cautious with this combination. Talk with your health provider. Bisphosphonate medications and phosphate salts can both lower calcium levels in the body. Taking large amounts of phosphate salts might cause calcium levels to become too low. The adequate intakes (AI) for infants are: 100 mg for infants 0-6 months old and 275 mg for infants 7-12 months of age. Tolerable Upper Intake Levels (UL), the highest intake level at which no unwanted side effects are expected, for phosphate (expressed as phosphorus) per day are: children 1-8 years, 3 grams per day; children and adults 9-70 years, 4 grams; adults older than 70 years, 3 grams; pregnant women 14-50 years, 3.5 grams; and breast-feeding women 14-50 years, 4 grams. Report Problems to the Food and Drug Administration You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit the FDA MedWatch website or call 1-800-FDA-1088. Get the latest health and medical information delivered direct to your inbox FREE!

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John P. Cunha, DO, is a U.S. board-certified Emergency Medicine Physician. Dr. Cunha's educational background includes a BS in Biology from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and a DO from the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences in Kansas City, MO. He completed residency training in Emergency Medicine at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey. Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD, is a U.S. board-certified Anatomic Pathologist with subspecialty training in the fields of Experimental and Molecular Pathology. Dr. Stöppler's educational background includes a BA with Highest Distinction from the University of Virginia and an MD from the University of North Carolina. She completed residency training in Anatomic Pathology at Georgetown University followed by subspecialty fellowship training in molecular diagnostics and experimental pathology. Photosensitivity (or sun sensitivity) is inflammation of the skin induced by the combination of sunlight and certain medications or substances. This causes redness (erythema) of the skin and may look similar to sunburn. Both the photosensitizing medication or chemical and light source have to be present in order for a photosensitivity reaction to occur. Generally, these reactions can be divided into two mechanisms, 1) phototoxic reactions and 2) photoallergic reactions. Phototoxic drugs are much more common than photoallergic drugs. What is the difference between a photoallergic and a phototoxic reaction? In phototoxic reactions, the drug may become activated by exposure to sunlight and cause damage to the skin. The skin's appearance resembles sunburn, and the process is generally acute (has a fast onset). Ultraviolet A (UVA) radiation is most commonly associated with phototoxicity, but ultraviolet B (UVB) and visible light may also contribute to this reaction. Rash from a phototoxic reaction is mainly confined to the sun-exposed area of the skin. A phototoxic reaction typically clears up once the drug is discontinued and has been cleared from the body, even after re-exposure to light. In photoallergic reactions, the ultraviolet exposure changes the structure of the drug so that is seen by the body's immune system as an invader (antigen). The immune system initiates an allergic response and cause inflammation of the skin in the sun-exposed areas. These usually resemble eczema and are generally chronic (long-lasting). Many drugs in this family are topical drugs. This type of photosensitivity may recur after sun exposure even after the drug has cleared from the system and can sometimes spread to areas of the skin unexposed to the sun. Reviewed by Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD on 7/18/2012 Medical Author: Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD K. Hecht, PhD Most people are understandably confused when it comes to choosing a sunscreen because of the baffling array of available choices. Common questions about How high should the SPF be? Should it block UVA or UVB? Does it matter whether it is a gel, cream, or spray? Should it be water-resistant or waterproof? SPF stands for sun protection The SPF numbers on a product can range from as low as 2 to as high as 60. These numbers refer to the product's ability to screen or block out the sun's burning rays. The SPF rating is calculated by comparing the amount of time needed to produce sunburnon protected skin to the amount of time needed to cause a sunburn on unprotected skin. The higher the SPF, the greater the sun protection.

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Maternal and Child Health: Delivering a better life Over half a million women die in pregnancy and childbirth every year - that's one death every minute. The child left behind is then 4 times more likely to die prematurely. Of these deaths, 99 per cent are in developing countries. As global students we have the duty to lead a legacy of change and to influence the environment and political decisions that have permitted these vast inequities. open letter: universal healthcare & the post 2015 development agenda The lifetime risk of dying in pregnancy and childbirth in Africa is 1 in 22, while it is 1 in 120 in Asia and 1 in 7,300 in developed countries. Shockingly this is not the complete picture; most deaths in rural areas are not recorded, with many women buried without trace. The tragedy is that the majority are preventable deaths. Join us in signing this letter to call for universal healthcare to be a core component in the Post-2012 Development Agenda, hence progressing towards health equity in a sustainable way. The letter also points out universal healthcare will pave the way to achieving millennium development goals and help liberate countries’ reliance from donor countries. David Cameron and his cabinet: stop taking breakfasts away from children Did you know 1 in 3 children in Britain lives in poverty, in London, that’s 4 in 10! That is one of the highest rates in industrialised country: shocking in such a well resourced country. Increasing numbers of children rely on breakfast clubs held at their schools because their parents cannot afford to provide the meal at home. Many of these clubs are now under threat… A breakfast club is a safe place where children can enjoy breakfast with teachers and classmates before school, but it serves a wider purpose just providing breakfast. A study has shown that breakfast clubs are associated with sustained improvement in academic performance! Unfortunately, budget cuts have led to increasing closures of breakfast clubs across the country despite best efforts from charity groups (and even teachers paying out of their own pockets); schools just simply cannot afford to sustain these clubs. Subsequently, children from this vulnerable group are stuck in a vicious cycle of low concentration, behaviour problems, and low attainment. This is a problem with a solution! In March 2010, the Child Poverty Act came into force, which requires the Secretary of State to consider which groups of children in the UK are disproportionately affected by socio-economic disadvantage, and to consider the likely impact of government policy on children in these groups. This gives legal force to the previous government’s commitment to eradicate child poverty by 2020 and will compel successive governments to account for what they are doing to achieve that goal. Breakfast clubs are just the tip of the iceberg on how current policies are affective children in poverty. Sign the petition on change.org to speak up for this vulnerable group and to make changes happen for the better for these children. Check out THE GIRL EFFECT. The girl effect is about girls. And boys. And moms and dads and villages and towns and countries. Girls living in poverty are uniquely capable of creating a better future. But when a girl reaches adolescence, she comes to a cross roads. Follow the campaign at girleffect.org Resources to help you integrate teaching on women's health in a global context into your university curriculums. If you are interested in learning more, raising awareness and campaigning on maternal and child health issues such as preventing premature births, female genital mutilation, mother-to-child transmission of HIV, malnutrition and many other problems so many mothers and children face around the world, then please join the new maternal and child health National Working Group! Contact [email protected] to get involved

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Osteomalacia has a pathogenesis similar to that of rickets but it is seen in mature bones. Because bones mature at different rates, both rickets and osteomalacia can be seen in the same animal. Osteomalacia is characterized by an accumulation of excessive unmineralized osteoid on trabecular surfaces. Affected animals are unthrifty and may exhibit pica. Nonspecific shifting lamenesses are common. Fractures can be seen, especially in the ribs, pelvis, and long bones. Spinal deformation such as lordosis or kyphosis may be seen. In horses, nutritional osteodystrophy is known as bran disease, miller's disease, and “big head.” The diet of pampered horses is often too high in grains and low in forage; such a diet is high in phosphorus and low in calcium. Many of the obscure lamenesses of horses have been attributed to nutritional osteodystrophy. The pathologic changes are similar to those in other species, with the provisos that the bones of the head are particularly affected in severe cases and that gross or microscopic fractures of subchondral bone (with consequent degeneration of articular cartilage and tearing of ligaments from periosteal attachments) are dominant clinical signs. Unilateral facial deformity due to secondary (nutritional) hypoparathyroidism has been reported in a 1-yr-old filly. Nutritional osteodystrophy can occur in cattle grazing on arid, infertile soils deficient in phosphorus if they are not given adequate mineral supplementation. Affected animals are unthrifty and have a rough hair coat. Weight loss, shifting limb lameness, limb deformities, and spontaneous fractures are the most common clinical findings. Pica may predispose affected animals to esophageal obstruction, reticuloperitonitis, botulism, or other intoxications. To establish a firm diagnosis, the diet should be evaluated for calcium, phosphorus, and vitamin D content. There is radiographic evidence of generalized skeletal demineralization, loss of lamina dura dentes, subperiosteal cortical bone resorption, bowing deformities, and multiple folding fractures of long bones due to intense localized osteoclast proliferation. Levels of hydroxyproline, an amino acid released into blood during bone mineralization, can be determined to assess the extent of ongoing bone mobilization. If dietary calcium and phosphorus content cannot readily be determined (eg, in grazing animals), soil or fecal samples can be analyzed as crude proxies for dietary intake of these minerals. Laboratory values used to assess renal function should be within normal limits in animals with nutritional osteodystrophy. Affected animals should be confined for several weeks after initiation of the supplemental diet. Response to therapy is rapid; within 1 wk the animals become more active, and their attitude improves. Jumping or climbing must be prevented because the skeleton is still susceptible to fractures. Restrictions can be lessened after 3 wk, but confinement with limited movement is indicated until the skeleton returns to normal (response to treatment should be monitored radiographically). Complete recovery can be achieved within months in animals with no or only minor limb and joint deformities. Last full review/revision March 2012 by Walter Gruenberg, DrMedVet, MS, PhD, DECAR, DECBHM

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During the fall campaign, California's attention was focused on the presidential race and Gov. Jerry Brown's tax measure. But in a historic, largely overlooked environmental shift, the state's voters also triggered a multibillion-dollar tidal wave of new green spending. By overwhelmingly passing Proposition 39, voters closed a tax loophole on out-of-state corporations that will generate $1.1 billion a year. But the measure, buried in a crowded ballot, also required that half of that money fund projects to install new windows, better insulation, modern lighting and more efficient heating and air conditioning at thousands of public schools and other government buildings over the next five years. That windfall, roughly $550 million a year, or $2.75 billion before it sunsets in 2018, dwarfs anything that California or any other state has ever spent on energy efficiency for public buildings. The new program is on par with the $3 billion that voters approved in 2004 for stem cell research and the $3.3 billion that former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger committed to his "Million Solar Roofs" plan in 2006. Critics worry, however, that lawmakers will fritter the Proposition 39 money away because they have too much power to decide the details. While not as flashy as money for solar or wind projects, many experts say such seemingly routine changes as weatherizing buildings and replacing leaky windows is actually one of the cheapest ways to "If we do this well and people see it as money well spent, as an investment that should be mimicked in the private sector, then this could really be a very big deal," said Tom Steyer, a San Francisco financier who spent $32 million bankrolling Proposition 39. U.S. schools spend $8 billion a year on energy bills. If those were cut 25 percent, it would save $2 billion, enough to buy 40 million new textbooks. Steyer sees that as easy money for cash-strapped schools, and views his ballot measure as a demonstration project for other property owners. A 55-year-old Stanford MBA with a net worth of $1.3 billion, Steyer cofounded Farallon Capital Management in 1986 and built the company into the world's 17th largest hedge fund. In 2010, he funded a large part of the campaign to defeat a ballot measure by Texas oil companies that would have suspended California's global warming law. His latest campaign is energy efficiency. One of Steyer's favorite examples is the Empire State Building. Two years ago, a Sunnyvale company, Serious Materials, replaced all 6,500 windows on the New York City landmark. It was part of a $13.2 million upgrade with new insulation, lighting and ventilation, which the building's owners calculate will cut energy costs 38 percent and pay for itself in three years. "People in the public sector often confuse expenditures and investments," Steyer said. "If you go out to dinner that's an expenditure. If you send your kid to college, that's an investment. If this money is used wisely, we will get multiples of it back in savings down the road that can be used for schools." All the new money has some Sacramento observers nervous, however. "Look at the High-Speed Rail Authority, the stem cell money, the tobacco tax funds and the state recycling fund," said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. "There have been slush funds and corruption in all of them. We have very little confidence this money will be spent effectively unless there is a sea change in Sacramento." Proposition 39 does not spell out in much detail where the $550 million a year should be spent. It says the money should pay to retrofit schools, colleges, universities and other public buildings; it can also be used to fund job-training programs in energy efficiency -- and incentives to put solar panels on homes. Joe Caves, a longtime environmental lobbyist who wrote the measure, said the lack of specifics is on purpose. The measure notes that the Legislature must appropriate the money, which means next year lawmakers will pass a bill to create new programs in one or more agencies like the state Department of Education or the California Energy Commission, he said. Those agencies will set up grant programs for school districts and other local governments to compete for the money. "It's got to go through existing public agencies, and the projects have to be evaluated as cost effective," Caves said. "It's not like legislators are going to be able to say, 'I want $100,000 to go this project or $50,000 to that one.' And they can't make the grants to private businesses. We built in a lot of controls." The measure also creates a new nine-member oversight committee of engineers, architects and economists to commission yearly audits and post the results online. For now, Steyer said, he'd like to see much of the money go to schools. "When you drive around California and look at the physical condition of some of the schools, it can be a little shocking, don't you think?" he said. As soon as next week, state Sen. Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, will introduce a bill to spell out how to spend the money. De Leon said he would like to see most of it go to schools, with strict criteria, such as ranking schools by kilowatt hours of electricity used. "It's not going to be a program of pork," he said. "We are going to go to schools of highest need, schools that don't have the resources to move forward with energy-efficiency projects, and do the work there and create jobs." De Leon said that for roughly $500,000 each, crews could retrofit half of California's 10,000 public schools using Proposition 39 money. For that amount, they could replace windows, boost insulation, and fix leaks and lighting. In some cases, they could upgrade heating and cooling systems. A study last year by the EPA found that public schools can easily save 20 to 40 percent on utility bills -- which run in the tens of thousands of dollars a year -- through simple energy-efficiency work. Since 2009, the California Energy Commission has doled out $132 million to retrofit public buildings. But much of that came from federal stimulus dollars that have now run out. There are success stories: The Sacramento City Unified School District, for example, replaced lighting, put in LED exit signs and made other upgrades, saving the average high school $53,000 a year, with a payback of seven years. One of the state's top energy experts, Stanford University engineering professor Jim Sweeney, said he's watching the rollout carefully. "Fixing insulation and leaky windows isn't as sexy as saying, 'Look at our new solar installation,'" he said. "But for every $1 spent you will save more on energy efficiency than a solar array." Paul Rogers covers resources and environmental issues. Contact him at 408-920-5045. Follow him at Twitter.com/PaulRogersSJMN.

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|Detailed||Send e-mail reference| The following materials were used for this purpose: Certificates applying the history of South and West Russia; Certificates applying the history of West Russia; materials of the National historical archives of Belarus; monographs by V.V. Kalnin (which deal with Mir castle) and by A.N. Narbut (about the history of Belarussian families). Studies by K. Nesetsky and S. Vysloukhy are also of scientific interest. Some information was specified and new facts were found in the course of our work. The previous scheme by J.Y. Yodkovsky was almost completely preserved and completed. According to J.Y. Yodkovsky, Ilyinichs were a magnate family (coat of arms “Korchak”) well known in the Great Lithuanian Principality in the 15th-16th centuries. Ivan is considered to be the founder of the family. He and his descendants were called Ilyinichs by the name of their forefather Ilya who was freed by Duke Vitovt from providing carts for the government what was confirmed in a charter issued by king Kasimir Yagellon in 1447........

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MIT team finds that the ratio of component atoms is vital to performance. There are many ways to define power, but Manuel Castells, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Technology and Society, defines power as the ability to make people think the way you want them to think--or to convince those who disagree that they can't do anything about it. "The battle (for power) is in the people's minds," said Castells, communication professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, during a March 12 lecture on "Communication Technology, Media and Power," part of the spring colloquium held by MIT's Program in Science, Technology and Society. Now, however, new information technology has shifted the battlefield, Castells said. Political battles have been traditionally waged in the "public space" of mass media--television, newspapers and radio. The emergence of the Internet and mobile informational technology "has reshaped the public space." Perhaps the most dramatic example of this shift is the mobile-phone video capturing Sen. George Allen's "macaca" remark. The video was widely distributed over the Internet and Allen was defeated, giving Democrats a Senate majority. But the Internet is not just new technology, it's a new culture. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi misread that culture; he sent a political text message just before an election to 30 million phones, thinking the phone was "just like a TV," Castells said. Italians, who saw the phone as a personal device, thought otherwise, and Berlusconi went down in defeat. "Throughout history, communication and information are fundamental sources of power and counterpower in our societies--of both domination and social change," Castells said. Everything "depends on how people think and what they believe in." That does not mean power is in the hands of the media. Mass media is constrained by market forces ("they must win an audience") and journalists' own ethics. But mass media "constitutes the space where power is decided," Castells said. And "what is not in the mass media does not exist." Thus "a political message is necessarily a media message," Castells said. Furthermore, the "most powerful message is a simple message attached to an image." And that image is often a face. "People vote for faces." Indeed, character assassination has become a primary political tool all over the world; with no scarcity of damaging material to dig up on opponents, media politics has become scandal politics, Castells said. The result is a general mistrust of all politicians. Democracy "is at an historical low point," he noted. Latin Americans, for example, don't want dictatorships, but they don't like what they see of Western democracy. The emergence of what Castells calls "mass self communication" is changing political dynamics. Instead of information passing from "one to many," it may go from "many to many"--whether via blogs, chat forums, wikis or places like MySpace. Consider some statistics: There are 60 million blogs worldwide; one is created every second and 55 percent of new bloggers are still posting after a month. Two-thirds of blog posts are in non-English languages. Only 9 percent of blogs are strictly political; still, that's a lot of blogging, he said. Also, studies indicate an interest in the Internet increases political interest and activity, he said. Most importantly, the Internet in-creases the belief that you have power. And the belief that you have power, in Castells' formulation, constitutes real power.

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We accept Line, Pattern, Texture, Color, etc. as "Elements Of Art", and it was our purpose to make "Words" be one as well. Therefore, lettering would not "advertise" or "define" an idea. This time, lettering would be thought of as the major element in the composition. It might be a background, as shape makers or as exciting, visual text enhancing a theme as storytelling. The resultant painting, in watercolors, would employ whatever lettering styles, methods of printing and application which would express the content shapes desired. After a review of both pen and brush calligraphy, we were ready to begin. Watercolors were the selected medium permitting easy letter character printing with pens or calligraphy brushes. Applied letters were to be regarded as shapes: smaller letters to suggest distance and larger ones for more important placement. The letters would visually effect "texture", and their color and size would characterize their spatial relationships.

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Contamination is the presence of an unwanted foreign substance or material (a contaminant) in the body, food supply, physical environment or natural environment. Contaminants range from toxins, pathogens and poisons to pollutants and radioactive waste. In the natural environment, contamination can occur in land (groundwater), air (pollution) and sea. In the body, pathogenic contaminants include viruses, bacteria, toxins, and radiation, etc. (Photo: Shutterstock)

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About the Photographer One of the pioneers of Pop Art, Andy Warhol is known for destabilizing the division between consumer culture and fine art and for undermining conventional notions of originality. Iconic works such as his silkscreen reproductions of Campbell's soup cans and sculptural replicas of retail packaging—most notably Brillo boxes—adopt the mass-produced forms of consumer products in a deadpan manner. In other works, such as silkscreen paintings of legends like Marilyn Monroe, Warhol tapped into the growing cult of celebrity. Ultimately, Warhol's expansive practice encompassed numerous artistic media and merged the roles of artist, impresario, and businessman, as the head of a studio he dubbed The Factory. Warhol's photographs were rarely exhibited during his lifetime, but the medium played a central role in his practice from early on. Throughout his career he made photographs in different formats and used photographic images as the basis for other works. More generally, he drew inspiration from the mechanical qualities of the camera and the photograph's inherent flatness. The 156 photographs by Warhol in MoCP's collection include examples of Polaroid portraits and black and white 35mm snapshots. These groups of images offer insight into the artist's working process and reveal his attachment to the camera as a means to create a visual diary. In the early 1960s Warhol used the photomechanical silkscreen process to reproduce publicity stills of celebrities or clippings from newspapers and magazines. Towards the end of the decade he grew concerned about copyright lawsuits, and began making his own photographic material. Around 1970, Warhol was introduced to the Polaroid Big Shot, an instant film camera that he used thereafter as the starting point for a steady business of silkscreen commissions. With a fixed focal length and a built-in flash, the Big Shot was designed for portraits, framing a sitter's head and shoulders. Warhol's portrait sessions were systematic and repetitive, yielding a large reserve of raw material—up to 200 images per sitting—from which Warhol and his subject would select the best image for the silkscreen. He aimed to create an aura of glamour and often had his female sitters wear white make-up to cover any imperfections, a technique that yielded photographs that translated well as flattened silkscreen images. In addition to portraits, the museum holds a number of Polaroids by Warhol of male nudes and miscellaneous objects. In 1976 Warhol was introduced to the Minox 35 El, a small 35mm camera, which he began to carry with him constantly. Recording his social activities, friends, and environment became a lasting obsession. For Warhol these photographs were not utilitarian material for art, like his Polaroids were. Instead, the snapshots comprise a visual record of his life during the 1970s, illuminating the ranks of the rich and famous and publicizing his inclusion among them. Warhol once claimed, "a good picture is one that's in focus and of a famous person doing something unfamous." He was largely indifferent to technique, and his black and white snapshots are deliberately amateurish and sometimes banal; it is not the image itself that sparks interest but the celebrity it depicts. Selections of the images were published in three books during Warhol's lifetime and printed in Interview, the magazine he co-founded in 1969. These photographs were donated to MoCP by the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program, which was founded by the Warhol Foundation in 2007 to increase public access to Warhol's photographs. To date, over 28,000 photographs have been distributed to university and college museums throughout the United States.

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Nearly 6 million American children have food allergies, some life-threatening. Keeping them safe after diagnosis can be a very serious challenge. In a new study published in the journal Pediatrics, researchers tracked 512 pre-school aged children who were diagnosed with or were at risk for having an allergy to milk or eggs. Three hundred sixty-seven participants reported 1,171 reactions over an average three year period. The majority of these were accidental. Many of the families struggled with checking the ingredients on food labels in their own homes. They sometimes misread labels or weren't always vigilant enough in supervising children or preparing food safely. About one in 10 families actually allowed their kids to try offending foods to see if they had outgrown their allergy. More than half of the allergic reactions happened when the child was under someone else's care, either extended family, teachers or at a friend's. Only about 30% of severe reactions were treated with the standard epinephrine injections, pointing out the need to educate families and other caretakers on when an epi-pen should be used. The study's authors suggest improved education for both family and friends, as well as persistent vigilance with label reading and treatment of severe reactions. Designed by Gray Digital Media

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Mold needs two things to survive and spread: moisture and food. Because it's susceptible to moisture, traditional paper-faced drywall is mold's favorite sandwich, with two outer faces of paper as the bread and the gypsum stuck in the middle as baloney. Gypsum is a mineral, and though mold cannot digest it, the cellulose in the paper can be degraded by some molds. The drywall paper is like bread in another way: the paper contains up to one percent starch, another nutrient for mold. A great alternative to traditional, paper-faced drywall is Georgia-Pacific's DensArmor® Plus , a relatively new type of drywall in which the paper faces have been replaced by thin, fiberglass mats. It's moisture-resistant, and because fiberglass, like gypsum, is a mineral, there are no nutrients on which the mold can grow.

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Looking for a health-promoting snack? Enjoy a handful of mild nutty tasting sunflower seeds with their firm but tender texture to take care of your hunger and get a wealth of nutrition at the same time. The various health benefits of sunflower seeds can be attributed to the high levels of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, vitamin E, selenium, protein, copper, folates, iron, zinc and B vitamins that it contains. Sunflower seeds are a highly nutritious food that we often supply to our parrots and chickens, yet neglect it in our own diets. Sunflower seeds are power-packed with healthy fats, proteins, fibers, minerals, and phytochemicals - all important to the nutritional quality of the diet and of fundamental importance to human health. Sunflower seeds can be used to enrich any meal. They can be sprinkled over cereals, salads, soups, mixed with vegetables, used on desserts or as snacks. The most important health benefit of sunflower seeds is imparted by the polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats that it contains. These components protect the heart against various heart diseases like blockage of arteries, by lowering cholesterol and eliminating bad cholesterol or low density lipoprotein. More than 90% of the fat that sunflower seeds contain is unsaturated fat which help maintain high density lipoprotein. Sunflower seeds are an excellent source of vitamin E. Vitamin E rids the body of free radicals, that cause heart ailments like atherosclerosis and can also cause cellular damage. The vitamin E, contained in sunflower seeds have antioxidant properties and help in the rapid clotting of blood and healing of wounds, regulates the functioning of the circulatory system and reduces the risk of developing heart ailments and diabetes. Vitamin E also imparts anti-inflammatory properties to sunflower seeds, that is essential in the cure and reduction of arthritis symptoms. Selenium is an important trace mineral which works in conjunction with vitamin E to impart antioxidant properties, that prevent the formation of cancerous cells and heart problems. Selenium promotes DNA repair and induces apoptosis and the synthesis of damaged cells. This is an health benefit. The proteins that sunflower seeds contain enable the supply of amino acids to the body. These amino acids are essential for the maintenance, growth and repair of tissues. Folate, also known as folic acid, is a type of B vitamin that is very essential for pregnant women as it aids the production of new cells in the body by forming their DNA and RNA which is very important for the growth and development of the fetus. It works together with vitamin B-12 to form hemoglobin in red blood cells. Intake of folate also lowers the risks of developing heart ailments. Magnesium contained in sunflower seeds prevents the entry of calcium into the nerve cells, muscles and blood vessels which enables the prevention of muscle spasms and sudden nerve contractions. Magnesium also lowers blood pressure and reduces and prevents asthma attacks and migraine headaches. Sunflower seeds contain tryptophan, an amino acid that helps in the production of serotonin, which is an important neurotransmitter. Serotonin relieves tension, calms the brain and promotes relaxation. Sunflower seeds contain phytochemicals like choline, phenolic acids, lignan and betaine. Phytochemicals are plant chemicals, that are known to prevent heart diseases and the growth of cancerous cells, that cause breast colon and prostate cancer. Fiber that sunflower seeds contain promotes easy digestion and prevents constipation, lowers blood cholesterol levels and manages blood sugar levels. These fibers also help control weight and prevent obesity.

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|Part of the series on the| According to Mormonism, the atonement is "the great sacrifice [Jesus] made to pay for our sins and overcome death." Jesus was the only person able to atone for sin because he was sinless. Oddly enough, Gospel Principles, addressing why Jesus could atone for sins, lacks any reference to his divinity. (See esp. "Christ Was the Only One Who Could Atone for Our Sins"). In Gethsemane or on the cross? LDS teach that Jesus "atoned for our sins by suffering in Gethsemane and by giving his life on the cross." It was in the garden that "the weight of our sins caused him to feel such agony and heartbreak that he bled from every pore (see D&C 19:18-19)." How does one receive the atonement-benefits of forgiveness and eternal life? Mormonism teaches that the atonement secured for each person a physical resurrection and thus "immortality". Yet, "only those who accept the Atonement will be saved from spiritual death." How does one do this? "[B]y placing our faith in him." Yet, it is added: "To make his atonement fully effective in our lives, we must strive to obey him and repent of our sins." This has historically been a serious source of tension between Mormons and Christians. LDS clearly add unbiblical conditions to the atonement. Not only is it necessary to place faith in Jesus, but it is also necessary to obey and repent of ones sins. At first glance this appears biblical; however, the question arises as to what kind of obedience and repentance is required. Mormon leaders speak ambivalently of the "repentance" which brings forgiveness, sometimes giving the impression that it is a simple broken heart and contrite spirit, and other times speaking of it as a process which includes the successful abandonment of sin and keeping all the commandments. - "The demands of justice for broken law can be satisfied through mercy, earned by your continual repentance and obedience to the laws of God... Through the Atonement you can live in a world where justice assures that you will retain what you earn by obedience." - Richard G. Scott - "Our need in today's world, in which Christians assume there was an atonement, is to interpret the scriptures properly and to call upon men to keep the commandments so as to become worthy of the cleansing power of the blood of the Lamb." - Bruce R. McConkie - "The Atonement cleanses us of sin on condition of our repentance. Repentance is the condition on which mercy is extended. After all we can do to pay to the uttermost farthing and make right our wrongs, the Savior’s grace is activated in our lives through the Atonement, which purifies us and can perfect us." - James E. Faust - "Should choices be wrong, there is a path back: repentance. When its conditions are fully met, the Atonement of the Savior provides a release from the demands of justice for the errors made." - Richard G. Scott - "When a person repents, accepts the gospel of Jesus Christ, and lives in accordance with the principles and ordinances of the gospel, then Christ's atonement becomes effective for him, for Jesus Christ has already paid the penalty--that is, for those who will repent." - Royden G. Derrick - "The perfect relationship between the atoning grace of Christ and the obedient efforts of mankind is powerfully stated by Nephi: 'We know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do' (2 Ne. 25:23). Furthermore, we are invited to 'come unto Christ, and be perfected in him.' When we deny ourselves “of all ungodliness,' then and only 'then is his grace sufficient' for us (Moro. 10:32)." - Clyde J. Williams Christians respond that it is not even partially our obedience which brings forgiveness and eternal life but faith alone in the work of Christ. It is our faith alone that unites us to Jesus, the only one who can and does save us. Obedience must follow, but it is not a necessary prerequisite for receiving forgiveness or eternal life (see justification). Repayment to God In Mormon theology, Jesus becomes our creditor when he "forgave" us, and we are now indebted to repay him. To receive the progressive benefits of the atonement (which was supposed to have cancelled our debt) we are required to "fully pay our part of the debt". - "All of us have sinned and need to repent to fully pay our part of the debt. When we sincerely repent, the Savior’s magnificent Atonement pays the rest of that debt." - James E. Faust, A helpful story? The following is taken verbatim from Gospel Principles: Elder Boyd K. Packer of the Council of the Twelve gave the following illustration to show how Christ's atonement makes it possible to be saved from sin if we do our part. "Let me tell you a story--a parable. "There once was a man who wanted something very much. It seemed more important than anything else in his life. In order for him to have his desire, he incurred a great debt. "He had been warned about going into that much debt, and particularly about his creditor. But it seemed so important for him to do what he wanted to and to have what he wanted right now. He was sure he could pay for it later. "So he signed a contract. He would pay it off some time along the way. He didn't worry too much about it, for the due date seemed such a long time away. He had what he wanted now, and that was what seemed important. "The creditor was always somewhere in the back of his mind, and he made token payments now and again, thinking somehow that the day of reckoning really would never come. "But as it always does, the day came, and the contract fell due. The debt had not been fully paid. His creditor appeared and demanded payment in full. "Only then did he realize that his creditor not only had the power to repossess all that he owned, but the power to cast him into prison as well. " 'I cannot pay you, for I have not the power to do so,' he confessed. " 'Then,' said the creditor, 'we will exercise the contract, take your possessions and you shall go to prison. You agreed to that. It was your choice. You signed the contract, and now it must be enforced.' " 'Can you not extend the time or forgive the debt?' the debtor begged. 'Arrange some way for me to keep what I have and not go to prison. Surely you believe in mercy? Will you not show mercy?' "The creditor replied, 'Mercy is always so one-sided. It would serve only you. If I show mercy to you, it will leave me unpaid. It is justice I demand. Do you believe in justice?' " 'I believed in justice when I signed the contract,' the debtor said. 'It was on my side then, for I thought it would protect me. I did not need mercy then, nor think I should need it ever. Justice, I thought, would serve both of us equally as well.' " 'It is justice that demands that you pay the contract or suffer the penalty,' the creditor replied. 'That is the law. You have agreed to it and that is the way it must be. Mercy cannot rob justice.' "There they were: One meting out justice, the other pleading for mercy. Neither could prevail except at the expense of the other. " 'If you do not forgive the debt there will be no mercy,' the debtor pleaded. " 'If I do, there will be no justice,' was the reply. "Both laws, it seemed, could not be served. They are two eternal ideals that appear to contradict one another. Is there no way for justice to be fully served, and mercy also? "There is a way! The law of justice can be fully satisfied and mercy can be fully extended--but it takes someone else. And so it happened this time. "The debtor had a friend. He came to help. He knew the debtor well. He knew him to be shortsighted. He thought him foolish to have gotten himself into such a predicament. Nevertheless, he wanted to help because he loved him. He stepped between them, faced the creditor, and made this offer. " 'I will pay the debt if you will free the debtor from his contract so that he may keep his possessions and not go to prison.' "As the creditor was pondering the offer, the mediator added, 'You demanded justice. Though he cannot pay you, I will do so. You will have been justly dealt with and can ask no more. It would not be just.' "And so the creditor agreed. "The mediator turned then to the debtor. 'If I pay your debt, will you accept me as your creditor?' " 'Oh yes, yes,' cried the debtor. 'You saved me from prison and show mercy to me.' " 'Then,' said the benefactor, 'you will pay the debt to me and I will set the terms. It will not be easy, but it will be possible. I will provide a way. You need not go to prison.' "And so it was that the creditor was paid in full. He had been justly dealt with. No contract had been broken. "The debtor, in turn, had been extended mercy. Both laws stood fulfilled. Because there was a mediator, justice had claimed its full share, and mercy was satisfied." "Our sins are our spiritual debts. Without Jesus Christ, who is our Savior and Mediator, we would all pay for our sins by suffering spiritual death. But because of him, if we will keep his terms, which are to repent and keep his commandments, we may return to live with our Heavenly Father." Packer is clear in that "if we will keep his terms" only then can Jesus save us. This is a very different gospel from that which the Bible teaches. Obedience is commanded by Jesus, but in a very different way from the LDS teaching. Ostler's view - The purpose of the atonement in LDS scripture is to 'bring about the bowels of mercy' so that God is moved with compassion for us and we are moved with gratitude to trust him by opening our hearts to him. The result of the Atonement is that we are freed to choose to turn back to God, and he is free to accept us into a relationship of shared life. Atonement removes, casts out, and releases the guilt that alienates us; and it also brings us together into shared life... In [Jesus'] Passion we find compassion. He literally feels our pains and is thereby filled with compassion for us. In this sense, Christ suffers for our sins and bears our iniquities. - "To put it bluntly and plainly, if Christ is not my Substitute, I still occupy the place of a condemned sinner. If my sins and my guilt are not transferred to Him, if he did not take them upon Himself, then surely they remain with me. If He did not deal with my sins, I must face their consequences. If my penalty was not borne by Him, it still hangs over me. There is no other possibility." - Leon Morris, The Cross in the New Testament - "All of us have sinned and need to repent to fully pay our part of the debt. When we sincerely repent, the Savior’s magnificent Atonement pays the rest of that debt." -James E. Faust, "The Atonement: Our Greatest Hope" (October 2001 General Conference) - "How can we ever repay the debt we owe to the Savior? He paid a debt He did not owe to free us from a debt we can never pay. Because of Him, we will live forever. Because of His infinite Atonement, our sins can be swept away, allowing us to experience the greatest of all the gifts of God: eternal life." (Apostle Joseph B. Wirthlin, Earthly Debts, Heavenly Debts, Ensign (CR), May 2004, p.40) - "We must turn the sins and the guilt over to the Savior in a process of complete repentance. For serious sins we will need the help of a bishop or another appropriate priesthood leader to complete our repentance. We then must let the Savior judge whether we or He must make final payment for the sin." - D. Chad Richardson - "The Individual Effect of the Atonement makes it possible for any and every soul to obtain absolution from the effect of personal sins, through the mediation of Christ; but such saving intercession is to be invoked by individual effort as manifested through faith, repentance, and continued works of righteousness....The blessing of redemption from individual sins, while open for all to attain, is nevertheless conditioned on individual effort." - James Talmage, "A Study of the Articles of Faith" by (p. 89) - Sermons and Writings of Bruce R. McConkie, p.77 – “The blood of Christ was shed as a free gift of wondrous grace, but the Saints are cleansed by the blood after they keep the commandments.” - "He performed the greatest work that was ever performed in this mortal world by the shedding of his blood, which paid a debt that mankind owes to the Eternal Father, and which debt we inherited after the fall of Adam." - Joseph Fielding Smith, Conference Report, October 1967 Christian response It wasn’t that he was crucified, but that he was crucified. Jesus didn’t suffer in the garden "for us"–it wasn't the “cup” yet. It was in anticipation of the cup he was about to drink: Matthew 26:39 - "And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." John 18:11 So Jesus said to Peter, "Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?" Peter, of all people, would mention the Garden, yet he says, "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed." (1 Pet 2:24) See also Unless otherwise noted, all quotes are taken from the reference below: - ↑ Gospel Principles - ↑ http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,11-1-13-18,00.html - ↑ “The Atonement Can Secure Your Peace and Happiness,” Ensign, Nov 2006, 40–42. From General Conference, October 2006. - ↑ Bruce R. McConkie, "What Think Ye of Salvation by Grace?". BYU devotional address was given at Brigham Young University on 10 January 1984. Available online here: http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=6910&x=56&y=3 - ↑ James E. Faust, "The Atonement: Our Greatest Hope," Ensign (Conference Edition), Nov. 2001, 18. Emphasis original. - ↑ Richard G. Scott, "Have No Regrets". Fireside address given at Brigham Young University on 12 September 1999. - ↑ Agency, by Royden G. Derrick. Online - ↑ Clyde J. Williams, "Plain and Precious Truths Restored," Ensign, Oct. 2006, p. 50 - ↑ James E. Faust, "The Atonement: Our Greatest Hope," Ensign, Nov. 2001, 18. Emphasis original. - ↑ Conference Report, Apr. 1977, pp. 79-80; or Ensign, May 1977, pp. 54-55. - ↑ Blake Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought: The Problems of Theism and the Love of God, vol. 2 (Greg Kofford Books, 2006), pp. 235-284. - ↑ Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought, vol. 2, pp. 235-236. - ↑ D. Chad Richardson, “Forgiving Oneself,” Ensign, Mar 2007, 30–33 - Gethsemane and Christ's Blood in LDS References - Did Jesus Christ Die on the Cross to Pay for Our Sins?, by Cky J. Carrigan - "A Survey of Mormon Teachings" - Atonement of Jesus Christ (Ency. of Mormonism) - Hope through the Atonement of Jesus Christ (October 1996 General Conference), by Elder Neal A. Maxwell - "Apply the Atoning Blood of Christ" (October 1997 General Conference), by Elder Neal A. Maxwell - The Atonement in the Book of Mormon, by [[Robert Millet] - The Gethsemane Event in Church History - Teaching the Atonement, by Elder Tad R. Callister - The Passion of the Christ -- Three Reviews and a Letter, by Orson Scott Card

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Margaret Atwood novelist/poet The United States has promoted individualism so much that the responsibilities of giving to a community, and vice versa, have been trampled by rampant individualism. Canada hasn't gone in that direction of extreme individualism: my mortgage; my bank account; no pies when I hurt my leg, and I won't bring pies to you. Americans tried to weld some sort of fellow feeling in all of this--to shed their ethnic roots and be part of an American identity but, paradoxically, an individual. Community as once proposed meant all Americans. That was the myth. All were not included in it. Richard Rodriguez writer/commentator America is not based on a communal notion. It's a low church Protestant culture whose major discovery was the individual face-to-face with God. Our greatest myth is about a boy who leaves home with a runaway slave, has no mother and a drunken father. We don't know how to share our individualistic culture. There's nothing more American than for me to say I'm better off because I'm Mexican, and I want to exclaim my distinction. If Mexicans, people of mixed blood, really want to be subversive, they should say "I'm going to marry you, or your daughter. You'll eat my food, and we'll be friends." Susan Faludi journalist/feminist The ideal community for Americans is often an escape from political engagement. Europeans are so much more engaged. Community here is running away to the suburbs. The media has become our pseudocommunity. People don't belong, but if they're part of a sound bite, they feel part of a larger world. It's the false idea of the media as a public forum, an idea encouraged by politicians. People take their intimate stories on TV talk shows, replacing political engagement and community, which would actually bind people, with psychology and therapy. E. L. Doctorow novelist Communities appear temporally rather than spatially. They form as circumstances demand, and when the emergency is over people go back to their semi-estranged mood. Communal expressions that really matter on a day-to-day basis are probably made by people who have no thought of community. A surgeon who only wants to make money and live well and has a lousy bedside manner still contributes. The Korean grocer on the corner who works hard trying to survive may feel a foreigner, but the store is a contribution to the neighborhood. I don't know if you can ask for more. Noam Chomsky political analyst/linguist Community is PR bullshit designed in the 1930s by the corporations, when they became terrified by the collapse of their society brought on by the Wagner Act and the labor movement. They developed new techniques to control the population and inculcate the concept of living together in harmony--all Americans, all working together: the sober workman, the hardworking executive, the housewife. And Them--the outsiders trying to disrupt. Community is a bit of a joke. Only labor has succeeded. That's why business hates unions. They can create real community and democracy. Ram Dass author/spiritual activist Our inordinate concern with individuality has marked our group identity. I'm part of the problem. The '60s were about individual freedom, and we threw out the baby with the bath. We're dealing with the effect of imbalance; we're so focused on separateness that we've lost interconnectedness, the inherent gregarious nature of humanity where we need others to give us meaning. The web of violence in this culture is clearly connected to the breakup of these types of systems. But look at the Crips and the Bloods, now meeting together as a new kind of community structure. Amy Tan novelist My community was more like an extended family. My father was the minister of a Chinese church, so it was as if my whole world was Chinese. The sons of the women I called Auntie were like brothers to me. I know I can go up to a person on the street who is also Chinese and ask questions and get information, because there is a sense of community. We are both Chinese people in America: That's community based on being different. In China that wasn't true. It's too diverse, regional. I identified more with Shanghai people than with Hong Kong people, for example. Frances Moore Lappe activist/writer/political theorist People are looking for community in all the wrong places. It's not goodwill and like-mindedness, it's daily experience in workplaces and neighborhoods and churches and civic groups. The Sonoma County Faith-Based Community Organizing Project is a prime example of concerned people coming together--farmworkers, African-Americans, whites of all classes, professionals, nuns, accountants, lawyers. They got together candidates for the school board, for example, and judged them on how well they listened to constituents' concerns. It's a two-way process of public officials accepting accountability and citizens taking an active role. Barbara Kingsolver novelist There's no shame in depending on each other. There's heroism in ordinariness and connectedness and using relationship skills to get through difficult times, as opposed to the isolated heroism of the cowboy. Look at the things in your living room or refrigerator and realize they were made by thousands of people on different continents. The lemons we buy at the grocery connect us with a food chain, with people coming up from Mexico, being sprayed by pesticides. It's easier to see just a lemon, but only when we see the whole line can we feel connectedness and responsibility. Harry Edwards sociologist We need a new definition of community. We're a nation of nations; we're not homogenous like Japan. We need to look at pluralistic reality in terms of all interests, including white male, while recognizing the concerns of those in the minority opinion. It's good business to have everybody involved in the national life. A black community should produce students who can go to the universities equally--without affirmative action or Head Start--and it's in our mutual interest to see that the competence and quality are there to provide that equal opportunity. Ellen Goodman journalist There has always been a tension in the United States between individualism and community. The economy deals with us as individuals: You achieve success or you don't. We typically divided America into men as individualists and women as caretakers of the family and keepers of community--until women had to go to work and saw themselves as individuals rather than as members. The baby boom generation broke from family; there were so many of them it seemed like the whole country. Now that they have families they have more longing for community. Theodore Roszak historian/author Our culture builds bigger and bigger--bigger forces, corporations, and trading alliances. The thrust toward the global in government, communications, and business goes against the human need for smaller, face-to-face communities. There is a disintegrative quality to reaching out beyond neighborhood and nationality lines. When computer networks are organized and we have 500 TV channels, common culture will disintegrate; we will have smaller enclaves for smaller groups. I can't predict what kind of community it will be, but the new community will be in reaction to the crushing bigness of systems. Research assistance by Ariel Sabar

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That’s because the same ingredients in decongestants that help relieve the nasal swelling associated with congestion also affect other blood vessels in the body, causing blood pressure and heart rate to rise – a potentially dangerous situation for those with high blood pressure. Unfortunately, just 10 percent of those with high blood pressure are aware they should avoid decongestants, and nearly half don’t know they should take a special OTC medicine when they have a cold or the flu, according to a survey by St. Joseph, makers of over-the-counter medications. “The number of hypertensive people who don’t know to avoid decongestants is shocking,” says Bernie Kropfelder of St. Joseph Health Products, LLC. “Each year, 5 to 20 percent of Americans will catch the flu, so it’s important for people with high blood pressure to talk to their doctors or pharmacists about which OTC medicines to avoid.” If you have high blood pressure, start your medicine cabinet makeover by replacing OTC medicines that contain decongestants with remedies that don’t, such as St. Joseph’s new line of cold and flu products. The brand’s products for fever and pain contain acetaminophen, which will not interfere with aspirin’s benefits if you’re on an aspirin regimen. Next, remove from your medicine cabinet, pantry or refrigerator dietary supplements that are high in sodium, as high levels of salt are commonly known to increase blood pressure. For example, many protein supplements contain hundreds of milligrams of sodium per serving. Likewise, avoid supplements that contain extracts of grapefruit, and talk to your doctor about whether you should also remove grapefruit and grapefruit juice from your diet. Research published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal points out that the number of medications that interact adversely with grapefruit is on the rise. There are now more than 85 drugs known to be affected by grapefruit, including calcium channel blockers that are used to treat high blood pressure, according to a CBC News report. Once you’ve removed adverse products from your medicine cabinet, you’ll have plenty of room for additions that are good for your heart, your high blood pressure and your overall health, including: * Fish oil – Supplements like fish oil that contain omega 3 fatty acids offer a host of health benefits, and are known to be good for your heart. People with high blood pressure are at increased risk of heart disease, so adding heart-healthy supplements to their diets may be beneficial. * Beet juice – OK, while this one should probably go in your refrigerator, adding beet juice to your diet may help your blood pressure control. Researchers at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia have found that within hours of drinking beet juice, study subjects had lowered systolic blood pressure by an average of four to five points, WebMD reports. * Sesame and rice bran oil – WebMD also reports that a recent study showed taking 35 grams of a sesame/rice bran oil blend daily can help lower blood pressure. Finally, add some relaxation time to your “mental medicine cabinet.” Stress can elevate blood pressure, so engaging in activities that help reduce stress can aid in your efforts to control your blood pressure. While it’s not always possible to avoid stressful situations, you can counter the effects of daily stress with activities like meditation, yoga, listening to relaxing music or even just spending time with a beloved pet.

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When your child's birthdate barely meets the cutoff for starting kindergarten, you may wonder whether it's better to enroll them, or wait a year. Unfortunately, there's no easy answer. You'll have to weigh the evidence, based on your child's personality. To be eligible for kindergarten, a child must turn five by a certain date. This date could be April 1st, before the fall term; or, it might be after the term starts, such as October 31st, December 1st, or January 1st. Studies suggest that when fall or winter cutoff dates are used, a percentage of children will not be developmentally ready to start school, though their age allows them to do so. This is especially true for boys. Compounding the problem is the fact that many of today's kindergartens are simply an earlier version of first grade. Experts say this creates unrealistic expectations for children of that age. They also claim that children who are youngest in their class tend to have a more difficult time academically. Still others say such differences usually disappear by third grade. The final decision depends on you and your child. Consider how advanced they are for their age, and if there'll be other children in the class with birthdays near theirs.

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Overcoming perceived GIS resource limitations This module (Teaching with GIS) is designed to highlight GIS concepts that may be added to many geoscience topics and exercises. In particular, we focus on using GIS at the level of introductory geoscience; however, many of the exercises and concepts may be applied in upper level courses as well. We will attempt to answer the following questions: Do I need to be a GIS wizard to introduce GIS concepts in my courses? Answer: No! There are numerous web-based mapping utilities, some of which are specifically designed for geoscience applications. In addition, consumer-grade GPS devices and mapping software are both cheaper and easier to learn than the professional GIS/GPS tools. Many students new to geoscience are unfamiliar with mapping concepts that we take for granted as professional scientists. Even simple geographic and cartographic concepts can help them understand more complex GIS tasks at a later stage. The introduction of hands-on map creation/interpretation exercises and the associated terminology can greatly enhance the learning experience of the students. Aren't the hardware and software requirements of GIS prohibitive at the introductory level? Answer: No! There are many options that may be pursued despite resource limitations or student difficulties with computer tasks. Below are some ideas on what can be accomplished with different levels of resource availability or student background. Keep in mind that this site is focused on how we can introduce GIS within existing introductory geoscience courses: Hardware-limited options—There is little or no access to computers/internet or GPS receivers by students and/or instructor within the classroom. The students often have access to computers and the internet in public labs or have personal computers. Faculty usually have access to the internet on their computers and may have access to some GIS software. - Instructor generates maps for exercises/labs utilizing online resources - Utilize traditional paper maps (e.g. geologic maps) to introduce concepts of data-driven maps - Assign homework exercises that access online resources from student-owned or campus computer labs Software-limited options—Some access to computers/internet and GPS receivers, but little or no GIS software for student/instructor use in or out of the classroom. - Instructor generates maps for exercises/labs from online sources or GIS software. Note that there is GIS shareware available (e.g. GRASS (more info) ). - GPS use in lab exercises, particulary field labs - Shareware utilities to download GPS data to computer - MS Excel or other software used to analyze and plot data in x-y coordinates (convert from lat/lon in GPS software) - Manual digitization of data locations - Paper maps or using graphics editing software No hardware/software limitations—easy access to computers/internet, GPS receivers, and GIS software in and out of the classroom. - All of the more limited options listed above are possible - Student use of GIS hardware/software/data in classroom or lab - Possibilities limited only by time for GIS within the syllabus

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Behind the buzz and beyond the hype: Our Nanowerk-exclusive feature articles Posted: Jun 28th, 2010 Novel maskless e-beam technique a promising tool for engineering metallic nanostructures (Nanowerk Spotlight) The manufacture of certain types of nanostructures – nanotubes, graphene, nanoparticles, etc. – has already entered industrial-scale mass production. However, the controlled fabrication of nanostructures with arbitrary shape and defined chemical composition is still a major challenge in nanotechnology applications. It appears that electron beams from electron microscopes (EM) – nowadays routinely focused down to the nanometer regime – are ideal candidates for versatile tools for nanotechnology (see our recent Nanowerk Spotlight: "Direct-write process brings nanotechnology fabrication closer to mass production"). However, their usage is mostly restricted by the conditions in the corresponding electron microscopes, since most EMs are housed in high vacuum chambers the unintended electron-beam-induced deposition of residual gases is a problem, as well as the maintenance of well defined sample conditions. Researchers in Germany have now presented a novel way to use a highly focused electron beam to lithographically fabricate clean iron nanostructures. This new technique expands the application field for focused electron beams in nanotechnology. "We have developed a novel two-step process to locally generate iron nanostructures on a commercial 300 nm silicon oxide substrate at room temperature," Hubertus Marbach, a researcher at the Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg tells Nanowerk. "In the first step, the surface is locally activated by a 3 nm wide electron beam. The second step comprises the development of the activated structures by dosing an organometallic precursor, which then decomposes and grows autocatalytically to form pure iron nanocrystals until the precursor supply is stopped." Using a more vivid picture, Marbach says that one might think of the whole process as writing with invisible ink in the irradiation step, which is then made visible by the development step. "Besides the fantasy-stimulating application to write secret nanomessages in ultrahigh vacuum, the described effect might be the starting point for a whole new way to generate nanostructures." Electrons as Invisible Ink. A SiOx surface can be locally activated with a focused electron beam (1) such that subsequently dosed [Fe(CO)5] decomposes (2) and autocatalytically grows to pure Fe nanocrystals (3) at predefined positions until the precursor supply is stopped. A 3D representation of the SEM data is in the background. (Reprinted with permission from Wiley-VCH Verlag) The major new aspect of this work is the local chemical activation, i.e. catalytic activation of an oxidic surface. The researchers use this process to locally dissociate adsorbed precursor molecules and then generate nanostructures with an electron beam (a process that can be categorized as focused electron beam induced processing or FEBIP, where the injection or removal of electrons can be used to trigger chemical processes, such as bond formation or dissociation). The starting point of the present investigations was the so called electron beam induced deposition or EBID technique a special case of FEBIP, where already adsorbed precursor molecules are locally dissociated with a focused electron beam, leaving a deposit of the nonvolatile dissociation products. To minimize the complications of unintended EBID of residual gases, the team followed a 'surface science approach' where they worked under ultra high vacuum (UHV) conditions. This resulted in deposits with high purity. The cleanliness of the whole process, namely UHV conditions plus a well-defined surface, was identified as the key factor for the purity of the metallic nanostructures. In a previous paper, Marbach and his team have described this technique ("Electron-Beam-Induced Deposition in Ultrahigh Vacuum: Lithographic Fabrication of Clean Iron Nanostructures") Marbach explains that, In conventional applications, the high energetic primary electrons of the EM beam are scattered in the sample. Eventually, scattered electrons exit the surface again close to the impact of the electron beam. "In EBID, this effectively leads to a widening of the deposit compared to the size of the beam" he says. "This (proximity) effect increases with an increase of the local electron dose. Since our fabrication technique relies on catalytic and autocatalytic effects, the electron dose needed as a 'seed' for the growth of the iron nanostructures can be minimized, thus reducing the mentioned proximity effect. In other words, our approach might be suitable to produce smaller structures." EBID allows almost every combination of deposit material and substrate to be targeted since there is a large variety of precursor molecules and there are nearly no restrictions in regard to the substrate. In this specific work, the researchers' aim was to generate clean iron nanostructures with potential applications in the field of data storage, sensor or information processing devices or as seeds for the localized growth of other nanostructures like carbon nanotubes or silicon wires. With their novel FEBIP process they are now moving on to explore other oxide materials and precursor molecules. "We propose our technique to pre-structure the surface by a local chemical modification as a general route to fabricate nanostructures, e.g. to locally anchor or activate functional molecules," says Marbach. One challenge of the novel process is the rather low writing speed. Marbach points out though, that there are considerable efforts underway to develop multibeam instruments which would boost the throughput of electron-beam-based techniques, e.g. at the TU Delft (Mapper lithography) and the European CHARPAN project located in Vienna.

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The following HTML text is provided to enhance online readability. Many aspects of typography translate only awkwardly to HTML. Please use the page image as the authoritative form to ensure accuracy. Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits ing in informal environments. First, the assessments should not be limited to factual recall or other narrow cognitive measures of learning, but should address the range of relevant capabilities (depicted in the six strands) that informal environments are designed to promote. Second, the assessments used should be valid, providing authentic evidence of participants’ learning and competencies. Third, assessments of informal science learning should fit with the experiences that make these environments attractive and engaging; that is, any assessment activities undertaken in informal settings should not undermine the very features that make for effective engagement, such as learner choice, voluntary participation, and pursuit of science-related interests. Conclusion 14: Learning experiences across informal environments may positively influence children’s science learning inschool, their attitudes toward science, and the likelihood that theywill consider science-related occupations or engage in lifelong science learning through hobbies and other everyday pursuits. Although, as discussed in Conclusion 13, the committee has serious reservations about using academic measures to assess learning in informal settings, we did find evidence that these settings may support improvements in student achievement, attainment, and career choices (see, for example, discussion of Strand 2 in Chapter 6). These outcomes reflect a degree of overlap between academic and informal settings. However, informal environments may particularly foster capacities that are unlikely to register traceable effects on conventional academic measures, notably around interest and motivation (Strand 1) and identity (Strand 6). TOWARD A COMMON FIELD Conclusion 15: The literature on learning science in informal environments is vast, but the quality of the research is uneven, at leastin part due to limited publication outlets (i.e., dedicated journalsand special editions) and a lack of incentives to publish for manyresearchers and evaluators in nonacademic positions. Although there is a tremendous body of evidence relevant to learning science in informal environments, there is a limited (but growing) number of peer-reviewed outlets for publication devoted to it. While many scholars publish in a variety of peer-reviewed journals in education, psychology, and museum studies, others are not in academic positions and hence receive few rewards for publication. At present, much of the literature that informs the science learning in informal environments has not undergone rigorous, systematic peer review. In fact, the committee observed enormous variety

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HARVARD -Amy Stoller of Littleton Road ran and grabbed her camera last week. She was able to take a couple of snaps before the creature spotted in her yard skittered away. "I guess it's good I didn't go out into the yard for a better picture," said Stoller. The animal appears to be a bobcat. The Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife estimates the population to be 1,200 - 1,300 strong. Twice the size of a typical domestic housecat, the bobcats (Lynx rufus) is the only wildcat remaining in Massachusetts. "It actually sat in the lawn for about 5-10 minutes, just looking around," said Stoller. "It didn't run away until I opened the door to our back porch to try to get closer. It was really a beautiful animal." A tell-tale sign? The animal's "bobbed" tail. The bobcat has a prominent tuft of facial fur and a coat of short dense yellow-to-red fur. There are also distinct or faint black spots along its flanks and white under parts sprinkled with black spots. Full grown bobcats weigh between 15 - 35 pounds and measure 28-47 inches in overall length. Bobcats typically prey upon rabbits, mice, squirrels, skunk, opossum, muskrat, birds, snakes, and other available items. The bobcats are considered to be common in Central Shy and solitary, the bobcat is silent unless confronted by an enemy when it will scowl, snarl, and spit. Bobcats also let out an occasional scream. Follow Mary Arata at Twitter.com/maryearata and Facebook.com/mary.arata.

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When Georges Braque visited Pablo Picasso's studio in 1907, he likened viewing Picasso’s latest work to drinking kerosene. This incendiary approach was to set the contemporary art world alight. In 1900, at around the time of his 19th birthday, Pablo Picasso went to Paris to visit the Universal Exhibition and to have his first experience of the art capital of the world. His training had been in provincial Spanish art schools, but the following year he was offered a large exhibition at the prestigious Vollard Gallery and he became familiar with the bohemian district of Montmartre and its gaudy pleasures. Yet only a few years later he was challenging Matisse for the position of leader of the French avant garde and was set on his revolutionary path as a universal artist. Picasso in Paris, 1900-1907 follows Picasso’s discovery of art and life in the French capital and examines his response to specific artists, including Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Steinlen, Puvis de Chavannes, Rodin and Cézanne. Marilyn McCully is an internationally recognized Picasso expert, based in London. She has organized numerous international exhibitions and written widely about Picasso and his work.

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Pulmonary hypertension (PH) refers to a condition in which high blood pressure exists within the vessels of the lungs. Normally, venous (low oxygen) blood returns from the body to the right side of the heart where it is pumped to lungs via the pulmonary arteries. Breathing brings oxygen to venous blood in the lungs, turning it into arterial (high oxygen) blood. Arterial blood returns to the left side of the heart through the pulmonary veins where it is subsequently pumped to the rest of the body. Healthy pulmonary arteries of the lungs are elastic, expanding and contracting with each beat of the heart. In PH, arteries stiffen and thicken, leading to increased resistance to blood passing through the vessel thereby increasing pressure. Higher pulmonary pressure can lead to shortness of breath, low oxygen levels, chest pain, near-fainting/fainting, heart rhythm problems, and in its more advanced form, heart failure. Pulmonary hypertension was previously classified as primary (without obvious cause, or idiopathic) or secondary (occurring as a result of another disease). Although this terminology is still referenced in medical text, the revised World Health Organization classification system does away with these definitions and instead divides PH into 5 different categories based upon mechanism of disease. PH can occur in isolation or, more commonly, with diseases of the lungs and heart. PH in the absence of other diseases is very rare and generally idiopathic or familial in nature. This kind of PH is referred as pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). PH is commonly associated with a variety of lung conditions characterized by low oxygen levels. These include emphysema, asthma, interstitial lung disease, chronic pulmonary blood clots or sleep apnea. When pulmonary hypertension arises from cardiac conditions such as heart failure, heart valve disease, or congenital heart disease, it is referred to a pulmonary venous hypertension. Other important disease states associated with PH include connective tissue diseases (scleroderma, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis), sarcoidosis, hyperthyroidism, liver disease, sickle cell disease and bone marrow disorders. Amphetamine use such as meth or the diet drug Fen-Phen has been linked to the development of PH. Oftentimes multiple causes of PH are present.

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Florida’s Popular Land Conservation Program Diminished If you have hiked in state preserves from Apalachicola to the Keys or kayaked some of Florida’s unique springs, you’ve enjoyed the beauty of Florida Forever. This program and its predecessor, Preservation 2000, have protected 2.4 million acres of Florida’s most pristine places. Many threatened and endangered species such as the Florida panther, scrub jay and black bear rely on habitat that still needs protection by Florida Forever. The program also strengthens Florida’s economy in many ways. Saving conservation land protects working agriculture, buffers military bases, brings people to our state and produces jobs. Unfortunately, Florida Forever’s unique funding formula – the money for conservation comes from the documentary taxes paid on real estate transactions– has not immunized it from controversy. The last two years no money was allocated by lawmakers and this year saw only $8.7 million. The previous 18 years have seen full funding for Florida Forever, authorized at $300 million per year. If you’ve wanted to do something to make a difference for Florida’s future and haven’t known what to do or have just been too busy, this is the time to act. With a small investment of your time, you can make a big difference. Let your elected officials know that conservation is critically important to Florida’s future. View the Conservancy report Economic Benefits of Land Conservation: A Case for Florida Forever.

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Why Poverty Persists "Changes in family structure - notably a doubling of the percent of families headed by a single woman - can account for a 3.7 percentage point increase in poverty rates, more than the entire rise in the poverty rate from 10.7 percent to 12.8 percent since 1980." Over the past 45 years, the United States has experienced an ever-growing standard of living, with real GDP per capita more than doubling between 1959 and 2004. In contrast, living standards among some populations in the United States seem to have stagnated. Between 1970 and 2003 the non-elderly poverty rate rose from 10.7 to 12.8 percent. This is in spite of dramatic increases in female labor force participation and overall education levels, and an almost 50 percent increase in cash and in-kind welfare spending per capita. All of these factors should have put substantial downward pressure on poverty rates in the United States, yet they have remained relatively stable. In Poverty in America: Trends and Explanations (NBER Working Paper No. 11681), co-authors Hilary Hoynes, Marianne Page, and Ann Stevens seek to understand why this is the case. They examine post-war trends in American poverty, the work habits and family structures of the non-elderly poor, an d the likely effects of immigration, and they attempt to estimate the effects of the various government programs designed to alleviate poverty. The authors first review some basic facts about the nature of poverty in the United States: according to the March Current Population Surveys, poverty rates are generally higher among children than among adults. In 2003, children were approximately 29 percent of the non-elderly population but they constituted 40 percent of the non-elderly poor; 17.6 percent of all children lived in households with incomes below the poverty line. Overall, only 7 percent of those living in households headed by a married individual were poor, whereas households with an unmarried head and children present -- 83 percent of which were headed by women -- had poverty rates of 40.3 percent. Likewise, the probability of being poor varies tremendously by race: blacks and Hispanics are much more likely to be poor than whites, even though most of the poor are white. The persistence of poverty also depends strongly on individual and family characteristics. Among those beginning a spell of poverty, about 83 percent of white children living in two-parent households headed by someone with at least a high school education will escape long-term poverty. In contrast, only 10 percent of poor black children in a household headed by a single woman without a high school diploma will avoid it. To explore the determinants of trends in poverty, the authors use data on state poverty rates over the period 1967-2003. Possible explanations for changes in poverty include: changes in labor market opportunities, female labor force participation, family structure, and government assistance for the poor, and immigration. Hoynes and her co-authors show that labor market opportunities are the major determinant of poverty. Specifically, they find that the unemployment rate, median wages, and wage inequality in the lower half of the wage distribution all are significant determinants of poverty rates. Overall, increasing the unemployment rate by 1 percentage point increases the poverty rate by 0.4 to 0.7 percentage points. Increasing the median wage by 10 percent decreases the poverty rate by about 2 percentage points. Increasing the ratio of the median wage to the average weekly wage in the 20 percentile of the wage distribution (a measure of inequality) by 10 percent increases the poverty rate by roughly 2.5 percentage points. The strength of the relationship between these business cycle and labor market indicators and the poverty rate has declined in the past two decades, though. After 1980, the effects of unemployment, median wages, and wage inequality were about half their pre-1980 magnitudes, the authors estimate. Predicted poverty rates based on coefficients estimated with data from the entire period (1967 through 2003) are significantly higher than the actual poverty rate. In contrast, actual poverty rates are very close to the predictions for the post-1980 period. This close correspondence between the actual poverty rate after 1980 and the poverty rates predicted by unemployment, median wages, and wage inequality in part solves the mystery of why poverty rates have not declined by more. The "answer" is familiar to those acquainted with trends in inequality over this period: poverty has not fallen despite robust economic growth because this growth did not result in rising wages at the median and below. Missing from this analysis of labor market opportunities and poverty, though, is the dramatic increase in female labor force participation over this period (a rise from 57 percent in 1970 to 76 percent in 2000). Once the authors incorporate female labor supply into their poverty rate models, the puzzle returns. Specifically, after 1980 actual poverty rates are substantially higher than predicted poverty rates. The period after 1980 saw large changes in family structure -- notably a doubling of the percent of families headed by a single woman. Because poverty rates among female-headed families are typically 3 or 4 times the level in the overall population, such changes in the distribution of family types can have potentially large effects on poverty. The authors find that these changes in family structure can account for a 3.7 percentage point increase in poverty rates, more than the entire rise in the poverty rate, from 10.7 percent to 12.8 percent since 1980. Using Census data for 1960-2000, the authors find that the increase in the U.S. immigrant population has had only a marginal effect on poverty. Even though recent immigrants are "poorer than their predecessors, their fraction of the population is simply too small to effect the overall poverty rate by much." These results do not, however, take account of the possibility that a rising immigrant population could directly affect the wage opportunities of natives. Finally, the authors consider the effects of welfare spending on poverty, using four measures of welfare generosity. Overall, their results consistently show that increases in welfare spending have produced only modest reductions in poverty, and that their effect has become more modest over time. This result is partially driven by the nature of the official poverty definition, specifically the fact that increments to aftertax income (as resulting, for example, from the significant expansions in the Earned Income Tax Credit) or provision of in-kind benefits will not be reflected in poverty rates based on pretax cash income definition. Furthermore, the lack of an effect on official poverty does not mean that these programs have not significantly improved the well being of the poor. Taken together, the results suggest that the lack of improvement in the poverty rate reflects a weakened relationship between poverty and the macroeconomy. The lack of progress despite rising living conditions is attributable to the stagnant growth in median wages and to increasing inequality. Holding all else equal, changes in female labor supply should have reduced poverty, but an increase in the rate of female-headed families may have worked in the opposite direction. Other factors often cited as having important effects on the poverty rate do not appear to play an important role -- these include changes in the number and composition of immigrants and changes in the generosity of anti-poverty programs. Future work should focus on understanding why the poverty rate's responsiveness to macroeconomic indicators has changed over time. -- Linda GormanThe Digest is not copyrighted and may be reproduced freely with appropriate attribution of source.

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The ecliptic is the geometric plane that contains the orbit of the Earth. The orbits of most planets in the Solar System lie very close to it. Seen from the Earth, this is a bisecting great circle, superimposed upon the celestial sphere, which contains the different points of the Sun's path, relative to the background stars, over the course of a year. The zodiac also lies along the ecliptic plane. The ecliptic plane is inclined by ~23.5°, with respect to the celestial equator; a result of axial tilt. The orbital plane of Luna is inclined by ~5°, with respect to the ecliptic. The plane of the Ecliptic is well seen in this picture from the 1994 lunar prospecting Clementine spacecraft. Clementine's camera reveals (from right to left) the Moon lit by Earthshine, the Sun's glare rising over the Moon's dark limb, and the planets Saturn, Mars and Mercury (the three dots at lower left). Because there are ~365.25 days in a year and 360 degrees in a circle, the Sun appears to move along the ecliptic at a rate of about 1° per day. This motion is from west to east, in opposition to the apparent east-west movement of the celestial sphere. The ecliptic and the celestial equator intersect at two points, directly opposite one another. These are the equinoxes and when the Sun appears at these points, day and night are each about 12 hours long at all locations on Earth. The point on the ecliptic that is farthest north of the celestial equator is called the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere, and the winter solstice in the southern hemisphere. When the Sun is farthest south of the celestial equator the reverse is true.

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NetWellness is a global, community service providing quality, unbiased health information from our partner university faculty. NetWellness is commercial-free and does not accept advertising. Friday, May 24, 2013 Geriatric dentistry deals with special knowledge, attitudes and technical skills required in the provision of oral health care to older adults. Currently over 13.7% of the U.S. population is aged 65+ years, and this proportion will increase to 23% by the year 2040. The state of Ohio is one of nine states where the older adult population constitutes an increasingly significant percentage of the population. Oral health is particularly important among the elderly. They are more susceptible to systemic conditions, making them predisposed to developing oral diseases which can directly or indirectly lead to malnutrition, altered communication, further susceptibility to infectious diseases, and diminished quality of life. Today, approximately 40% of older adults are edentulous (toothless), while the remaining 60% of individuals 65 years of age and older retain some or all of their natural teeth. In May, 2000, the first-ever Surgeon General's report on oral health identified dental and oral disease as a "silent epidemic" and called for a national effort to improve the oral health of all Americans. This report also documented profound disparities in oral health and identified poor Americans, especially children, the elderly, and members of racial and ethnic groups, as those suffering the worst oral health. Recent research has determined that oral health and quality of life of older adults can be compromised by discomfort and pain caused by dental and oral disease. Some 120 physical or mental conditions may lead to either symptoms in the oral cavity or may affect an older person's ability to perform good oral hygiene. For example: Xerostomia (dry mouth), a common problem among many elderly, can result as a side effect of using certain medications such as antidepressants, antihistamines, anti-hypertensives, anti-psychotics, anti-parkinsonism medications and anti-inflammatory agents. There are over 1000 medications that cause dry mouth. Dry mouth can interfere with a person's ability to speak, taste, chew, and swallow. A person with dry mouth may experience pain, irritation, or difficulty in using their dentures. Tooth decay and gum disease can develop and progress faster in an environment of dry mouth because dental plaque tends to accumulate faster when saliva production is decreased. Diabetes mellitus - Older diabetics are at risk for oral infections and impaired healing that can result in gum disease and other oral conditions. Gum disease and systemic diseases - Recent research indicates an association between periodontal disease and certain systemic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis in the elderly. Last Reviewed: Jun 09, 2005 Abdel Rahim Mohammad, DDS, MS, MPH, FAAOM, FACD Clinical Professor of Geriatrics College of Dentistry The Ohio State University

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HISTORY FEBRUARY 8, 2013 "Inaugural Parade," March 22, 1933 In 1930, four years after Edmund Wilson first arrived at The New Republic, the desk-bound literary critic declared his intention to become the magazine's roving reporter. It took his colleagues by surprise. "I doubt whether he had been west of Pittsburgh before that time," wrote one-time New Republic editor Malcolm Cowley in 1972. For the next couple years, Bunny—as Wilson was known to his friends—traveled the country, becoming increasingly dismayed at the scenes of depression and decay he encountered. Wilson thought nothing less than pure socialism would cure America, and so he was not thrilled by Franklin Delano Roosevelt's broad coalition-fueled victory in 1932. (The rumor that FDR had borrowed the phrase "the new deal" from a series of articles in The New Republic did not dampen his dislike.) In his "Inaugural Parade" dispatch, Wilson reports from FDR's swearing in, poison pen in hand. Everything is gray today. From a distance, the dome of the Capitol looks like gray polished granite and in the bleak March sky has a sort of steel-engraving distinction. Close to, the big building seems a replica in white rubber; clouds in colorless light threaten rain or snow. An aluminum blimp hangs below them. The people seem dreary and they are curiously apathetic. The Washington banks have closed, the banks throughout the country are closing, and, in spite of the attempts of some papers to keep out of sight the news that New York and Illinois have finally gone, there remains under all the activity and pomp the numbness of a zero hour. The people's prosperity has vanished; even the banks don't know where the money is; even the banks say they haven't got it; so they are simply shutting up, no checks cashed; blankness and dismay. And what seems a circumstance of bad omen, Thomas Walsh, the most popular member of the Cabinet, has suddenly died on the eve of taking office. They wait in the park in front of the Capitol. "What are those things that look like little cages?" "Machine guns," says a woman with a giggle. They wait till they see Roosevelt's dim figure on the platform on the Capitol steps, hear dimly the accents of his voice—then the crowd rapidly thins. And even when you read them, the phrases of the speech seem shadowy—the echoes of Woodrow Wilson's eloquence without Wilson's glow of life behind them. The old unctuousness, the old pulpit vagueness: "in every dark hour of our national life," "and yet our distress comes from no failure of substance—we are stricken by no plague of locusts," "where there is no vision the people perish," "the money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization," "our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men." The old Wilsonian professions of plain-speaking followed by the old abstractions: "I am certain that on this day my fellow Americans expect that ... I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impels. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly," etc. So what? So In finance we must "restore to the ancient truths" the temple from which the money-changers have fled; so in the field of foreign affairs, he "would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor." The thing that emerges most clearly is the warning of a dictatorship. The first part of the parade is dignified. Preceded by well drilled motorcycles and a squadron of khaki cavalry leaning forward as they briskly canter with their sabers against their shoulders, the silk hats and the admiral's gold-braided bicorne roll along in their open cars on their way from the Capitol to the White House. Roosevelt smiles his smug public smile, taking off his high hat and calling back to greetings from the crowd. "He looks like Wilson, doesn't he?" says a woman. "The glasses and pointed nose look like Wilson." Another woman showing her neighbor a newspaper picture of the president graciously receiving Hoover in his car, says: "He looks so aristocratic, I think!" Mrs. Roosevelt sits beside him, small, dark and unpretentious, smiling, her little round black hat tilted fashionably over one ear. A space of waiting; the weather is getting colder. The parade proper begins. The branches of the service pass first. Chief of Staff, General Douglas MacArthur, who drove the veterans out of Washington last summer; the flare of flags of the First Division; tall, rigid West Pointers in gray; Marines in clean white caps and gaiters with a red and yellow rattlesnake flag; bluejackets; Negroes in khaki; always with a white officer at their head; khaki trucks, khaki anti-aircraft guns; a new kind of short black machine gun as perfect and shiny as the little screw-out pencils that people used to wear on watch-chains; stretchers; a drum-major in a white shako; the blue Richmond Blues, the gray Richmond Grays and the red and gray Richmond Howitzers, all with white plumes and pre-Civil-War uniforms. It is fun to hear "The West Point Cadets’ March," and "The Stars and Stripes Forever"—they bring back the America of boyhood: the imperial Roosevelt, the Spanish War. And the airplanes against the dark sky, flying in groups of nine and moving as they reach the reviewing stand into exact little patterns of jackstones, awaken a moment's pride in American technical precision. But from this point on—and there are something like three hours of it yet—the procession crazily degenerates. From recalling one of those college reunions where the classes dress up in costumes, it takes on qualities of grotesque idiocy which make the Carnival at Nice look decorous. Decorous, because it is proper for a carnival to be silly and gaudy, whereas the inaugural parade is supposed to be impressive. It is the co-eds who first give it a musical-comedy air. The military delegation from Atlanta Tech High is headed by a pretty girl in a red coat and white pants with a white overseas cap and white Sam Brown. Another in high heels leads a company of girls in gray and blue. The John Marshall Cadet Corps from Richmond are handsome in long gray coats and red cloaks. Now the Governors are coming, sandwiched in between bands. Delaware Post Number One have shiny steel trench helmets, sky-blue coats, white breeches and black puttees. Gifford Pinchot, in an open car, bows and takes off his hat in response to the cheers that follow him, with gestures willowy and courtly like the White Knight turned politician. But the next sound is a breeze of laughter. One of the bands has a funny drum-major, whose specialty is hip-waggling and mincing: he puts one hand to his waist, holds it out marking the time with wrist limp and little finger extended, turns sideways and with a rumba-dancer’s rhythm performs phallic billiard-shots with his baton. And the effect of the fairy drum-major is to impart to the features that come after him a circus-parade effect of clowning. He is followed immediately by Governor Ritchie, who looks like a silk-hatted Mr. Woodchuck out of one of Thornton Burgess's Bedtime Stories; he shakes a day-day with one gloved paw, and you expect to see the automobile go off with a blaze and a bang and the silk hats tumbling on the ground. There follows a strange little closed car with the blue Lone Star of Texas on the radiator. It has the streamlines of a small goblin army tank and the audience murmur as it passes that it cost ten thousand, thirty thousand dollars. The Green Trojans of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, are frog green with bersaglieri’s feathered bonnets. The National Indian War Veterans are old men in a big green bus. And as the weather grows darker and more ominous, the parade becomes more fantastic. The American Legions Posts, which dominate the later sections, startle, trouble and shock. Are these the implacable guardians of Americanism? There are legionnaires with bright bluecoats and canary-yellow trench helmets; legionnaires as orange hussars; legionnaire drum and bugle corps who perform fancy evolutions as they march. A great many women mixed up among them. One detachment of patriot ladies wear red cloaks and blue and white plumes. The circus illusion is further heightened by a cute-kid cowboy on a donkey and by a man who marches all alone as Lincoln and whom you expect to see stop and do a clowning act—perhaps puff smoke out of his stovepipe hat. Now the spectacle become frankly delirious. Comic lodges and marching clubs go by. Men appear in curled-up shoes and fezzes, dressed in hideous greens, purples and reds. Indians, very fat, with made-up squaws: real or burlesque? A very large loose old Negro with a purple fez and yellow-edged cloak, carrying the prong of an antler as if it were the Golden Bough. The airplanes overhead have been replaced by an insect-like auto-gyro, which trails a big advertising banner: "Re-Tire with Lee’s Tires." The Negro lady hussars wear bright purple stockings. The Spirit of '76 are probably cockeyed: one of the trio is always getting behind and then running to catch up to the others. Real Cherokees in white-fringed suits and with pink-tipped feathers; one is on a horse, bareback, and sends a rustle through the crowd, who remark that he is practically naked. A passage of real dignity and gravity ensues. The cornets of the New York Police Band, who "fear no music written" and march in dense blue formation, make an attention- compelling impact for the solid ranks of the silk-hats of Tammany that go on and on like an army. No fantasy and no frivolity: each marches in a dark coat with a white carnation in his buttonhole. Al Smith, red-faced, is in the front line with John F. Curry, and gives rise to a high wave of cheering. They are followed by a comic Dutchman wheeling a red, white and blue keg and Miss Columbia leading the Queens County donkey. But now a matter of expectation agitates the crowd. Whatever the papers may say later, it is Tom Mix and not Al Smith, who, at the start of the parade at any rate, receives the biggest ovation. Not even the president is so popular. They see his white suit and white sombrero blocks away and they go wild with delight as he comes by, making his beautiful little jet-black pony with its silver harness dance. He is a part of the publicity for a new film called "42nd Street" to which the Inauguration is incidental. With an assortment of Hollywood actors and beauties he has just come on from the Coast in an electric-bulb-studded train called "The Better Times Gold and Silver Leaf Special." The beauties are featured on a "Better Times Float" which many people have waited till the end for. It has a red and yellow canopy like a street merry-go-round and as it is dragged along, it revolves, exhibiting the girls, who sit on wicker couches against a background of giant tulips, and wave as they come past the crowd. But Hollywood is nothing to the marching clubs. An eerie music is now heard and ambiguous figures loom, out of Little Nemo's Adventures in Slumberland. Some seem half-Indian, half-angel, with feather headdresses that sweep to the ground; others (who get big applause) have hoods with spiky dorsal fins like Martians in the barbershop weeklies; and all are clad in flowing pale female robes tinted with celestial pinks and blues and with a kind of unpleasant iridescence such as sweat sometimes makes on white shirts. As they move they play mosquito-buzzing dance music on banjos, xylophones, violins and guitars. Interspersed are the Loew's Theatres Cadet Band, a drum-major who can juggle two batons, a drunk with Leon Errol rubber legs, who ricochets back and forth and shakes hands with the people on the sidelines. A small soberly-uniformed band from the Virgin Islands and a small float of chilly-looking trained nurses incongruously end the procession. If the parade went on any longer, it would be too dark to see, too cold to stay out. And you are glad when it is over anyway. The America it represented has burst, and as you watched the marchers, you realized that it had been getting sillier and sillier all the time. The America of the boom definitely died today, and this is the ghost it just gave up.

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In recognition of the importance of preservation efforts, this periodic series features historic buildings on the UI campus. A little more than a decade after it was built 100 years ago, the UI Observatory became the site of a scientific development considered revolutionary in its day. Joel Stebbins, a professor at the UI, helped to develop a system to measure the brightness of stars at the UI Observatory. He worked with an instructor, F.C. Brown, to create a selenium cell to use in a photometer. While it took time to perfect the selenium photometer, they used their innovation to discover three double stars, construct a light curve for the moon, determine the time of mid-eclipse during the July 24, 1907, lunar eclipse and measure the magnitude of Halley's Comet in May 1910. It was Stebbins who convinced the UI Board of Trustees to establish an astronomy department in 1905, just nine years after the observatory was built. In the spring of 1895, the UI was given $15,000 by the legislature - at the request of the trustees - to build the Astronomical Observatory and equip it. It took another two years to complete that task. The equipment cost $8,340 - which included 12-inch and 4-inch equatorial telescopes, 3-inch and 2-inch combined transit and zenith telescopes, a good chronograph and a cheap chronograph. The building and dome cost $6,680. Historically, the observatory is considered an unusual structure. It was built of repressed brick; its entrance faces north. The interior rotation system is historically significant. When it was built, the dome was described as revolving on trucks that rolled on a circular rail and was turned by hand using a rope and sheave. But it was the work done by Stebbins and Brown that played a key role in the observatory being named a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1990.

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