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Swelling is a condition happening in any body part as an enlargement of body organs with fluid because of injury or illness. Swelling sufferers experience inflammation and pain at the impacted area. If left untreated, it can be dangerous.
If swelling happens in your feet and ankles, it is called edema. Actually, there are a lot of things that can lead to this condition, from high blood pressure to pregnancy. But, swelling caused by an injury seems to happen the most. Mild swelling could be treated at home, but make sure that you thoroughly check other symptoms of the injury in order to know if it is a serious condition and needs to be assessed by a doctor.
Here, we will guide you how to treat swelling by introducing natural home remedies for swelling on face, in hands and feet from an injury. Before that, have a quick look at general understanding about this issue on TrueRemedies.com.
What Is Swelling?
In essence, swelling happens whenever the skin, organs or other body parts of the human body enlarge. Typically, it is a result of a fluid buildup or inflammation. It can happen internally or impact your muscles and outer skin.
There is a wide range of condition triggering swelling, such as illnesses, insect bites, or injuries leading to external swelling. Oftentimes, internal swelling is usually the consequence of a serious injury or a side effect of medication.
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It is better to seek instant medical attention once you go through unexplainable, rapid swelling, particularly if you also go through unexplained pain and weight gain.
What Are Causes Of Swelling?
For external swelling, the inflammation in your tissues, bones, or muscles are the culprits of the condition. Tumors and cysts might also lead to visible swelling. Despite fluid retention is an just an internal issue, it might also trigger external swelling.
Common causes of external swelling are
- Insect bites
- Fluid retention
- Hormonal changes
As usual, external swelling could be widespread or localized.
For localized swelling, it mentions to situations in which just a specific area gets swollen. Widespread swelling happens over the large area of body. It is often a sign of serious ailment and because of an allergic reaction or fluid retention.
Besides, other common causes of widespread swelling are heart failure, kidney failure, anaphylaxis, and venomous insect bite.
Those people having diabetes as well as specific forms of cancer may go through widespread swelling, or swelling in their extremities, like their toes or fingers. It might appear temporarily.
Within the human body, swelling is the consequence of organ inflammation, flatulence, or fluid retention. It can happen in those people having chronic diseases, like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), cancer and Crohn’s disease.
What Are Symptoms Of Swelling?
There are some cases of slight swelling which are not obvious, or even unnoticed. This condition does not always result in other symptoms.
External swelling with the enlargement of muscles or skin is often visible. Nonetheless, other swelling signs include the fluid buidup in the problematic area.
If you have swelling caused by an injury, a disease or sting, then you may go through a variety of symptoms, including:
If you have internal swelling, the symptoms could be:
When To See A Doctor?
Oftentimes, if your ankles or legs swelling after standing or sitting for a long period of time, it is not necessary to worry. Nevertheless, if it is the result of an injury, then you should see a doctor.
It is recommended visiting a medical professional if your swelling is accompanied by the following symptoms:
- Just one ankle or leg swells suddenly
- You have difficulty in breathing and chest pain
- Upon having physical activities or laying down, you have shortness of breath
- You feel lightheaded or dizzy
- The swelling happens for no specific reason
How To Prevent Swelling?
In case a chronic ailment leads to internal or external swelling, you might be able to prevent extra swelling through appropriately managing your ailment or taking prescribed medications to cure it. Usually, you will be recommended using medications if your swelling is internal and a consequence of inflammation.
Some lifestyle changes are also advised to prevent swelling. Also, a number of measures to take at home are also suggested to prevent swelling, such as wearing support hose, avoiding consuming too much salt, keeping the legs and arms above the chest upon lying down.
Home Remedies For Swelling On Face, In Hands And Feet From An Injury
1. Ice / Cold Compress
When applying a hot compress on your affected area, the blood will flow more to that area, reducing the inflammation and pain associated with swelling. The same goes for a cold compress applied on your swollen area, it can numb that area and lessen inflammation as well as swelling .
How to do it:
- Take a clean towel to soak into warm water
- Place it over your swollen area and wait for 5 minutes
- Soak that towel in cold water and apply the same
- Repeat this routine twice per day till you get good results
- Do not apply ice directly on your skin to avoid damaging it or possible frostbite.
- Ice is not suitable for chronic injuries.
When it comes to home remedies for swelling, exercise is the most recommended because it is a good way to boost your blood circulation and stop the fluid retention within your hands and legs.
You can go swimming to take pressure off the feet while still boosting circulation.
In accordance with the journal International Archives of Medicine, exercising can alleviate lower limb edema. Furthermore, this helps in lessening swelling in ankles if you have a sedentary lifestyle or if your problem is caused by aging.
For swelling caused by an injury, most cases are caused when the fluid pools in the tissues, and exercise can reduce this impact.
3. Elevate The Injured Area
In regard to home remedies for swelling, elevating your injured area works well particularly for the new injuries. This step is used as part of the RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) method of taking care for a new injury.
By elevating the injured area above the heart, it will encourage your blood to flow away from the injury, and reach to the heart.
In case you could not lift your injured area up above the heart, it is advised to at least keep the injury parallel to the floor. By keeping blood away from your injury, it will reduce the fluid volume reaching to it, thereby decreasing swelling condition.
4. Use Bromelain
This is an enzyme derived from pineapple’s stem. With anti-inflammatory properties, it is good for swelling and inflammation reduction. You can take this enzyme from the stem of pineapples or from dietary supplements. But, consult your doctor about the proper dosage before taking advantage of the supplement form .
Note: This enzyme should not be taken before surgery because it might result in excessive bleeding.
5. Supplement With Quercetin
Being a flavonoid stemmed from apples, leafy greens, capers, citrus fruits, red onions, quercetin can help in decreasing welling in your body. Similar to bromelain, quercetin is also found in the extract form in combination with bromelain.
Or, you can add the plants containing this flavonoid to your daily diet to reap its benefits. But, make sure to consult your doctor prior to taking it.
6. Compression Socks
This method, among home remedies for swelling introduced here, can help reduce swelling in feet if you have to stand or sit for a long time. Compression socks also prevent swollen feet and ankles and could make your daily activities easier. It also eliminates the symptoms of fluid retention in the feet and legs by forcing excessive fluid and blood back up the body.
The effectiveness of compression stockings for swelling reduction was shown in the journal Dermatologic Surgery. This method is also helpful for pregnant women or people having to fly for a long period of time.
Turmeric looks rather like ginger but has bright orange color inside. This root is available as a whole fresh fruit, or a ground, dried spice commonly in North America. It has been used for 4,000 years for treating a number of conditions, including infections, inflammation, and digestive issues. Amazingly, it was found that turmeric can ease pain, similar to the way ibuprofen did for arthritis sufferers.
You can take advantage of turmeric as a tea, or used it in recipes. If there is not fresh or dried turmeric available, you can also buy curcumin, which is a powerful compound in turmeric, in the capsule form .
8. Soak In Epsom Salts
Regarding home remedies for home remedies for swelling after an injury, soaking in Epsom salt is an excellent way to relax as well as relieve aching muscles in the feet and legs. Epsom salts have been commonly used for centuries to draw out excess water and toxins from the human body. Furthermore, they are extraordinary easy-to-find and inexpensive, so you can find it in almost any grocery store.
According to the British Medical Journal, Epsom salt soak can help with the condition of swollen feet. You can have an Epsom salt bath to boost blood circulation and decrease the discomfort in swollen legs resulted from heart disease.
9. Drink Dandelion Tea
It may sound like strange regarding home remedies for swelling because most of us use dandelions as the fuzzy yellow flowers which are regarded as weeds in general. Nonetheless, this plant has a number of benefits, including playing as a natural diuretic. In fact, fluid retention might result in swelling, but electrolyte depletion and dehydration might encourage fluid retention. And drinking dandelion tea will help with these problems. Being a natural diuretic, it can reduce fluid retention. Also, it is rich in potassium, which means that it can keep your electrolytes in balance. Despite this is not a common tea, it could be bought at local health food stores or online .
To make dandelion tea, take the steps here:
- Add 1 teaspoon of dandelion tea extract to a cup of water
- Boil it up in a saucepan
- Strain and let it cool
- Add some honey to the tea for flavor
- Have this drink twice per day for optimums effects
10. Apply Mustard Oil
The swelling caused by an injury can be treated with mustard oil application. This sounds unusual but works well. Whilst mustard oil is known as a condiment, it can restore blood circulation. Swelling is sometimes caused by a lack of blood circulation, not to mention to an injury impact. Thus, applying warm mustard oil can restore the circulation, thereby decreasing swelling .
To reap the benefits of this oil, take the steps here:
- Warm up mustard oil to massage onto your swollen areas
- Keep doing so for 5-7 minutes to relieve swelling
11. Rest The Affected Area
In order to warrant for rapid treatment of swelling from an injury, you should let your injured area rest for the first 24-72 hours.
By resting appropriately, your damaged soft tissues associated with minor injuries will be repaired. In addition, continual strain will lead to more pain, inflammation and slow down the healing process.
In case you have an injury ankle or foot, you can use crutches to remove the pressure on your swollen area. For people having an injured arm, you can use your normal arms to execute the tasks or have other people to help you.
12. Apple Cider Vinegar
Apple cider vinegar is a household staple which is usually used for cooking or a low-calorie salad dressing. In the past, Hippocrates used vinegar to heal the wounds, in accordance with Medscape General Medicine.
In reality, apple cider vinegar has been commonly used to treat heartburn, acne, sunburn, infection and diarrhea. There even are some research evidence showing apple cider vinegar having a possible effect on blood sugar regulation, infection, and heart disease.
The active ingredients in apple cider vinegar include pectin, potassium, malic acid, calcium, acetic acid and ash. When the potassium levels in the human body are not enough, the body cells tend to fill with water. This is one of causes of swelling in the body. It is because the potassium ion is responsible for cellular pumps within the body. Consuming apple cider vinegar can help replenish potassium levels in the body whereas also reversing the fluid retention in swelling sufferers. Because apple cider vinegar is very acidic, it might irritate your throat when you drink it in large amounts or too often .
You had better dilute it with water or some juice prior to taking it. The proper ratio is 2 tablespoons of organic apple cider vinegar mixed with 1 gallon of purified water. Add little honey if you want to add taste to the mixture.
Leg and ankle swelling could be inconvenient and painful, but you can cut down the swelling severity by using apple cider vinegar.
- Make a paste between apple cider vinegar and warm water as the ratio 1:1
- Soak a towel in the mixture and wrap the affected area for a few minutes
- Repeat this routine using cold water to help relieve swelling
Short term uses of apple cider vinegar are safe for the majority of people. But, if taken internally, higher dose or extended use of it might come with some problems.
- Apple cider vinegar may potentially interact with certain supplements or drugs, such as diuretics and insulin.
- It may reduce blood sugar in people having diabetes, so it can interact with some anti-diabetes.
13. Devil’s Claw
This herb looks like the paw of a devil. This creepy-looking root is shown to be good for reducing pain as well as physical functioning in those people having osteoarthritis. Devil’s claw consists of components named iridoid glycosides, which are thought to help relieve pain.
The root of this herb can be taken as a homemade tea. It is also sold in the form of ointments and capsules.
14. White Willow Bark
This is the bark of white willow tree and has been used for thousands of years to alleviate inflammation and fever. The content of salicin in white willow bark provides similar effects to those of aspirin. Many studies have shown that willow bark is efficient in decreasing lower back pain.
You can make use of this herb in the form of tea, capsules or a tincture. Also, it is used as an ingredient in combination pain-relief supplements.
15. Egg Membrane
Among home remedies for swelling, egg membrane is little known. It is the transparent layer between the shell and the gel-like part of an egg. You can easily see it on the hard boiled eggs.
Egg membranes have components of membrane designed to help protect the egg, including glucosamine and collagen. A study has shown that egg membrane can reduce joint pain as well as knee stiffness in those arthritis sufferers in comparison with a placebo.
You can buy egg membrane in the supplement form or take it from a boiled egg.
While everyone does not want to experience swelling, it is still good to have some home remedies for swelling after an injury ready for when it happens. The list available above is important they are tested before being recommended to you.
The next time you suffer from swelling, whether it is caused by an injury or any other thing, make sure that you refer this list.
If you feel our 15 home remedies for swelling are useful, do not forget to like and share it.
To refer some similar tips and tricks about health and beauty, visit our Home Remedies page.
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I clump these names together because I believe it is one object with many names. I may be completely wrong about that, but let’s just assume it is the same object reported about in past writings.
Plus, you have to keep in mind of the known events that have occurred in earth's and our solar system’s past.
It is hypothesized that the passing of a planet through this solar system could be the reason why some of the extreme and violent events have occurred. A planet that comes through this solar system every 3600 years could be disastrous. The gravitational pull of a planet entering the inner solar system would have profound effects on the other orbiting bodies, including Earth. Because it is believed Nibiru is the size of Jupiter, the Earth would be in for some massive and catastrophic changes of floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, a pole shift and other natural disasters which would be so severe that very few would survive.
Could a planet that size create that much chaos in our solar system? The answer is, yes. Is the planet a piece of Sumerian/Bible fiction? That remains to be seen.
There are several different factions that look to the planet Nibiru. The Sumerians are the key ingredient in this belief. In fact, the Anunnaki story says that a previous appearance of Nibiru was responsible for the "Great Flood" recorded in Genesis. Going even further back, some researchers into this topic suspect that Nibiru once collided with Earth resulting in the enormous gouges in our planet that the oceans now fill.
As referred to by Sitchen’s research
In 1976, the late Zecharia Sitchin stirred up a great deal of controversy with the publication of his book, The Twelfth Planet. In this and subsequent books, Sitchin presented his literal translations of ancient Sumerian texts which told an incredible story about the origins of humankind on planet Earth. His interpretation of Mesopotamian iconography and symbol-ology, outlined in his books that there is an undiscovered planet beyond Neptune that follows a long, elliptical orbit, reaching the inner solar system roughly every 3,600 years. This planet is called Nibiru. According to Sitchin, Nibiru collided catastrophically with Tiamat, which he considers to be another planet once located between Mars and Jupiter. This collision supposedly formed the planet Earth, the asteroid belt, and the comets. Sitchin states that when struck by one of Nibiru's moons, Tiamat split in two. And then on a second pass Nibiru itself struck the broken fragments and one half of Tiamat which became the asteroid belt. The second half, struck again by one of Nibiru's moons, was pushed into a new orbit and became today's planet Earth. Nibiru is a term in the Akkadian language, translating to "crossing" or "point of transition", especially of rivers, river crossings or ferry-boats. Scholars calculate the planet was last in this vicinity around 160 B.C.
As referred to by Babylon
In Babylonian astronomy, nibiru is a term of the highest point of the ecliptic, the point of summer solstice and its associated constellation of Libra and Nibiru was also a name for the planet Jupiter. The establishment of the nibiru point is described in tablet 5 of the creation epic Enûma Eliš"
When Marduk fixed the locations of Nibiru, Enlil and Ea in the sky.
As the highest point in the paths of the planets, nibiru was considered the seat of the summus deus who pastures the stars like sheep, in Babylon identified with Marduk. This interpretation of Marduk as the ruler of the cosmos suggesting an early monotheist tendency in Babylonian religion by various authors. Nibiru whose name was replaced with Marduk in original legends by the Babylonian ruler of the same name in an attempt to co-opt the creation for himself, leading to some confusion among readers. Nibiru is described more closely on a complete cuneiform tablet:
Nibiru, which is said to have occupied the passageways of heaven and earth, because everyone above and below asks Nibiru if they cannot find the passage. Nibiru is Marduk's star which the gods in heaven caused to be visible. Nibiru stands as a post at the turning point.
The others say of Nibiru the post: "The one who crosses the middle of the sea without calm, may his name be Nibiru, for he takes up the center of it". The path of the stars of the sky should be kept unchanged.
In the MUL.APIN, Nibiru is identified as Jupiter associated with the god Marduk in Babylonian cosmology:
"When the stars of Enlil have been finished, one big star – although its light is dim – divides the sky in half and stands there: that is, the star of Marduk, Nibiru, Jupiter; it keeps changing its position and crosses the sky."
Although the word wormwood appears several times in the Old Testament, translated from the Hebrew term לענה, its only clear reference as a named entity occurs in the New Testament, in the book of Revelation:
"The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many died from the water, because it was made bitter." (Revelation 8:10–11, New Revised Standard Version).
"Wormwood" is the name of a star in Revelation 8:10-11: This is the third of the seven “trumpet judgments” described in Revelation. The first trumpet causes hail and fire that destroy much of the plant life in the world. The second trumpet brings about what seems to be a meteor, comet, or other heavenly body hitting the oceans and causing the death of one-third of the world’s sea life. The third trumpet is similar to the second, except it affects the world’s lakes and rivers instead of the oceans. It will cause a third part of all fresh water on earth to turn bitter and many people will die from drinking it.
The word “wormwood” is mentioned only here in the New Testament, but it appears eight times in the Old Testament, each time associated with bitterness, poison and death. The Revelation passage may not be saying that the star falling to the earth will actually be called Wormwood by the inhabitants of the earth. Rather, wormwood was a well-known bitter herb in the Bible times, so by naming the star Wormwood, we are told that its effect will be to embitter the waters of the earth, so much so that the water is undrinkable. It won’t be a matter of simply a bitter taste to the water; it will literally be poisonous. If drinking water is unavailable to one third of the earth’s population, it’s easy to see how chaos and terror will result.
There is even speculation that the Vatican is tracking the position of Wormwood/Nibiru.
Father Malachi Martin was interviewed by Art Bell as saying that the Vatican hierarchy, through research at its astronomical observatory, is monitoring the approach of something that could be "of great import" in the coming years.
I read an account on another site saying the gravitational pull of Wormwood/Nibiru might even stop the Earth's rotation for three days, citing the "three days of darkness" predicted in the Bible.
Even mainstream astronomers have long speculated that there may be an unknown planet, a Planet X, somewhere out beyond the orbit of Pluto that would account for the anomalies they were detecting in the orbits of Neptune and Uranus. They believed that some unseen body seems to be tugging at them.
Following the discovery of the planet Neptune in 1846, there was considerable speculation that another planet might exist beyond its orbit. The search began in the mid-19th century and culminated at the start of the 20th with Percival Lowell's quest for Planet X. Lowell proposed the Planet X hypothesis to explain apparent discrepancies in the orbits of the gas giants, speculating that the gravity of a large unseen ninth planet could have perturbed Uranus enough to account for the irregularities. In 1915, he published his Memoir of a Trans-Neptunian Planet, in which he concluded that Planet X had a mass roughly seven times that of the Earth, and about half that of Neptune, and a mean distance from the Sun of 43 AU. He assumed Planet X would be a large, low-density object, like the gas giants. As a result it would show a disc with diameter of about one arc second and an apparent magnitude of between 12 and 13—bright enough to be spotted.
The search was largely abandoned in the early 1990s, when a study of measurements made by the Voyager 2 spacecraft found that the irregularities observed in Uranus's orbit were due to a slight overestimation of Neptune's mass. Today, the astronomical community widely agrees that Planet X, as originally envisioned, does not exist, but the concept of Planet X has been revived by a number of astronomers to explain other anomalies observed in the outer Solar System. In popular culture, and even among some astronomers, Planet X has become a stand-in term for any undiscovered planet in the outer Solar System, regardless of its relationship to Lowell's hypothesis.
And then there was Sedna
The finding was reported in the June 19, 1982 edition of the New York Times:
"Something out there beyond the furthest reaches of the known solar system is tugging at Uranus and Neptune. A gravitational force keeps perturbing the two giant planets, causing irregularities in their orbits. The force suggests a presence far away and unseen, a large object, the long-sought Planet X."
The anomalous body was first spotted in 1983 by IRAS (Infrared Astronomical Satellite), according to news stories. The Washington Post reported:
"A heavenly body possibly as large as the giant planet Jupiter and possibly so close to Earth that it would be part of this solar system has been found in the direction of the constellation Orion by an orbiting telescope aboard the U.S. infrared astronomical satellite. So mysterious is the object that astronomers do not know if it is a planet, a giant comet, a nearby 'protostar' that never got hot enough to become a star, a distant galaxy so young that it is still in the process of forming its first stars or a galaxy so shrouded in dust that none of the light cast by its stars ever gets through."
An article posted by MSNBC on October 7, 1999 said:
"A Mystery Revolves Around the Sun, two teams of researchers have proposed the existence of an unseen planet or a failed star circling the sun at a distance of more than 2 trillion miles, far beyond the orbits of the nine known planets... Planetary scientist at Britain's Open University, speculates that the object could be a planet larger than Jupiter."
And in December, 2000, SpaceDaily reported on "Another Candidate For 'Planet X' Spotted."
Another article and photo appeared in Discovery News, published in July, 2001, says:
"Large Object Discovered Orbiting Sun. The discovery of a large reddish chunk of something orbiting in Pluto's neighborhood has re-ignited the idea that there may be more than nine planets in the solar system."
Naming it 2001 KX76. the discoverers estimate that it is smaller than our Moon and might have an elongated orbit, but they gave no indication that it was heading this way.
This continues to be a highly controversial issue.
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BY STEPHANIE PAPPAS
The globe is heating up. Both land and oceans are warmer now than they were when record keeping began, in 1880, and temperatures are still ticking upward. This rise in heat is global warming, in a nutshell.
Here are the bare numbers, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): Between 1880 and 1980, the global annual temperature increased at a rate of 0.13 degrees Fahrenheit (0.07 degrees Celsius) per decade, on average. Since 1981, the rate of increase has sped up, to 0.32 degrees F (0.18 degrees C) per decade. This has led to an overall 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C) increase in global average temperature today compared to the preindustrial era. In 2019, the average global temperature over land and ocean was 1.75 degrees F (0.95 degrees C) above the 20th-century average. That made 2019 the second hottest year on record, trailing only 2016.
This rise in heat is caused by humans. The burning of fossil fuels has released greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which trap warmth from the sun and drive up surface and air temperatures.
How the greenhouse effect plays a role
The main driver of today’s warming is the combustion of fossil fuels. These hydrocarbons heat up the planet via the greenhouse effect, which is caused by the interaction between Earth’s atmosphere and incoming radiation from the sun.
“The basic physics of the greenhouse effect were figured out more than a hundred years ago by a smart guy using only pencil and paper,” Josef Werne, a professor of geology and environmental science at the University of Pittsburgh, told Live Science.
That “smart guy” was Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish scientist and eventual Nobel Prize winner. Simply put, solar radiation hits Earth’s surface and then bounces back toward the atmosphere as heat. Gases in the atmosphere trap this heat, preventing it from escaping into the void of space (good news for life on the planet). In a paper presented in 1895, Arrhenius figured out that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide could trap heat close to the Earth’s surface, and that small changes in the amount of those gases could make a big difference in how much heat was trapped.
Where the greenhouse gases come from
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, humans have been rapidly changing the balance of gases in the atmosphere. Burning fossil fuels like coal and oil releases water vapor, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), ozone and nitrous oxide (N2O), the primary greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas. Between about 800,000 years ago and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, CO2’s presence in the atmosphere amounted to about 280 parts per million (ppm, meaning there were about 208 molecules of CO2 in the air per every million air molecules). As of 2018 (the last year when full data are available), the average CO2 in the atmosphere was 407.4 ppm, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.
That may not sound like much, but according to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, levels of CO2 haven’t been that high since the Pliocene epoch, which occurred between 3 million and 5 million years ago. At that time, the Arctic was ice-free at least part of the year and significantly warmer than it is today, according to 2013 research published in the journal Science.
In 2016, CO2 accounted for 81.6% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to an analysis from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
“We know through high-accuracy instrumental measurements that there is an unprecedented increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. We know that CO2 absorbs infrared radiation [heat] and the global mean temperature is increasing,” Keith Peterman, a professor of chemistry at York College of Pennsylvania, and his research partner, Gregory Foy, an associate professor of chemistry at York College of Pennsylvania, told Live Science in a joint email message.
CO2 makes its way into the atmosphere through a variety of routes. Burning fossil fuels releases CO2 and is, by far, the biggest U.S. contribution to emissions that warm the globe. According to the 2018 EPA report, U.S. fossil fuel combustion, including electricity generation, released just over 5.8 billion tons (5.3 billion metric tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere in 2016. Other processes — such as nonenergy use of fuels, iron and steel production, cement production, and waste incineration — boost the total annual CO2 release in the U.S. to 7 billion tons (6.5 billion metric tons).
Deforestation is also a large contributor to excess CO2 in the atmosphere. In fact, deforestation is the second largest anthropogenic (human-made) source of carbon dioxide, according to research published by Duke University. After trees die, they release the carbon they have stored during photosynthesis. According to the 2010 Global Forest Resources Assessment, deforestation releases nearly a billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere per year.
Globally, methane is the second most common greenhouse gas, but it is the most efficient at trapping heat. The EPA reports that methane is 25 times more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. In 2016, the gas accounted for about 10% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to the EPA.
Methane can come from many natural sources, but humans cause a large portion of methane emissions through mining, the use of natural gas, the mass raising of livestock and the use of landfills. Cattle constitute the largest single source of methane in the U.S., according to the EPA, with the animals producing nearly 26% of total methane emissions.
There are some hopeful trends in the numbers for U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. According to the 2018 EPA report, these emissions rose 2.4% between 1990 and 2016 but declined by 1.9% between 2015 and 2016.
Part of that decline was driven by a warm winter in 2016, which required less heating fuel than usual. But another significant reason for this recent decline is the replacement of coal with natural gas, according to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. The U.S. is also transitioning from a manufacturing-based economy to a less carbon-intensive service economy. Fuel-efficient vehicles and energy-efficiency standards for buildings have also improved emissions, according to the EPA.
Effects of global warming
Global warming doesn’t just mean warming, which is why “climate change” has become the favored term among researchers and policymakers. While the globe is becoming hotter on average, this temperature increase can have paradoxical effects, such as more frequent and severe snowstorms. Climate change can and will affect the globe in several big ways: by melting ice, by drying out already-arid areas, by causing weather extremes and by disrupting the delicate balance of the oceans.
Perhaps the most visible effect of climate change so far is the melting of glaciers and sea ice. The ice sheets have been retreating since the end of the last ice age, about 11,700 years ago, but the last century’s warming has hastened their demise. A 2016 study found that there is a 99% chance that global warming has caused the recent retreat of glaciers; in fact, the research showed, these rivers of ice retreated 10 to 15 times the distance they would have if the climate had stayed stable. Glacier National Park in Montana had 150 glaciers in the late 1800s. Today, it has 26. The loss of glaciers can cause the loss of human life, when icy dams holding back glacier lakes destabilize and burst or when avalanches caused by unstable ice bury villages.
At the North Pole, warming is proceeding twice as quickly as it is at middle latitudes, and the sea ice is showing the strain. Fall and winter ice in the Arctic hit record lows in both 2015 and 2016, meaning the ice expanse did not cover as much of the open sea as previously observed. According to NASA, the 13 smallest values for maximum winter extent of sea ice in the Arctic were all measured in the last 13 years. The ice also forms later in the season and melts more readily in spring. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, January sea ice extent has declined 3.15% per decade over the past 40 years. Some scientists think the Arctic Ocean will see ice-free summers within 20 or 30 years.
In the Antarctic, the picture has been a little less clear. The Western Antarctic Peninsula is warming faster than anywhere else besides some parts of the Arctic, according to the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition. The peninsula is where the Larsen C ice shelf just broke in July 2017, spawning an iceberg the size of Delaware. Now, scientists say that a quarter of West Antarctica’s ice is in danger of collapse and the enormous Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers are flowing five times faster than they did in 1992.
The sea ice off Antarctica is extremely variable, though, and some areas have actually hit record highs in recent years. However, those records could bear the fingerprints of climate change, as they may result from land-based ice moving out to sea as the glaciers melt or from warming-related changes to wind. In 2017, though, this pattern of record-high ice abruptly reversed, with the occurrence of a record low. On March 3, 2017, Antarctic sea ice was measured at an extent of 71,000 square miles (184,000 square kilometers) less than the previous low, from 1997.
Global warming will change things between the poles, too. Many already-dry areas are expected to get even drier as the world warms. The southwest and central plains of the United States, for example, are expected to experience decades-long “megadroughts” harsher than anything else in human memory.
“The future of drought in western North America is likely to be worse than anybody has experienced in the history of the United States,” Benjamin Cook, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City who published research in 2015 projecting these droughts, told Live Science. “These are droughts that are so far beyond our contemporary experience that they are almost impossible to even think about.”
The study predicted an 85% chance of droughts lasting at least 35 years in the region by 2100. The main driver, the researchers found, is the increasing evaporation of water from hotter and hotter soil. Much of the precipitation that does fall in these arid regions will be lost.
Meanwhile, 2014 research found that many areas will likely see less rainfall as the climate warms. Subtropical regions, including the Mediterranean, the Amazon, Central America and Indonesia, will likely be hardest hit, that study found, while South Africa, Mexico, western Australia and California will also dry out.
Another impact of global warming: extreme weather. Hurricanes and typhoons are expected to become more intense as the planet warms. Hotter oceans evaporate more moisture, which is the engine that drives these storms. The U.N Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that even if the world diversifies its energy sources and transitions to a less fossil-fuel-intensive economy (known as the A1B scenario), tropical cyclones are likely to be up to 11% more intense on average. That means more wind and water damage on vulnerable coastlines.
Paradoxically, climate change may also cause more frequent extreme snowstorms. According to the National Centers for Environmental Information, extreme snowstorms in the eastern United States have become twice as common as they were in the early 1900s. Here again, this change comes because warming ocean temperatures lead to increased evaporation of moisture into the atmosphere. This moisture powers storms that hit the continental United States.
Some of the most immediate impacts of global warming are beneath the waves. Oceans act as carbon sinks, which means they absorb dissolved carbon dioxide. That’s not a bad thing for the atmosphere, but it isn’t great for the marine ecosystem. When carbon dioxide reacts with seawater, the pH of the water declines (that is, it becomes more acidic), a process known as ocean acidification. This increased acidity eats away at the calcium carbonate shells and skeletons that many ocean organisms depend on for survival. These creatures include shellfish, pteropods and corals, according to NOAA.
Corals, in particular, are the canary in a coal mine for climate change in the oceans. Marine scientists have observed alarming levels of coral bleaching, events in which coral expel the symbiotic algae that provide the coral with nutrients and give them their vivid colors. Bleaching occurs when corals are stressed, and stressors can include high temperatures. In 2016 and 2017, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef experienced back-to-back bleaching events. Coral can survive bleaching, but repeated bleaching events make survival less and less likely.
There wasn’t a climate hiatus
Despite overwhelming scientific consensus about the causes and reality of global warming, the issue is contentious politically. For instance, deniers of climate change have argued that warming slowed between 1998 and 2012, a phenomenon known as the “climate change hiatus.”
Unfortunately for the planet, the hiatus never happened. Two studies, one published in the journal Science in 2015 and one published in 2017 in the journal Science Advances, reanalyzed the ocean temperature data that showed the warming slowdown and found that it was a mere measurement error. Between the 1950s and 1990s, most measurements of ocean temperature were taken aboard research boats. Water would be pumped into pipes through the engine room, which ended up heating the water slightly. After the 1990s, scientists began using ocean buoy-based systems, which were more accurate, to measure ocean temperatures. The problem came because no one corrected for the change in measurements between boats and buoys. Making those corrections showed that the oceans warmed 0.22 degrees F (0.12 degrees C) on average per decade since 2000, almost twice as fast as earlier estimates of 0.12 degrees F (0.07 degrees C) per decade. | <urn:uuid:fac2bcf6-5899-4ea5-bec2-f5f1aa40a402> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.peoplesreview.com.np/2020/03/18/what-is-global-warming/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370505359.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20200401003422-20200401033422-00074.warc.gz | en | 0.947937 | 2,948 | 4.09375 | 4 |
How can fish in a grocery store be labeled as both “Alaskan” and “Product of China” on the same package? The answer is that although much of the seafood sold in the United States is labeled with a foreign country of origin, some of that same seafood was actually caught in U.S. waters.
Under the Country of Origin Labeling program regulations – enforced by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service – when fish are caught in U.S. waters and then processed in a foreign country that foreign country of processing must appear on the package as the country of origin. This processing usually takes the form of filleting and packaging the fish into the cuts you see in the grocery store seafood department or frozen food aisle. However, if the fish was actually caught in Alaskan waters, retailers are also able to promote the Alaskan waters the fish was actually caught in, in addition to the country in which the processing occurred.
An example of this would be when a wild cod is caught off the coast of Alaska and, due to economic factors, is shipped to another country to be fabricated into fillets and packaged. If this process of turning a whole fish into packaged fillets occurs in China, the cod fillets are declared “Wild Caught Product of China” upon import into the United States. However, if the importer can demonstrate that the cod was caught in Alaskan waters, the packaged cod fillets are also eligible to say “Alaskan”.
The Country of Origin Labeling regulations require most grocery stores to provide the country of origin for fish and shellfish, and the method of production (farm-raised or wild-caught), at the point of sale where consumers make purchasing decisions. Suppliers to retailers, including distributors, repackers, processing facilities, harvesters, and importers, are also required to convey this Country of Origin Labeling information to their subsequent buyers.
The Country of Origin Labeling program, in close partnership with many State and Federal agencies, assesses labeling compliance in grocery store locations across the United States every year. In addition, the Country of Origin Labeling program audits the supply chain to verify the accuracy of country of origin and method of production declarations.
Not only are seafood labels checked for mandatory country of origin labeling declarations, but much of the fruits and vegetables, peanuts, pecans, macadamia nuts, ginseng, lamb, goat, and chicken at your local grocery store must also include country of origin information. For more information about the mandatory Country of Origin Labeling program, visit: www.ams.usda.gov/cool.
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So is this exchange of cod part of the COOL Act that designates meat labeling changes?
Trade has gone array while we were sleeping, it seems. Handling of food is not being monitored the way U.S. Americans believe.
I knew about this issue and am glad to see it brought into the limelight.
The more people know, then actions to stop bad practices can be best addressed.
Why are the rules for some stores and not all? Name stores exempt from this requirement please.
@Michael Pace - thank you for your question about which retail food stores are subject to COOL requirements. Stores that annually sell only small amounts of fruits and vegetables, and other retail fish markets and butcher shops that do not purchase fruits and vegetables for resale in an amount greater than the $230,000, are not considered retailers under this law and are not subject to COOL requirements. USDA has no authority to maintain records on the name and address of stores that are exempt from COOL requirements.
There are more than 37,000 facilities nationwide that are required to provide country of origin information on covered commodities at the point of sale. They include national firms such as Walmart, Kroger, Safeway, and Costco.
Is the USDA working to bring back labeling for beef and pork or is that requirement gone for good?
@Kristen Waring - While the ultimate fate of COOL for beef and pork at the federal level was decided two years ago after Canada and Mexico filed a dispute with the World Trade Organization, proposals recently began circulating among certain states requiring retailers to indicate the country of origin of beef sold.
Since 2016 retailers and their suppliers are no longer required to convey country of origin information for beef or pork products to their buyers and consumers under the mandatory COOL program. Imported beef and pork products sold in consumer ready packages however, must still bear the foreign country of origin under USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) regulations.
In general, packers and retailers may voluntarily provide origin information to their consumers, as long as the information is truthful and not misleading. Packers and retailers should work directly with FSIS for guidance and label review.
Country of origin information for the remaining covered commodities must still be conveyed to buyers and consumers. For additional questions about COOL, please visit: www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/cool, contact the COOL Program by e-mail, firstname.lastname@example.org, or by phone (202) 720-4486.
USDA’s Economic Research Service recently released a comprehensive study that sheds light on the issue of food labels, including COOL. The findings offers excellent background about retail compliance with COOL as well as consumer information regarding labels. For a copy of this report, please view the Beyond Nutrition and Organic Labels—30 Years of Experience With Intervening in Food Labels report.
We only buy food grown and processed in the USA. If there is any confusion, we figure we can do without.
All products packaged in China and Korea should be banned from entering the United States.
Insane. I will never buy fish again in america until the USDA bans chinese imported and processed fish. China has ZERO health regulations and this once again shows the USDA putting Americans health at risk. Shame on you!
Not COOL I do not trust the Chinese government. They are notorious for not breaking the law.
Country of origin labeling
When fish are caught in U.S. waters and then processed in a foreign country that foreign country of processing must appear on the package as the country of origin. If the fish was actually caught in Alaskan waters, retailers are also able to promote the Alaskan waters the fish was actually caught in.
Fish caught in Alaska but processed into say fillets and packaged in China must be labeled in china must be labeled as coming from China.
I do believe this labeling is misleading to consumers if they were fished in one country and processed in another the labeling should always say the correct country of origin then say processed in the other country. I'm not sure if it is harmful or helpful to domestic producers unless other countries are monopolizing U.S. waters too much or if they can farm our own fish and sell it to us cheaper than we can produce it ourselves. If we produce in a similar a competitive product at a comparable price I don't see how it could be harmful.
Why can't we process here in USA?
Very good and interesting information - explains it well...thanks.
How do we know that the packaged fish from China is actually the wild caught Alaskan type as claimed? Is there any oversight in China? How's about integrity of their goods and their past history of adding all sorts of fish cuts to their final product....
It's a shame that the packaging is mosly mis-leading as the "product of China" is in small print...
Inquiry still remains and not answered. If product purchased states it was caught in Alaskan waters but ------- processed in China, is the processing of COD filets SAFE for consumption?
How is the Alaskan cod processed in China?????
@jane - thank you for your interest in the Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) regulation. You asked about the food safety of Cod fillets labeled as “caught in Alaskan waters, processed in China.” COOL is a federal retail labeling law that requires retailers (most grocery stores and supermarkets) to provide country of origin information to consumers for certain covered commodities. Commodities subject to the law and regulation include muscle cuts and ground portions of chicken, lamb and goat meat; fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables; wild caught and farm-raised fish and shellfish; raw peanuts, pecans, macadamia nuts, and ginseng. The intent of the law is to provide consumers with additional information on which to base their purchasing decisions in grocery stores and supermarkets. COOL is not a food safety initiative Other federal agencies address food safety standards and conduct food safety inspections.
USDA does not have authority to regulate food safety of fish and shellfish species other than catfish. Catfish inspection is carried out by USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service. Food safety of all other fish and shellfish species is regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). FDA’s Seafood Safety Division and NOAA Fisheries may be better able to answer your question regarding the specifics of food safety protocols and inspections on Cod fillets labeled as you describe.
The FDA Seafood Safety Division’s website www.fda.gov/seafood provides up-to-date consumer information and advice, guidance documents and regulations for industry, as well as science and research content for anyone interested in seafood.
NOAA Fisheries operates as Seafood Inspection Program. Information about NOAA Fisheries’ seafood inspections can be accessed at: www.fisheries.noaa.gov/insight/noaas-seafood-inspection-program
We suggest you submit your question to FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) using their Inquiry Form page: cfsan.secure.force.com/Inquirypage
You may also contact NOAA Fisheries using their “Contact Us” page: www.fisheries.noaa.gov/contact-us
Thank you again for your interest in COOL. If you have additional questions about any aspect of USDA’s COOL regulation and its administration, please contact USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service’s Food Disclosure and Labeling Division by e-mail: email@example.com or by phone: (202) 720-4486.
Thanks for the info. I can. Eat my fish now with no. Doubt about its edibility. | <urn:uuid:fc9a8a19-ace0-4fcc-a21f-25488f5109c3> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2016/12/05/tale-fish-two-countries | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370496227.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20200329201741-20200329231741-00034.warc.gz | en | 0.939164 | 2,192 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Undeclared Allergens and Gluten in Halloween-Themed Candies and Chocolate Products – April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2019
Food allergen - Targeted surveys
PDF (639 kb)
Targeted surveys provide information on potential food hazards and enhance the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's (CFIA's) routine monitoring programs. These surveys provide evidence regarding the safety of the food supply, identify potential emerging hazards, and contribute new information and data to food categories where it may be limited or non-existent. We use them to focus surveillance on potential areas of higher risk. Surveys can also help identify trends and provide information about how industry complies with Canadian regulations.
Food allergies can affect people of all ages but are particularly common in children. Food allergens can represent a serious or life threatening health risk for allergic individuals. Additionally, although it is not considered an allergen, undeclared gluten may contribute to chronic health issues for those individuals with celiac disease or gluten sensitivity. Allergens and gluten can be found in food due to their presence in the raw ingredients or they can be accidentally introduced along the food production chain due to cross contamination. Regardless of the source of the allergens, industry must ensure that the food produced is safe for human consumption, either by complying with specific Canadian regulations where applicable or by keeping the levels as low as reasonably possible.
The main objective of this survey was to obtain baseline information regarding the presence and levels of undeclared allergens and gluten in Halloween-themed candies and chocolate products. Of the 356 samples tested, 10 were found to contain undeclared allergens, specifically beta-lactoglobulin (BLG) and casein.
All positive results obtained during the course of these surveys were forwarded to the CFIA's Office of Food Safety and Recall (OFSR) to determine if the levels found would pose a health concern to allergic individuals. The extent of the follow-up actions taken by the Agency is based on the level of the contamination and the resulting health concern as determined by a health risk assessment. 4 Halloween-themed candies containing both BLG and casein were deemed to represent a health risk and were recalled.
What are targeted surveys
Targeted surveys are used by the CFIA to focus its surveillance activities on areas of higher health risk. The information gained from these surveys provides support for the allocation and prioritization of the Agency's activities to areas of greater concern. Targeted surveys are a valuable tool for generating information on certain hazards in foods, identifying and characterizing new and emerging hazards, informing trend analysis, prompting and refining health risk assessments, highlighting potential contamination issues, as well as assessing and promoting compliance with Canadian regulations.
Food safety is a shared responsibility. The Agency works with federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments and provides regulatory oversight of the food industry to promote safe handling of foods throughout the food production chain. The food industry and retail sectors in Canada are responsible for the food they produce and sell, while individual consumers are responsible for the safe handling of the food they have in their possession.
Why did we conduct this survey
Approximately 7% of Canadians have self-reported as having at least 1 food allergy, but the actual number of medically confirmed food allergies is expected to be slightly lowerFootnote 1. It is believed that the rate of food allergies is increasing, particularly among children. Food allergies are estimated to affect up to 5% of adults and up to 8% of children in developed countriesFootnote 2. Food allergens are food proteins that can cause a reaction of the body's immune system, and can represent a serious or life threatening health risk for allergic individuals, or contribute to chronic health issues for those with pre-existing health conditions like celiac disease. Celiac disease is a chronic reaction where the body reacts to a component of gluten which can damage or destroy certain intestinal cells. Approximately 1% of the total population are affected with celiac diseaseFootnote 3.
The priority food allergens are the 10 most common food allergens that are associated with severe allergic or allergy-like reactions in Canada. These allergens consist of peanuts, tree nuts, sesame, seafood (fish, shellfish and crustaceans), eggs, milk, soy, mustard, sulphites, and wheatFootnote 4. Gluten, while not a true allergen, is a family of proteins found in certain grains like wheat, rye, barley, kamut, and spelt and is included in this listFootnote 5. Gluten can cause digestive problems and other issues for people with certain health conditions such as celiac disease and gluten sensitivity. This makes proper identification and labeling of allergens in food by the manufacturer essential.
Undeclared allergens can be found in foods due to their presence in the raw ingredients, or can be accidentally introduced along the food production chain through cross contamination. Regardless of the source of the allergens, industry must ensure that the food they produce is safe for human consumption. This can be achieved by complying with specific Canadian regulations where applicable, or by keeping the levels as low as reasonably possible.
This was the first survey conducted by the Agency for undeclared allergens and gluten in Halloween-themed candies and chocolate products. The main objective of this survey was to obtain baseline information regarding the presence and levels of undeclared allergens including egg, mustard, sesame, soy, peanut, almond, hazelnut, gluten, and the milk proteins casein and BLG in Halloween-themed candies and chocolate products.
All products were tested "as sold," meaning that they were not prepared as per the manufacturer's instructions or as they would typically be consumed.
What did we sample
All products were sampled between April 2018 and March 2019. Samples were collected from local and regional grocery stores located in 6 major cities across Canada. These cities encompassed 4 geographical areas: Atlantic (Halifax), Quebec (Montreal), Ontario (Toronto, Ottawa) and the West (Vancouver, Calgary). The number of samples collected from these cities was in proportion to the relative population of the respective areas.
The following products were not included in the survey:
- products with all of the following allergens in the list of ingredients – almond, hazelnut, peanut, mustard, sesame, soy/soybean, egg, milk, and wheat, barley, oats, rye, triticale, or gluten
- products with a precautionary statement for all priority allergens
- non pre-packaged products
- products with multi-flavours
- products with no list of ingredients
- products past the best before date
|Sample type||Domestic||Imported||Unspecified originTable Note a||Total|
- Table Note a
Unspecified refers to those samples for which a country of origin could not be determined from the product label or available sample information.
How were samples analyzed and assessed
Samples were analyzed by an ISO/IEC 17025 accredited food testing laboratory under contract with the Government of Canada. The samples were tested as sold, meaning that the product was tested as-is and not as prepared according to package instructions.
In Canada, food allergens and gluten must be declared in the list of ingredient if they are present in the prepackaged product in order to comply with the requirements of the Food and Drug Regulations Section B.01.010.1. A prepackaged product will be deemed non-compliant if any level of undeclared allergens and gluten is detected.
Health Canada considers that gluten-free foods, prepared under good manufacturing practices, which contain levels of gluten not exceeding 20 parts per million (ppm) (due to cross contamination) meet the intent of the Food and Drug Regulations Section B.24.018 for a gluten-free claim.
What were the survey results
Over 97% of all Halloween-themed candy and chocolate products sampled in this survey did not contain any detectable levels of allergens. 10 samples were positive for BLG and/or casein.
Table 2: Levels of undeclared allergens and gluten in Halloween-themed candies and chocolate products in ppm
|Autumn mix candy||0.6||0|
|Marshmallows with a chocolaty coating-1||14||330|
|Marshmallows with a chocolaty coating-2||22||340|
|Marshmallows with a chocolaty coating-3||0.8||350|
|Kids mix 20 flavours kids love 25 fun packs -1||1||0|
|Kids mix 20 flavours kids love 25 fun packs -2||0.2||0|
|Kids mix 20 flavours kids love 25 fun packs -3||1.3||0|
What do the survey results mean
Of the 356 samples tested in this survey, over 97% did not contain any detectable levels of allergens and gluten, while only 10 samples were found to contain varying levels of BLG and/or casein.
Of the 10 samples with positive results, 4 samples contained both undeclared BLG and casein, 5 samples contained undeclared BLG alone and 1 sample contained undeclared casein alone. Both BLG (one of the whey proteins) and casein are major milk proteins. Casein derivatives such as sodium caseinate have favorable emulsification and stabilization functions as well as viscosity increasing, adhesive, foaming and foam stabilizing functions, so they are used as emulsifier and thickening agent in processed food including candies and chocolate productsFootnote 6. Whey protein is also used as emulsifier in confectionary production as it have a good emulsifying property as wellFootnote 7 Footnote 8. Low levels of BLG and casein found in this survey could be introduced into the product due to cross contamination in an ingredient or the final product.
The extent of the follow-up actions taken by the CFIA is based on the level of contamination and the resulting health concern as determined by a health risk assessment. Appropriate follow-up actions include additional sample testing, facility inspection and product recall. The health risk assessment is based on exposure to the allergens and gluten through consumption. The exposure is calculated by using the typical serving sizes for each food. Assessment based on serving size means not all detectable levels of undeclared allergens and gluten in food will cause a reaction in an allergic individual.
All positive results were forwarded to the OFSR for follow-up and 4 products containing both undeclared BLG and casein were deemed to represent a health risk and were recalled Footnote 9 Footnote 10. No published literature could be found on the similar topic for results comparison.
This survey generated new information on the background level of undeclared allergens and gluten in Halloween-themed candies and chocolate products collected from 6 cities across Canada. Information gathered in this survey, in conjunction with other data including the Canadian Total Diet Study and Statistics Canada's Canadian Health Measures Survey food consumption data, are critical in assessing the health risk that our food supply poses to Canadian consumers. The results of the CFIA's surveillance activities are also used to inform the Canadian public and stakeholders by raising consumer awareness and help build public confidence in their food supply by removing non-compliant products.
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In order to be healthy, we are supposed to be eating seeds and nuts nowadays, just as our ancestors did about 3.3 million years ago, not only because they are extremely nutritious and also because they are great sources of fiber. Besides that, they contain healthy monounsaturated fats, polyunsaturated fats as well as many important vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. If they are consumed regularly, they can all help to reduce blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure. Some people are following the Stone Age Diet, often called the Paleolithic Diet or the Paleo diet, and they eat only what they think was available during the Paleolithic Era. That was the era in which our ancestors first developed stone tools, aka the Stone Age. To follow such a diet nowadays may seem a bit radical, but on the other hand, to ignore the natural benefits of including more seeds in our diets definitely seems unintelligent. Seeds are plant-based, and we know that such foods are associated with improving many health conditions, including obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Here is an outline of the healthy benefits seeds have.
Caraway seeds are those seeds usually found in rye bread, and they are added to this kind of bread specifically to counter the bloating that the high fiber content of rye often causes. Caraway is often confused with cumin, and they are similar. But ground cumin is hotter to taste, and the seeds are larger. Rye is a grain in the wheat family and also used in many kinds of beer. But to get back to caraway seeds, besides taking care of our bloating problems, they generally aid our digestive systems and have anti-flatulent properties. But that’s not all; they have several flavonoid antioxidants that remove harmful radicals from our bodies and therefore protect us from cancer, ageing and degenerative neurological diseases like Parkinson’s.
Caraway seeds have calcium, potassium, copper, zinc and iron, among other things. Copper and iron are necessary for the production of red blood cells and they help to regulate the growth and development of sperm. Potassium helps in controlling our heart rate and blood pressure. Zinc, which is actually a metal, is particularly good for growth in childhood and healing. Caraway seeds also contain vitamins A, E and C as well as a number of B-complex vitamins. Vitamin A has many health benefits, but is in particular important for vision. Vitamin E, just to jog your memory, is especially good for skin, immunity and eyes. And you probably already know that Vitamin C is necessary for the growth, development and repair of all body tissues. B-complex vitamins are those important vitamins that are water-soluble, which means that your body does not store them, so you need to supply your body with them every day through your diet. Generally speaking, they convert nutrients into energy, but they run the metabolism part of your body also, and help with neurotransmitter and red blood cell production, among other things. Caraway seeds, they are also a rich source of fiber, which is vital for digestive health. They work by speeding up the process of moving food through your system while at the same time they play an anti-carcinogenic role by binding to toxins in food, protecting the colon from cancer. And last but not least, caraway seeds lower the levels of the bad LDL cholesterol.
Chia Seeds have all the good things that other seeds do, but they have a special plus in that they contain something that increases ALA in blood. ALA is an omega-3 fatty acid that can help to reduce inflammation. Studies show that Chia seeds help to reduce blood sugar and blood pressure and they even reduce appetites. Vegans mix them with water to replace eggs when they cook. You can buy chia seeds in two colors; black or white, but if you see them in a brown color, that means they are unripe. Nutritionally, white and black are the same. You can eat them raw, but they should be added to another food or soaked before eating. The Aztecs were eating chia seeds way back in 3500 BCE, and as a matter of fact, it was one of the main foods in their diet. But they also considered chia seeds sacred and used them as a sacrifice in their religious ceremonies. Later, between 1500 and 900 BC, chia was cultivated in Mexico by the Teotihuacan and Toltec people. They used it as a medicine, and ground into flour, which they mixed into drinks, or pressed for oil. They have more omega-3s, calcium, phosphorus and fiber than flaxseeds, which is where we are going next. Most people do not consume enough of these essential nutrients.
Linseeds are usually eaten ground, and come from a crop that is called flax and is planted in cooler regions of the world. You are probably familiar with the use of them to make the textile linen, which is traditionally used for bed sheets, underclothes and table linen, sometimes in the form of damasks and lace. The oil extracted from them is known as linseed oil, which is used in varnish for wood finishing, or as a pigment binder in oil paints and even in the manufacturing of linoleum. As far as we know, wild linseed was first used in what is the Republic of Georgia today, and spun, dyed and knotted wild fibers were found in caves dated 30,000 years ago. There is proof that it was domesticated in Syria 9,000 years ago. Linseed is grown for its flax seeds, which are a popular nutritional supplement nowadays. Many people have trouble digesting this kind of seeds, and that is why it is better to eat them after they’ve been ground. After they are ground, they are called flax. You can put the flax in your juice, or even eat them on top of your potatoes. They are good for all kinds of things, but just to mention a few, they can help reduce cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure. They also reduce the risk of breast cancer and prostate cancer due to something called lignans that are similar to the female sex hormone estrogen. Flax is a great laxative, but can cause constipation if not taken with enough water.
Hemp seeds are from the cannabis Sativa plant, which was one of the first plants to be spun into usable fiber 10,000 years ago. Don’t expect hemp seeds to alter your mood. Vegetarians eat them because they are so high in protein. As a matter of fact, they are one of the few seeds that are complete protein sources. They do everything the other seeds do, but in particular they produce nitric oxide in your body, which is a gas molecule that makes your blood vessels dilate and relax, leading to lowered blood pressure and a reduced risk of heart attacks. Hemp seeds also act as anti-inflammatories and they improve eczema. They are excellent to regulate the immune system and have neuroprotective effects and so they help some people with neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis. You can’t go wrong.
Poppy seeds are believed to have originated in the Mediterranean and in ancient Egypt; doctors used to prescribe poppy seeds to patients as pain relievers. The earliest reports of the poppy plant dates back to 3,000 years ago. Poppy seeds come in three different colors, black, blue and white, and are the source of opium, which is not included in most everyday diets. But if you just eat them on top of bread or a pastry instead of making opium, you will be nourishing your bones with phosphorus and iron, and also your brain and its neurotransmitters with the calcium and magnesium they contain. As these seeds contain an abundance of copper and iron, they also improve red blood cell formation, which prevents anemia and other blood-related conditions. Since poppy seeds relax you, they can help with the symptoms of insomnia. They are also good for constipation and other digestive problems, and actually enhance brain function because of their calcium, iron and magnesium content.
Pumpkin seeds are probably the most commonly consumed types of seeds worldwide. Pumpkins are thought to have originated in Mexico, and seeds have been found there that date back to between 7,000 – 5500 BCE. The ones that we buy to eat as snacks usually don’t have a shell, but if you roast the seeds from a pumpkin that you just ate or carved up, you’ll keep the hard shell. Pumpkin seeds are a good source of phytosterols, which are plant compounds that help lower blood cholesterol. There have been many studies that concluded that pumpkin seeds significantly reduce the risk of breast cancer, prostate cancer and of gall bladder stones because they reduce the amount of calcium in urine. In general, pumpkin seeds are good for all the basics that the other seeds are as they contain iron, zinc, copper, protein and etc. but their special benefit is that pumpkin seeds are useful for reducing symptoms of all urinary disorders. For example, studies show that people with overactive bladders improve their urinary functions greatly when they ate 10 grams of pumpkin seed daily. And, as a bonus, because pumpkin seeds are so rich in zinc, they improve sperm quality, which in turn reduces the risk of infertility in men.
Sesame seeds are probably the oldest condiment known to man and our species has been planting them for over 3,500 years. They are native to India and Africa and today, Tanzania, Myanmar, India and Sudan are the largest producers. Sesame seeds contain lignans, the same as flaxseeds, except that sesame seeds are considered a better source of lignans. Sesame seeds help reduce inflammation and oxidative stress, and that in turn reduces diseases like arthritis and knee osteoarthritis, and they increase aerobic capacity! They help to prevent cancer and heart disease, for the same reasons that the other seeds do, but with an added plus. Sesame seeds also contain phytate, a rare cancer-preventing compound. Sesame seeds also have zinc, which helps to produce male sex hormones. Studies show that infertile men, who were given sesame seeds for three months, showed a significant improvement in their sperm count and motility. But on top of that, they reduce dental plaque and help to avoid depression and reduce stress. If you are going to have a fast food meal, at least make sure the roll has sesame seeds on top.
Sunflower seeds are very good to reduce inflammation and cholesterol levels. Sunflowers have been cultivated since 2600 BCE in Mesoamerica and are one of the world’s fastest growing plants. They are especially good for middle-aged or older people because they reduce triglycerides in the blood, bad cholesterol and C-reactive protein (CRP), a key chemical involved in inflammation. But that’s not all; they contain the minerals magnesium, phosphorus and copper, which ensure good mineralization, which means good “density” to support the weight our bones must support. Sunflower seeds also promote healthy detoxification, and the magnesium they contain has a beneficial effect on our moods by helping to improve brain levels of serotonin. This also helps to reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which in high amounts inhibits the neurotransmitters responsible for good moods. And as a bonus, sunflower seeds help to promote weight loss in some people because their fiber adds bulk to the stomach, which slows down absorption and keeps you feeling full for longer, while at the same time the B vitamins help to ensure that macronutrients are broken down in a more efficient way.
Practice mindful eating this New Year. Choose food that is both satisfying and nourishing for your body. Keep an open mind and try some of the seeds above, and be aware of how your body reacts to them. Put some seeds in your salads, bread, yogurt, granola, peanut butter, Nutella, chicken or just snack on them. Mix flax into your juice. Try eating 30 grams (2 tablespoons) of seeds per day for 3 weeks and see if you feel a positive change in your body.
All of the seeds mentioned in the post are good for your heart, your blood production and your cholesterol level. But some of them are helpful for special conditions. Here is a short memory test about common ailments that certain seeds can help with. If you don’t get all of them right, you probably need to include more seeds in your diet, as almost all seeds are good for your memory.
1. Which seeds help with insomnia?
2. Which seeds improve sperm quality?
3. Which seeds help to reduce your farts?
4. Which seeds helpful when you have an overactive bladder?
5. Which seeds help to reduce dental plaque?
6. Which seeds can reduce your appetite?
7. Which seeds can control constipation?
8. Which seeds can help with your bone density?
9. Which seeds can reduce the risk of breast cancer and prostate cancer?
10. Which seeds can improve your serotonin level?
The word cliffhanger comes from cliffs. Duh. Cliffs are vertical, or nearly vertical, rocks that have been formed by erosion and weathering. There are lots of famous cliffs, but the first ones that come to my mind are the White Cliffs of Dover, probably because there was a popular World War II song about them that was part of my childhood, and also because they are on the historical English coastline.
When one thinks of cliffhangers, England and its gothic novels always come to mind. Cliffhangers are the kind of story, book or movie that uses suspense either at the end of an episode or a scene. A good example was the way the final episode of Game of Thrones, season 5, was done. Jon Snow was dead. Or was he? Those of us who sweated it out until season 6 was aired were never really sure. The writers used old-fashioned melodrama, suspense and uncertainty, and the audience was left as if hanging from a cliff in a state of tension and apprehension. And that’s a true cliffhanger.
This part of the blog will not be able to offer any nail-biting cliffhangers, but it will have classes in series, and I hope they will be interesting enough that you will want to come back and read what happens next, even if you don’t lose sleep anticipating the next chapter. Enjoy. | <urn:uuid:77e9d65b-34d6-4fd0-8c90-4a9f833ffc41> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://bybetsy.com.br/flavor/seeds/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371818008.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20200408135412-20200408165912-00154.warc.gz | en | 0.97072 | 2,997 | 2.984375 | 3 |
What Is Accountability: The Complete Guide
In this guide, you’ll learn the full meaning of accountability, how it works, and why it matters. When it comes to creating positive change and achieving your goals, this six-syllable word could transform your life.
What Is Accountability?
First, let’s define accountability for this guide. Most dictionaries describe it as the quality or state of being accountable. But here’s a more complete and specific definition:
Accountability is the quality of taking personal responsibility for your decisions and actions by sharing them with a trusted partner.
Being accountable can be as simple as making a commitment and sharing it with a friend. However, an accountability partnership can involve more than two individuals. For example, children can—and should—be accountable to their parents, while larger groups or corporations may also be held accountable for their choices.
Accountability is a tool for growth.
Sadly, the idea of being accountable often suffers from a negative stereotype. So to be clear, accountability does not mean surveillance and invasion of privacy, or unwarranted criticism and finding fault. And it is also not about probation and punishment when you mess up.
Instead, accountability is a tool for growth. The mindset of an accountable person pursues self-improvement. Accountability means commitment. It means recognizing and embracing the fact that you are responsible for you.
Who Needs Accountability?
You’ve probably heard the perspective that accountability is only for people who are struggling with a specific issue. Also, parents often see accountability as something to keep their children safe, while believing they don’t need it for themselves. But both of these are misconceptions. People who think this way fail to recognize the benefits of accountability to help them succeed.
Accountability is for those who desire to grow and change.
When it’s done right, anyone can benefit from accountability! Did you know that you are far more likely to fulfill your goals and obligations if you commit to sharing your plan and progress with a trusted partner? Various studies have confirmed this effect, including one by Professor Gail Matthews of the Dominican University of California.
So instead of viewing accountability as a stigma to avoid, think of it as a privilege to be sought after! Find dependable companions who can help you avoid failure and find growing success in life.
For example, the average American walks about 5,000 to 7,500 steps per day. Suppose you make a personal goal of logging at least 10,000 steps each day. What happens to your motivation if you have committed to reporting your daily count to a trusted partner who is rooting for you? You would be more inclined to make sure you get your steps in.
Accountability is for those who desire to grow and change. Is that you?
How Accountability Works for Your Success
Working with one or more trusted partners will bring greater success in fulfilling commitments and accomplishing your goals. Here’s how the process of accountability can impact your life and help create positive change.
1. Living Deliberately
Accountability is an attitude, a willingness, a state of mind. It begins with a desire to live intentionally—correcting errors and moving forward.
Evaluate your choices, motives, and actions. Avoid wandering toward bad things or merely wasting time. An accountable person acknowledges that progress often comes less from instant cures and more through a steady journey.
Before you commit, make sure you have invested the necessary time to define your goal and craft an action plan to achieve it. These important steps will help you get the most out of your accountability partnership.
2. Demonstrating Your Integrity
Integrity is completeness and consistency across your entire life. It is a match between what you claim to be and what you do.
Everything you do either confirms or challenges who you are and who you want to be. Demonstrate your integrity and build trust with those you love and respect.
3. Communicating with Your Partner
Build camaraderie with your accountability partner by reporting your plan and your progress along the way. Healthy friendships can encourage and motivate you toward success.
Good communication with your partner is important to make the most of this relationship. Receive the help others want to provide, and invite strategic feedback from your trusted partner. Sometimes you don’t even know what is lacking or needs improvement in your life. You can benefit from an objective partner who is willing to speak the truth to help you accomplish more.
4. Sharing Relevant Details About Your Life
Be strategically transparent and honest about those aspects of your life that relate to your goal or commitment. Consider sharing the following:
- The goal or commitment you intend to achieve (like spending less time on social media, maintaining purity online, or limiting the places you visit).
- Your attitudes, beliefs, desires, and decisions surrounding your commitment.
- Past and present actions and habits that have helped or hindered your progress.
- Your next steps forward.
5. Achieving Your Commitments
By sharing relevant details about your life, you will find a higher commitment to do what you said you would do. You take action knowing that a trusted partner will ask you about your progress.
The accountability relationship focuses on the commitment to be achieved. Sure, you will experience ups and downs along the path. But you and your partner bring the proper perspective on your successes and failures, you implement solutions, and you always keep the desired end in sight.
Open communication with a trusted partner can help you build excellence in all areas of life. You can learn from your mistakes and keep focused on your goals and obligations.
Keep Moving Forward!
You want to change and grow, right? Then enlist trusted partners to help you succeed. Accountability is part of the path toward improving yourself.
Accountability is a blessing that doesn’t need a disguise.
If others are dictating what you do and how you do it, you are limited in your growth and your motivation to carry it forward. If you decide and act according to your own will, you are more likely to succeed.
Don’t make your accountability partner feel like they have to force you to follow through on your commitments. They shouldn’t have to constantly persuade you to press on toward the goal.
What can you do to make your life better? Decide now to make the choices and take the actions that only you can do. Fulfill your goals and commitments by the proper use of accountability. Accountability is a blessing that doesn’t need a disguise.
Build Confidence and Earn Trust
The concepts of accountability and responsibility work closely together, and they can overlap in meaning. Being accountable presumes that you are responsible. Both practices build confidence in yourself and earn trust from others.
Yes, you will encounter obstacles, challenges, and setbacks along the way. Seek to be reconciled with anyone you have hurt and make restitution when appropriate. Remember that the past is for learning from not for living in. You live in the present with a view toward the future.
Levels of Accountability
It’s important to note that different levels of accountability will produce varying results. For example, being observed is a form of accountability. Of course, observation alone is not as impactful as actively reporting your status to someone regularly. Similarly, having a trusted friend give feedback about your progress will have a greater effect if you choose to thoughtfully respond to his comments and questions.
Consider how you can get the most out of your partnership by committing to the appropriate level of accountability.
How to Find a Good Accountability Partner
If you’ve read this far, you clearly are a person who wants to change and grow. So how can you find a good accountability partner to support you along the way? Let’s consider who could be a good fit for you.
You may want different accountability partners for different areas of your life.
Start cultivating an array of trusted friends who can help you succeed in life and whom you can also encourage and build up. Ideally, these should be people whom you know personally and are local or otherwise easily reachable.
Where to start looking? You could find a good accountability partner in any of these existing relationships:
- Brother or sister
- A member of your church
- A colleague at work or via a professional network
- A trusted friend on social media
You may want different accountability partners for different areas of your life. For example, you might have a partner to share your exercise and fitness goals with, and you might have another partner to hold you accountable financially. You could have someone else help you with spiritual or work-related commitments as well.
When finding an accountability partner, be careful about enlisting people who know you perhaps too well. They might not be objective about your successes and failures. They might have emotional or other obstacles—possibly influenced by your past failures—that would prevent them from assisting you. Close family members and friends also might not want to hurt you with the truth and so would hold back necessary correction.
How to Ask Someone to Be a Partner
How you approach someone to be a partner depends on the level of accountability you are seeking to establish. Having someone receive status reports from you would be different than someone you invite to evaluate your progress and ask questions. Think through what you are asking a potential partner to do so they can make a wise decision.
Think through what you are asking a potential partner to do.
You could approach a prospective partner by saying, “I am working to [describe your goal]. May I give you regular updates on my success to encourage me to persevere?” If you want them to evaluate your progress and ask you questions, be sure to make that clear to them. Also, specify how often you would expect to talk about your commitment and if you’ll meet face-to-face or via some other means.
After a month, evaluate the relationship. Is the person available, reliable, and responsive? Does the partner treat this as a priority? Are they helpful to your progress? If your partner consistently fails to meet expectations, you may need to find a different partner who is more committed or compatible.
What to Share with Your Accountability Partner
As you establish an accountability partnership, you’ll need to decide how much to share with that person. The answer depends on who your partner is, the level of accountability you want, and what you are seeking accountability for.
Who Is the Partner?
If you are married, strive to be transparent with your spouse about everything. Keeping secrets in marriage tends toward disharmony, suspicion, arguments, and worse. Instead, seek open, honest communication with your spouse to build intimacy and trust.
Besides your spouse, you will likely have multiple specific partners for various aspects of your life. What you share with them depends on what you want them to observe and evaluate.
What Are You Seeking Accountability for?
Make sure you give your partner enough information to effectively evaluate your success. Consider sharing any of these elements:
- The goal or obligation you intend to achieve.
- Your attitudes, beliefs, desires, and decisions surrounding your commitment.
- Past and present actions that have helped or hindered your progress.
- Your steps forward.
Don’t make excuses. Tell your own story and refrain from degrading others.
You may also share other specifics as appropriate. However, avoid overburdening your partner with nonessential information. Keep your words pure and positive. Don’t make excuses. Tell your own story and refrain from degrading others.
Keep your success in view as you determine what to share. What will help move you forward?
Getting the Full Benefit of Accountability
Putting accountability in place is a major step on the path to success, but it doesn’t work on autopilot. You have committed to improving yourself, and this takes work.
So, what are some key attitudes and actions you must have to improve with accountability?
1. Humble Yourself
It takes humility to commit to change. You have already acknowledged that you are not perfect, so continue to admit your failings and faults. Recognize your shortcomings and work to fix them.
Humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less.
You have asked someone to help you, so welcome their assistance. Openly respond to their questions without becoming defensive. Receive criticism and discern the truth. Be thankful and say so.
Being humble does not mean you should be insecure or timid. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.
Once you have gained some success, maintain an unpretentious attitude. Instead of showing contempt for others who still need to change and grow, share your knowledge, tips, and successes with them. Seek not to elevate yourself in their eyes but to build them up and encourage them to pursue victories for themselves.
2. Deal in Truth
Communication is a key aspect of effective accountability. You’ve enlisted the help of a trusted partner, so be trustworthy to them too.
Dishonesty kills accountability.
Share relevant details with your partner in an open, truthful, and transparent way. Honesty and sincerity help move you forward. Hiding or lying about pertinent details does not help your progress, and neither does responding defensively to questions from your partner. Dishonesty kills accountability.
Remember that you asked this person to be your partner. He or she should have your best interests in mind. You need to feel safe entrusting personal details to this person.
You may also want to communicate with your partner immediately if you are on the verge of failure, or to give context to a real or perceived setback. Talk about what matters, what affects your quality of life and your progress toward your goal.
Remember, you are responsible for you. So ask yourself: what can you do, what must you do to live better? Examine yourself first. Act on the truth you already know and commit to learning and growing along the way. Exercise self-control even if no one is looking.
Avoid the path of least resistance. Be bold!
Avoid the path of least resistance. Be bold! Take informed risks. Move beyond embarrassment about your failures. When you hate failure enough, you will tend to succeed.
Keep focused on the goal. It may take some time to see the fruit of your labor. However, your daily decisions and actions influence your momentum toward your goal.
4. Measure Your Progress
Once you start down the path toward your goal, it’s essential to have a system in place to track your progress. Without a clear metric, how will you and your accountability partner know whether you are taking steps forward or backward?
Keeping a journal is a simple and effective way to start recording your progress. Habit tracking apps are another useful tool to track your improvement and boost your rate of success.
For a more comprehensive solution, set up accountability software to automatically monitor your activity and send reports to a chosen partner. Accountable2You lets you enter a list of customized trigger words that will prompt an alert to your partner, as well as GPS location accountability and other advanced features.
When your progress is clearly measured, accountability becomes even more powerful as a tool for positive change! You will stay more motivated to continue a good streak, and your partner will know better how to encourage you along the way.
Accountability is a proven strategy for those who want to grow and change. Enlist a good accountability partner to help you focus on reaching your goals.
Your progress is largely up to you. You can and must own your success. Press on and keep moving forward. | <urn:uuid:0255ec49-6637-4b74-9321-1514ec095389> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://accountable2you.com/accountability/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371818008.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20200408135412-20200408165912-00154.warc.gz | en | 0.949974 | 3,221 | 3.515625 | 4 |
Bradford County, Pennsylvania
|Bradford County, Pennsylvania|
Towanda is the county seat
Location in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania's location in the U.S.
|Founded||February 21, 1810|
|Named for||William Bradford|
|• Total||1,161 sq mi (3,007 km2)|
|• Land||1,147 sq mi (2,971 km2)|
|• Water||14 sq mi (36 km2), 1.2%|
|• Density||54/sq mi (21/km²)|
|Designated||July 10, 1982|
Bradford County is a county located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, the population was 62,622. Its county seat is Towanda. The county was created on February 21, 1810, from parts of Lycoming and Luzerne counties. Originally called Ontario County, it was reorganized and separated from Lycoming County on October 13, 1812, and renamed Bradford County for William Bradford, who had been a chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and United States Attorney General.
Bradford County comprises the Sayre, PA Micropolitan Statistical Area.
- 1 History
- 2 Geography
- 3 Demographics
- 4 Micropolitan Statistical Area
- 5 Law and government
- 6 Economy
- 7 Education
- 8 Transportation
- 9 Recreation
- 10 Communities
- 11 See also
- 12 References
- 13 External links
As noted above, Bradford County was originally named Ontario County. The county was reorganized and renamed in 1812. However, a section of north Philadelphia in which major east-west streets are named after Pennsylvania counties retains an Ontario Street, between Westmoreland and Tioga Streets. There are two short Bradford Streets in northeast Philadelphia, approximately four miles from Ontario Street.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 1,161 square miles (3,010 km2), of which 1,147 square miles (2,970 km2) is land and 14 square miles (36 km2) (1.2%) is water. It is the second-largest county in Pennsylvania by land area and third-largest by total area.
- Chemung County, New York (north)
- Tioga County, New York (north)
- Susquehanna County (east)
- Wyoming County (southeast)
- Sullivan County (south)
- Lycoming County (southwest)
- Tioga County (west)
|U.S. Decennial Census
As of the census of 2000, there were 62,761 people, 24,453 households, and 17,312 families residing in the county. The population density was 54 people per square mile (21/km²). There were 28,664 housing units at an average density of 25 per square mile (10/km²). The racial makeup of the county was 97.94% White, 0.40% Black or African American, 0.31% Native American, 0.45% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.19% from other races, and 0.69% from two or more races. 0.63% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 32.4% were of English, 19% German, 12.6% Irish and 6.4% Italian ancestry according to the 2012 American Community Survey.
There were 24,453 households out of which 31.80% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 57.40% were married couples living together, 8.90% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.20% were non-families. 24.70% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.50% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.52 and the average family size was 2.99.
In the county, the population was spread out with 25.50% under the age of 18, 6.80% from 18 to 24, 27.20% from 25 to 44, 24.70% from 45 to 64, and 15.70% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females there were 95.10 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92.10 males.
Micropolitan Statistical Area
The United States Office of Management and Budget has designated Bradford County as the Sayre, PA Micropolitan Statistical Area (µSA). As of the 2010 U.S. Census the micropolitan area ranked 8th most populous in the State of Pennsylvania and the 131st most populous in the United States with a population of 62,622.
Law and government
- Doug McLinko, Chairman, Republican
- Daryl Miller, Vice Chairman, Republican
- Edward Bustin, Democrat
Other county officials
- Clerk of Courts and Prothonotary, Sally Vaughn, Republican
- Coroner, Thomas Carman, Republican
- District Attorney, Daniel Barrett, Republican
- Register of Wills and Recorder of Deeds, Shirley Rockefeller, Republican
- Sheriff, Clinton J. Walters, Republican
- Treasurer, Becky Clark, Republican
- Jury Commissioners, Bill Dell, Republican and Edward Barrett, Democrat
State House of Representatives
- Matthew E. Baker, Republican, Pennsylvania's 68th Representative District
- Tina Pickett, Republican, Pennsylvania's 110th Representative District
United States House of Representatives
United States Senate
Major employers are the natural gas industry, DuPont, Global-Tungsten and Powders (former Sylvania), Jeld-Wen, and Cargill Regional Beef, Wyalusing.
Public school districts
- Athens Area School District
- Canton Area School District (also in Lycoming and Tioga Counties)
- Northeast Bradford School District
- Sayre Area School District
- Towanda Area School District
- Troy Area School District
- Wyalusing Area School District (also in Wyoming County)
- There are 14 public cyber charter schools in Pennsylvania that are available for free statewide, to children K-12. See: Education in Pennsylvania.
Other public school entities
- BLAST Intermediate Unit 17
- Northern Tier Career Center Towanda
- Adult Ed Linkage Services - Troy
- Lackawanna College Towanda Center
- Canton Country School - Canton
- Children's Place - Sayre
- Epiphany School (Catholic) K-8 - Sayre accepting OSTCP students
- Freedom Lane Academy - Milan
- G&G Learning Center - Rome
- Maranatha Mission Learning Community Branch 19 - Canton
- North Rome Christian School
- South Hill Amish School - Wylausing
- St Agnes Elementary School - Towanda accepting OSTCP students
- Union Valley Christian School - Ulster
- Valley View Amish School - Pike Township
- Wyalusing Valley Children's Center INC - Wyalusing
Data from EdNA database maintained by Pennsylvania Department of Education 2012
- Allen F Pierce Free Library - Troy
- Bradford County Library - Troy
- Bradford County Library System - Troy
- Green Free Library - Canton
- Mather Memorial Library - Ulster
- Monroeton Public Library - Monroeton
- New Albany Community Library Inc.
- Sayre Public Library
- Spalding Memorial Library - Athens
- Towanda Public Library
- Wyalusing Public Library
Public transportation is provided by Endless Mountains Transportation Authority.
There is one Pennsylvania state park in Bradford County.
Under Pennsylvania law, there are four types of incorporated municipalities: cities, boroughs, townships, and, in only one case (Bloomsburg, Columbia County), towns. The following boroughs and townships are located in Bradford County:
- North Towanda
- South Creek
- Standing Stone
- West Burlington
† county seat
|Rank||City/Town/etc.||Population (2010 Census)||Municipal type||Incorporated|
- "PHMC Historical Markers Search" (Searchable database). Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 2014-01-25.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- "State & County QuickFacts". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved November 16, 2013.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- "Find a County". National Association of Counties. Retrieved 2011-06-07.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- An outline history of Tioga and Bradford counties in Pennsylvania, Chemung, Steuben, Tioga, Tompkins and Schuyler in New York: by townships, villages, boro's and cities, John L. Sexton. The Gazette Company, 1885, p67. Retrieved 2010-09-17.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Bradford County History, Bradford County, Pennsylvania. Accessed August 21, 2007
- "2010 Census Gazetteer Files". United States Census Bureau. August 22, 2012. Retrieved March 5, 2015.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2014". Retrieved June 4, 2015.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- "U.S. Decennial Census". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved March 5, 2015.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- "Historical Census Browser". University of Virginia Library. Retrieved March 5, 2015.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Forstall, Richard L., ed. (March 24, 1995). "Population of Counties by Decennial Census: 1900 to 1990". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved March 5, 2015.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- "Census 2000 PHC-T-4. Ranking Tables for Counties: 1990 and 2000" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. April 2, 2001. Retrieved March 5, 2015.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- "American FactFinder". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved 2008-01-31.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Bradford County official website
- Bradford County Historical Society
- Bradford County Tourist and Visitor Guide
- Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, Bureau of Planning and Research, Geographic Information Division, "2005 General Highway Map of Bradford County". Note: shows boroughs, townships, roads, villages, some streams. URL accessed on April 6, 2006.
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Striking a Deal with the Weed from Hell
The scene at Florida’s Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge in Kings Bay last October would have been familiar to anyone who has ever engaged in the battle to control the spread of invasive plants. Eager volunteers scurried about the shoreline of this manatee wintering ground, carting large plastic bins stuffed with water hyacinth, a notorious aquatic weed that’s caused headaches on five continents. Closer inspection, however, would have revealed the activity to be anything but business as usual: instead of hauling water hyacinth out of the bay, the conservationists were putting it back in—almost 4,300 gallons’ worth by day’s end.
Those volunteers were taking part in a bold pilot project that is the latest chapter in a half-century-long ecological story that reads like a fable. It starts with a well-intentioned campaign to rid Kings Bay of the water hyacinth, an aggressive nonnative species. Next come decades of additional control measures and a tragic downward spiral that transformed these crystal-clear waters into an unpleasant soup of slimy green algae. Then the story takes an unexpected turn, back to its original antagonist. Only this time, Bob Knight, the wetlands restoration ecologist leading this pioneering project, has recast water hyacinth as the unlikely hero. He believes this South American native, if controlled, could help solve the algae problem and return the bay’s ecosystem to a more desirable state. The irony in this approach is not lost on anyone involved.
Sometimes referred to as the “weed from hell,” water hyacinth is a free-floating plant with an explosive growth rate. After being introduced to Americans at the World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition held in New Orleans in 1884, water hyacinth seduced gardeners with its beauty and hardiness. From the ponds and lakes where it was intentionally planted, it quickly spread—due in part to floods. But a bigger boost came from post–World War II development. As humans dammed rivers, drained wetlands, and filled water bodies with sewage and fertilizer, they created ideal water hyacinth habitat. At its worst, it can form impenetrable mats, boost mosquito numbers, and deplete the water of dissolved oxygen—effectively suffocating fish. Many ecologists have spent their careers trying to eradicate water hyacinth, and the idea of encouraging its presence, especially in an idyllic spot such as Kings Bay, leaves them almost speechless.
Supporters of the initiative, on the other hand, insist there’s nothing to fear. For one thing, the plant has persisted in the backwaters of Kings Bay—for the most part innocently—for decades. It’s almost impossible to eradicate. However, it is easy to contain and control, especially compared to algae. In addition to shading out algae, water hyacinths can provide habitat for fish and other wildlife. Their dangling root masses filter algae and promote denitrification. What’s more, they’re veritable salad bars for manatees. “If you ignore the label ‘exotic’ and focus on function,” says Jason Evans, a University of Georgia ecologist and advisor on the Kings Bay project, “this plant is almost exactly what you would think this ecosystem needs.”
The adversaries could hardly have chosen a more emotive battlefield. Covering more than 600 acres and feeding into the Gulf of Mexico through the six-mile Crystal River, Kings Bay is actually more lake than bay. Its constant inflow of underground water from more than 30 major springs keeps it at a steady 22 degrees Celsius. It provides an ideal habitat for fish and other wildlife and is a warm wintertime haven for sensitive manatees. Each year tourists come by the tens of thousands, many to experience what it’s like to swim amidst the bay’s passive sea mammals. By anyone’s criteria, it’s a magical place.
Or at least it was. Trouble began in the late 1950s when the initial spread of water hyacinth became a nuisance for boaters. Following chemical control measures, the hyacinth presence was reduced to acceptable levels, but a new problem soon arose in the form of hydrilla. Another fast-growing nonnative, hydrilla grows from the bottom, making it harder to manage. Initial control efforts in the 1960s included dousing parts of the bay with thousands of gallons of sulfuric acid, which was later recognized as harmful to other life forms. Copper-based herbicide treatments in the 1970s were also halted when high levels of copper were detected in sediments and in the organs of dead manatees. Managers then tried harvesting, mechanical shredding, and applying a new battery of herbicides that included diquat, endothall, and fluridone.
As the battle against hydrilla raged into the 1990s, more frequent explosions of algae, particularly Lyngbya wollei, arrived on the scene and filled the water column with fragments and long, slimy ribbons. Eventually, higher salinity and increased murkiness overcame the hydrilla and the native eelgrasses that once nourished the manatees, leaving mostly algae soup. Longtime area activist Helen Spivey recalls when the water was so clear that nighttime strollers would walk into it by accident. Now, says the 85-year-old former state representative, “the algae get belched off the bottom and float across the shore and into the small trees along the bank, where it hangs and dries out and ends up looking like toilet paper. We call them Lyngbya Monsters.”
It’s not clear why the ecology of the bay flipped. One theory is that growing pressure on underground aquifers from the surrounding population reduced inflow from the springs, raising salinity and lowering the bay’s ability to flush away floating algae. Another idea is that decades of invasive plant control inadvertently gave algae a competitive advantage. Such unintended consequences have been observed elsewhere. During an eight-year study at a reservoir in São Paulo, Brazil, researchers documented periodic single-species algal blooms while water hyacinths were present. After hyacinth eradication, there was total domination by multiple algal species, some potentially toxic.
Either way, the situation in Kings Bay is now a cause of widespread concern. For some, it’s merely unsightly. For others, there is fear for the area’s lucrative tourism industry. And even though the bay’s manatee numbers have increased in recent decades—a trend that may be due partly to conservation measures and partly to the loss of wintering habitat elsewhere—others are concerned for the long-term health of the bay’s charismatic residents. For one thing, manatees are not overly fond of grazing on algae. More worrisome is the threat of toxicity. There were 829 reported manatee deaths in Florida in 2013, the highest total ever, and nearly one-third of them have been attributed to contact with algae toxins. While most were marine algae, analysis of a manatee corpse from the Crystal River area found toxins associated with L. wollei.
Managers have run out of options. Attempts in recent years to replant eelgrass have failed when manatee grazing outpaced planting. Desperate volunteers now periodically extract loads of algae using hand rakes, a backbreaking and costly approach that’s as permanent as a haircut.
Which brings the story full circle—back to water hyacinth. Research since the 1970s has shown it to be something of a wonder plant when it comes to ridding water of everything from excess nutrients to heavy metals and other contaminants. In China, where water hyacinth has been a nuisance for decades, authorities recently enlisted the plant in their long-running struggle to resuscitate algae-choked lakes that serve as water sources for millions. In Lake Dianchi near Kunming, major nitrogen reductions were recorded in 2012 after water hyacinth was grown for a year in floating pens spanning more than 1,000 acres, a project that included harvesting the plants for fertilizer and for use in biogas production. (1) And then there’s the Tominé Reservoir, part of the Bogotá River in Colombia. After years of declining health precipitated by the usual suspects, including excessive nutrient input, water hyacinth invaded this major source of regional drinking water in 2003. Recognizing the opportunity to test the plant’s water purification capabilities, researchers corralled the invader at one end of the reservoir representing 7.5 percent of its surface area. Then they took ongoing measurements of various water quality parameters at different locations and compared them with pre-invasion data. They found that water quality had improved so much by 2006 that it had reached standards originally set for 2020. What’s more, water quality increased with proximity to the hyacinth coverage zone. Manuel Rodríguez Susa, an environmental engineer at the University of the Andes in Bogotá, confirmed in a recent email that things continue to go well: “Today Tominé Reservoir is still in good health thanks to water hyacinth.”
At Kings Bay, where some residents have been advocating for a return of water hyacinth for decades, Knight thinks the plant’s powers can be utilized in a more direct fight against algal dominance. For starters, water hyacinth mats attract a rich diversity of organisms that includes snails and other important algae grazers. But more importantly, they provide shade. Having worked with aquatic plants for 30 years, Knight thinks that blocking growth of free-floating algae over a portion of the bay could reduce overall turbidity and help eelgrasses and other submerged plants regain a competitive edge. He aims to find out just how much hyacinth coverage is needed to achieve good water clarity.
Matt Cohen, an aquatic ecologist at the University of Florida, is skeptical that acceptable levels of water hyacinth would have useful impact on the entire bay. So Cohen is taking a wait-and-see stance regarding the Kings Bay experiment. “We don’t know what prompts this conversion to an algae state,” he says, “and that’s part of why I think doing this experiment in a careful way is totally warranted.”
It took Knight a year to acquire permits from six different government agencies in order to set up a small experiment with a treatment area less than a quarter-acre in size. Once the first floating pens were in place in March 2012—stocked with hyacinths as well as with native frog’s-bit and water lettuce—Knight discovered just how much manatees love water
hyacinth: The big sea mammals quickly emptied the corrals each time they were filled. As a result, he designed and built cage-like pens that restricted access without endangering the tenacious grazers.
With the new cages stocked, Knight is set to collect water quality data in the upcoming growing season. So far he’s been able to show that water hyacinth is a capable candidate. The plants are growing in the bay’s current salinity conditions, something critics had doubted and something that cannot be said for the two native floating plants in the experiment.
Ultimately, project supporters hope that yesterday’s enemy could be tomorrow’s friend. They believe the hyacinths can play an important role in a conservation strategy that also includes reducing nutrient runoff and restoring spring flows. “Since these invasive plants are here and we can’t get rid of them,” says the University of Georgia’s Evans, “I think it’s counterproductive to be killing them and not taking advantage of their functions. These are important tools. We should be using them.”
1. Wang, Z. et al. 2013. Chemosphere doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2013.03.014.
Top photo ©Peter Chadwick/DK Images; hyacinth experiment photos courtesy of Kings Bay Springs Alliance | <urn:uuid:6f0d8970-c41b-412e-83ce-aa1e1cf27ae5> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.conservationmagazine.org/2014/03/water-hyacinth-in-kings-bay/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370505826.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20200401161832-20200401191832-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.951578 | 2,549 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Human Dermatological System
The dermatological system also referred to as the integumentary system or skin, is the largest organ in the body. It also includes the hair and nails, which are appendages of the skin. Skin and hair provide a protective layer from harmful ultraviolet radiation and sunburn. It even cushions and protects the body from infection. The system regulates body temperature and is the initial defense against bacteria, viruses and other microbes. The human skin color is determined by the interaction of melanin, carotene, hemoglobin and is dependants on geographical and climate factors. The dermatological system stores water, fat, glucose and vitamin D. Human skin is made up of three tissue layers:
- Epidermis: is the first layer of skin that does not contain any blood vessels.
- Dermis: is the central layer of skin, which provides elasticity and is composed of papillary and reticular layers.
- Hypodermis: is the most buried layer of skin, it insulates the body, shields the internal organs and is composed of adipose tissue (storage of excess energy in the form of fat).
Throughout the dermatological system, the endocannabinoid system facilitates both immunological and nervous system responses by the dispersed CB1 and CB2 receptors. Therefore an endocannabinoid deficiency may affect dermatological constituents, leading to skin and underlying tissue diseases and complications.1, 4, 7, 9, 12
Role of CBD in Dermatological Diseases
Chronic and severe dermatological conditions such as eczema, psoriasis, and dermatitis cause symptoms that include rash, pruritus (severe itching), a higher risk of infection and possible psychological stress. Signs of dermatitis become more pronounced with the immunological response. CB1 and CB2 receptors can reduce these symptoms in a clinical endocannabinoid deficiency if activated with the administration of cannabidiol. Studies promote the anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties of CBD in reducing symptoms. Moreover, the ability of CBD to inhibit keratinocyte proliferation makes it a potential treatment for dermatological diseases such as psoriasis. Psychological stress linked to dermatitis can be regulated by CBD, hence alleviating symptoms like anxiety and depression as well.6, 8, 16
Ulceration is a widespread development in diabetic patients, caused by the neuropathic and vascular complications. Nerve damage from diabetes can numb the feeling entirely from the foot or leg, leaving the patient without protective sensations that would otherwise signal a warning when injured. This can lead to skin loss, blisters and chronic ulcerations.
Previous research has shown that the clinical endocannabinoid deficiency in diabetes mellitus responds to CBD administration. High glucose-induced endothelial cell inflammatory response in the vascular system, can be reduced using CBD since it promotes vasodilation and improves perfusion. These properties of CBD along with its antibacterial capabilities support its viability as a treatment for diabetic ulcers.3, 17
Scleroderma is not contagious, infectious, cancerous or malignant; it is a chronic disease classified as a systemic autoimmune disorder. Symptoms of The disease develops dermatologic aggravations that cause hardening of the skin and tissues. The symptoms include pain and fatigue mostly due to changes in the oxygen flow and unusual immunological responses. Scleroderma is an idiopathic autoimmune clinical endocannabinoid deficiency, which affects both CB1 and CB2 receptors. Skin elasticity and the dermatological aggravations can both be alleviated by the therapeutic administration of cannabidiol. Therefore, CBD can relieve the severity and discomfort of scleroderma.19
Most skin cancers are a locally damaging malignant growth of the skin. They arise from the cells of the epidermis, the superficial layer of the skin. Unlike cutaneous malignant melanoma, the vast majority of these sorts of skin cancers rarely metastasize and become fatal. The three principal types of skin cancer are:
- Basal cell carcinoma: the most common form of skin cancer.
- Squamous cell carcinoma: originates from skin cells.
- Melanoma: it is the less common form of skin cancer but also the most serious, and develops from melanocytes the pigment-producing skin cells.
Skin malignancies are acquired and idiopathic autoimmune clinical endocannabinoid deficiency. Therapeutic administration of CBD shows encouraging effects in triggering malignant cell death, repressing tumor growth and metastasis to visceral organs. Cancerous cell death can be further expedited through enhancing the autophagy process using CBD. Autophagy is the process that removes cellular waste. Conclusive research supports the anti-tumoral, anti-bacterial and analgesic effects of CBD oil and its effectiveness in skin cancer treatment.2, 5, 9, 10, 11, 13-15, 18
- Russo E. B, Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2004 Feb-Apr;25(1-2):31-9. Clinical endocannabinoid deficiency (CECD): can this concept explain therapeutic benefits of cannabis in migraine, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome and other treatment-resistant conditions? Available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15159679
- Gertsch, J. (2017) Cannabimimetic phytochemicals in the diet – an evolutionary link to food selection and metabolic stress adaptation?. British Journal of Pharmacology, 174: 1464–1483, available at https://bpspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/bph.13676
- Gruden, G., Barutta, F., Kunos, G., and Pacher, P. (2016) Role of the endocannabinoid system in diabetes and diabetic complications. Br J Pharmacol, 173: 1116–1127, available at https://bpspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/bph.13226
- Scarabino, T., Salvolini, U. Atlas of Morphology and Functional Anatomy of the Brain. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, (2006).
- Roger G. Pertwee, Targeting the endocannabinoid system with cannabinoid receptor agonists: pharmacological strategies and therapeutic possibilities, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 2012 367 3353-3363; available at http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/367/1607/3353.long
- George W. Booz, Cannabidiol as an emergent therapeutic strategy for lessening the impact of inflammation on oxidative stress, Free Radical Biology and Medicine, Volume 51, Issue 5, 2011, Pages 1054-1061, ISSN 0891-5849, available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0891584911000116
- Smith SC, Wagner MS. Clinical endocannabinoid deficiency (CECD) revisited: can this concept explain the therapeutic benefits of cannabis in migraine, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome and other treatment-resistant conditions? Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2014; 35(3): 198 – 201. Available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed
- Devinsky, O et al. Cannabidiol: Pharmacology and potential therapeutic role in epilepsy and other neuropsychiatric disorders. Epilepsia 55, 791-802 (2014), available at https://doi.org/10.1111/epi.12631
- Baron, E. P. (2015), Comprehensive Review of Medicinal Marijuana, Cannabinoids, and Therapeutic Implications in Medicine and Headache: What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been …. Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain, 55: 885-916. Available at https://doi.org/10.1111/head.12570
- Macpherson, T., Armstrong, J.A., Criddle, D.N. et al. In Vitro Cell.Dev.Biol.-Animal (2014) 50: 417. Available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11626-013-9719-9
- McAllister, S.D., Soroceanu, L. & Desprez, PY. J Neuroimmune Pharmacol (2015) 10: 255. Available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11481-015-9608-y
- Fitzcharles, MA., Baerwald, C., Ablin, J. et al. Schmerz (2016) 30: 47. Available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s00482-015-0084-3
- Robert Ramer, Jutta Merkord, Helga Rohde, Burkhard Hinz, Cannabidiol inhibits cancer cell invasion via upregulation of tissue inhibitor of matrix metalloproteinases-1, Biochemical Pharmacology, Volume 79, Issue 7, 2010, Pages 955-966, ISSN 0006-2952, available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bcp.2009.11.007
- Ramer, R., Rohde, A., Merkord, J. et al. Pharm Res (2010) 27: 2162. Available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11095-010-0219-2
- Robert Ramer, Katharina Bublitz, Nadine Freimuth, Jutta Merkord, Helga Rohde, Maria Haustein, Philipp Borchert, Ellen Schmuhl, Michael Linnebacher, and Burkhard Hinz, The FASEB Journal 2012 26:4, 1535-1548, available at https://doi.org/10.1096/fj.11-198184
- Wilkinson, Jonathan D. et al. Cannabinoids inhibit human keratinocyte proliferation through a non-CB1/CB2 mechanism and have a potential therapeutic value in the treatment of psoriasis, Journal of Dermatological Science , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , 87 – 92, available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdermsci.2006.10.009
- Rajesh, M., Mukhopadhyay, P., Bátkai, S., Haskó, G., Liaudet, L., Drel, V. R., … Pacher, P. (2007). Cannabidiol attenuates high glucose-induced endothelial cell inflammatory response and barrier disruption. American Journal of Physiology. Heart and Circulatory Physiology, 293(1), H610–H619. Available at http://doi.org/10.1152/ajpheart.00236.2007
- Armstrong, Jane L. et al. Exploiting Cannabinoid-Induced Cytotoxic Autophagy to Drive Melanoma Cell Death, Journal of Investigative Dermatology, Volume 135, Issue 6, 1629 – 1637, available at https://doi.org/10.1038/jid.2015.45
Del Río, C., Navarrete, C., Collado, J. A., Bellido, M. L., Gómez-Cañas, M., Pazos, M. R., … Muñoz, E. (2016). The cannabinoid quinol VCE-004.8 alleviates bleomycin-induced scleroderma and exerts potent antifibrotic effects through peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ and CB2 pathways. Scientific Reports, 6, 21703. Available at http://doi.org/10.1038/srep21703 | <urn:uuid:aaae84cc-3055-4a0a-9993-eb22f8f2181a> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://uninam.org/chapter-8-dermatological-health-and-disease/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371618784.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20200406035448-20200406065948-00234.warc.gz | en | 0.802361 | 2,493 | 3.3125 | 3 |
2015 25.4 Scheduling Vegetables Using Degree Days
New Crop Planning, Planting Model from Oregon State University
Nick Andrews, Len Coop and Heidi Noordijk, OSU Extension, Oregon
Endothermic “warm blooded” organisms like birds and mammals maintain relatively constant body temperatures, so their metabolic reactions and development rates are fairly consistent over time. The body temperatures of ectothermic “cold blooded” organisms (i.e. plants, insects, fungi and bacteria) are close to ambient temperature, so their rates of metabolism and development rates are strongly influenced by the temperature of their environment.
Several other factors like moisture, competition (crop spacing and weed density) and direct pest damage can influence crop development rates, but time and temperature (degree-days) can often predict development of plants more accurately than just time (calendar days). We’ve all seen crops grow quickly when temperatures are about right, and slowly or not at all when it’s too hot or cold.
CROPTIME: degree-day website
Oregon State University (OSU) Extension and the OSU Integrated Plant Protection Center are working with seed companies and local farmers to develop a degree-day scheduling website for vegetable growers. CROPTIME (smallfarms.oregonstate .edu/croptime) will predict harvest dates for vegetable varieties prioritized by collaborating growers and seed companies (see page 4 for a list of crops and number of varieties).
Ed Peachey and Aaron Heinrich at OSU Extension are also developing some weed models that will predict when viable seeds are set. Growers will be able to use this information to reduce weed seed rain in organic rotations. OSU Extension’s Dan Sullivan is explaining how degree-days can improve our understanding of the nitrogen cycle. CROPTIME modelers hope to put at least 50 variety specific models online by late 2016, but some crops may need more research before the models are ready.
Around 1730 René A. F. de Réamur first used mean daily air temperatures to predict plant development. Since then biologists have been improving crop models. The use of sine curves can estimate degree-day accumulation between
a lower threshold (the temperature below which the organism does not develop) and upper threshold (the temperature above which the organism does not develop). Visit this UC Davis site for an in-depth discussion of degree-days concepts.
Orchardists regularly use degree-days to predict insect pest phenology (i.e. codling moth and filbert worm) and disease risk (i.e. apple scab and fireblight). Some degree-day models have been developed for vegetable crops and pests, but the vast majority of fresh market vegetable growers rely on calendar days to maturity provided in most seed catalogs. Frank Morton, owner of Wild Garden Seed in Philomath, OR, breeds vegetables and sells organic seed. “The normal ‘days to maturity’ varietal information available in most seed catalogs is not useful to farmers, except in a vague relative sense,” says Frank. “If seed breeders and catalogs could provide a degree-day index for their vegetable varieties, farmers would be able to more accurately model their crop delivery schedules in years of unusual weather patterns or extremes.”
David Brown from Mustard Seed Farms in St. Paul, OR, is perhaps the only fresh market vegetable grower in Oregon who already uses degree-days to schedule crops. He has developed his own degree-day models for broccoli and other crops. “I have used degree days for over 20 years to schedule successive plantings of vegetables… more information based on some research would be helpful in refining my schedules and maybe even using the information for more crops.” OSU Extension’s goal is to make vegetable degree-day models accessible to more vegetable growers.
In the spring of 2016, producers will be able to use the first CROPTIME models to schedule plantings and predict harvest dates to plan a consistent supply. Up to four planting dates can be entered at a time. There is a new Google maps interface to help select the best nearby weather station (see map display, left). Bob Egger from the Pumpkin Patch on Sauvie Island, OR, explained how a steady flow of crops like cabbage benefits his farm. “When we have a couple weeks of wet weather in spring we could use CROPTIME to choose varieties we might not be familiar with but would help keep our production up. The big buyers don’t waste time with you if you don’t have the right product available at the right time.”
During the season producers can run the models again to access up-to-date harvest predictions. The CROPTIME site uses actual weather data up to the day before a model is run, then five-day forecasts followed by 30-year average temperatures more than five days in the future. Tanya Murray, previously with Sauvie Island Organics near Portland, Oregon, planned each week’s CSA share carefully. “The dramatically different weather we have had this spring and last makes it hard to know what to expect. CROPTIME will help our farm use degree-days to predict maturity.” OSU Integrated Plant Protection Center’s Len Coop is improving the accuracy of long term forecasts by converting the output of NOAA weather models to degree-days.
Arcadia broccoli reportedly takes 63 to 70 days to mature depending on the seed catalog referenced. The preliminary CROPTIME model predicts 74 to 110 days between transplant and maturity in the Pacific Northwest. Days to maturity vary with planting time and year (Figure 1, right). Early spring planted Arcadia broccoli takes 20 days longer or more to mature than mid-summer plantings. Development also progresses more slowly in cooler years (2011-2012) than warmer years (2013- 2015). Crops planted one month apart matured 14-30 days apart (not shown). These models are developed in irrigated Willamette Valley fields. In some regions and cropping systems, environmental factors not well tested here may be more important (i.e. soil moisture, day-length or upper thresholds).
Developing new models
The degree-days models will continue to be refined with the intent to develop new models for winter vegetables and possibly cover crops. Since vegetable varieties change regularly, OSU Small Farms would like to work with others to collect field data and develop models. Please contact them if you are interested. A Vegetable Growth Stage Guide and standard protocols to improve consistency of field observations are also being developed.
CROPTIME includes cool season crops like cabbage and spinach, and warm season crops like peppers and winter squash. Cool season crops have cooler lower and upper thresholds (i.e. 40°F and 70°F for broccoli). Warm season crops have warmer thresholds (i.e. 52°F lower threshold for sweet pepper); it normally doesn’t get hot enough in the Willamette Valley to identify their upper thresholds.
Models require at least eight to 10 data sets (a data set comprises crop development observations at one location or planting date) for each crop to verify threshold temperatures in the literature. Then four to five data sets can be used to estimate the number of degree-days to maturity for each subsequent variety. So far preliminary thresholds have been identified for broccoli, sweet pepper, cucumber, winter squash and sweet corn. 2015 data will be incorporated to finalize the models.
Growing methods included organic, conventional, black plastic, bare ground, direct seeded and transplanted crops. Based on the findings so far, separate models may be needed for some of these practices. In the future the plan is to be able to adjust models to account for the warming effect of black plastic mulch.
Vegetable degree-day models may be a more accurate method than calendar days for scheduling crops. Producers and buyers using CROPTIME may be able improve the consistency of supply, and plan harvest crews and marketing activities more accurately. The weed models may help reduce weed seed rain in crop rotations, and the nitrogen information will add to our understanding of nitrogen cycling in organically managed soils.
Nick and Heidi will present CROPTIME at the Tilth Producers of Washington Conference in Spokane (November 13- 15), and at the OSU Small Farms Conference in Corvallis (February 20, 2016, smallfarms.oregonstate.edu/sfc). OSU Small Farms team is also developing small-group hands-on workshops to teach people how to use CROPTIME.
Nick Andrews is a senior instructor at OSU Extension. He is a member of OSU’s Small Farms Program, and the OSU Center for Small Farms & Community Food Systems. He serves Multnomah, Washington and Clacka¬mas counties and specializes in ecological horticulture. His program focuses on ecological vegetable production and beginning farmer training. nick. email@example.com; 503-913-9410. Contact Nick for more informa¬tion about CROPTIME.
Len Coop is an entomologist and associate director at the Integrated Plant Protection Center of OSU. He has been working to build weather-driven models for IPM for over 25 years. For the past 20 years Len has been building a website to deliver these models to provide agricultural and IPM decision support for Oregon and other parts of the US. firstname.lastname@example.org, 541-737-5523.
Heidi Noordijk is Educational Program Assistant at OSU Extension. She works closely with Nick and is a member of OSU’s Small Farms Program and the OSU Center for Small Farms & Community Food Systems. She serves Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties. heidi.noordijk@ oregonstate.edu, 971-801-0392.
CROPTIME is funded by WSARE Research & Education award number SW12-037 with additional funding from Clackamas Extension Innovation Fund.
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Multidistrict Litigation (MDL)
Multidistrict litigation (MDL) is a special legal process the federal government created to handle large and complicated cases involving a large number of lawsuits that have similar complaints.
It is estimated that 15 percent of all civil lawsuits in the U.S. are part of multidistrict litigation. Many MDLs include thousands of individual lawsuits and hundreds of lawyers from different parts of the country in a single MDL case.
MDLs were created in the 1960s to relieve crowded backlogs in federal courts. They are meant to streamline the pretrial process that goes into building a case. They eliminate duplication of witness depositions — sworn testimony before a trial — and requests for discovery — the process lawyers on both sides use to obtain evidence from their opposing side.
Lawyers may ask a federal panel, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML), to combine similar lawsuits into an MDL. The JPML can also decide on its own that similar cases should be combined. The panel consists of seven, current federal judges, each appointed by the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. They meet periodically in different cities to decide which cases should be combined into new multidistrict litigations and to act on motions in existing MDLs.
Most MDLs involve combining a few dozen to a few hundred lawsuits, but the numbers can range widely. In July 2017, there were at least three pending MDLs involving just four lawsuits each. At the same time, the largest and longest-lasting MDL involved more than 192,000 cases. That case, MDL No. 875 in Eastern Pennsylvania, was created in 1991 to manage all federal asbestos personal injury and wrongful death cases. As of July 2017, more than 191,000 of those lawsuits had been settled, dismissed, or sent back to other courts. About 393 lawsuits were still awaiting some action in the MDL.
History of Multidistrict Litigation (MDL)
In 1960, a federal grand jury indicted 45 corporate executives and other suspects of rigging bids on heavy equipment that power companies used to generate and transmit electricity. Many of the indictments targeted executives at General Electric and Westinghouse, which dominated the $20 billion industry.
The sales of the equipment involved in the scandal totaled $1.7 billion in 1960 — or $14 billion in 2017 dollars.
The sentences imposed on many of defendants were among the stiffest ever at the time for executives involved in an anti-trust case. It included steep fines and prison time for many of the defendants, and reflected the seriousness of the bid-rigging scheme.
After the criminal cases were decided, a massive wave of civil lawsuits hit the federal courts. More than 1,900 separate lawsuits were filed in 36 different federal court divisions. The lawsuits included more than 25,000 claims against 20 different product lines involved in the electrical equipment scandal.
The sheer volume of cases and their complex nature threatened to overwhelm the federal court system. In 1962, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren appointed a special committee to move the logjam through the legal system more quickly. The chief judge of the 10th Circuit, Alfred P. Murrah, was named chairman. He and his fellow committee members came up with legal solutions that are still used today — such as combining depositions and discovery and combining complicated lawsuits involving similar claims into a single case. At the time, the ideas were revolutionary.
“For the first time in judicial history, the federal judiciary and the lawyers of the nation found it necessary to process a mass of related cases by swift, co-ordinated (sic) national action managed and processed by formal and informal national committees of judges and lawyers,” William Becker, chief judge for the Western District of Missouri, wrote in a 1970 American Bar Association Journal. “From the tremendous effort by the judges and advocates, a rich variety of by-products has been produced.”
By 1967, the backlog had been cleared and the committee had discovered large numbers of similar, complex cases were common across the U.S. court system. Congress followed the committee’s recommendation that a permanent panel be set up to address the growing backlogs and created the JPML in 1968.
“For the first time in judicial history, the federal judiciary and the lawyers of the nation found it necessary to process a mass of related cases by swift, co-ordinated (sic) national action managed and processed by formal and informal national committees of judges and lawyers,”
Types of Cases that become Multidistrict Litigations
MDLs typically involve cases in which a large number of plaintiffs file lawsuits against a single company over the same complaint. It may be over an unsafe drug, discrimination in hiring or promotions, or other injuries that hurt multiple people.
- Airline disasters
- Civil lawsuits over securities fraud
- Civil lawsuits over terrorist attacks
- Employment practices
- Intellectual property, copyright and patent cases
- Product liability cases, including lawsuits over defective drugs or medical devices
What Is the Difference between an MDL and a Class Action Lawsuit?
Most people are more familiar with the term “class action lawsuit” than with “multidistrict litigation.” They are different from one another, and while class actions have been on the decline, MDLs have become increasingly common in recent years. By some estimates, as many as one in every seven civil lawsuits filed in federal court are or will become part of a multidistrict litigation.
|Class Action Lawsuit||Multidistrict Litigation (MDL)|
|Involves a single lawsuit filed by several people who have all suffered the same injury caused by the same defendant or defendants.||Involves multiple lawsuits filed by different people in multiple courts. The cases are later combined and transferred to a single federal court.|
|The lawsuit must include the names and information of several of the people claiming injury to propose a class others may eventually join.||Single parties can file an individual lawsuit which can later be included in an MDL. Other parties filing similar lawsuits may be added to the MDL later.|
|All parties filing suit must claim an identical injury or injuries due to the same cause.||Cases have to be similar in nature, but individuals may claim somewhat differing injuries from one another.|
|All parties are part of the same class action lawsuit.||Each individual lawsuit filed remains its own, individual case even though it is part of the MDL.|
|Plaintiffs usually represented by a single law firm.||Plaintiffs represented by lawyers from multiple law firms from across the country.|
|If the people suing win, all parties usually receive an identical share of any verdict or settlement.||Each party may receive a portion of an award or settlement based on the extent or individual nature of their own injuries.|
|If the people suing lose, they are bound by the court’s decision unless they opt out of any settlement.||Individuals are free to pursue their own lawsuit in the original court if they disagree with the terms of a settlement.|
Multidistrict litigation tends to be more flexible for individuals in some cases. It also speeds up the time it takes to get through the pre-trial process and allows multiple plaintiffs to pool their resources in suing large corporations, which may have extensive legal resources for their defense strategies.
How Does a Multidistrict Litigation Work?
In the event of a major disaster, such as an airliner’s crash, it is easy to notice a large number of people injured or killed by a common cause. In the case of drugs and medical devices, it is usually less obvious.
The FDA may issue a notice that an unexpected number of people have been reporting the same problems with a new hip implant or a series of scientific studies may uncover a previously unknown risk of serious side effects with a particular drug.
People who have experienced such injuries may begin filing lawsuits. As these suits mount in federal courts, lawyers may ask to have them combined into an MDL.
The decision to launch a new MDL falls to the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML). From there, the process involves legal procedures including court and other judicial orders and setting up steering committees, bellwether trials and frequently settlements.
Determining if Lawsuits should become Part of an MDL
The JPML may decide on its own that similar cases should be combined into a multidistrict litigation. Or attorneys for the parties filing the lawsuits may ask the panel to create an MDL through a legal motion — a written request to the panel stating the reasons an MDL should be created.
The motion has to include information about at least two lawsuits – also called actions – that have similar facts such as an injury and its cause.
The JPML convenes hearings, usually scheduled for only one day each month and held in a different city around the U.S. from month to month, to determine the merits of potential MDLs.
- Do the cases have one or more common facts?
- Will transferring the cases to an MDL be convenient for all the parties involved?
- Will the transfer promote efficiency, cost savings and fairness to all parties?
Even though an MDL tends to move through the legal system more quickly than multiple, individual lawsuits, it can still take years from the time the first lawsuit is filed until the cases are resolved.
JPML Issues a Transfer Order, Sends MDL to Court
If the panel decides that the multiple lawsuits should be combined into an MDL, it issues a transfer order.
This combines the cases into a new MDL and sends the various lawsuits from the different federal courts where they were originally filed to a single federal district court. The panel can send the MDL to any federal district court, but usually selects a district where one of the cases has been filed. Convenience for the parties involved is frequently a determining factor in the panel’s decision.
This district court will be called the MDL court for the particular multidistrict legislation. Other lawsuits filed in federal court that are similar to those in the MDL may be added later. These are called “tag-along cases.”
The judge named for the MDL presides over the pretrial motions, discovery, laying out ground rules for the case and setting deadlines.
Part of the organization of an MDL usually includes the judge appointing steering committees.
Defendants’ and Plaintiffs’ Steering Committees
Steering committees guide each side’s preparations and strategy through the legal process in an MDL.
Most MDLs will involve plaintiffs represented by different law firms from various parts of the country. The MDL court will appoint a Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee (PSC) to speak to the court for all the plaintiffs. The PSC members will generally be headed by a Lead Counsel, or Co-Lead Counsels who preside over its actions. The PSC will routinely meet in person or through a teleconference to assign work and plan strategy.
The MDL court may also appoint a Defendant Steering Committee (DSC), but the defendant or defendants if there is more than one, usually selects its own DSC with the court’s approval.
Over the course of months, the committees work on preparing their cases and the judge hears pre-trial motions either side may make. Through the process, both sides gather information needed for trial and the court sets deadlines for each step of the process.
Along the way, many of the individual cases within the MDL may be settled as the defendants and plaintiffs reach settlements. Sometimes, the defendants may settle all or most of the cases without any of them going to trial and the judge may dissolve the MDL, sending the small number of remaining cases back to their original courts for individual trials.
But if there is no mass settlement, the MDL moves forward to bellwether trials.
What is a Bellwether Trial in Multidistrict Litigation?
Bellwether trials are, quite literally, test cases. They allow both sides in an MDL to get an idea of how the cases may turn out.
As the MDL process moves along, the court will instruct each side to recommend a certain number of cases to be tried as bellwethers. After receiving these nominations, the court will choose a specific number to send to trial.
Bellwether Trials can Shape Settlements
Jury decisions in these individual trials can help both sides see how they might win or lose with the cases in the MDL. Depending on the outcomes of these bellwether trials, one or both sides may prefer to reach a settlement. The success or failure in these trials can also help establish the size of any settlement.
Bellwether trials can help establish global settlements — that is, a settlement with virtually every lawsuit brought against the defendant.
How Multidistrict Litigation Settlements Work
Settlements in MDLs involving drugs and medical devices can be extremely complicated. The lawyers representing both sides will hammer out a plaintiff fact sheet. This is a document both sides agree upon that includes specific information about each individual plaintiff and his or her injury.
What to Expect in MDL Settlements
Plaintiffs are usually required to provide proof they used the drug or device, the injuries they sustained and a medical diagnosis if appropriate. In drug cases, plaintiffs may have to produce pharmacy and hospital records, itemized medical bills, hospital notes and discharge records. They may also have to prove loss of wages.
In many MDL settlements, the defendant will agree to set up a settlement fund from which plaintiffs agreeing to the settlement terms can receive money. The offer may contain a set amount of money and the defendant usually requires 95 percent or so of plaintiffs to agree to the agreement before any money is paid out.
That usually creates a strong incentive for plaintiffs to agree to the settlement.
The amount of money a plaintiff receives under this agreement may depend on a variety of factors the steering committees agree to. These can include the plaintiff’s age, nature and extent of injury, combination of injuries and complications suffered. The committees will determine how much cost will be assessed for each category.
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Tree and Rain Forest Facts
- Trees renew our air supply by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen.
- The amount of oxygen produced by an acre of trees per year equals the amount consumed by 18 people annually. One tree produces nearly 260 pounds of oxygen each year.
- One acre of trees removes up to 2.6 tons of carbon dioxide each year.
- Trees lower air temperature by evaporating water in their leaves.
- Tree roots stabilize soil and prevent erosion.
- Trees improve water quality by slowing and filtering rainwater, as well as protecting aquifers and watersheds.
- More than half of the world’s estimated 10 million species of plants, animals and insects live in the tropical rain forests. One-fifth of the world’s fresh water is in the Amazon Basin.
- One hectare (2.47 acres) may contain over 750 types of trees and 1500 species of higher plants.
- At least 80% of the developed world’s diet originated in the tropical rainforest. Its bountiful gifts to the world include fruits like avocados, coconuts, figs, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, bananas, guavas, pineapples, mangoes and tomatoes; vegetables including corn, potatoes, rice, winter squash and yams; spices like black pepper, cayenne, chocolate, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, sugar cane, turmeric, coffee and vanilla and nuts including Brazil nuts and cashews.
- At least 3000 fruits are found in the rain forests; of these only 200 are now in use in the Western World. The Indians of the rain forest use over 2,000.
- Rainforest plants are rich in secondary metabolites, particularly alkaloids. Biochemists believe alkaloids protect plants from disease and insect attacks. Many alkaloids from higher plants have proven to be of medicinal value and benefit.
- Currently, 121 prescription drugs currently sold worldwide come from plant-derived sources. And while 25% of Western pharmaceuticals are derived from rain forest ingredients, less than 1% of these tropical trees and plants have been tested by scientists.
- The U.S. National Cancer Institute has identified 3000 plants that are active against cancer cells. 70% of these plants are found in the rain forest. Twenty-five percent of the active ingredients in today’s cancer-fighting drugs come from organisms found only in the rain forest.
- Vincristine, extracted from the rainforest plant, periwinkle, is one of the world’s most powerful anticancer drugs. It has dramatically increased the survival rate for acute childhood leukemia since its discovery.
- In 1983, there were no U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturers involved in research programs to discover new drugs or cures from plants. Today, over 100 pharmaceutical companies and several branches of the US government, including giants like Merck and The National Cancer Institute, are engaged in plant research projects for possible drugs and cures for viruses, infections, cancer, and even AIDS.
Rain Forest Action
- Experts agree that by leaving the rainforests intact and harvesting it’s many nuts, fruits, oil-producing plants, and medicinal plants, the rainforest has more economic value than if they were cut down to make grazing land for cattle or for timber.
- The latest statistics show that rainforest land converted to cattle operations yields the land owner $60 per acre and if timber is harvested, the land is worth $400 per acre. However, if these renewable and sustainable resources (nuts, fruits and essential oils) are harvested, the land will yield the land owner $2,400 per acre.
- If managed properly, the rainforest can provide the world’s need for these natural resources on a perpetual basis.
- Promoting the use of these sustainable and renewable sources could stop the destruction of the rainforests. By creating a new source of income harvesting the medicinal plants, fruits nuts, oil and other sustainable resources, the rain forests is be more valuable alive than cut and burned.
- Sufficient demand of sustainable and ecologically harvested rain forest products is necessary for preservation efforts to succeed. Purchasing sustainable rain forest products can effect positive change by creating a market for these products while supporting the native people’s economy and provides the economic solution and alternative to cutting the forest just for the value of its timber.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE RAINFOREST
The beauty, majesty, and timelessness of a primary rain forest are indescribable. It is impossible to capture on film, to describe in words, or to explain to those who have never had the awe-inspiring experience of standing in the heart of a primary rain forest.
Rain forests have evolved over millions of years to turn into the incredibly complex environments they are today. Rain forests represent a store of living and breathing renewable natural resources that for eons, by virtue of their richness in both animal and plant species, have contributed a wealth of resources for the survival and well-being of humankind. These resources have included basic food supplies, clothing, shelter, fuel, spices, industrial raw materials, and medicine for all those who have lived in the majesty of the forest. However, the inner dynamics of a tropical rain forest is an intricate and fragile system. Everything is so interdependent that upsetting one part can lead to unknown damage or even destruction of the whole. Sadly, it has taken only a century of human intervention to destroy what nature designed to last forever.
The scale of human pressures on ecosystems everywhere has increased enormously in the last few decades. Since 1980 the global economy has tripled in size and the world population has increased by 30 percent. Consumption of everything on the planet has risen- at a cost to our ecosystems. In 2001, The World Resources Institute estimated that the demand for rice, wheat, and corn is expected to grow by 40% by 2020, increasing irrigation water demands by 50% or more. They further reported that the demand for wood could double by the year 2050; unfortunately, it is still the tropical forests of the world that supply the bulk of the world’s demand for wood.
In 1950, about 15 percent of the Earth’s land surface was covered by rain forest. Today, more than half has already gone up in smoke. In fewer than fifty years, more than half of the world’s tropical rainforests have fallen victim to fire and the chain saw, and the rate of destruction is still accelerating. Unbelievably, more than 200,000 acres of rain forest are burned every day. That is more than 150 acres lost every minute of every day, and 78 million acres lost every year! More than 20 percent of the Amazon rain forest is already gone, and much more is severely threatened as the destruction continues. It is estimated that the Amazon alone is vanishing at a rate of 20,000 square miles a year. If nothing is done to curb this trend, the entire Amazon could well be gone within fifty years.
Massive deforestation brings with it many ugly consequences-air and water pollution, soil erosion, malaria epidemics, the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the eviction and decimation of indigenous Indian tribes, and the loss of biodiversity through extinction of plants and animals. Fewer rain forests mean less rain, less oxygen for us to breathe, and an increased threat from global warming.
But who is really to blame? Consider what we industrialized Americans have done to our own homeland. We converted 90 percent of North America’s virgin forests into firewood, shingles, furniture, railroad ties, and paper. Other industrialized countries have done no better. Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil, and other tropical countries with rain forests are often branded as “environmental villains” of the world, mainly because of their reported levels of destruction of their rain forests. But despite the levels of deforestation, up to 60 percent of their territory is still covered by natural tropical forests. In fact, today, much of the pressures on their remaining rainforests comes from servicing the needs and markets for wood products in industrialized countries that have already depleted their own natural resources. Industrial countries would not be buying rain forest hardwoods and timber had we not cut down our own trees long ago, nor would poachers in the Amazon jungle be slaughtering jaguar, ocelot, caiman, and otter if we did not provide lucrative markets for their skins in Berlin, Paris, and Tokyo.
THE BIODIVERSITY OF THE RAIN FOREST
Why should the loss of tropical forests be of any concern to us in light of our own poor management of natural resources? The loss of tropical rain forests has a profound and devastating impact on the world because rain forests are so biologically diverse, more so than other ecosystems (e.g., temperate forests) on Earth.
Consider these facts:
- A single pond in Brazil can sustain a greater variety of fish than is found in all of Europe’s rivers.
- A 25-acre plot of rain forest in Borneo may contain more than 700 species of trees – a number equal to the total tree diversity of North America.
- A single rain forest reserve in Peru is home to more species of birds than are found in the entire United States.
- One single tree in Peru was found to harbor forty-three different species of ants – a total that approximates the entire number of ant species in the British Isles.
- The number of species of fish in the Amazon exceeds the number found in the entire Atlantic Ocean.
The biodiversity of the tropical rain forest is so immense that less than 1 percent of its millions of species have been studied by scientists for their active constituents and their possible uses. When an acre of topical rain forest is lost, the impact on the number of plant and animal species lost and their possible uses is staggering. Scientists estimate that we are losing more than 137 species of plants and animals every single day because of rain forest deforestation.
Surprisingly, scientists have a better understanding of how many stars there are in the galaxy than they have of how many species there are on Earth. Estimates vary from 2 million to 100 million species, with a best estimate of somewhere near 10 million; only 1.4 million of these species have actually been named. Today, rain forests occupy only 2 percent of the entire Earth’s surface and 6 percent of the world’s land surface, yet these remaining lush rain forests support over half of our planet’s wild plants and trees and one-half of the world’s wildlife. Hundreds and thousands of these rain forest species are being extinguished before they have even been identified, much less catalogued and studied. The magnitude of this loss to the world was most poignantly described by Harvard’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biologist Edward O. Wilson over a decade ago:
“The worst thing that can happen during the 1980s is not energy depletion, economic collapses, limited nuclear war, or conquest by a totalitarian government. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired within a few generations. The one process ongoing in the 1980s that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly that our descendants are least likely to forgive us for.”
Yet still the destruction continues. If deforestation continues at current rates, scientists estimate nearly 80 to 90 percent of tropical rain forest ecosystems will be destroyed by the year 2020. This destruction is the main force driving a species extinction rate unmatched in 65 million years.
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Advancements in internet technology have revolutionized the way business is carried out both in large and small scale. Small and medium companies have embraced e-commerce and other related online trading platforms to reach out to their consumer base while delivering the requirement and demands of their clients (MacGregor and Vrazalic, 2004, 2). E-commerce is the electronic transfer of information across the internet to transact business and other related activities. SMEs may not have enough resources primarily to expand and sustain its operations as well as meeting the demands of their customers. As such utilization of the internet that does not necessarily require use, physical resources may be an important option especially for a business that does not have adequate resources (Khosrow-Pour, 2013, 132). SMEs are those commercial enterprises that employ less than 250 workers and have an annual turnover of fewer than 50 million Euros.
This academic paper will discuss how e-commerce has changed small and medium-sized enterprises and the manner in which they conduct their business operations. SMEs are many in number than large corporations and as such employ many people and contribute more towards the economic growth of a nation.
E-commerce just like any technological change has brought with it several transformations to the way businesses are being run. The question that begs for answers is, 'what are the changes that e-commerce has brought to SMEs? It is necessary to determine how e-c commerce has transformed SMEs and the way they do business. Answering this question is important since it helps to identify some of the dangers and risks that business to get exposed to when carrying business activities online. An overview of the benefits that SMEs obtain through engaging in the e-commerce can also be determined. A further discussion of how e-commerce has influenced the manner in which businesses are being conducted is necessary so as to understand the nature by which SMEs rely on electronic commerce platforms to conduct businesses (Al-Qirim, 2004, 16).
The study will involve the review of relevant literature from print and electronic libraries so as to gather empirical evidence on how e-commerce has affected SMEs. Relevant case studies will also be incorporated into the essay so as to bring about the empirical proof of the real effects of the online business transactions and related activities.
E-commerce has impacted positively and has been a catalyst for the growth of several SMEs. The positive impact is due to the numerous online marketing and payment platforms provided by e-commerce.
Impact of e-commerce on SMEs
Different schools of thoughts define an SME organization differently. The variations in definitions are usually based on the annual turnover of the business as well as the value of the balance at a particular point in the financial year. Different countries and regions of the world also have their criteria for classifying businesses as to whether or not they are SMEs (MacGregor and Vrazalic, 2004, 4). For instance in the United States, a small business standards are set by the Small Business Administration by an industry, ownership structure, number of employees and the revenue. An SME is thus considered to be that enterprise with fewer than ten employees in small offices.
The contribution of entrepreneurship towards economic development can never be overestimated. One of the primary vehicles for starting new businesses includes the small and medium-sized enterprises. SMEs are as seen as the catalyst for the growth and innovation in many parts of the world (Lee, 2009, 421). The vital role of driving economic growth is seen in the form of employing additional workers, development of new products and production of new goods and services. SMEs form a central tax base for governments and authorities around the world. As such the governments get the vital funds for development of the various projects (Pease and Rowe, 2003, 1). In the Asia-Pacific region, for example, SMEs are said to account for over 97% of all businesses and absorb a significant portion of the workforce in the area. The majority of the countries in the world are said to have experienced growth in GDP with SMEs contributing 20 to 50% of the total GDP of most economies. Flexibility in the production is seen as a significant benefit of SMEs as new and improved products can be obtained and utilized by different individuals in the global market.
SMEs have therefore been accepted as engines for an eradication of poverty and economic growth around the world. Studies have indicated that the owners of small business around the world have the same characteristics and face the same obstacles especially in the process of carrying out their commercial activities. The major difference in understanding is however seen in the understanding of how SMEs lead to the development of economies by the different individuals around the world (Pease and Rowe, 2003, 2). SMEs are further seen as the principal vehicles by which new businesspeople can continuously supply new ideas, skills and innovation into the economy of a country and the world as a whole. The uncertainties in the external business environment in which SMEs operate make e-commerce a suitable tool for stemming out the potential business risks (Wymer and Regan, 2005, 13).
E-commerce is gaining popularity in the global economy. Electronic commerce (e-commerce) involves the transaction of business activities over the internet. Some of the types of companies that may involve e-commerce include retail sites, music and auction sites. Corporations may also exchange trading goods and services between businesses. Consumers are thus able to exchange goods and services electronically without the barriers of distance or distance. E-commerce is currently considered as one of the most important aspects of the advancement of internet technology. To carry out e-commerce activities businesses need to possess an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). The EDI entails a supplier and a customer establishing a data link between them (MacGregor and Vrazalic, 2004, 5).
Some of the strategies used by SMEs to conduct e-commerce include online retail services and payment services. Amazon is an example of an enterprise that has utilized electronic retail to expand into a global market base. The Company was started as an online bookstore but has now established itself has an online store for a variety of products such as clothes, music, household goods and many others (Khosrow-Pour, 2013, 136). EBay is another example of an online retail store from which one can buy variety of products like electronics, cars, baby items, collectibles and many others online. Providing online money transfer services has enabled technology start-ups such as PayPal and Payoneer to grow into global companies.
The process of conducting business online has expanded at a rapid rate over the past five years. The accelerated growth rate is predicted to continue into the future with a further acceleration of the growth rate expected of the trend (Lee, 2009, 422). Various businesses are expected to move sections of their business operations into the internet as the boundary between the electronic, and regular trading becomes fainter than before. The benefits that companies acquire from conducting activities online are many. Some of the advantages of e-commerce include competitive advantages that the enterprise earns over the conventional trading methods. Online commercial transactions are fast, relatively cheap and efficient as such businesses not only cut the cost of doing business but also achieve more satisfied customers whose demands are met in time. E-commerce is thus seen to lead to the development of electronic marketplace in which sellers and potential buyers come together to transact business for the mutual benefits of the parties involved (Laudon and Traver, 2007, 2).
E-commerce has been proven to provide substantial benefits to business regardless of their sizes. The major transformation of the SMEs by the e-commerce is seen mostly by the improvement of the efficiencies and raising revenues of the businesses through increased sales that are done online. E-commerce has helped SMEs to create opportunities for new enterprises and other related ventures. The SMEs that have embraced electronic trading have reported increased exports and a significant rise in the general business activities (Caner, 2010, 1).
Some of the benefits that SMEs acquire from the adoption of the electronic trade include improved competitiveness, worldwide presence, faster response to customers' demands and mass customization of products and services. Application of the e-commerce technologies by SMEs has especially in the business-to- business relations has led to optimization of business processes as well as cost savings operations. Electronic trading also enables SMEs to automate most of their business operations and thus leading to reduced operation costs (Caner, 2010, 2).
Electronic trading has been said to enable the small medium enterprises to compete effectively with the larger businesses. Benefits of e-commerce are not realized by companies due to the slow adoption rate of the tools that are related to electronic trading (Al-Qirim, 2004, 17).
Overall sales that occur over the internet represent a significant proportion of all the commercial sales that take place in the world today. The growth of electronic trading can also be attributed to the access the internet by mobile phones. In some countries, mobile phone applications are used not only for calling and texting but for business related activities such as mobile banking (Al-Qirim, 2004, 17).
The main findings of this study illustrate how small and medium companies have embraced e-commerce and other related online trading platforms to reach out to their consumer base while delivering the requirement and demands of their clients. E-commerce has been the catalyst for the growth of several SMEs. The significant change in how small and medium-sized enterprises conduct businesses include online payment for goods and services. There are many differences in the definition of the term SME. The differences in definitions are commonly based on the annual turnover of the business as well as the value of the balance at a particular point in the financial year. An SME is considered to be that enterprise with fewer than ten employees in small offices (Blackburn & Schaper, 2012, 12).
Small and medium-sized enterprises contribute majorly to the development of the economy of many countries. SMEs are seen as the catalysts for the growth and innovation in many parts of the world (MacGregor, 2007, 249). The vital role of driving economic growth is seen in the form of employing additional workers, development of new products and production of new goods and services. Other ways in which the SMEs are seen to help boost the economy of various countries include the formation of the tax base for governments and authorities around the world. The funds collected by the governments are thus used for development projects (Blackburn & Schaper, 2012, 12).
SMEs are seen as engines for the eradication of poverty and economic growth around the world. Studies have indicated that the owners of small business around the world have the same characteristics and face the same obstacles especially in the process of carrying out their commercial activities and other related business transaction. E-commerce is gaining popularity in the global economy. Electronic commerce (e-commerce) involves the operation of business activities over the internet. E-commerce is gaining popularity in the global economy. Electronic commerce (e-commerce) requires the operation of business activities over the internet. The adoption of e-commerce by small and medium enterprises include the improved competitiveness, worldwide presence, faster response to customers' demands and mass customization of products and services (Wymer and Regan, 2005, 10). Online business transactions are fast, relatively cheap and efficient as such businesses not only cut the cost of doing business but also achieve more satisfied customers whose demands are met in time. E-commerce is thus seen to lead to the development of electronic marketplace in which sellers and potential buyers come together to transact business for the mutual benefits of the parties involved (MacGregor and Vrazalic, 2004, 1).
In my opinion, e-commerce has brought a positive transformation to the SMEs and the manner in which they carry out their business operations. I firmly believed that electronic trading is an important aspect of the modern business that should be embraced by any business that desires growth and sustainable competitive advantage. As such I would advise that small and medium enterprises to adopt e-commerce as a part of the strategy to increase their growth rate and compete effectively in the global market. SME is an important sector of the economy as such the government, and the business owners should make efforts to protect the businesses by ensuring their sustainability (Blackburn & Schaper, 2012, 13). | <urn:uuid:f7720da9-3ef6-468c-a646-7dc24d637f77> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | http://prowritinghelp.com/samples-we-offer/54-how-e-commerce-has-transformed-smes-and-the-way-they-do-business.html?tmpl=component&print=1&layout=default&page= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370497309.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20200330212722-20200331002722-00555.warc.gz | en | 0.96106 | 2,508 | 2.875 | 3 |
Have you noticed boys in stores refusing to pick up toys or stationery items because they are pink in colour?
Have you seen girls indulge in kitchen games because that’s what girls are supposed to do?
Have you seen boys reprimanded for crying because boys shouldn’t cry?
Well, here’s a fact — children aren’t born with preferences for colour or for particular interests.
They absorb these likes and dislikes based on their observations at home and in their surroundings.
And this is where Gender Sensitization steps in.
RELATED: 10 Things Not To Say To Your Child
Gender sensitivity plays a huge impact on a child’s growth, their choices and their development, and influences the kind of person they turn out to be.
So how about we take a few simple steps at home to ensure a healthy and gender-neutral growing environment?
No worries. For this, we have with us child expert and psychologist Vidya Ragu explaining the impact of gender sensitization and how you can raise your child in a gender-neutral environment.
You may wonder how something as small as telling a boy to not buy a pink bag and to buy a blue one instead, is going to shape their beliefs and ideology. But these little instances have a lot of impact.
Neha from Digi Mother says, “In today’s advanced digital era when kids are exposed to electronic gadgets; most of the things they learn are from mobile phone, TV, and laptop. I am always careful about the type of content she is exposed to and, always take care of not limiting her actions based on sex and gender.
I encourage her to choose and respect her decision as far as it is not harmful to her and anyone. It also makes a child confident and ensures a bond of trust between a parent and kid.”
Why does it matter?
The idea that girls do certain things that boys cannot and vice versa begins to stem in your child’s mind.
As they grow older, these isolated instances collectively result in a thought process that is based on gender inequality and revolves around almost everything being gender-specific.
A lot of today’s societal problems stem from gender inequality and gender biases.
If we want our kids to be open-minded, accepting, and just free in the way they think, it’s important for us to remove barriers such as this by keeping them in an open and accepting safe place.
They can decide on their likes and dislikes without gender having to play a role in it.
Kinshoo from momlearningwithbaby says, “A child is never born with presumptions. It’s always WE who feed their brains with pre-conceived notions of gender-differences, biases, discriminations etc.
For a child, a doll is as good as a car. My boy loves to cook, play with construction toys, police games, playing music, dancing, cycling, crafting, drawing etc. just like ANY child would.”
Our expert Vidya Ragu explains to us why it’s important to raise kids in a gender sensitized environment.
So let’s understand it a bit more.
What is Gender Sensitization?
A child’s gender identity develops around the ages of 2 and 3.
And as parents, it’s important for us to make sure that their gender identity is something they choose and identify with, without it being based on social norms and standards.
She tells us that the assigned biological sex and the gender identity a child forms are two completely different things.
A child should not be restricted by their biological sex in the way they think about themselves and perceive their own identity.
There should never be the kind of thought that says, “I’m like this because I’m a girl,” or “I want that because I’m a girl.”
We need to tell our kids that they can like and dislike whatever they want, even if people tell them that some things are meant for boys and some are meant for girls.
Aside from preferences such as this, even in the gender they identify themselves with, there doesn’t need to be a strict specification of either ‘this’ or ‘that’.
They can identify as a gender somewhere in between masculine and feminine and that’s alright.
The Impact Of Gender Sensitization:
What ensuring this type of a mindset in a kid does is, it teaches them to be accepting and understanding of people’s different perceptions of who they are as a gender, what they like, etc.
It also gives your child the freedom to be who they really are without feeling restricted, which would create a much healthier self-concept and self-esteem for them.
Vidya talks about a study that was conducted that proved that young girls in schools are influenced by their surroundings when it comes to choosing a preferred career path.
They try to stay away from science and technology-based career paths because they’ve been told that these are careers meant for boys.
This is one of the core reasons why the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the Ministry of Women and Child Development have collaborated with the NCERT, to make sure that all CBSE textbooks and other guides follow a strict gender-neutral pattern.
Ultimately, all of this points to “why young parents these days, need to develop a neutral approach towards gender bias”.
And it begins at home.
Children learn through observation. So, simply teaching them one thing and practising another will not work with them. It’s important for adults to be sensitive around children when it comes to gender roles or gender expectations.
For example, telling a boy that it’s shameful to lose to a girl, or even mildly implying it creates that bias in their mind. Telling a boy that only girls cry will make him emotionally strained because society says that boys have to rage and fight to express negative emotions whereas girls are supposed to be civil and just cry.
Ankita from lifestyleproblog says, “I stopped reading fairy tales to my daughter. I tried telling her folktales that had strong female characters as well as modern-day stories where a boy was allowed to love unicorns without being judged for it.
But then, stories only help so much. What kids see is what they imbibe. Hence, we all share chores at home and there are no gender-specific chores. Whoever can do it does it, even if this means grandpa does the laundry and mom fixes a broken drawer!”
Neither approach to emotion is healthy and it also creates a warped perception of gender identity in young kids.
Here’s what you can do to ensure your child is free from gender stereotypes:
1) Give your child gender-neutral toys
It wasn’t children that decided to specify what toys were appropriate for which gender. It was us adults that did that. Children learn from what they see around them and what they’re told.
If you tell your boy child that dolls are only meant for girls, he’s going to believe it and make fun of other boys that have dolls.
Instead of telling your child what’s “appropriate” get them non-gendered toys such as building blocks, memory, and shape associated games, puzzles, toys that have wheels to pull, etc.
This is one of the first and foremost steps in creating a safe, gender-sensitive space for your kids. So, the next time, let your kids pick their own toys instead of you just buying your girl child a pink toy and your boy child a blue one.
PRO TIP: Flintobox believes in gender-neutral toys so your child isn’t told what to play with. Each box contains educational toys, games, and activities based on a variety of themes – thus broadening the child’s thinking with different concepts.
Here’s a video by Dr. Kuheli explaining how the gender-neutral toys from Flintobox helped engage her son and helped him develop skills.
3) Educate your child on the concept of gender
Explain to your child that they are free to wear what they want, play with what they want to, like the colors they want to like, be friends with who they want to be with, express any emotions in the way they see fit, etc; all of this regardless of what their sex is or what the other boys/girls that they know are doing.
Tell your child from the beginning that being ‘different’ from the other children is a good thing, and isn’t bad in any way.
Talk to them about gender inequality issues in India as well as on a global level.
Talk to them about cultural diversity in a way they would understand it. Tell them about how all of their friends may look at gender differently than they do and that that’s okay.
Their friends may do things differently than they do and that’s okay, too. Teach them about how to do away with judging a person based on what they do, wear, or like.
2) Give your child the freedom to express:
Many times, adults impose things such as outfits on their child.
If your girl child doesn’t like skirts and dresses and likes pants, trousers, and full-sleeved tops, don’t force her to wear pink fluffy clothes.
She can choose to wear what she likes and should not be restricted by her biological sex.
Even when we’re talking about your child’s room or decor, let your child pick the colour they want their stuff to be in. I assure you that your child will want more than just blue/pink stuff.
4) Encourage them to play with kids of the opposite sex
When play only takes place with kids of the same sex your kids loses the opportunity to be familiarized with people of the opposite sex so they can be more sensitive towards them.
Inclusive play with everyone regardless of biological sex takes away the kind of group-ism that begins in kindergarten where boys play with boys, and girls play with girls.
You can also often see the groups bullying each other only on the basis of gender.
5) Abolish gender stereotypes for them!
Tell your girl child that she doesn’t have to play with dolls or like pink stuff when she doesn’t.
Tell your boy child that he doesn’t have to like superheroes or action figures.
Tell your boy child that he’s allowed to cry and your girl child that she’s allowed to be raged and angry when necessary.
Every time you encounter a gender stereotype, teach your child that it’s wrong and things can work differently.
Talk to them about the sexism around them and how you’ve dealt with unfair situations because of sexism and why it’s important to get rid of it.
This needs to stop.
Overall, this mentality in children can only be changed when we change it in the adults around them.
Whenever your child chooses something simply because they think their biological sex asks them to, tell them that it isn’t associated with their sex and that they are free to choose anything that they truly want to choose.
Remember that gender is not the sex, and that they’re two separate things.
Gender is a choice and is an emotional understanding of one’s identity based on the social culture, expectations, and one’s own preferences.
Teach your child all about gender, and self-expression regardless of biological sex.
Have we missed out a point? Drop a comment below and let us know how you bring up your child in a gender-neutral manner! | <urn:uuid:aafd83a3-248e-4c6c-8f6c-1e98e27c401c> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://flintobox.com/blog/child-development/gender-sensitization-kids | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370506870.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20200402080824-20200402110824-00473.warc.gz | en | 0.962406 | 2,465 | 3.015625 | 3 |
All photos were taken in April 2013 and are copyright to Cyrus Kirkpatrick, all rights reserved.
Click on any image to expand it
The spirit of Pyongyang (“city in the flat-land”) has endured for thousands of years, and despite being continually shattered by warfare, it always springs from the ashes in some unique way. The form the city has taken in the last century is perhaps the most peculiar in its 5000 year history; it is now a city of forbidden sights – a showcase capitol of a socialist utopia that never quite achieved its promise. It is a city filled with lights, grandiose monuments, amazing breweries, high-quality restaurants, hard-working people, and dark secrets.
There is a lot written about the City of Secrets, as the forbidden nature of North Korea’s capitol captures the imagination of adventurers from across the world. Despite a lively population of around 2.5 million, the lives of the every-day citizens remain just out of sight. To understand Pyongyang, consider how in neighboring communist China, a tourist may wander the streets of any city; meet new friends and be invited into their homes. These are privileges that do not exist in Pyongyang. To this day, nobody knows what life is like in Pyongyang’s dimly lit condominiums and apartments.
Pyongyang has not always been a forbidden realm. Historically the ancient city was a hallmark of the Goryeo dynasty up until the Sino-Japanese war, when it was reduced to rubble in the late 19th century. The city was no stranger to apocalyptic tidings, and it bounced back through the help of reconstruction efforts by the Japanese occupiers.
After Pyongyang’s resurrection, the city attracted the attention of foreign missionaries, to the point that the city’s robust Christian population helped garner Pyongyang the nickname “The Jerusalem of Asia”. In fact, Billy Graham’s future wife attended school in the city in the 1920s, and it was a popular location for Christians from across the world to visit.
However, despite the religious migration, this era was also a dark time in Korea’s history. The Japanese committed countless human rights violations such as public executions, while also implementing a systematic process to “de-Korea-fy” the culture by eliminating the Korean language and assimilating the population into Japan. Countless Koreans were conscripted to the Japanese military, while their sons and daughters were raised without knowledge of their own society.
The Japanese empire’s ambitions did not end with occupied Chosun, as they desired to see the Circle of the Sun spread across the world. Their ill-fated allegiance with the Nazi party and war with the United States led to the eventual nuclear bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945. As the infrastructure of their war-machine collapsed, it gave opportunity for Korean revolutionaries to take their country back. The Japanese surrender followed a long period of struggle throughout WWII, and the end result was the return of Pyongyang to the Korean people.
A problem arose as revolutionaries saw different visions for the new Korea. Syngman Rhee, a right-wing strongman, envisioned a capitalist based free-market system, while the Soviet Union and the sympathetic People’s Republic of China believed Korea was best suited as a strong socialist republic. A renowned left-wing activist and soldier named Kim il-Sung would be backed by the communist superpowers to help enact the socialist vision of the country.
This ideological difference led to the establishment of a divided Korea, with both the United States and the Soviet Union cooperating to cut out two ideological versions of the country, backed by Rhee to the south and Kim to the north. The experiment barely lasted five years before tensions became heated between the two Koreas, spurred on by frequent exchanges of fire as well as genocide that was committed by Rhee’s army against communist sympathizers in the south (such as the Bodo League Massacre in 1950).
It was not long before the skirmishes led to a full-scale invasion by the north, a conflict that soon involved not only the Korean armies but also the United States and her allies who became pitted against both Kim il-Sung and the new Chinese communists in a drawn-out ideological proxy war. The war would become one of the bloodiest in the history of the world, and it led to yet another utter destruction of Pyongyang through continual American aerial bombardment. The warring Koreas also continued genocidal practices throughout the three year conflict, with both Kim il-Sung and Syngman Rhee exterminating hundreds of thousands of their own people.
After an armistice agreement unofficially ended the war, it was up to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the north to piece their civilization back together. Spurred on by a great amount of financial help by China and Russia, North Korea boomed within years, and Pyongyang once more arose from the ashes a pinnacle of communist achievement. Almost all of the historical buildings in the city were vaporized through American bombs, but within record speed new monuments, condominium housing, and traditional Korean style architecture were built over the ruins of old Pyongyang.
Two hours south of Pyongyang, however, the demilitarized zone at the 38th parallel had turned into a heavily fortified reminder of the continuing Korean conflict. Pyongyang soon became the focal point of power in the new North Korean state, with residents and politicians alike considering the city to be the true capitol of Korea, with Syngman Rhee to the south a mere dictator who would eventually be usurped from Seoul.
Meanwhile, the south faced economic disparity. Rhee’s government would remain barely sustainable as he ruled autocratically, all the way until a military coupe forced him from power in 1960. However even after Rhee’s ouster the country continued to suffer problems, all the while North Korea remained not only more organized, but with a much more powerful military capable of easily swarming Seoul. The only thing that stood in the way were Cold War tensions and the threat of mutually assured destruction should an invasion lead to full-scale war between the Koreas, China, the United States, and all other Cold War players.
The socialist state would always be controlled by the People’s Committee which oversees the rank and file of the citizens, and Pyongyang was established as the ‘reward’ by the Committee for those laborers who worked the hardest and showed the most party loyalty. Those lucky residents awarded membership to the flat-land city would be given access to prosperous commodities like nice cars and a plenty of meals. Meanwhile, economic development saw a rapid expansion of other large cities like Hamhung to the east and Chonjin to the north, despite these cities having been previously decimated by American bombs.
Kim il-Sung ruled absolutely, having fashioned himself after the likes of Stalin and Mao. Although his iron-fisted rule did not interfere with the backing of countless other socialist states of the Eastern Bloc, assuring the country’s economic vitality and a long and prosperous era that would not be threatened for decades.
A Reversal of Fortune
The lines had been drawn in the Cold War, and Pyongyang with its magnificently constructed monuments heralding the Juche ideology represented an inspiration to communists around the world – and a clear danger to the United States and her allies. Although the country’s ties with the Soviet Union were sometimes shaky at best, Kim il-Sung’s state was nonetheless a powerful communist presence in an extremely important geographical area with Japan in close proximity, and capitalist South Korea duly managed by the North’s watchful eye. If North Korea were to lose power, it would mean a fatal weakness in the region for the Eastern Bloc, considering the presence of U.S. bases in South Korea, Guam and Japan.
Unfortunately for communist allies, the North’s position of power would slowly begin to deteriorate beginning in the 1970s. For the first time, South Korea had begun economically challenging the power of the north. New reforms under the direction of Park Chung-hee would bring Seoul to a level of power that started to rival neighboring Pyongyang. Heavily backed by western allies, Seoul gradually rose to prominence as an economic powerhouse, and the DPRK had a difficult time keeping up with South Korea’s free-market system and introduction of foreign brands.
This may have challenged the DPRK’s authority, but it did not threaten Kim il-Sung’s seat of power. It was, however, the changing of the times that initiated the DPRK’s descent into obscurity, secrecy and paranoia– namely, the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s. Almost immediately following thawed relations between the United States and Russia, plus the fall of the Berlin Wall, the DPRK was faced with dwindling socialist allies. Their primary ally became China, a country that had experienced rapid economic development due to a relaxation of Mao’s hardline communist policies. Kim il-Sung, however, had no intention on relaxing his traditionalist views and joining with the new ways of the 1990s.
Then, in 1994, Kim il-Sung died, and his son Kim Jong-il inherited the DPRK. His legacy is marked by many curious achievements, including the expansion of Juche ideological monuments in Pyongyang. The legacy of Kim Jong-il is extremely prevalent in Pyongyang, as much of the city’s skyline and magnificent architecture can be attributed to his rule, however his priorities have been greatly criticized as the 1990s was the most tragic period in the state’s history since the Korean war, as this was when famine ravaged the population, with cities like Hamhung reportedly experiencing a 10% population decline due to starvation. Everyone in North Korea today who was alive in the 1990s has been affected by this famine – whether through losing relatives, friends, parents or children. Many believe Kim Jong-il could have reallocated the GDP away from propaganda monuments and the massive defense budget to have potentially saved hundreds of thousands lives.
Modern Day Pyongyang
Kim Jong-il’s secretive rule helped Pyongyang to become the world’s most shadowy city. By around the year 2000 the world had completely changed, international relations had warmed between all former Cold War adversaries, and even China was bustling with Kentucky Fried Chicken drive-thrus and chain restaurants. Meanwhile, South Korea had become an economic powerhouse, and while their military remains physically smaller than the DPRK’s, the country experienced a huge technological boost and they became undeniably superior in terms of firepower.
These changes, amazingly, would affect neither Pyongyang nor the rest of the state. Rather than joining with the world’s developments; the DPRK under Kim Jong-il’s rule would instead bunker down and become the last vestige of the Cold War. They would attempt to reassert their authority through nuclear weapon development and to reassert a regional arms race. Meanwhile diplomatic relations further weakened after U.S. president George W. Bush’s infamous “Axis of Evil” speech that named North Korea among three countries that posed the greatest threat to the U.S.
North Korea gradually became an international museum piece. The world turned a fascinated eye toward the DPRK as a culture perfectly preserved from a previous era. The system of the government remains almost exactly the same as when Kim il-Sung first came to power almost 70 years ago, with the only difference being vastly diminished economic abilities.
In the modern age the DPRK has few allies to speak of except the Chinese – a relationship that some are beginning to question the endurance of. Other smaller allies include Cuba and Iran, countries that are themselves also devastated by sanctions.
Despite the economic changes and the decline of the country’s golden age – Pyongyang still remains the same flagship city it was designed to be, The country’s social system has not changed since the bygone era, as residents must be given access to join the ‘Pyongyang Club’— membership that includes the luxurious treatment of 3 meals per day and suitable living conditions inside ‘modern’ housing and condominium projects. However, as a secret city, the actual living conditions of Pyongyang residents remain unknown, as literally no outsider has ever stepped foot inside a North Korean’s personal living space – with the exception of those who have been to state-sponsored ‘homestays’ that probably do not reflect North Korean lifestyles with total accuracy.
The city recently experienced an economic ‘boom’ after the inauguration of Kim Jong-Un, with brand-new skyscrapers that electrify the night-sky with neon-outlines. However, analysts question where the North is drawing their funds to afford these projects, and some believe the working-class laborers on the countryside are paying the price for Pyongyang’s opulence. Although the city may appear more prosperous than ever before, it likely comes with a heavy price.
Yet the opulent nature of the city is what makes the place ‘suitable’ for foreigners to experience without too much discomfort. Although during winter the museums and libraries suffer the cold chill of unheated marble floors and poor electricity, the hotels like the Yangakkdo and the Koryo remain fairly ‘lavish’ and suitable for hundreds of guests at a time – and generally experience enough working electricity to keep visitors accommodated.
Pyongyang actually makes an effort to rebrand itself as a ‘normal’ and prosperous community; they host foreign exchange students, inter-cultural relations through the Pyongyang Film Festival, and even outsourced work through select companies, such as an Egyptian telecom company that recently hooked up inter-Korean cell-phone access across the country. Yet, despite these efforts, foreigners living in Pyongyang have reported extremely boring existences where they are not allowed to leave their immediate living space without government chauffeurs – and the inability to walk around in the city by themselves or travel anywhere outside of Pyongyang.
Pyongyang’s Unspoken Virtues
Yet, it’s this mysterious nature of the city that seems to have created an aura of mystique or even romanticism. The inability to pierce the veil of the city leads adventurers to experience the thrilling game of craning one’s neck to get a better glimpse of the lives of North Koreans.
Although the city is vastly more luxurious compared to the rest of the country, the luxury represents how the architects of the country desired all of the DPRK to someday be. The state was supposed to be a socialist utopia, where every resident would be given the keys to all-expenses paid housing, where work days never exceeded 8 hours, vacations were plenty, and bountiful harvests plus strong economic relations would assure a country that’s well-fed. Meanwhile, modern subways, railroads and conveniences would keep the socialist utopia on the same footing as capitalist competitors.
Of course, all of these notions are flights of fantasy. Today, the only thing keeping this image alive is propaganda, and the modicum lifestyles of Pyongyang residents who are nonetheless regarded by the rest of the world as urban prisoners, closed off from the rest of modern society due to the paranoid regime’s policies of state isolation.
Yet visitors of Pyongyang may be surprised to what extent the city tries to make the most of what it has to work with, and whether the residents are urban prisoners or not — they clearly try to make the city as pleasant as possible. Locals enjoy late-nights at the Pyongyang Bowling Alley or the recently constructed amusement park filled with modern rides and hamburger stands. The restaurants include some of the world’s best traditional Korean fare, and the locally made products – from souvenirs to shampoo to cologne – is surprisingly high quality and reflective of the meticulous attention to detail that DPRK citizens apply to their work.
The city’s flagship celebration, the Arirang festival, is considered easily the world’s most stunning choreographic performance. Meanwhile, from architectural mastery to embroidered art, Pyongyang includes some of the world’s most talented designers and artists. The city is continually recognized for its achievements, although the recognition is sometimes awarded with a secret smirk as most other countries view the regime’s endeavors with cynicism at best and utter disdain at worst.
Some criticize the ‘fakeness’ of Pyongyang, as the city is held in great regard for propaganda purposes, and the accomplishments of the people are given exaggerated attribution to the regime and are often propped up to demonstrate the glory of the Kim family. However, if one peers through the veneer of the Kim dynasty, one will see that the greatness of Pyongyang is truly attributed to the people, who likely desire peace, freedom, and prosperity as with the rest of the civilized world. The accomplishments of Pyongyang belong to the people, and a visitor of the city should recognize this fact to truly appreciate what the ancient metropolis has to offer.
The beauty of Pyongyang is undeniable, and when one tours the magnificent architecture it would almost seem the entire city were a giant time-capsule designed for future generations to discover the Juche ideology. In fact, should the world end tomorrow, undoubtedly future archaeologists would unearth Pyongyang’s magnificent monuments and conclude that the city had been the capitol of the entire world. This is, of course, the image the regime wishes to construct.
But under the beauty is the truth of the city’s secret nature, and how it has been built through the unfair living standards of the other roughly 20 million North Koreans who are not given nearly the same standards of food, medical care, or shelter.
The sad truth is that Korea has, historically, been constructed on the back of slave labor – and modern Pyongyang continues this tradition into the modern age. Although visitors may become easily enchanted by the spectacle of the city, one should never forget the price of such luxury.
Yet, despite the dark realities of the city, it’s a fixture of our planet – a mysterious realm that has maintained society on the peninsula for countless generations, and will likely persist and endure destruction for countless more.
Cyrus Kirkpatrick continues his exploration of North Korea and other exciting places. Keep up to date at www.cyruskirkpatrick.com
South Korean Genocide: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/05/national/main4234885.shtml
Prayer in Pyongyang
South Korean History | <urn:uuid:20931c46-43ef-44b9-b302-4482313bc54d> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | http://cyruskirkpatrick.com/pyongyang-the-city-of-secrets/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371876625.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20200409185507-20200409220007-00115.warc.gz | en | 0.959348 | 3,818 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Clotel; or, The President's Daughter
Novel written by escaped slave and abolitionist William Wells Brown, published in London in 1853. It is currently considered the first novel to be written by a black American. The president of the subtitle is Thomas Jefferson.
This node contains the following:
- Plot summary
- Narrative techniques and conventions
- Major editions of the text
Plot Summary (So there are spoilers ahead, but this novel is so heavily indebted to nineteenth century popular fiction conventions that I frankly don't think they count. You have a beautiful quadroon. What do you think happens to her?)
Clotel and her sister Althesa are the near-white-looking illegitimate daughters of Jefferson by a slave, Currer. All three are sold upon Jefferson's decease. Althesa and the girls' mother Currer are bought by a trader who takes them to be sold in New Orleans. Clotel is bought by a local Virginian.
The following three narrative strands, each pertaining to one of these women, interweave throughout the book:
Currer is bought by a hypocritical southern slave-holding clergyman named John Peck. It is ultimately mentioned in passing that Currer dies of an illness; the real story of this narrative strand revolves around the Pecks. John Peck's northern-educated daughter Georgiana is a devout Christian and wholly against slavery, and convinces Peck's visiting (young, single, atheistic, and northern) friend Carlton that Christianity is antithetical to slavery. The two fall in love, although they do not, as they say, "come to an understanding." Georgiana converts Carlton to Christianity. When Peck dies of cholera, Georgiana realizes that the only way for her to emancipate the slaves instead of selling them off, as her "tight-fisted yankee" uncle wishes, is to marry someone sympathetic to the idea of emancipation.
Handily, she and Carlton are already in love, so Georgiana proposes to Carlton (!), and the two marry. At first, out of respect for her relatives' wishes, Georgiana institutes a plan of gradual emancipation, crediting each slave with wages to be put toward the purchase of their freedom. When she contracts tuberculosis, however, she realizes that her death may prevent their emancipation, and she frees them all at once, buying some land in the north for them to live on (since their living in the south would always subject them to re-enslavement). Although friends and neighbors urge Georgiana to send her freed slaves to Liberia, she gives a passionate speech about blacks' rights to live in the United States, as it is their native land just as much as the whites'. Less than a week later, Georgiana dies.
Althesa is initially bought by a crass man named James Crawford, but a kind and enlightened young doctor named Henry Morton takes pity on Althesa and falls in love with her. He buys her and marries her, though not legally (obviously). They try to buy Currer, but Peck refuses to sell her. Henry frequently makes passionate antislavery arguments to his southern brethren. He and Althesa help a (white) German woman named Salome, who, because defenseless and alone, has been enslaved by unscrupulous slave traders, to regain her freedom.
Althesa and Henry have two daughters, who are raised as white. When a fever later kills Althesa and Henry, the two refined and utterly white-looking girls do not even realize that they are technically part of Henry Morton's estate. They are auctioned off, each girl to a different disgusting sleaze who intends to use her for sex. One commits suicide rather than submit to such degradation. The other one tries to effect an escape with her true love, a Frenchman who comes to rescue her. Her owner fatally shoots the Frenchman, and she dies of grief.
Clotel is bought by Horatio Green, a young man who is already in love with her. He rents a cottage for the two, and though they cannot legally marry, they have a marriage "sanctioned by heaven." The two live in idyllic bliss for a while, and they have a daughter, Mary. But before long, Horatio develops "ambition," and, beguiled by his political aspirations, starts to think about how advantageous it would be to marry the daughter of a man on whom his political success depends. He leaves Clotel and marries Gertrude. Clotel is heartbroken, but refuses to see him after he leaves her, since she will not be a party to marital infidelity.
Gertrude finds out about Clotel and Mary and insists that Clotel be sold out of the state. She keeps Mary as a servant in order to humiliate Horatio, who she considers to have deceived her (which, in fact, he has). Clotel is sold as a waiting-maid to a harsh mistress, who regards Clotel as a rival and cuts off Clotel's beautiful hair. Clotel's grief at being separated from Mary is so great that her owners fears she will die, so they sell Clotel in order to cut their losses.
Clotel's new owner is not violent, but clearly has lascivious intentions. She and a fellow slave, William, conspire to escape to the north, and do so by dressing Clotel as a man, with William posing as "his" servant. (This echoes the narrative of William and Ellen Craft). They successfully reach Ohio, from whence William proceeds to Canada. Clotel, still disguised as a man, heads for Virginia, to try to reach Mary.
Unfortunately for Clotel, she arrives in the middle of Nat Turner's rebellion. All strangers are subject to scrutiny, and she is discovered. She is taken to a Washington, D.C. slave prison to await the sailing of a vessel for New Orleans. When an old prison keeper's back is turned, Clotel makes a break for freedom by simply running as fast as she can. She is pursued and eventually trapped on a bridge over the Potomac River. Realizing that capture is inevitable, Clotel flings herself into the river and dies.
Meanwhile, Mary's fellow servant and lover George, who is also the illegitimate child of a prominent statesman, is in prison for having taken part in Nat Turner's Rebellion. He is not summarily executed because before the rebellion he courageously saved some important civic documents from a fire, which earns him some legal brownie points. At his trial, George gives an impassioned speech about freedom and the right to rebel against tyranny, drawing legitimation from the American Revolution. The speech reduces the entire courtroom to tears, but George is still sentenced to be hanged.
Mary therefore breaks George out of prison by changing clothes with him and taking his place in the prison, in a move almost straight out of Catharine Sedgwick's 1827 novel Hope Leslie. George escapes to Canada and works hard to accumulate enough money to send an agent to Virginia to redeem Mary from slavery. However, Mary's punishment for aiding George's escape is to be sold out of the state. When George learns this, he departs for Europe in despair.
Like her mother, grandmother, and aunt, Mary is sold at the New Orleans slave market. A young Frenchman named Devenant soon notices her striking resemblance to his sister, though, and (freakily) falls in love with her. He buys Mary from her new owner and marries her, and they live in France. She loves Devenant out of gratitude for rescuing her from her horrible fate, but never forgets George. Mary has a child by Devenant before he dies. Mary and George serendipitously reunite in France and marry. Everything is fine, but the novel ends with the bitter reminder that the two cannot return to America if they want to remain free.
Narrative techniques and conventions deployed in Clotel:
- the tragic mulatta figure - a beautiful light-skinned, refined young woman whose slave lineage and above-average beauty and moral refinement doom her to a tragic death. The earliest example of this that I know of is Cora in The Last of the Mohicans, they are all over American fiction, including Hannah Crafts's The Bondswoman's Narrative. The women in Uncle Tom's Cabin are always on the brink of becoming tragic mulattas. Althesa's daughters and Clotel are the tragic mulattas par excellence in this novel.
- Conventions of sentimental fiction, like the saintly fair woman dying of tuberculosis (Georgiana Peck, echoing Eva in Uncle Tom's Cabin), the miraculous reunion at the end, and death/illness by grief. The courtroom weeping scene is also reminiscent of the many instances of communal weeping in, for instance, Uncle Tom's Cabin, among numerous other works of sentimental fiction.
- Appeals to reality, especially in the form of periodicals and public records. Events in the novel are often propped up with the quotations from newspapers that allude to them. Of course, the Jefferson parentage business is also based on the rumors about Sally Hemings that were recently upheld by DNA testing. Allusions to the author's own life and escape from slavery are interwoven into the story.
- Action in this book tends to happen abruptly, in between by long polemical antislavery passages, either in the voice of a narrator or spoken by a sympathetic character. Characters are not developed as such, but rather made to function like gears within the complicated machinery of the story. For example, Georgiana Peck's only motivation in life, down to her marriage, seems to be emancipating her father's slaves.
- Unlike in Uncle Tom's Cabin, true Christian conversion is not the ultimate aim; rather, emancipation is. Christianity only happens to be a happy aid toward that goal.
- Althesa, Clotel, and Mary are all bought by their "husbands," who they barely know. They are happy about this, because usually they've been saved from a degrading situation in which they're dressed up in good clothes and forced to have sex with a man who owns them but who isn't their husband. Wait... what's the difference here?
- No one character is the real protagonist; the women's stories are in many instances interchangeable. The ease with which later editions switched titles and the characters to whom the title referred underscores this interchangeability (see below).
The major editions of the text
The novel described above was the 1853 edition, published in London. In 1860-1 a new version, entitled Miralda; or, The Beautiful Quadroon. A Romance of American Slavery, Founded on Fact was serialized in the African-American periodical The Anglo-African. This version dispensed with most of the heavy press documentation that shows up in Clotel. The Miralda of the title is Mary, renamed. In this novel, Clotel is renamed Isabella, and near-white George becomes all-black Jerome. In this version Miralda is also ultimately reunited with her father, who slowly relinquishes his racism. In this American serialized version, and the versions following, Jefferson becomes an anonymous senator.
In 1867 Brown published an American edition under the title Clotelle; or, The Colored Heroine. A Tale of the Southern States. The Clotelle of the title is Mary/Miralda, renamed once again. This version ends with Clotelle and Jerome returning to the U.S. to aid the Union army in the Civil War. Jerome joins the Union army and dies heroically; Clotelle (who, remember, can pass for white) poses as a Confederate woman and helps captive Union soldiers escape.
So, should I read this book?
Well, maybe. Although some critics try to make the case for the jumbled plot, the heavy borrowing from sentimental and abolitionist conventions, and the long diatribes being evidence of formal experimentation, I don't really buy it. It's not a book I would call brilliant, or even well crafted. (Although, let's give Brown some credit here; he spent a large portion of his life as a slave, and as Ann duCille points out, "in a social order that outlawed black literacy, for a slave to read, let alone write a novel, was itself a political act.") It is, however, an immensely interesting and rich cultural text. If you are interested in American literary history/nineteenth century literary culture, the history of passing narratives, or theories of the novel, it's a must-read.
- Brown, William Wells. Clotel; or, The President's Daughter. Ed. with Introduction and Notes by M. Giulia Fabi. New York: Penguin, 2004.
- duCille, Ann. "Where in the World Is William Wells Brown?: Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and the DNA of African-American Literary History," in American Literary History 12.3 (2000) 443-462. (Available on Project Muse). | <urn:uuid:940356f5-c851-4fff-95f7-3d3c91f8e106> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://m.everything2.com/title/Clotel%253B+or%252C+The+President%2527s+Daughter | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370497042.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20200330120036-20200330150036-00234.warc.gz | en | 0.965244 | 2,722 | 3.140625 | 3 |
The Breed History
Somali are a semi-longhaired Abyssinian cat. First records date back to Britain in the 1930s when a spontaneous mutation in Abyssinians occurred, or perhaps the different haircoat was introduced by crossing with longhaired breeds. Outcrossing did occur at some point since the Abyssinian gene pool was seriously depleted in wartime. Historical studies of some lines indicated an autosomal recessive gene for the longhaired coat was present, and periodically, longhaired kittens were born into litters. An American breeder in the 1960s selected Somali for a name because Somalia bordered Abyssinia (now Ethiopia). The CFA granted championship status to the Somali breed in the late вЂ70s, and FIFe followed in 1982. Outcrossing to Abyssinian is still allowed.
Weight: Female 8-10 lb (3.5-4.5 kg), male 10-12 lb (4.5-5.5 kg) Coat: Ruddy cats are the most common color but blue, fawn and sorrel colors are also accepted. Some registries also allow newer colors.
Ruddy is also termed usual. The base color is a rich golden brown sometimes referred to as burnt sienna. Ticking pigment is black. Ticking on the Somali hair consists of 6-12 bands (in comparison to the lesser number in Abyssinians). The root of the hair is the lighter color. Kittens are darker, and their hair base color may be light or gray. Markings include spectacles, mascara eyeliner and a pencil line extending in line towards the ears. Tabby markings on forehead are usually present to some extent. Underside and legs and tail should be unmarked.
Coat is medium in length, a very soft and dense double coat. It is longer on ruff, britches and on the tail. It is a very bushy tail (part of the reason Somali cats have a nickname of "fox cat"). Coat is darker along topline and white is only found around mouth and chin. The coat doesn't finish maturing until about 18 months of age so ticking evaluation is compromised until then.
Eyes: Eyes are hazel, green or amber colored. Almond shaped eyes are large and slanting.
Points of Conformation: Medium-large sized cat, lithe and semi-foreign build, and the back is long. "Fox-like" is a frequent descriptor. Tail is thicker at the base and tapers slightly. Toe tufts are present and feet are compact and oval. The head is a rounded wedge shape, large ears are placed wide set and set well back, with interior furnishings and slightly rounded tips.
Grooming: Low grooming requirements; a gentle brushing every other day should suffice. Shedding occurs spring and fall and daily grooming is best at those times.
Recognized Behavior Issues and Traits
Reported breed characteristics include: Friendly, affectionate, active and playful, these cats like to be close to people. They are soft voiced and don't vocalize often. Curious, with a strong personality, and very alert, some are a bit shy, though most get along well with children, strangers and other pets. Some like to groom their owner's hair. They do fine indoors if given climbers, perches and toys. May shadow their favorite person, and be a lap cat. Compared with the Abyssinian, they are calmer and less active, though a few times a day they may get strong bursts of energy. Some like water and learn to turn on faucets. Others open drawers and cupboards. An indoor-outdoor lifestyle is fine, but Somali cats may not tolerate the cold as well as some other breeds of cats.
Normal Breed Variations
Slow maturing kittens
Litters of about 3-4 kittens on average
B Blood Type: In Somali cats, was reported to be a 22% prevalence. A prevalence of 18% type B has also been reported. In the UK as part of a survey, nine cats were tested and two were Type AB while the rest were type A. Type AB cats are very rare.
Long Hair Genetics: The long hair phenotype in cats is a recessive so how it is distributed in the different longhaired breeds, and coded for is of interest. A recent study determined a mutation (AM412646:c.194C>A) in Somali, Persian, Maine Coon, and Ragdoll Cats was responsible for the long hair genotype.
None reported in the literature
They share many conditions with the Abyssinian-see that chapter. Pyruvate Kinase (PK) Deficiency and Increased Osmotic Fragility of Red Blood Cells (RBCs): Autosomal recessive. The PK enzyme is involved in anaerobic glycolytic pathway of erythrocytes. Reduced activity of the enzyme results in energy depletion and premature red cell destruction. Cats with this condition may experience recurrent severe hemolytic anemia and splenomegaly. In one report of 18 Somali and Abyssinian cats, osmotic fragility occurred in the absence of PK deficiency. Onset of anemia in one report ranged from 6 months to 5 years of age (mean 23 months) and PCV ranged from 15%-25% (some as low as 5%). Hepatic enzymes were elevated in some cats. Macrocytosis that persisted when anemia resolved was noted. It was suggested that this condition may have a heredity basis since affected cats were closely related (affecting both Somali and Abyssinian). In another study of both Abyssinian and Somali cats aged 1-10 years old, chronic intermittent macrocytic regenerative hemolytic anemia and mild splenomegaly was reported. Pyruvate kinase activity ranged from 6%-20% of the normal activity. Osmotic fragility of RBCs was normal to slightly increased. Affected Somali and Abyssinian cats usually have a normal lifespan unlike dogs with this condition (seen in Beagles, Basenji, West Highland White Terrier, Dachshund). Dogs tend to develop liver failure and osteosclerosis while cats do not. Enzyme analysis and molecular genetic tests are available. Anemia may be noted in cats as young as 6 months old, and has been found in senior cats (12 yr) that were clinically normal. A case was described in which the index cat developed a 100% bilirubin cholelith which was thought to be due to chronic hemolysis. (link to reference A on the reference page. A recent study showed high variability in age of onset and severity of clinical signs so testing before breeding was strongly recommended. In Australia, 24 cats were tested for the gene and the mutant allele frequency was 0.29.
Amyloidosis: See Abyssinian chapter for details
Neonatal Isoerythrolysis (NI): The prevalence of B blood type can lead to increased incidence, and the proportion of matings reported to be at risk for NI is 0.14. All B type cats have circulating anti-A antibodies and even primiparous queens can carry these. Type B queens bred to type A toms can result in fatal red cell lysis in A blood type offspring with undetected NI. Kittens with NI can be distinguished from other fading kittens because of pigmenturia; anemia and icterus will also be present; not all kittens at risk for NI will develop overt clinical symptoms.
Progressive Retinal Atrophy (rdAc): Autosomal recessive genetic disease causing blindness. See under Abyssinian. A genetic test is available.
Proressive Retinal Atrophy (Rdy): Autosomal dominant genetic disease causing blindness. See under Abyssinian. A genetic test is available.
Gingivitis: anecdotal over-representation in this breed.
Transfusion Reactions: B blood type similarly results in increased risk of transfusion reactions so donors and recipients should be typed ahead of a transfusion.
Rare and Isolated Cases
Retinal Dysplasia (RD): Abnormal retinal development can affect focal, multifocal or diffuse areas of the retina. Retina degeneration and subsequent scarring interferes with vision. In Sweden, a suspected hereditary form of RD (multifocal) was seen in related Somali cats.
Malignant Histiocytosis: A case report described a multisystem histiocytosis, including neurologic signs, inappetence, and vomiting. Other cases have occurred, but this is a variant of the condition.
Thymoma-associated Neuromuscular Disorder: Can occur as a primary condition (no antibodies-see Siamese) or an acquired form for which Abyssinian and possibly Somali cats are predisposed; Acetylcholine receptor antibodies produced within/by the tumor and in muscle cross react resulting in voice changes, myasthenia gravis, tremor, ventroflexion of the neck and gait abnormalities –myasthenia gravis signs are as for the idiopathic form.
Myasthenia Gravis (MG, acquired): Highest relative risk for acquired MG compared with a baseline of mixed breed cats was reported for Abyssinians and related Somali cats, with relative risk increasing after 3 years of age. The MG was commonly associated with cranial mediastinal mass (not always).15 See Abyssinian chapter for more information. See above also: Thymoma-associated Neuromuscular Disorder.
Pyruvate kinase deficiency Direct test is available from PennGen. Minimum of 1-2 ml purple top EDTA blood and should be sent immediately (don't freeze). Test within 48 hrs of sampling. The lab can do concurrent blood typing on that sample. They can also use 2 buccal swabs. Direct genetic tests for rdAc PRA and Rdy are available from UC-Davis VGL. Blood typing done before mating and transfusions Miscellaneous
- Breed name synonyms: Longhaired Abyssinian, Longhaired ticked cat, Fox cat.
- Registries: FIFe, TICA, CFA, ACFA, CFF, CCA, NZCF, WCF, GCCF
- Breed resources: The Association for Somali Cats: http://tasc.freeservers.com/
Somali breeders and Fanciers Association Inc: http://www.somalibreeders.com/
Somali Cat Club of America: www.ladybear.com/Somalis
Somali Cat Club of Great Britain (GCCF): http://www.somalicatclub.com/
The information contained on our website is for informational purposes only. All the material was collected from the most reliable sources of information. Any reproduction or publication of information from our website without permission - is prohibited
For any questions please write to:
Copyright © 2014 Animalia Life | All rights reserved | <urn:uuid:bb3a4226-2666-467a-afc2-424aaeaba124> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | http://animalia-life.com/somali-cat.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371826355.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20200408233313-20200409023813-00475.warc.gz | en | 0.937495 | 2,281 | 2.890625 | 3 |
The theory goes like this:-
So far as your body is concerned you are either in a FED state or a FASTED state.
(There is an in between post–absorptive state but for now let’s keep it simple.)
FED State – After eating the pancreas secretes insulin which signals the removal of excess calories (energy) that you are not immediately needing to use, into fat stores. Meanwhile the burning of fat is turned off and the body burns glucose from your last meal.
FASTED State – Here the insulin levels are low. (In contrast the opposing hormones Glucagon and Growth Hormone levels are high.) There are no freely available calories as we’ve not eaten for a while, so the body calls in its reserves – Fat is converted to Glucose in a process called Gluconeogenesis quite literally translated as ‘the production of new glucose’. However, this will only occur beyond around 8 hours of fasting when liver glycogen stores, the readily mobilised energy store useful for sudden, strenuous activity start to deplete and an alternative source of glucose is required.
If we spend much of our time in the FED state insulin is constantly high and the body will avoid burning stored fat and this chronic exposure leads to ‘insulin resistance’ where the body secretes even more insulin in response to the FED state. This is the cause of ‘Metabolic Syndrome’: obesity, abdominal fat storage, high triglycerides, low HDL or “good” cholesterol and elevated glucose with eventual type 2 diabetes.
When these “sugar burners” stop eating for a few hours they run out of glucose from their last meal and instead of transitioning to the FASTED state and mobilising and burning stored body fat, they become hungry for more glucose from carbohydrates and can spend much of the day trapped in a cycle of eating every few hours, spiking glucose and thus insulin and then becoming hungry again. (See the ‘hypoglycemia’ myth below)
However, we can change this state and become “fat adapted”, the metabolic state your body is in once your body has efficiently transitioned from burning sugar to burning fat reserves for energy. We can become better fat adapted by the traditional methods of eating less and burning more calories – Diet & Exercise. Newton’s first law of thermodynamics – The law of Conservation of Energy, states that energy (measured here in calories) cannot be created or destroyed in an isolated system and thus if we consume less calories – eat less and burn more calories – exercise more, our body, the ‘isolated system’, will lose weight as we will use up our stored energy = fat!
Less calories results in less available glucose, so the body must rely more on stored body fat.
Eating a LCHF (Low Carb High Fat) diet improves the body’s ability to utilise fat for energy rather than glucose, as there is more fat and less glucose available at all times, even in the FED state.
High-intensity exercise depletes glucose and glycogen rapidly, forcing the body to utilise more fat for fuel. Exercise also improves insulin sensitivity. Fasted cardio is exercise done in a FASTED state, in which your body is no longer processing or digesting food, the benefits include increased lipolysis, fat oxidation and decreased insulin levels, essentially using stored energy and thus losing weight. (Or more accurately losing fat whilst building muscle.) Also see below ‘High-Intensity exercise helps with fat adaptation.’
Think Parkrun! 9am Saturday Mornings – https://www.parkrun.org.uk/
This seems to be another way to lose weight by spending more time in the FASTED state we encourage the body to burn more fat.
Some say the 16:8 diet is the easiest way to do this. Skip breakfast, have a light lunch and a larger dinner.
16 hours of being in a FASTED state and 8 hours being in a FED state.
FED state starts with a meal (seemingly no matter how small – Yes even milk in your coffee!) and lasts for three to five hours whilst your body digests and absorbs the food, insulin rises significantly shutting off fat-burning and excess calories are stored as fat. (The post–absorptive state lasts until 8 to 12 hours after your last meal whilst the components of the last meal are still circulating.)
FASTED state starts 8 to 12 hours after your last meal and is when the body can burn fat in the absence of glucose.
So with a typical diet of breakfast, lunch and evening meal it’s not difficult to see why we may seldom be in a FASTED state especially with late evening snacks and sugary drinks and so we may find we are almost always in a FED state.
Eating carbohydrates, especially refined carbohydrates with no fibre boosts the FED state, as carbohydrates raise both glucose and insulin higher than other macro-nutrients (fat, on the other hand, raises glucose and insulin the very least). In general, when you eat a meal, your body spends a few hours processing that food and burning what it can from what you just consumed. Because this energy is readily available and easy to burn your body will utilise this energy rather than the hard to get at fat you have stored. This is especially true if you have just consumed carbohydrates, because these are rapidly converted to glucose and your body prefers to burn sugar as energy before any other type – fat etc.
High-Intensity exercise helps with fat adaptation as it utilises glucose and glycogen rapidly, forcing the body to switch over and utilise more fat for fuel. This means that a meal immediately following a workout will be stored most efficiently: mostly as glycogen replenishing muscle stores, burned as energy immediately to help with the recovery process and have only a minimal amount stored as fat. Exercise also improves insulin sensitivity.
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day”
When we wake insulin levels are low and you may be just entering the FASTED state. Breakfast will thus spike glucose which raises Insulin and shuts off fat-burning!
Breakfast cereals also contain a lot of natural and added sugar and high spikes of insulin and glucose lead to large drops in glucose a few hours later triggering hunger (although NOT true hypoglycemia – low blood glucose.) Some say that this fits with our evolutionary heritage when in the morning we would be hunter Gatherers and eat later in the day. Break out of Breakfast – fast!
(Does the cornflakes GI surprise you? – It does me!)
“Eat small frequent meals.”
Although this MAY result in one taking in less calories in order to burn fat we do need to be in the FASTED state, which frequent meals precludes.
“Eat protein frequently throughout the day in order to build muscle.”
Protein is an important building block of bones, muscles, cartilage, skin, and blood but eating an adequate amount once a day is plenty to build and repair tissues, make enzymes, hormones and other body chemicals.
“Fasting leads to burning muscle instead of fat.”
Growth hormone is increased during the FASTED state as well as whilst we sleep. If insulin is the FED state hormone, Growth Hormone is the FASTED state hormone and can rise 2000% after a 24 hour fast!! Growth hormone builds muscle due to its anabolic effects – Body builders use it to build muscle and burn fat! Growth hormone elevates in the FASTED state to help preserve muscle! This makes sense as our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have needed this to be the case so as to avoid weakening muscles and allowing the hunt to be successful! When we are in the FASTED state we also release catecholamines (epinephrine or adrenaline, norepinephrine, and dopamine) increasing energy and alertness further helping the catching of prey!
“Your metabolism slows down when you are fasting.”
Actually, our metabolism might actually speed up slightly thanks to the release of catecholamines and activation of the sympathetic nervous system the “fight or flight” system. This would fit the theory above that hunter gatherers would be activated during the day when most active and in the FASTED state looking for food, followed by parasympathetic “rest and digest” mode (The in-between post–absorptive state and the FASTED state.) in the evening after eating a large meal.
“If I don’t eat I will get low blood sugar [hypoglycemia].”
FASTING for extremely long periods rarely results in hypoglycemia. The sensations of “low blood sugar” (in non-diabetics) usually results from eating very high glycaemic index (GI) carbohydrate food a few hours earlier, inducing a blood glucose spike, raising insulin resulting in a ‘crash’ in blood sugar levels and it is this rapid drop which causes the ‘light-headed’ sensation and a desire for a carbohydrate fix!
The most common form consists of skipping breakfast every morning with lunch at noon and dinner at 8:00 p.m. Snacking inside your eating window is allowed although its best to consolidate calories into larger meals rather than intermittent snaking. This is the 16:8 split (16 hours fasting and 8 hours eating.)
An alternative but rather more difficult in practice routine is the warrior diet which involves fasting for 20 hours overnight and during the day and then possibly ‘overeating’ during a four-hour window in the evening. This is again based on our primitive ancestors spending their days hunting and gathering and feasting at night. This is a 20:4 hour split (20 hours of fasting and then a 4 hour eating window at the end of the day) does allow you to eat large satisfying ‘anything goes’ meals at the end of the day and might be perfect if going out to dinner where several highly calorific courses food might be involved. Fasting this long during the day is more difficult but does lead to a deeper level of fat adaptation and low insulin (which helps improve insulin sensitivity).
So an alternative to all those other diets that don’t seem to work? Some science but remember there is controversy in all this! Try it and see – I’ve seen great results in others – me? I’m at the beginning – early days – hungry up until lunch but enjoying the freedom to eat an ‘unrestricted’ supper! Not lost any significant weight YET! | <urn:uuid:fc94b85d-b63b-4386-8035-5c890ea52d53> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://itsthetimeofyourlife.com/2020/03/02/feast-and-famine-intermittent-fasting-to-lose-weight/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370500482.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20200331115844-20200331145844-00315.warc.gz | en | 0.942326 | 2,227 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Before measles vaccine, nearly all children got measles by the time they were 15 years of age. Each year in the United States about 450-500 people died because of measles, 48,000 were hospitalized, 7,000 had seizures, and about 1,000 suffered permanent brain damage or deafness. Today there are only about 60 cases a year reported in the United States, and most of these originate outside the country.
“We spent 3 days in the hospital fearing we might lose our baby boy. He couldn’t drink or eat, so he was on an IV, and for a while he seemed to be wasting away. When he began to be able to drink again we got to take him home. But the doctors told us to expect the disease to continue to run its course, including high fever—which did spike as high as 106 degrees. We spent a week waking at all hours to stay on schedule with fever reducing medications and soothing him with damp wash cloths. Also, as instructed, we watched closely for signs of lethargy or non-responsiveness. If we’d seen that, we’d have gone back to the hospital immediately.”
Thankfully, the baby recovered fully.
Megan now knows that her son was exposed to measles during his 10-month check-up, when another mother brought her ill son into the pediatrician’s waiting room. An investigation found that the boy and his siblings had gotten measles overseas and brought it back to the United States. They had not been vaccinated.
“People who choose not to vaccinate their children actually make a choice for other children and put them at risk,” Megan explains. “At 10 months, my son was too young to get the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine. But when he was 12 months old, we got him the vaccine—even though he wasn’t susceptible to measles anymore. This way, he won’t suffer from mumps or rubella, or spread them to anyone else.”
Probably two of the most notable vaccine successes are smallpox and infantile paralysis. I had a smallpox vaccination in the 1950’s, and was one of the first children to receive the Salk vaccine against polio.
SmallPox (Variola Major)
The last recorded incidence of smallpox was 1978 in Great Britain. Some estimates indicate that 20th century worldwide deaths from smallpox numbered more than 300 million.
Infantile Paralysis (Poliomyelitis)
Landmark vaccination and surveillance efforts along with subsequent national mass Salk and Sabin vaccination programs – with CDC epidemiologists continuing to administer vaccine and conduct disease surveillance — eradicated polio in the U.S. by 1979. Now, we are on the verge of worldwide eradication of this dreaded disease. In the U.S. meanwhile, continued protection from polio depends on continuing the impressive and historically high rate of polio vaccination. People at greatest risk include those who never had polio vaccine, or didn’t receive all the recommended doses, as well as those traveling to areas with polio cases. Vaccination will be necessary for full protection as long as polio remains in the world.
More than 50 years ago, polio held U.S. families in a grip of terror. Especially during the summertime, when polio seemed most likely to circulate, parents feared they would hear in the news or from neighbors that someone in the community had polio. “People tried to keep their children safe from the potentially paralyzing disease by keeping them out of public places such as pools, parks, and theaters,” explains Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The nation came together like never before in an effort to create a vaccine to protect children from polio. Millions of Americans raised funds in their communities for research. Much of the funding came through the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (presently the March of Dimes Foundation), founded in 1938 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, himself paralyzed by polio in the prime of his life. Before the March of Dimes drew national attention to the search for a polio vaccine, two attempts to develop a polio vaccine had failed—neither produced immunity and some deaths were blamed on one of the vaccines.
In 1952, Jonas Salk and his team at the University of Pittsburgh created the first effective polio vaccine. By 1954, it was time to test the Salk vaccine widely. Thomas Francis Jr. at the University of Michigan led the nationwide test, the scale of which had never been seen before. More than 1.8 million school children across the United States participated. Thousands of health care professionals and other volunteers administered the vaccine and collected results.
I was one of the children in the nationwide test, and received the “real” vaccine!
Everyone had the same goal: victory over polio. In 1955 the results were proclaimed: the Salk vaccine was “safe, effective, and potent!”
More stats: http://www.post-polio.org/ir-usa.html
As one would expect, diseases such as polio are still rife in Africa and other parts of the Third World. But the United States and Great Britain deserve badges of shame for the resurgence of measles and whooping cough, which are almost entirely due to the ignorance and fear spread by the anti-vaccine movements in those countries.
One disturbing trend related to polio, which should have been eradicated globally decades ago, is its presence in Nigeria and Pakistan. These outbreaks are closely related to campaigns of violence directed at vaccine workers and other healthcare staff. Reports of the violence are shown on the updated CFR map for the first time.
According to a research team at Boston Children’s Hospital, suspicion of the polio vaccine in Nigeria dates back to 2003, when rumors spread that “the vaccine was for sterilizing children for birth control and contained HIV.” More recently, vaccination drives have been halted by the Boko Haram insurgency. Last year, nine women working on a polio vaccination campaign were killed by gunmen.
In Pakistan, the Boston researchers report, Taliban commanders have banned polio vaccines in regions under their control. Militants are predisposed to suspect vaccination campaigns because the U.S. used a polio vaccination drive as cover for the search for Osama bin Laden in 2011. Healthcare workers “feared the deception would increase the danger to polio workers,” as indeed it has.
The toll has been significant. Pakistan’s 94 polio cases lead the world this year.
Other than the Third World, measles outbreaks are concentrated in Great Britain and the wealthy coastal zones of the U.S., where anti-vaccination ignorance is pronounced among affluent and ostensibly educated populations. Whooping cough, or pertussis, is concentrated in the U.S., thanks largely to anti-vaccination ignorance.
There are objections to the use of vaccines. I’ll cover them briefly here, although I do not believe that the objections are significant enough to rule out vaccination of our children.
There is a tangential connection between some vaccines and abortion. The Hepatitis A vaccine, the MMR vaccine, and the chicken pox vaccine all contain viruses (weakened or inactivated) that were grown in human cells. A virus must be given a medium in which to propagate. Many vaccines use viruses that can propagate in several kinds of mammal cells, but some viruses are so specific that they can only propagate in human cells. The viruses used in the above-listed vaccines are that specific. Thus, they must be grown in human cells.
Where do the vaccine companies get the cells for these vaccines? They get them from companies like Coriell Cell Repositories, 403 Haddon Avenu, Camden, New Jersey 08103, 800-752-3805. This company has many cell lines, which are cultures of self-perpetuating cells. Each culture of cells is continually reproducing, making more cells. Those cells are sold to researchers, drug companies, and other medical technology firms. The specific cell lines used in vaccines are the MRC-5 and WI-38 cell lines, and they have been supplying medical research of all types for more than 35 years. Where do these cell lines come from? That’s where the grain of truth in this lie comes from. Both of these cell lines were cultured from cells taken from two abortions, one (MRC-5) that was performed in September,1966 and one (WI-38) that was performed in July, 1962.
Now that you have learned the facts, we can discuss the moral issues involved. Is it immoral to use these cell lines to make vaccines? The answer is definitely not. You might think that the cell lines are somehow “tainted” because they come from abortions; however, think about it for a moment. Abortion is murder. A person who claims to be a physician purposefully kills an innocent, unprotected person. That is evil, and there is no doubt about it. However, let’s consider another murder, shall we? Let’s suppose one of your loved ones was shot in a robbery attempt. You rush your loved one to the hospital, but it is too late. Your loved one dies. This is another murder, and it is just as evil.
Suppose that the doctors rush in and tell you that there is a young boy in the next room who needs a heart immediately, or he will die. The doctors have analyzed your loved one’s blood and found that your loved one is a perfect match for the dying boy. Would you donate your loved one’s heart to the boy? I certainly would. It would be a tragedy that my loved one was murdered, but at least this would be a “silver lining” in that dark cloud. At least my loved one’s death would mean that a young boy could live.
The cells that were taken from the two aborted babies more than 35 years ago are much like my loved one’s heart. Two innocent babies were killed. However, they were able to donate something that has been used not only to make vaccines, but in many medical research projects over the years. Thus, these cells have been saving millions of lives for almost two generations! Although the babies were clearly murdered, the fact that their cells have been saving lives is at least a silver lining in the dark cloud of their tragic murder.
Interestingly enough, a June 9, 2005 statement from the Pontifical Academy for Life (the Vatican’s official voice in the area of abortion/right-to-life) comes to essentially the same conclusion. Even though some organizations have mischaracterized the document as condemning the use of such vaccines, the document, in fact, says quite the opposite. It says that when an alternative vaccine which has no connection whatsoever to abortion is available, parents should use it. There is no question that this is the moral thing to do. In addition, when there is no alternative available, parents should object by demonstration, etc. so as to force manufactures to come up with an alternative.
Because some organizations have tried to mischaracterize this statement, the Catholic News Service (CNS) produced an article that quotes Msgr. Jacques Suaudeau, a medical doctor and official at the Pontifical Academy for Life, as saying, “If the health of the child or of the whole population [is at risk], the parents should accept having their kid be vaccinated if there is no alternative.” Because some organizations clearly do not like the Roman Catholic church officially saying that the use of these vaccines is morally acceptable, they have asked the Pontifical Academy for Life to change its statement. However, CNS reports that Msgr. Jacques Suaudeau said the document “could not be changed” because it accurately reflected church teaching. Despite what you might read, then, even the Vatican supports the use of vaccines that have a tangential relationship to abortion, as long as no alternative vaccines are available.
There are, of course, those who believe that vaccinations are responsible for autism. I’ll leave a couple of links here, although I have found that it is impossible to convince those who are true believers in the causation between vaccines and autism: | <urn:uuid:038619d1-2c1d-499c-ac59-a6d34a818e3e> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2014/10/25/why-i-support-vaccination/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371805747.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20200407183818-20200407214318-00515.warc.gz | en | 0.97378 | 2,545 | 3.28125 | 3 |
Friends and family are often key to encouraging loved ones with eating and/or body image issues to seek help. Whether they are unaware that there is a problem, they are afraid or ashamed to seek help, or they are ambivalent about giving up their concerning behaviors, many sufferers find it difficult to seek help. Family and friends can play an important role in identifying worrying symptoms to the sufferer and encouraging them to seek help.
If you are concerned about the eating habits, weight, or body image of someone you care about, we understand that this may be a very difficult and scary time for you. It’s not always easy to discuss eating concerns, especially with someone you are close to. However, you are doing a great thing by looking for more information; many individuals now in recovery from an eating disorder say the support of family and friends was crucial to them getting well.
How to Talk to a Loved One About Eating Concerns
- Learn as much as you can about eating disorders. Read books, articles, and brochures. Know the difference between facts and myths about weight, nutrition, and exercise. Knowing the facts will help you reason with your friend about any inaccurate ideas that may be fueling their disordered eating patterns.
- Rehearse what you want to say. This may help reduce your anxiety and clarify exactly what you want to say. Other people have found writing out their main points helpful.
- Set a private time and place to talk. No one wants to have personal issues dissected in front of a crowd, so make sure you find a time and place where you will have time to discuss your concerns without being rushed or in front of a crowd.
- Be honest. Talk openly and honestly about your concerns with the person who is struggling with eating or body image problems. Avoiding it or ignoring it won’t help!
- Use “I” statements. Focus on behaviors that you have personally observed, such as “I have noticed that you aren’t eating dinner with us anymore,” or “I am worried about how frequently you are going to the gym.” It’s easy to sound accusatory (“You’re not eating! You’re exercising too much!”), which can cause a person to feel defensive. Instead, stick to pointing out what you’ve observed. If you can, also point out behaviors not related to eating and weight, which may be easier for the person to see and accept.
- Stick to the facts. Raising concerns about a potential eating disorder can bring up lots of emotions, and it’s important not to let those run the show. Instead, talk about behaviors and changes you have observed and calmly point out why you are concerned (“I have seen you run to the bathroom after meals and feel worried you might be making yourself throw up.”).
- Be caring, but be firm. Caring about your friend does not mean being manipulated by them. Your friend must be responsible for their actions and the consequences of those actions. Avoid making rules, promises, or expectations that you cannot or will not uphold. For example, “I promise not to tell anyone.” Or, “If you do this one more time, I’ll never talk to you again.”
- Remove potential stigma. Remind your loved one that there’s no shame in admitting you struggle with an eating disorder or other mental health issue. Many people will be diagnosed with these issues during their lifetimes, and many will recover.
- Avoid overly simplistic solutions. Being told “Just stop” or “Just eat” isn’t helpful. It can leave the sufferer feeling frustrated, defensive, and misunderstood.
- Be prepared for negative reactions. Some eating disorder sufferers are glad that someone has noticed they are struggling. Others respond differently. Some may become angry and hostile, insisting that you are the one with the problem. Others may brush off your concerns or minimize potential dangers. Both of these responses are normal. Reiterate your concerns, let them know you care, and leave the conversation open.
- Encourage them to seek professional help. Many eating disorder sufferers require professional help in order to get better. Offer to help the sufferer find a physician or therapist if they don’t have one, or attend an appointment where the eating disorder is discussed. Getting timely, effective treatment dramatically increases a person’s chances for recovery. If your loved one is ready to seek treatment or you want to explore options, the NEDA Helpline is a great place to start. Contact the Helpline >
- Tell someone. It may seem difficult to know when, if at all, to tell someone else about your concerns. Addressing body image or eating problems in their beginning stages offers your friend the best chance for working through these issues and becoming healthy again. Don’t wait until the situation is so severe that your friend’s life is in danger. Your friend needs a great deal of support and understanding.
Even if you don’t feel the discussion was well-received or that you got through to your loved one, don’t despair. You shared your concern and let them know that you care and you are there for them. You may also have planted a seed that they should seek help. The seed may not take root immediately, but over time, the concern of friends and family can help move an individual towards recovery.
Note: If you suspect a medical or psychiatric emergency, such as threats of suicide or medical complications from eating disorder behaviors (such as fainting, heart arrhythmias, or seizures), seek medical attention or call 911 immediately.
Another useful educational resource is NEDA’s Parent Toolkit. This comprehensive guide is for anyone who wants to understand more about how to support a family member or friend affected by an eating disorder. You will find answers to your insurance questions; signs, symptoms and medical consequences; information about treatment and levels of care; and questions to ask when choosing a treatment provider. Download the Parent Toolkit >
Tips for Encouraging a Loved One to Seek Professional Help
Recovery from an eating disorder requires professional help, and chances of recovery are improved the sooner a person begins treatment. It can be frustrating to watch a loved one suffer and refuse to seek help. Parents of children under 18 can often require that their child’s eating disorder be treated, even if the child doesn’t buy in to the idea that treatment is necessary.
For parents of older sufferers, and other loved ones of sufferers of any age, encouraging a reluctant eating disorder patient to seek help can be a delicate task. It’s crucial to their future well-being, however, to seek recovery, and encouraging proper treatment of their eating disorder can help them move towards that goal.
Although every discussion with an eating disorder sufferer will be slightly different, here are a few basic points to keep in mind:
- Taking the first step towards recovery is scary and challenging. Although the act of seeking help might seem straightforward to you, it can be very stressful and confusing. Keeping that in mind will help you empathize with what the other person is going through.
- Ask if they want help making the first call or appointment. Some individuals may find it less anxiety-provoking if someone else sets up the appointment or goes with them to discuss a potential eating disorder.
- Don’t buy the eating disorder’s excuses. It’s easy enough to promise to see a doctor or a therapist, but the sufferer needs to follow through with making the appointment and seeing a professional on a regular basis. Yes, everyone’s busy, treatment can be expensive, and the eating disorder might not seem like a big deal. Don’t making eating disorder treatment the only thing you talk about with your loved one, but follow up on their promise to see someone.
- If the first professional isn’t a good match, encourage them to keep looking. Finding the right therapist isn’t easy, and someone may have to interview several potential candidates before finding one that works. Sometimes it takes several tries before a person identifies the right clinician.
- Make sure they get a medical check-up. Eating disorders cause a wide range of medical issues, and sufferers need to see a physician regularly to make sure their health isn’t at immediate risk. Remember that lab work may remain stable even if someone is close to death, so don’t rely on blood tests alone.
- Ally with the part of them that wants to get well. Often, eating disorder sufferers are hesitant to change their behaviors. Some people have found it easier to focus on some of the side effects of the eating disorder that the sufferer may be more willing to acknowledge and tackle, such as depression, social isolation, anxiety, insomnia, fatigue, or feeling cold. This can help get them in the door, where the eating disorder can begin to be addressed.
- Remind the person of why they want to get well. What types of goals does your loved one have? Do they want to travel? Have children? Go to college? Start a new career? Helping them reconnect with their values and who they want to be can help them stay focused on long-term recovery and not the short-term benefits of the eating disorder.
- Find a middle ground between forcing the issue and ignoring it. If you become overly insistent and combative about your loved one seeking help, they may start to avoid you. On the other hand, you don’t want to ignore a potentially deadly illness. It’s not easy to find a middle ground between these two extremes, but regularly checking in with your loved one about how they’re doing and if they are willing to seek treatment can help nudge them in the right direction. | <urn:uuid:eb97fe59-a283-4e55-9d71-5c91a9698eb7> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://wallacefamilytherapy.com/how-to-help-a-loved-one-with-an-eating-disorder/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371826355.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20200408233313-20200409023813-00474.warc.gz | en | 0.962944 | 2,059 | 2.546875 | 3 |
In works on Islam the word "hadith" usually refers to the sayings or "traditions" which have been transmitted from the Prophet. Muslims hold these to be the most important source of Islamic teachings after the Qur'an. Numerous works have been written in Western languages on the role of the hadith literature in Islam1 and a number of important translations have been made.2
But almost all Western studies have been limited to the point of view of Sunni Islam and based on Sunni sources and collections. Practically no one has paid any serious attention to the different nature of the hadith literature in Shi'ism and the different sources from which the hadiths are derived.
The fundamental distinction to be made between Shi'ite and Sunni hadiths is that in Shi'ism the traditions are not limited to those of the Prophet, but include those of the Imams as well. As important and basic as this point is, it has not been understood even in such standard reference works as the new Encyclopedia of Islam.
There the author of the article "Hadith" is aware that there is some difference between Shi'ism and Sunnism on the question of which hadiths are included, but he thinks that it lies in the fact that the Shi'ite collections accept "only traditions traced through 'Ali's family." But this is incorrect, since numerous traditions are also transmitted through other sources. What the author fails to mention is that the hadith literature as understood by Shi'ites is not limited to the sayings of the Prophet, but includes those of the Imams as well.3
In short, collections of hadiths in Sunni Islam, such as those of al-Bukhari and Muslim, contain only sayings transmitted from and about the Prophet. But the Shi'ite collections, such as that of al-Kulayni, also contain sayings transmitted from and about the twelve Imams. Naturally the Shi'ites make a distinction among the hadiths, so that those transmitted from the Prophet are of greater authority, but nevertheless all traditions are listed together according to subject matter, not according to author.
The most famous and authoritative collections of Shi'ite hadiths are four works which, in terms of their importance for Shi'ism, correspond to the Six Correct Collections in Sunni Islam. These are al-Kafi fi 'ilm al-din (The Sufficient in the Knowledge of Religion) by Thiqat al-Islam Muhammad ibn Ya'qub al-Kulayni (d. 329/940), Man la yahduruhu al-faqih (For him not in the Presence of Jurisprudent) of Shaykh al-Saduq Muhammad ibn Babuyah al-Qummi (d. 381/991), Tahdhib al-ahkam (Rectification of the Statutes) by Shaykh al-Ta'ifah Muhammad al-Tusi (d. 460/ 1068) and al-Istibsar fi ma ukhtulif fihi min al-akhbar (Reflection upon the Disputed Traditions) also by al-Tusi.
The Present Collection
The sermons, sayings, prayers and writings translated here present a cross section of Shi'ite religious thought with an emphasis upon that which is most basic for the religion itself and most universal and hence understandable in the eyes of non-Muslims. As 'Allamah Tabataba'i points out in his foreword, in making these selections his aim was to emphasize the three basic dimensions of the Shi'ite tradition:
- The profession of Unity (altawhid), or the metaphysical and
theological principles of the faith
- The political, social and moral teachings.
- The inward, spiritual and devotional life of the community.
- The political, social and moral teachings.
Hence the selections stress the principles and fundamentals (usul) of Islam, while they tend to ignore the branches and secondary aspects (furu). In other words, little is said about the concrete ramifications of the principles in terms of the details of the application of the Divine Law (al-Shari'ah) to everyday life. Nevertheless, the secondary aspects are clearly reflected in 'Ali's "Instructions to Malik al-Ashtar" and to a lesser degree in the prayers.
Although it is well known that the first "pillar of Islam" is the profession of faith, which begins with a statement of the Divine Unity, Western scholars have tended to explain the Islamic belief in God's Oneness as a relativity simple-minded affirmation of the existence of only one God.
Perhaps one reason the Nahj albalaghah and the Shi'ite hadith literature in general have been neglected or simply branded as spurious is that their very existence flatly contradicts the commonly accepted idea of a simple bedouin faith with few philosophical or metaphysical overtones. In these writings we see that already in the first centuries of Islam the Divine Unity was affirmed in terms reminiscent of the subtlety of later "theosophical" Sufism, but still completely steeped in the peculiar spiritual aroma of the revelation itself.
In making the selections 'Allamah Tabataba'i utilized four works: the Nahj al-balaghah, al-Sahifat al-sajjadiyyah,Bihar al-anwar and Mafatih al-jinan. The first two works are discussed in Dr. Nasr's introduction. Bihar al-anwar(Oceans of Lights) is a monumental encyclopedia ofhadiths which attempts to collect all Shi'ite traditions in a single work and which classifies them by subject matter. It was compiled in the Safavid period by the famous theologian Muhammad Baqir Majlisi (d. 1110/1698-9 or 1111/1699-1700).
The importance the work has possessed since its compilation as the standard reference work for all Shi'ite studies can hardly be overemphasized. One indication of its popularity is that, despite its enormous size, it was published twice in lithographed form in the nineteenth century. The modern edition of the work fills 110 volumes of approximately 400 pages each.
Majlisi collected his traditions from numerous earlier sources. As examples, we can mention a few of the works from which he derived the hadiths in the present collection, works which have been independently published in modern times. Shaykh al-Saduq, the author of one of the four basic works on Shi'ite hadiths referred to above, compiled dozens of authoritative hadith collections, each of which usually follows a particular theme.
His al-Tawhid collects traditions which illustrate the profession of God's Unit. His 'Uyun akhbar Ar-Ridha’ gathers together everything that has been related about Imam 'Ali Ar-Ridha’, the eighth Imam, whose tomb in Mashhad is the holiest site of pilgrimage in Iran. The work contains such things as descriptions of the Imam's mother, explanations of the reason his name was chosen, all the sayings which have been recorded from him, and traditions concerning his death and the miracles which have occurred at his tomb.
Shaykh al-Saduq's al-Khisal demonstrates the importance of numbers in the traditions. In twelve long chapters he records all the hadiths which mention the numbers one to twelve. The author of al-Ihtijaj, Abu Mansur Ahmad ibn 'al-Tabarsi (d. 599/1202-3), rejects the views of certain of his contemporaries who had claimed that the Prophet and the Imams never engaged in argumentation. He collects together traditions in which their discussions with opponents have been recorded.
The fourth work from which 'Allamah Tabataba'i made his selections is Mafatih al-jinan ("Keys to the Gardens of Paradise"), a standard collection of Shi'ite prayers compiled from Bihar al-anwar and other sources by 'Abbas Qummi (d. 1359/1940-1). It includes prayers to be recited daily, prayers for special occasions such as religious holidays and days of mourning, litanies and invocations for different moments in one's life, instructions for making a pilgrimage to the tomb of the Prophet or any one of the Imams and prayers for every other conceivable occasion as well.
A note needs to be added about the method of translation. Because of the sacred nature of the texts and their fundamental importance as sources for the Shi'ite branch of Islam, I have attempted to translate them in a strictly literal manner so that the least amount of personal interpretation will have been made.
There are definite disadvantages to this method, but the necessity for an accurate translation would seem to outweigh them all. After all, the Quran has been translated dozens of times. Others who may feel that the present translation does not do justice to the literary qualities of the text may try their own hand at rendering it into English.
The necessity for a literal translation is all the greater because a good deal of the material translated here - in particular those parts which derive from the Nahj al-balaghah - has also been translated elsewhere and on the whole has been misrepresented. Before such interpretive translations are made and held to reflect the thought of the Imams, literal translations are of paramount importance. In order to maintain a faithful translation, I have added notes wherever I deviate from a strictly literal translation or wherever there are questionable readings in the original.
Because no standard translations exist for many technical terms, I have felt it necessary to add the Arabic original in brackets for the benefit of scholars and Arabic speakers. This is especially true in the most difficult and metaphysical section of the book, Part I "On the Unity of God." Although the Arabic terms will prove a distraction to most readers, they represent the only practical way of tying the present texts into the reader's knowledge of the Arabic language.
Finally I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who asked me to undertake this work many years ago and has guided me in every stage of it, although of course I remain completely responsible for any inaccuracies which may remain in the translations and notes. Peter Lamborn Wilson and William Shpall also read the manuscript and made valuable suggestions. And without the kindness and encouragement of Wg. Cdr. (rtd.) Husayn and the Muhammadi Trust, the work may never have been completed and published.
"Hadith" in the Encyclopedia of Islam (new edition), where a good bibliography is also provided (vol. III, pp.23-8)
into worthy English is the Mishkat al-masabih,trans. By J. Robson, Lahore 4 vols, 1963-5. See also the translation of Bukhari mentioned in note 1 of the introduction, and Sahih Muslim, trans. By A.K Siddiqi, Lahore, 1972 onward. | <urn:uuid:4950c81c-890d-41df-8d0c-ce31d6124a93> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | http://www.shiavault.com/books/a-shi-ite-anthology/chapters/2-translator-s-introduction | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371606067.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20200405150416-20200405180916-00475.warc.gz | en | 0.949242 | 2,276 | 3.234375 | 3 |
16 March 1966: At 16:41:02.389 UTC (12:41:02 p.m. Eastern Standard Time), forty years to the day after the launch of Dr. Robert Goddard’s first liquid-fueled rocket, Gemini VIII, with command pilot Neil Alden Armstrong and pilot David Randolph Scott, lifted off from Launch Complex 19 at the Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, Cape Kennedy, Florida, aboard a Titan II GLV booster. Their mission was to rendezvous and dock with an Agena Target Vehicle launched earlier aboard an Atlas rocket.
Gemini VIII entered a 86.3 × 146.7 nautical mile (99.3 × 168.8 statute miles/160 × 271.7 kilometers) elliptical orbit. The spacecraft was traveling at 17,549 miles per hour (28,242 kilometers per hour).
The docking, the first ever of two vehicles in Earth orbit, was successful, however after about 27 minutes the combined vehicles begin rolling uncontrollably. The Gemini capsule separated from the Agena, and for a few minutes all seemed normal. But the rolling started again, reaching as high as 60 r.p.m.
The astronauts were in grave danger. Armstrong succeeded in stopping the roll but the Gemini’s attitude control fuel was dangerously low.
The pilots’ report reads:
Shortly after sending encoder command 041 (recorder ON), roll and yaw rates were observed to be developing. No visual or audible evidence of spacecraft thruster firing was noted, and the divergence was attributed to the GATV.
Commands were sent to de-energize the GATV ACS, geocentric rate, and horizon sensors, and the spacecraft Orbital Attitude and Maneuver System (OAMS) was activated.
The rates were reduced to near zero, but began to increase upon release of the hand controller. The ACS was commanded on to determine if GATV thruster action would help reduce the angular rates. No improvement was noted and the ACS was again commanded off. Plumes from a GATV pitch thruster were visually observed, however, during a period when the ACS was thought to be inactivated.
After a period of relatively stable operation, the rates once again began to increase. The spacecraft was switched to secondary bias power, secondary logics, and secondary drivers in an attempt to eliminate possible spacecraft control-system discrepancies. No improvement being observed, a conventional troubleshooting approach with the OAMS completely de-energized was attempted, but subsequently abandoned because of the existing rates.
An undocking was performed when the rates were determined to be low enough to precluded any recontact problems. Approximately a 3 ft/sec velocity change was used to effect separation of the two vehicles.
Angular rates continued to rise, verifying a spacecraft control-system problem. The hand controller appeared to be inactive. The Reentry Control System (RCS) was armed and, after trying ACME-DIRECT and then turning off all OAMS control switches and circuit breakers, was found to be operative in DIRECT-DIRECT. Angular rates were reduced to small values with the RCS B-ring. Inspection of the OAMS revealed that the no. 8 thruster had failed to open. Some open Attitude Control and Maneuver Electronics (ACME) circuit breakers probably accounted for the inoperative hand controller noted earlier. All yaw thrusters other than number 8 were inoperative. Pitch and roll control were maintained using the pitch thrusters. . .
All four retrorockets fired on time. . . .
—GEMINI PROGRAM MISSION REPORT, GEMINI VIII, Gemini Mission Evaluation Team, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas, , MSC-G-R-66-4, Section 7 at Pages 7-21 and 7-22
The mission was aborted and the capsule returned to Earth after 10 hours, 41 minutes, 26.0 seconds, landing in the Pacific Ocean at N. 25° 12′, E. 136° 05′. U.S. Air Force pararescue jumpers (“PJs”) parachuted from a Douglas C-54 transport and attached a flotation collar to the Gemini capsule. The astronauts were recovered by the Gearing-class destroyer USS Leonard F. Mason (DD-852), about three hours later..
The Gemini VIII spacecraft is displayed at the Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum, Wapakoneta, Ohio.
The two-man Gemini spacecraft was built by the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation of St. Louis, Missouri, the same company that built the earlier Mercury space capsule. The spacecraft consisted of a series of cone-shaped segments forming a reentry module and an adapter section. It had an overall length of 18 feet, 9.84 inches (5.736 meters) and a maximum diameter of 10 feet, 0.00 inches (3.048 meters) at the base of the equipment section. The reentry module was 11 feet (3.353 meters) long with a maximum diameter of 7 feet, 6.00 inches (2.347 meters). The Gemini re-entry heat shield was a spherical section with a radius of 12 feet, 0.00 inches (3.658 meters). The weight of the Gemini spacecraft varied from ship to ship. Gemini VIII weighed 8,351.31 pounds (3,788.09 kilograms) at launch. Spacecraft 8 was shipped from the St. Louis factory to Cape Kennedy on 2 January 1966.
The Titan II GLV was a “man-rated” variant of the Martin SM-68B intercontinental ballistic missile. It was assembled at Martin’s Middle River, Maryland plant so as not to interfere with the production of the ICBM at Denver, Colorado. Twelve GLVs were ordered by the Air Force for the Gemini Program.
The Titan II GLV was a two-stage, liquid-fueled rocket. The first stage was 70 feet, 2.31 inches (21.395 meters) long with a diameter of 10 feet (3.048 meters). It was powered by an Aerojet Engineering Corporation LR87-7 engine which combined two combustion chambers and exhaust nozzles with a single turbopump unit. The engine was fueled by Aerozine 50, a hypergolic 51/47/2 blend of hydrazine, unsymetrical-dimethyl hydrazine, and water. Ignition occurred spontaneously as the components were combined in the combustion chambers. The LR87-7 produced approximately 430,000 pounds of thrust (1,912.74 kilonewtons). It was not throttled and could not be shut down and restarted. Post flight analysis indicated that the first stage engine of GLV-8 had produced an average of 461,080 pounds of thrust ( kilonewtons).
The second stage was 25 feet, 6.375 inches (7.782 meters) long, with the same diameter, and used an Aerojet LR91 engine which produced approximately 100,000 pounds of thrust (444.82 kilonewtons), also burning Aerozine 50. GLV-7’s LR91 produced an average of 102,735 pounds of thrust ( kilonewtons).
The Gemini/Titan II GLV VIII combination had a total height of 107 feet, 7.33 inches (32.795 meters) and weighed 345,359 pounds (156,652 kilograms) at ignition.
© 2019, Bryan R. Swopes
19–20 February 1979: Professor Neil Alden Armstrong of the University of Cincinnati College of Engineering, a member of the Board of Directors of Gates Learjet Corporation, former United States Navy fighter pilot, NACA/NASA research test pilot, Gemini and Apollo astronaut, and The First Man To Set Foot On The Moon, set five Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) and National Aeronautics Association class records for time to climb to an altitude and altitude while flying the prototype Learjet 28, serial number 28-001.
Armstrong, with Learjet program test pilot Peter Reynolds as co-pilot, and with NAA observer Don Berliner aboard, flew the Learjet 28 to 15,000 meters (49,212.598 feet) in 12 minutes, 27 seconds over Kittyhawk, North Carolina, on 19 February.¹
On the same day, during a flight from Wichita, Kansas, to Elizabeth City, North Carolina, Armstrong flew the Learjet to 15,584.6 meters (51,130.577 feet), setting records for altitude, and for sustained altitude in horizontal flight.² ³
The following day, 20 February 1979, flying from Elizabeth City, North Carolina, to Florence, Kentucky, Armstrong again set altitude and sustained altitude in horizontal flight, in a different class, by taking the Learjet to 15,585 meters (51,131.89 feet).⁴ ⁵
The Learjet 28 was a development of the Learjet 25 twin-engine business jet. It is operated by two pilots and can carry 8 passengers. The Model 28 used a new wing design. It was the first civil aircraft to be certified with winglets. The prototype first flew 24 August 1977, and it received certification from the Federal Aviation Administration 29 July 1979.
The Learjet 28 is 47 feet, 7.5 inches (14.516 meters) long with a wingspan of 43 feet, 9½ inches (13.348 meters) and overall height of 12 feet, 3 inches (3.734 meters). The wing area is 264.5 square feet (24.6 square meters) It has an empty weight of 7,895 pounds (3,581 kilograms) and maximum takeoff weight of 15,000 pounds (6,804 kilograms).
The Learjet 28 is powered by two General Electric CJ610-8A turbojet engines. This is a single-shaft axial-flow turbojet, developed from the military J85. It has an 8-stage compressor section and 2-stage turbine. The CJ610-8A is rated at 2,850 pounds of thrust (12.68 kilonewtons) at 16,500 r.p.m., and 2,950 pounds (13.12 kilonewtons) at Sea Level, for takeoff (five minute limit).
The business jet has a cruise speed of 464 knots (534 miles per hour (859 kilometers per hour) at 51,000 feet (15,544.8 meters). The Learjet 28 has a maximum range of 1,370 nautical miles (1,577 statute miles/2,537 kilometers). The airplane’s maximum operating altitude is 51,000 feet (15,545 meters), the same as the record altitude. It can reach that altitude in less than 35 minutes.
The aircraft was limited by its older technology turbojet engines, and only five Learjet 28s were built.
The first Learjet 28, serial number 28-001, has been re-registered several times. At the time of its FAI record-setting flights, it carried FAA registration N9RS. Later it was registered as N3AS. The most recent information shows it currently registered as N128LR.
Neil Alden Armstrong, one of America’s most loved heroes, passed away 25 August 2012.
¹ FAI Record File Number 2652
² FAI Record File Number 8670
³ FAI Record File Number 8657
⁴ FAI Record File Number 2653
⁵ FAI Record File Number 2654
© 2019, Bryan R. Swopesby
20 February 1962: At 9:47:39 a.m., Eastern Standard Time, NASA’s Mercury-Atlas 6 lifted off from Launch Complex 14, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Cape Canaveral, Florida. This was the third launch of a manned Mercury spacecraft, and the first time that an Atlas rocket had been used.
Aboard the spacecraft was Lieutenant Colonel John Herschel Glenn, Jr., United States Marine Corps, an experienced fighter pilot and test pilot.
In his post-flight mission report, Glenn wrote,
When the countdown reached zero, I could feel the engines start. The spacecraft shook, not violently but very solidly. There was no doubt when lift off occurred, When the Atlas was released there was an immediate gentle surge to let you know you were on your way.
—Results of the First United States Orbital Space Flight (NASA-TM-108606), Manned Spacecraft Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, at Page 120, Column 1
2 minutes, 9.6 seconds after liftoff, the booster engines cut of and were jettisoned. 23 seconds later, the escape tower, no longer needed, was also jettisoned. The Atlas sustainer engine continued to burn until T+00:05:01.4. The spacecraft had now reached 17,544 miles per hour (28,234 kilometers per hour) and was in an elliptical orbit around the Earth. At T+00:05:03.6 the Mercury spacecraft separated from the Atlas booster. During the climb to orbit, John Glenn experienced a maximum acceleration of 7.7 gs.
Glenn’s orbit had an apogee of 162.2 statute miles (261 kilometers) and perigee of 100 miles (161 kilometers). The orbit was inclined 32.54° relative to Earth’s orbital plane. Friendship 7 completed an orbit every 88 minutes, 29 seconds.
Analysis showed that the Atlas had placed Friendship 7 in orbit at a velocity with 7 feet per second (2.1 meters per second) less than nominal. However, computer analysis showed that the orbital trajectory was good enough for nearly 100 orbits.
During the 4 hour, 55 minute, 23 second flight, the Mercury capsule orbited the Earth three times. John Glenn was the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth. (Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had orbited the Earth 12 April 1961.)
After re-entry, the capsule parachuted into the Atlantic Ocean, only six miles from the recovery ship, USS Noa (DD-841).
The Mercury spacecraft, Friendship 7, was built by McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, St. Louis, Missouri. It was the 13th Mercury capsule built. Designed to carry one pilot, it could be controlled in pitch, roll and yaw by steam thrusters fueled by hydrogen peroxide. The Mercury was 7 feet, 2.83 inches (2.206 meters) long, not including its retro rocket pack. The spacecraft was generally conical, and had a maximum diameter of 6 feet, 2.50 inches (1.885 meters). It weighed 2,700 pounds (1,224.7 kilograms) at launch.
The rocket, a “1-½ stage” liquid-fueled Atlas LV-3B, number 109-D, was built by the Convair Division of General Dynamics at San Diego, California. It was developed from a U.S. Air Force SM-65 Atlas D intercontinental ballistic missile, modified for use as a “man-rated” orbital launch vehicle.
The LV-3B was 65 feet (19.812 meters) long from the base to the Mercury adapter section, and the tank section is 10 feet (3.038 meters) in diameter. The complete Mercury-Atlas orbital launch vehicle is 93 feet (28.436 meters) tall, including the escape tower. When ready for launch it weighed approximately 260,000 pounds (118,000 kilograms) and could place a 3,000 pound (1,360 kilogram) payload into low Earth orbit.
The Atlas’ three engines were built by the Rocketdyne Division of North American Aviation, Inc., at Canoga Park, California. Two Rocketdyne LR89-NA-5 engines and one LR105-NA-5 produced 341,140 pounds (1,517.466 kilonewtons) of thrust. The rocket was fueled by a highly-refined kerosene, RP-1, with liquid oxygen as the oxidizer.
Friendship 7 is displayed at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
© 2019, Bryan R. Swopesby
8 February 1973: At 02:33:12 UTC, the Skylab 4/Apollo command module undocked from the Skylab space station in Earth orbit, after 83 days, 4 hours, 38 minutes, 12 seconds. After several orbits, the Apollo capsule reentered the atmosphere and landed in the Pacific Ocean southwest of San Diego California, at 15:16:53 UTC. The crew was recovered by USS Okinawa (LPH-3), a helicopter carrier. Today, the Apollo capsule is displayed at the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum.
Skylab was an orbital laboratory built from a Saturn S-IVB third stage. It was launched from Cape Canaveral 14 May 1973 as part of a modified Saturn V rocket. The Skylab 4 crew was the third and final group of astronauts to live and the space station. (The mission insignia incorporates the numeral 3.)
Skylab’s orbit gradually decayed and it re-entered the atmosphere near Perth, Australia, 11 July 1979.
© 2019, Bryan R. Swopesby | <urn:uuid:45ff04d3-e948-46b7-9bce-2f3a086e25c7> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/astronaut/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370503664.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20200331181930-20200331211930-00194.warc.gz | en | 0.938931 | 3,582 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Do you love books? Do you love teaching your children about all sorts of subjects using “real” books instead of textbooks? Are unit studies your cup of tea? Then Moving Beyond the Page might be right up your alley! We recently received for review two of their unit studies in the 7-9 age range. The first was the Language Arts Package – The Whipping Boy, which included an online teacher guide and a physical copy of the novel. The second was the Science Package – Sound. This included a physical teacher guide and a life-size model of the human ear.
Let’s dive into the literature package first. I remember having read The Whipping Boy as a child, and I thought my boys would enjoy it. They typically love books set in the middle ages. They love anything to do with “knights in shining armor times,” actually. Had we made this book a read-aloud like we normally do with our school literature, I’m convinced they would have loved this one too. But part of the focus of Moving Beyond the Page is building kids’ reading skills, not just “getting it done,” so I did the program the way it was designed and made the boys do their own reading. They weren’t thrilled with that, but it was good for them.
Because the literature unit was an online guide, I didn’t have an actual book to teach from. But that was okay because the guide was mobile-device friendly, so I was able to use our Kindle Fire and wi-fi to get the job done. The online guide includes everything you need to teach the unit. You get the online teacher manual (this resource is completely online, not a downloadable PDF), a physical copy of the novel, and a 3-month license to print the downloadable student pages, all for $18.92.
The teacher guide has comprehension questions and several different activities to choose from. These range from worksheets to discussion topics to doing research related to what was read and more. Normally I create the boys’ worksheets by hand (no printer at home), but this coincided with my tendinitis, so we ended up getting them printed this time.
Execution of the program was very straightforward each day. The boys would read the book – sometimes together, but usually one would read and then the other. The chapters in The Whipping Boy are very short, so they were assigned three per day. We would go over the questions very briefly (more on that, and why we did them only briefly each day, later) and then do as many of the activities from the guide as worked for us. The boys’ favorite was when they got to design a crest (coat of arms) for each of the main characters. Most of the activities in the literature unit were worksheet-based, so I bought them each a folder (the kind with metal clasps in the middle) to hold all of their papers in. This worked really well for us; it’s a lot more budget-friendly and space-friendly than binders.
Each unit in the Moving Beyond the Page curriculum package concludes with a final project. For The Whipping Boy, this was a monologue. The boys each planned out what they would say and then recited them for Will and me. They were instructed to include all the different kinds of speech patterns they’d learned about during the study in their monologue – idioms, similes, metaphors, and hyperboles.
Remember before when I mentioned that we did the comprehension questions only briefly? That’s because I saved them for the end of the unit study and we played a Jeopardy! style game with them. I split the questions into five categories (Vocabulary, Chapters 1-5, Chapters 6-10, Chapters 11-15, and Chapters 16-20), and chose five questions – or words, in the case of the vocabulary category – for each category. I wrote one question on the lined side of an index card, along with its answer (the kids never saw this part, so having the answer there was just fine). Once the questions were all written out, I mixed them up within their own categories, and then assigned each card a number, 1-5. With the cards all laid out, we played the game just like Jeopardy! except that we did questions and answers instead of answers and questions. At the end of the game, we surprised the winner with the ability to add his points to his “good behavior point chart.” (Seahawk won, 27-25.)
Along with our Language Arts study of The Whipping Boy, we learned all about Sound and the Human Ear with our science package. The boys absolutely loved this unit! They asked every single day if we could do our sound unit. This package was a little different because we received the physical teacher manual instead of the online version, as well as the required manipulative. The price for the physical unit on Sound is $37.99. The physical teacher guide is pretty much exactly like the online one, but there is one main difference: the student pages are included right in the teacher guide, and the copyright doesn’t allow you to make photocopies for multiple children. This wasn’t really a problem for the unit we selected, though, because almost all of the activities were hands-on. That’s why my kids loved it so much. We did some really cool things in our quest to learn how sound works and how our ears hear and interpret sounds. On the first day, we built a large-scale model of an ear. This one was made from things around the house and didn’t really look like an ear (compared to the actual model we received as a manipulative), but it was very effective in showing how the ear works. (Don’t mind the messy kitchen behind the boys; this was before the big meltdown that resulted in stricter tidying up policies.)
The baseball glove represents the outer ear, the toilet paper tube is our ear tube, the cottage cheese container is the eardrum, and the hammer, spoon, and bracelet are the bones deep down inside our ears. We used a marble to represent a sound wave, and the boys watched in fascination as the glove “caught” it and sent it through the tube where it hit the drum and caused the bones of the inner ear to vibrate.
Another day we tested different sounds by tying a spoon to the center of a piece of yarn, and the ends of the yarn to the boys’ fingers. With the spoon hanging free and their fingers in their ears, I tapped the spoon with objects of varying hardness – another spoon, a plastic fork, and the skein of yarn. Then I had Seahawk tap the spoon for me so I could see what it was like. Let me tell you, it was fascinating! The sound was the same, but different, simultaneously.
After we spent several days learning about our ears, we spent a few days learning about different sounds and how things make sounds. Then we learned all about different instruments, which led into the final project: designing an instrument. The boys were pretty basic with their instruments. Munchkin made a drum using an old shoebox and some plastic wrap. Seahawk made a guitar using an old shoebox and some rubber bands (which apparently I didn’t get a picture of…).
Overall, I think this was a pretty great curriculum resource. Moving Beyond the Page is designed to be a full homeschool curriculum – they have 12 literature units and six each science and social studies units per age level. Each literature unit corresponds with one science or social studies unit (I chose two that weren’t specifically designed to go together, but it worked well anyway), and they estimate that it should take you roughly 3-4 hours per day to get through it. I found that it didn’t take nearly that long. One and a half to two hours and we were done.
Add a math curriculum (and any “electives” you want your kids to have) and you’re done with the basic education. It can get quite expensive to go that route, though – several hundred dollars for the full year curriculum. That can definitely be a problem for many homeschooling parents; I know it would be a huge deterrent for us. If price isn’t an object for you, I would definitely recommend that you investigate Moving Beyond the Page for your homeschool curriculum. If, however, you can’t afford the full-year package, I would still recommend taking a look at one or two of the individual unit studies to get your feet wet. I’ve listed the prices for the units I received in this review, and there are ways to make it even cheaper – pass on the physical book and get it from your library, for example.
If you make the plunge into getting this curriculum (Moving Beyond the Page has packages for ages 4-14, not just the 7-9 I received, so there’s something for nearly everyone!), the next step is deciding whether you want to get the physical guide or the online version. Both have their pros and cons. The main pro to the physical version is, of course, you don’t have to have a computer or mobile device right with you while you teach. The con is that you can’t make copies of the worksheets for your kids; you have to purchase a second copy of the consumables. The online copy allows you to make copies, but you lose your access after three months. The physical book is yours to keep.
As for which I’d recommend, it’s really a tossup. I don’t feel like there’s a right answer. If the access for the online version didn’t go away, I’d recommend that one. But since it does, that makes the decision a lot harder. You’ll just have to decide which way would work better for you. (And honestly, I’d be a little frustrated as a paying customer to have my access revoked; the price isn’t that much cheaper than the physical version to be so limited, even if it is easy to complete the unit in the time they give you. That’s probably my biggest criticism of the program.)
There are loads of other reviews for this program besides mine. Different members of the Crew got a variety of items for all different age groups. Make sure to click over and check them out!
Have you ever used Moving Beyond the Page? Let me know in the comments! | <urn:uuid:1f04db15-613d-4b23-b8e4-0ef6776e48da> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | http://www.ladybugdaydreams.com/reviews/2014-reviews/moving-beyond-the-page/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370505730.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20200401100029-20200401130029-00395.warc.gz | en | 0.972047 | 2,216 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Technology changes and post-crisis monetary policy are making financial assets and money indistinguishable. Central banks now need to work in partnership with fiscal authorities.
Several economists at the Lindau meeting were severely critical of central banks’ conduct of monetary policy in the light of continuing depression in the US, Japan and much of Europe, and called for greater use of fiscal policy to bring about recover. Among the most critical was Christopher Sims
, who gave a trenchant presentation on “Inflation, Fear of Inflation and Public Debt”.
He started by announcing the death of the quantity theory of money, MV=PY. Due to interest on reserves and near-zero interest rates, “money” can no longer be clearly distinguished from other financial assets. This is a fundamental point which requires some explanation.
These days, nearly all forms of money bear interest, which makes them indistinguishable from interest-bearing assets. For Sims, the paying of interest on bank reserves, coupled with the decline of physical currency, all but eliminates the distinction between interest-bearing safe assets such as Treasury bills and what we traditionally call “money”. All assets can be regarded as “money” to a greater or lesser extent: the extent to which assets have “moneyness” is really a matter of liquidity.
To give an example: while I was in Lindau, I had very few Euros, no Euro bank account and no credit cards. I have sterling bank accounts, of course, but what use are those in a country that does not use sterling? Ten years ago such illiquidity would have meant I did not eat for a week. But not any more. Now, I can obtain Euros using my VISA debit card (issued by a British bank for a sterling bank account) in an ATM. Or – even better – I can use the same card to pay for a meal in Euros directly from my sterling account. Because of technological changes, what was formerly an illiquid asset in Germany (sterling) has become transparently liquid.
Sterling is, of course, a currency, so my example does not prove the fungibility of currency and interest-bearing assets (though of course my sterling bank account is an interest-bearing asset). But suppose that instead of a sterling bank account, a smartcard or a smartphone app enabled me to pay a bill in Euros directly from my holdings of UK gilts? This is not as unlikely as it sounds. It would actually be two transactions – a sale of gilts for sterling and a GBPEUR exchange. This pair of transactions in today’s liquid markets could be done instantaneously. I would in effect have paid for my meal with UK government debt. It is ridiculous not to regard such a highly liquid asset as money. ANYTHING that can be used to settle transactions really should be regarded as money: and as technology increases liquidity in all asset classes, so they become easier to use for transaction settlement and therefore more money-like.
The pricing of money-like financial assets is something of a challenge. As assets become more liquid, the term premium becomes less relevant: after all, if you know you can sell the asset tomorrow, you are not locking up your money for extended periods of time even if the asset itself has a maturity date years into the future. Behavioural measures of liquidity suddenly become far more important than structural ones. This might partly explain why term premia have been falling over the last thirty years.
Credit risk does matter, of course. But we are amazingly good at ignoring it when it suits us, and liquidity trumps credit risk anyway: we like to believe that we can always get out of a risky investment if it is sufficiently liquid. Not that liquidity is always certain, of course. CDOs were highly liquid near-money assets prior to the financial crisis. Now, they are about as liquid as flies in amber, and worth considerably less.
Credit: John Tewell @ FlickR (licensed under Creative Commons)
When everything is highly liquid, even long-duration assets won’t pay much in the way of interest. The yield curve on an ultra-liquid asset is flat. If you want yield, you have to look for illiquidity – which these days can be hard to find. No wonder yield-hunters go for intrinsically illiquid assets such as property or assets that carry significant credit risk such as junk bonds. They can’t get any sort of return on safer and/or more liquid assets. And the more technology improves market liquidity – and the more regulators push for improvements to market liquidity – the lower returns will be across all classes of financial asset. Perhaps this might explain not just falling term premia, but falling interest rates generally for the last thirty years?
So in our post-crisis, ultra-liquid world, nearly everything bears
interest, and almost nothing pays
interest. “High powered money” – the forms of money issued directly by the central bank, which collectively make up the monetary base – is indistinguishable from any other sort of liquid asset. The traditional distinction between the monetary base, other monetary aggregates and other financial assets is spurious. They are all liquid, all fungible and most are either explicitly or implicitly backed by government*
. This is unfortunate, because most monetary policy is based upon the idea that there is some fundamental distinction between the monetary base and all other forms of money.
A couple of things follow from this. Firstly, monetary policy based solely on changing the compositional mix of the various forms of “money” in the economy can only work to the extent that some forms are more liquid (more widely accepted) than others. On that basis, QE, which replaces government debt and private sector safe assets with new monetary base, should provide additional liquidity in markets where the substitutes are not liquid. Unfortunately the only market where the substitutes are not liquid is the real economy: in financial markets, liquid assets are a near-perfect substitute for cash. But as we know, QE’s impact on the real economy is unclear. Market monetarists argue that the increase in liquidity is bound to have some effect through increased transactions (the “hot potato” effect), but others argue that swapping liquid assets for base money merely encourages unproductive investment. For Sims – and for me – however it works, QE is a very weak policy.
Similarly, Operation Twist, which shortened the maturity profile of US government debt in circulation, had less effect than might have been expected. But the UK’s Funding for Lending scheme, which improved the liquidity of bank balance sheets by swapping illiquid mortgage loans for liquid treasury bills, does appear to have revitalised the UK economy to some extent – though the relaxation of capital rules for new lending under the scheme might also have had something to do with it. UK banks, expensively and painfully recapitalised over the last few years, are understandably very wary of committing capital to new lending…
Christopher Sims at #LindauEcon14. Photo: C.Flemming/Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings
Secondly, if “money” is indistinguishable from any other sort of asset, it is impossible to separate monetary and fiscal policy. After all, fiscal policy itself involves the issuance of money-like assets, and monetary policy acts upon those money-like fiscal instruments. Every monetary action therefore has fiscal implications, and vice versa. Attempting to enforce separation of monetary and fiscal policy renders the central bank powerless. We see this all too clearly in the Eurozone, where everything the ECB can do within its mandate to counteract the falling money supply is ineffective because interest rates are already on the floor and banks (on which the European economy is heavily dependent) take little notice of the ECB’s policy guidance, and anything that might actually work founders on the prohibition of central bank financing of fiscal deficits and – above all – the incomplete fiscal union.
So it is not so much that the quantity theory of money is dead, as that it is incomplete. Sims pointed out in his lecture that M has already been redefined by most people to include the money created by banks when they lend: the “money multiplier” is no longer a meaningful concept. But now M needs to be redefined again to include all classes of asset that can be used as money. For fans of IS/LM charts
, that doesn’t leave much on the IS curve. If everything is money, how can anyone make any money simply by holding money? Money only makes money if it flows…The only way of making money from money in an ultra-liquid world is to find something that isn’t liquid and invest in it – the less liquid, the better the return. And there seem to be fewer and fewer illiquid investment opportunities in traditional asset classes.
Insurance companies, pension funds and private equity firms are already wise to the problems that ultra-liquidity pose for them. They are actively looking for new types of illiquid investments. Insurance companies are keen to find ways of investing in illiquid mortgage loans on bank balance sheets without incurring capital penalties, for example. And private equity firms are talking about long-term investments in infrastructure and technology, perhaps in partnership with the quasi-public sector institutions from which many governments are withdrawing funding in the interests of fiscal consolidation. There is clearly an opportunity here to open up new sources of capital investment to benefit both investors and the liquidity-starved real economy. For where investors invest, money flows.
But investors need to take care. Long-term investment projects can lose you a serious amount of money if you get the evaluation wrong – and the longer-term the project, the harder it is to estimate its real returns. And some illiquid investments simply aren’t valuable. A barren lump of rock in an ocean is just a barren lump of rock: it produces nothing and is therefore intrinsically worthless. An asset that has lost its liquidity – like our CDOs – has most likely also lost its value.
And even long-term investors need some liquidity. We really don’t need insurance companies, pension funds and the like becoming like the Ancient Mariner – surrounded by liquidity but dying of thirst. Liquid assets may not make any money, but they do make it possible for companies to meet their day-to-day obligations.
It’s a balance, really. Too much liquidity, you can’t make any money. But too little liquidity, and you become like that fly embedded in the amber. Dead.
Above all, though, we need to rethink how we do monetary policy. We already know that post-crisis, monetary policy can no longer use reserve scarcity to create the illusion of money drought and force agents to pay more for liquidity. But actually central banks now lack the ability to influence the cost of liquidity much at all. Liquidity is to all intents and purposes free: the question for policy makers now is how to influence the returns earned on illiquid
investments. But if ultra-liquidity is here to stay, as seems likely, we must either re-unify monetary and fiscal policy or resign ourselves to central bank impotence. There is no longer any justification for even the pretence of separation. Fiscal and monetary authorities together need to find new ways of transmitting policy to a world flooded not only with reserves, but with liquid assets of many kinds.
Into the Light
Making the desert of plenty bloom
Weird is Normal
– J.P Koning
Theory of Money Entanglement
– Izabella Kaminska at FT Alphaville
The liquidity trap heralds fundamental change
– Coppola Comment
QE is Fiscal Policy
– Coppola Comment
* It should be noted that when the central bank actively buys, or even declares an intention to buy, private sector assets, they implictly gain a sovereign guarantee. Central banks are backed by the fiscal authority: no sovereign would fail to guarantee assets held by its central bank. | <urn:uuid:104377f0-bc88-4459-8690-498a6baf1930> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.lindau-nobel.org/christopher-sims-ultra-liquidity/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370496330.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20200329232328-20200330022328-00473.warc.gz | en | 0.953215 | 2,472 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Ralph Petroff is changing the way California homes use water. As executive chairman of Nexus eWater, Petroff last week unveiled the first housing subdivision in the United States with on-site water recycling standard in every home.
At this groundbreaking neighborhood in San Diego, the soapy water from showers and sinks — known as gray water — is cleaned, treated and stored to be reused in the home.
Nexus eWater is an Australian company, headquartered in California, that brought its residential water recycling technology to the United States. Petroff spoke with Water Deeply about how gray-water recycling is changing the way Californians thinks about drought.
Water Deeply: How did this idea come about?
Ralph Petroff: About 10 years ago, I had been hired by a consortium of Australian universities, state and federal governments to advise them on technology as an entrepreneur in residence.
That was coincidentally the start of the Australian Millennium Drought, which kicked in right in the year 2000. When I got there, it was in a bad way. They had gone to the next step, even beyond what they had done in California. They had stage five water restrictions, which is not just watering twice a week, but no lawn watering of any potable water, period. So it’s a really heightened state of emergency.
As a result, the Australian government put money into things like desal (seawater desalination) but also invested in research into on-site water reuse. As it happened, I met what became the founders of Nexus at a convention fair. From day one, I thought that these guys were very sharp and they are going to really come up with something quite remarkable – and a few years later, they did.
Water Deeply: How does the technology work?
RP: This is the first robust, on-site water recycling system for the home. We take the gray water, which is about two out of every three gallons from the home. You want to take all the soaps, hair and lint out. Do this – if you do it right – you can have reusable water.
The system involves pumping heavily oxygenated water into a tank where each drop of water is circulated 40 times and it agitates. When you agitate water with a lot of detergent in it, you create an enormous amount of suds.
The soap takes out all the detergents and the detergent bonds with oil and dirt. That soapy foam is rerouted back to the sewer. Then, we put it (the gray water) through an 18-inch-thick activated carbon filter and the water, at that point, is zapped with 100 times the UV (ultraviolet light) that you would normally need. It goes through a pleated filter and then you’ve got water that goes to the storage tank.
The current version that we have uses the same energy as a normal-size refrigerator and with each generation we will probably be chopping that (energy use) in half again.
Water Deeply: What is needed to install and run this system in terms of space, cost and maintenance?
RP: It is easiest to do it during a new construction. The critical element is plumbing. You need to have the gray water separated from the black water (from sewage lines), which in a new construction might only cost an additional $500–$1,000.
If you have separate plumbing for black water and gray water, you have a recycle-ready home. Second, you put in some underground tanks, one for collecting gray water, and the other for storing the treated gray water. In our case, it is a 75-gallon collection tank and a 200-gallon reservoir for storing the treated gray water. That adds about $1,200.
All in, the cost of recycle-ready plumbing and the tanks, depending on the configuration of the house, would be somewhere between $2,000-$2,500. Then, at any point in the future, you can put in one of our treatment systems. It is plug and play; you have all the connections right there and you just plop in the NexTreater, which takes all the gray water, and runs it through the processing steps so it comes out looking and smelling like tap water. The NEXtreater is $5,200 including warranty, commissioning and installation. We would expect that a year from now those costs will be lower as volume increases.
Water Deeply: For what purposes can the treated water be used?
RP: There are eight approved uses for the treated gray water. You can use it in drip irrigation and spray irrigation, you can use it in your garden to water your fruits, your vegetables, your lawns – anywhere you want. You can also use it to flush your toilet.
Water Deeply: Can it be retrofitted to existing homes, or does it only make sense with new homes?
RP: It can be put into a fair number of retrofit homes. The easiest home to retrofit is a home that has a basement or crawl space where a plumber can go in under the house and reroute the pipes to separate the gray water from the black water.
In a new home, that might be a $2,000 operation; in a retrofit, maybe that is $3,000–$6,000 more and it is a pretty straightforward operation.
If you have a slab-on-grade, you have pipes encased in concrete and that makes it much more difficult. In some cases, it is impractical to do the whole house recycling, but if you’ve got showers on the second floor, then you can do a partial.
We think that, nationally, maybe 50 percent of the homes could do a full-house gray-water retrofit relatively inexpensively, and the other 50 percent would be either challenging or you could do a partial retrofit.
Water Deeply: Are there any current regulatory or building code barriers?
RP: We have to pass something called the NSF 350 test in order to use treated gray water in California. The test is brutal, so brutal that we are the only company that has ever passed it and that was just a few months ago. We passed it with flying colors, by a factor of 5.
Water Deeply: Where is this technology currently being used?
RP: Just last month in San Diego, California, was a kickoff to the Pacific Coast Builders’ Conference. They had a grand opening of the first subdivision in the United States with onsite water recycling, standard in every home. Solar is an option.
This is a great example of the technology moving faster than the speed of drought. We got the certification and sat down with KB Home. From the time we sat down and scribbled on the back of cocktail napkins to the time that there were actually projects in the ground with permits was less than 60 days.
We are now in discussions with a whole host of other projects and other builders across California and the Southwest. This project moved faster, but I would expect, if we have the same conversation at the end of the year, we would have a half-dozen or dozen projects underway.
Water Deeply: Why haven’t we been doing this already for years?
RP: There hasn’t been a clear, regulatory framework for deployment of solutions. By providing a clear framework, as of January 1, 2014, that gave people a set of rules.
Rules around gray water were so balkanized, with such a tremendous disparity, there was no way you could have statewide implementation, but now that there is a regulatory framework, people can do it.
Water Deeply: How has the reaction to the water crisis in California compared to Australia?
RP: Australia got into dealing with mega-droughts ten years before us. One of the things they did right was the emphasis on on-site water reuse. The thing they did wrong: they bet big on things like desalination facilities. I say they did that wrong because it took them 10 years to build those plants and by the time the plants were online, all of these other conservation measures had already kicked in. As a result, two-thirds of the desalination plants in Australia are currently in mothballs.
Water Deeply: What is the future potential, both in terms of cost and potential water savings, with recycling water? Is it like the early days of residential solar panels, which started out expensive and hard to implement?
RP: People often ask me if water is the new oil. I laugh and say no way. It isn’t even close. Water is just far more important. There are many forms of energy, you’ve got wind, you’ve got solar, there’s like eight forms of clean energy and, of course, fossil energy, but water is the world’s only un-substitutable resource. That is why it has to be put in an entirely different category.
In the energy crisis, California responded magnificently and within a couple of years, all (new) homes were solar ready, now homes have solar panels. People were saying at the time, let’s build $10 billion power generation facilities that will take 10 years to build and require massive upgrades to the grid and very sensibly, people said $10 billion in 10 years ain’t gonna solve the problem now.
And so, they went on-site.
And that is what we are trying to do: go on-site recycling with gray water as opposed to multibillion-dollar, 10-year massive plants to recycle wastewater. Recycled wastewater works, but it is very expensive and it always has a lingering odor, whereas recycled gray water is much cleaner and it has no smell.
The whole goal was to come up with recycled water that looks and smells like tap water, and that is a goal we have achieved.
I said we responded magnificently to the energy crisis; we’ve got to do the same thing with water, but do it at 10 times the pace and with 10 times the intensity while giving it 10 times the priority. We’ve got to be moving faster than the speed of drought. I think the water resources board and the governor understand that.
Top photo by Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press | <urn:uuid:a8522297-b85a-4c6a-94c3-4a09c8fec6db> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.newsdeeply.com/water/community/2015/07/15/10-questions-ralph-petroff-gray-water-recycling-pioneer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370493684.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20200329015008-20200329045008-00395.warc.gz | en | 0.969758 | 2,152 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Bacchus and Ariadne by Titian
“Bacchus and Ariadne” by Titian depicts Bacchus, the god of wine, emerging with his followers from the right of the scene and according to myth, falling in love at first sight with Ariadne. Titian shows Bacchus leaping from his chariot to protect Ariadne, who has been abandoned on a Greek island and deserted by her lover Theseus, whose ship sails away to the far left of the picture.
Initially, the commission for this painting was given to Raphael. Unfortunately, Raphael died young, and Titian was allowed to paint this mythological subject during 1522 for a wealthy patron.
“Bacchus and Ariadne” painting by Carlo Maratta (1625–1713)
Ariadne’s story begins when, as a daughter of the King Minos of Crete, she helps Theseus, an Athenian hero to kill the Minotaur, a beast which is half man and half bull, who lived in a labyrinth on the island of Crete. Ariadne saves Theseus by giving him a ball of thread which Theseus ties to the entrance of the maze, and he then unwinds the thread as he makes his way through the maze. After he finds the Minotaur and kills him, he finds his way out of the labyrinth by following Ariadne’s thread back to the entrance.
After achieving his mission of killing the Minotaur, he sets sail to return to Athens, and he takes Ariadne with him. His ship stops on the island of Naxos, where Ariadne falls asleep and is then deserted by Theseus. When Ariadne wakes up, she searches the shore of Naxos, vainly looking for her lost lover.
Titian has imagined the scene in which Ariadne is surprised by Bacchus, the god of wine, and his partying entourage. Bacchus falls in love with Ariadne and offers to marry her and promise her a crown of stars as a wedding gift, which can be seen in Titian’s painting above Ariadne. In other versions of the story, Bacchus offers Ariadne the sky as a wedding gift, where she later becomes the constellation of the Northern Crown (Corona Borealis). The story of Bacchus and Ariadne is based on Roman legend written by Roman poets Catullus (c.84-54 BCE) and Ovid (43 BCE-17CE).
“Bacchus and Ariadne” by Annibale Carracci from 1597 is a ceiling fresco known as “The Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne,” part of the ceiling fresco cycle titled, “The Loves of the Gods” in the Farnese Gallery of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. Bacchus is in his chariot, and now Ariadne also has her chariot. Ariadne was a favorite subject for paintings, sculptures, and vases with over 400 images of Ariadne in various pieces of art, which are included at the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database.
“Bacchus and Ariadne” by Annibale Carracci (1597 )
Titian was the foremost artist of Venetian painting during the 16th century. His “Bacchus and Ariadne” composition is full of movement and color, with the figures dancing and celebrating with some poses taken from Greek sculpture of classical antiquity. An example is a satyr who is struggling with snakes in this painting whose image is reminiscent of the Greek statue Laocoon and His Sons.
Bacchus is the Roman equivalent of Dionysus, the god of wine, fertility, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre in ancient Greek religion and myth. Wine played an important role in Greek culture, and the cult of Dionysus was the main religious focus for its unrestrained consumption. Dionysus is also known as Bacchus, the name adopted by the Romans. As “the liberator,” his wine, music and ecstatic dance frees his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful.
Titian (1490 – 1576) was the most famous painter of the 16th-century Venetian school. So much so that his contemporaries recognized him as one of the most accomplished painters, adept with portraits, landscape, and mythological and religious subjects. His application and use of color, his vivid, luminous tints, his brushwork, and subtlety of tone had a profound influence on Western art.
Bacchus and Ariadne
- Title: Bacchus and Ariadne
- Artist: Titian
- Year: 1522–23
- Genre: Mythological painting
- Movement: Renaissance Art in Venice
- Type: Oil on canvas (applied onto conservation board 1968)
- Dimensions: 176.5 cm × 191 cm (69.5 in × 75 in)
- Museum: National Gallery, London
- Artist: Titian ( Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio)
- Born: 1490, Pieve di Cadore, Italy
- Died: 1576, Venice, Italy
- Buried: Santa Maria Gloriosa Dei Frari, Venice, Italy
- Period: Italian Renaissance, Renaissance
- Notable works:
Explore The National Gallery
13th Century Paintings
- “The Virgin and Child Enthroned, with Narrative Scenes” by Margarito d’Arezzo – 1264
- “The Virgin and Child” by Master of the Clarisse – 1268
- “Crucifix” by Master of Saint Francis – 1270
14th Century Paintings
- Wilton Diptych – 1395
- “The Annunciation” by Duccio – 1311
- “The Healing of the Man Born Blind” by Duccio – 1311
15th Century Paintings
- “Arnolfini Portrait” by Jan van Eyck – 1434
- “The Battle of San Romano” by Paolo Uccello– 1440
- “Venus and Mars” by Sandro Botticelli – 1483
- “Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan” by Giovanni Bellini– 1501
16th Century Paintings
- “Virgin of the Rocks” by Leonardo da Vinci – 1506
- “The Madonna of the Pinks” by Raphael – 1507
- “The Raising of Lazarus” by Sebastiano del Piombo– 1519
- “Salvator Mundi” by Andrea Previtali – 1519
- “Bacchus and Ariadne” by Titian – 1523
- “The Ambassadors” by Hans Holbein the Younger – 1533
- “Mary Magdalene” by Girolamo Savoldo – 1540
- “Saint George and the Dragon” by Tintoretto – 1558
- “The Family of Darius before Alexander” by Paolo Veronese – 1567
- “Diana and Actaeon” by Titian – 1569
- “The Rape of Europa” by Paolo Veronese – 1570
- “The Death of Actaeon” by Titian – 1575
- “The Origin of the Milky Way” by Tintoretto – 1575
17th Century Paintings
- “Supper at Emmaus” by Caravaggio – 1601
- “Samson and Delilah” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1610
- “The Judgement of Paris” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1635
- “Aurora abducting Cephalus” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1637
- “Equestrian Portrait of Charles I” by Anthony van Dyck – 1638
- “Venus at her Mirror” by Diego Velázquez – 1651
- “Self Portrait at the Age of 63″ by Rembrandt – 1669
- “A Young Woman standing at a Virginal” by Johannes Vermeer – 1670
18th Century Paintings
- “Bacchus and Ariadne” by Sebastiano Ricci – 1713
- “A Regatta on the Grand Canal” by Canaletto – 1740
- “Mr. and Mrs. Andrews” by Thomas Gainsborough – 1749
- “Eton College” by Canaletto – 1754
- “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” by Joseph Wright of Derby – 1768
- “Self-portrait in a Straw Hat” by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun – 1782
19th Century Paintings
- “The Emperor Napoleon I” by Horace Vernet – 1815
- “Dido Building Carthage” by J. M. W. Turner – 1815
- “Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows” by John Constable – 1831
- “The Execution of Lady Jane Grey” by Paul Delaroche – 1833
- “The Fighting Temeraire” by Joseph Mallord William Turner – 1839
- “Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway” by J. M. W. Turner – 1844
- “Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna is carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence” by Frederic Leighton – 1855
- “Madame Moitessier” by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres– 1856
- “The Gare St-Lazare” by Claude Monet – 1877
- “Bathers at Asnières” by Georges Seurat – 1884
- “Sunflowers” by Vincent van Gogh – 1888
- “After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself” by Edgar Degas – 1895
- “Boulevard Montmartre at Night” by Camille Pissarro – 1898
20th Century Paintings
- “Misia Sert” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir – 1904
- “Portrait of Hermine Gallia” by Gustav Klimt – 1904
- Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses) by Paul Cézanne – 1905
- “Men of the Docks” by George Bellows – 1912
- “Water-Lilies” by Claude Monet (National Gallery, London) – 1916
Explore The National Gallery
- The National Gallery
- Masterpieces of The National Gallery
- The National Gallery, London – Crossword Puzzles
- Why did Ariadne become a favorite subject for paintings, sculptures, and vases?
- Why are we fascinated by stories based on falling in love at first sight?
- Love at first sight, Bacchus offered Ariadne the sky as a wedding gift, where she later becomes the constellation.
- Every time I think of Titian, I imagine this painting.
- Love at first sight?
Insights into “Bacchus and Ariadne” by Titian
Every time I think of Titian, I imagine this painting.https://t.co/vDCIiPdYNf
— Joy of Museums 🌐 (@joyofmuseums) June 8, 2019
“It is not bright colors but good drawing that makes figures beautiful.”
Photo Credit: 1) By Morio (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons 2) Annibale Carracci [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons 3) Carlo Maratta [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons | <urn:uuid:63aa706e-1304-4aa0-b216-f9d7d0d679f8> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://joyofmuseums.com/museums/united-kingdom-museums/london-museums/the-national-gallery-london/masterpieces-of-the-national-gallery/bacchus-and-ariadne/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370529375.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20200405053120-20200405083120-00155.warc.gz | en | 0.914636 | 2,609 | 3.453125 | 3 |
A Christ Teaching on Humility: the Greatest Virtue
In this bible study, we discuss Christ’s teaching on humility through three interactions: first, an interaction with his disciples, when he presented a child as an exemplification of humility and declared that “whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” [Matthew 18:4, NKJV]; second, an interaction with fellow guests at a dinner, where he explained that people should refrain from assigning themselves to seats of honor, to avoid potential demotion by the host, for “whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” [Luke 14:11, NKJV]; and third, an interaction with his disciples and a large audience during the Sermon on the Mount.
Humility conveys a message that a person is available and willing to provide or accept assistance as needed. It sets up an environment for fulfilling God’s purpose of mutual provider-receiver relationships among people, whereby every person is potentially a provider sometimes and receiver at other times. Humility conveys a person as predisposed to appreciate other people as potential providers of human service and willing to perform services to benefit others. Therefore, a person’s humility conveys Godliness to others and motivates them to do the same. God creates every person to be humble, expects and rewards humility, but punishes haughtiness.
Greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven
GLORY OF GOD Christ gave a teaching on humility during an interaction with his disciples, when they sought clarification from him regarding relationships in heaven.
Three of the disciples, Peter, James, and John, had recently witnessed his transfiguration: when “His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light” [Matthew 17:2] and they saw Moses and Elijah talking with him. The disciples were overshadowed by a bright cloud, from which they heard a voice that said to them: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” [Matthew 17:5]. He later commanded them to “Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man is risen from the dead” [Matthew 17:9]. They held him in high esteem because of this experience and the display of Godly power that they witnessed of him several times.
UNEXPECTED HUMILITY Imagine the disciples’ surprise later when the same Jesus submitted to local authorities by paying tax. The disciples had come to Capernaum with Jesus after the transfiguration experience and the local authorities asked Peter to tell Jesus to pay the temple tax. The disciples probably expected him to shrug off the demand and proceed. Instead, he instructed Peter as follows [Matthew 17:27]: “…lest we offend them, go to the sea, cast in a hook, and take the fish that comes up first. And when you have opened its mouth, you will find a piece of money; take that and give it to them for Me and you.”
CHILDLIKE HUMILITY Thereafter, the disciples asked him [Matthew 18:1]: “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” To answer, Jesus called a little child to their midst and told the disciples that “whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” [Matthew 18:4]. He recognized their confusion about his humility and the greatness they know of him. To clarify, he informed them and us that humility is the greatest virtue and presented a child to personify humility.
Humble will be Exalted but Haughty Humbled
In another incident, Christ gave a teaching on humility in the house of a prominent Pharisee. He was there to have a meal. When he noticed that the other guests had chosen seats of honor by themselves, he advised them to refrain from assigning themselves to a place of honor in a public gathering.
If you choose a place of honor for yourself, then the host could later ask you to yield the position to someone more deserving of such honor. In contrast, if you choose a lowly place, the host could later elevate you to a higher position, thereby honoring you in the presence of the other guests. He used the occasion to teach a general principle of humility that those that humble themselves will be exalted whereas those that exalt themselves will be humbled. A person humbles himself or herself by recognizing other people as greater or higher placed in one or more considerations.
Beatitude on Humility
Christ also taught humility through the third Beatitude: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” [Matthew 5:5]. As we discussed in a previous bible study at This_Link, this Beatitude declares the value of humility toward God and toward other people.
HUMILITY TOWARD GOD is a recognition that human effort alone is inadequate to accomplish God’s purpose. God creates every person to represent him among other living and non-living inhabitants of the earth, as a conveyor of the image of God and a channel for God’s compassion in every human interaction. Humility toward God implies submitting to him while applying human effort in order to receive and utilize his intervention and follow his guidance and direction.
HUMILITY TOWARD OTHER PEOPLE is the recognition that every person is God’s provider assistant and has the capacity to make specialized contributions toward providing for human needs. You motivate others to make their contributions if your attitude conveys a promise of appreciation for who they are and willingness to make your own contributions as needed. Therefore, every person owes humility to others in consideration of their capacity and readiness to make contributions and accept other people’s input as needed.
HUMAN INTERDEPENDENCE Apostle Paul described this aspect of human interdependence in his famous teaching of “One Body Many Parts” [1 Corinthians 12:12–31].
He explained that each person has the capacity to provide certain services more effectively than others but is dependent on other people for several services. To illustrate with the human body, he explained the eye is a key to the seeing function of the body but is unable to hear or touch or walk around by itself, i.e., unable to perform other functions that combine to make the eye’s seeing function useful. Therefore, the eye owes humility to every other body part just like every body part owes humility to the eye. Similarly, a person owes humility to other people and the other people owe humility to him/her because each of them has the capacity to be a more effective provider of one or more services needed by others. God created us this way and expects us to be humble in order to accomplish his purpose.
PROMISE OF GOODNESS Humility implies presenting yourself to others with a promise of goodness. That is, your over-all attitude (actions and words) conveys to the others a promise of appreciation of who they are and what they do and a willingness and readiness to make your own contributions as needed. A promise of goodness is conveyed by politeness, attentiveness, responsiveness, peacefulness, truthfulness, and other qualities that contribute to people perceiving a person as available and willing to provide or accept assistance as needed. The manifestation of a promise of goodness could vary with different situations. For example, it could manifest more as a promise of appreciation when one is seeking a service from others; or as a promise of obedience when one interacts with higher authority.
PROMISE OF APPRECIATION is needed when requesting goods or services from other people. The others will be more motivated to provide for a person’s need if his/her attitude conveys a promise to appreciate receiving the goods or services and to do his/her part when needed. A promise of appreciation is conveyed through over-all attitude, i.e., actions and words.
PROMISE OF OBEDIENCE is needed when a person interacts with higher authority, and especially in proposing a choice to the authority. A promise of obedience conveys a message that the person will obey, even if his/her proposal is not accepted. The promise is conveyed through over-all attitude, i.e., actions and words.
EMULATING HUMILITY OF A CHILD Christ presented a child to his disciples and declared that each of us should emulate the humility of a child.
The attitude of a child typically conveys innocence, frankness, and trust. A child typically looks up to people, sees every person as a potential provider, and conveys an appreciating and obedient heart. The attitude of a child presents an embodiment of humility: the humility that God created in each of us. Apostle Paul, in a message on humility, urged us to “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself” [Philippians 2:3]. In a similar message, Apostle Peter urged us to be submissive to one another and clothe ourselves in humility, because “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” [1 Peter 5:5]. God creates every person to be humble. Humility motivates Godliness and steers people toward God’s purpose.
Summary of What We Learned
We learned Christ’s teaching on humility through interactions with his disciples, with fellow guests at a dinner, and with a large audience during the Sermon on the Mount. He urges us to emulate the humility of a child by presenting an attitude that conveys a promise of goodness to others in every human interaction. Humility motivates people to be good to others, thereby representing God in every situation by conveying the image of God and being a channel for God’s compassion. God rewards the humble but punishes the haughty. He creates every person with childlike humility. | <urn:uuid:a8a906f0-6978-43b7-894d-0d90888c7cc2> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://bankingblessing.org/2016/10/04/value-of-humility-greatest-in-the-kingdom-of-heaven/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370505366.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20200401034127-20200401064127-00515.warc.gz | en | 0.964217 | 2,052 | 2.84375 | 3 |
This is a break from the special data series to talk a little bit about systems thinking as it pertains to educational technology. In the Information Age, the term “literacy” needs to be redefined. What do students need to be literate in? The answer can no longer be a single one. Students need to be literate in many things, but before we can lead that learning, we need to address our own illiteracy.
Currently, there is a push from the Seattle Public Schools Board to ban cell phones in K-8 classrooms. This is, in part, a response to our own digital illiteracy and our ignorance about the shift in how technology is being used by our youth. Here is an essay that challenges the ban that is backed by research.
Implementation and Trends
The state of implementation of educational technology in Seattle Public Schools is lacking according to the SAMR model (Common Sense Media, n.d.). While there is some evidence of individual educators achieving the “modification” and “redefinition” levels of the SAMR model, the district as a whole is still at the “substitution” level. There is currently an adoption process underway for science curriculum that would qualify as the “augmentation” level that will be district-wide once complete.
Image 1 (L., 2017)
Most use of technology in the classroom is to supplement or substitute learning, or what Dr. Puentedura calls “enhancing” learning (Common Sense Media, n.d.). Teachers use programs like Read 180, websites like Quizlet and Newsela, or services like Flocabulary to deliver 20th century content with 21st century technology. The tasks are the same with only a change in delivery. In some rare instances, teachers are using more student-centered instructional design that includes students using technology to create, including assessments using technology, like podcasts, vlogs, and the like.
It is a challenge for many teachers to do blended learning of “flipped classrooms” because of inequitable access to hardware and Internet services. An over emphasis on standardized test scores creates an environment in which teachers are pressed to teach to the test, which leaves no time for direct instruction on how to use technology. Many educators, themselves, are unfamiliar with applications commonly used by students, including Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
The priority for Seattle Public Schools to implement efficient education technology is to build the capacity of leadership around education technology. While it is important to build leadership capacity among administrators at the district and building levels, it is also important to tap into the natural leadership among all educators (Fullan, 2011), because some individuals are already at the top levels of the SAMR model.
One way to build this capacity is to use the “Visionary Leadership” standards from the ISTE administrator standards (ISTE, 2009). The first step in creating visionary leadership around educational technology is to create a shared vision and goals for how to implement technology with the goal of moving the entire district to the transformative use of technology as defined by the SAMR model (Common Sense Media, n.d.).
Whatever vision is produced from this process needs to be fluid enough in language to address the speed at which technology and information changes (Daly, 2012) and firm enough to convey the urgent need to catch up to 21st century technology. Seattle Public Schools tends to “adopt” or subscribe to technology packages, which are designed as a semi-permanent one-size-fits-all solution that becomes obsolete in a matter of months. The goal should include understanding the technologies students already use and how educators can incorporate a variety of technological tools and resources to transform their instruction (Kim & Bagaka, 2005). If the language in the strategic plan for educational technology is flexible enough, this will allow for educators to alter their practice with advancements in technology.
Once a shared vision is set and goals are created, the next logical step is for leadership to engage in professional development. In Seattle Public Schools there are consistent opportunities for teachers to engage in professional development, if disjointed and heavily focused on high-stakes testing, but there is no protocol for, or consistent access to, high quality professional development for content area program managers. The ISTE standards for administrators have a section titled “Digital Age Learning Culture” which requires educational leaders to model the practice of technological education infusion in their own practice (ISTE, 2009), but there is no indication in the Seattle Public Schools Department of Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction, that the content program managers have the necessary knowledge of educational technology to model these skills.
Many district level administrators lack an ability to use basic technological tools like Google Drive or even Outlook email service. Many educators refuse to engage in social media tools like Twitter and Instagram because they believe it “dumbs people down.” This belief and subsequent practice inhibit their technological literacy and use of culturally responsive technological practices in the classroom (Polly, Mims, Shepherd, & Inan, 2009). While there may be a valid argument in this belief, it is also the technology students are most adept at using (Tausend, 2013). Instead of the entire system, from administrators to students, learning a new technology platform, systems should start with the strengths students already have: social media.
A considerable amount of professional development opportunities should focus on how leaders and educators can adapt to evolving technologies instead of how to use a discreet tool like Schoology or OneNote. Adhering to a concept of technology literacy is more helpful than teaching discreet skills and tools because of the rate at which technology changes. The International Technology and Engineering Educators Association defines technology literacy as “one’s ability to use, manage, evaluate, and understand technology” (2019). ITEEA states that for a person to be literate in technology they must understand “what technology is, how it works, how it shapes society and in turn how society shapes it” (2019). This philosophy and definition of technology literacy aligns well with ISTE standards for students (2019b).
To assist with building technology literacy in the district, Seattle Public Schools would benefit from having a Technology Program Manager position. The Department of Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction consists of program managers for various content areas and CAI needs. For example, there are program managers for each content area, one for professional development, one for assessments, a library program manager, and an ethnic studies program manager. Anything having to do with technology is in a separate department called DoTS: Department of Technology Services. DoTS includes everything from coding, to tech support, and “experts” on district technology like Schoology. Having this department be separate, even in location in the building, from CAI signals that technology and technology literacy are separate from curriculum, assessment, and instruction.
A Technology Program Manager position would serve to bridge the divide between CAI and DoTS. This position could work directly with educators in buildings and administrators to develop and deliver professional development on technology literacy. This position could be responsible for tracking the evolution of technology and informing the other program managers of the newest trends and how to incorporate them into CAI. This position could also educate those in DoTS, who are generally disconnected from classroom experiencesand the needs of educators and students.
This leads to the third short-term goal: systemic improvement. As mentioned above, there is a lot of siloing of work that should be collaborative. One of the ISTE standards for administrators calls for “[e]ducational administrators [to] collaborate to establish metrics, collect and analyze data, interpret results, and share findings to improve staff performance and student learning” (2009). In Seattle Public Schools, there is very little collaboration in terms of organization operation, and zero collaboration on education technology at the district level.
The first step to breaking down barriers in systemic effectiveness is to collaboratively complete an audit of current hardware, software, and other IT services, including surveying staff to understand how user friendly these tools are. The guiding question to the audit should be, “How is district technology helping leaders transform their leadership?” If educational leaders are still in the “substitute” level of the SAMR model, they are not capable of leading educators out of the bottom rungs of the model.
Another strategy to break down barriers and collaborate is to partner with community-based organizations, preferably non-profit organizations whom are less likely to dictate policy and procedure than larger organizations, like the Gates Foundation. In his book, All Systems Go; The Change Imperative for Whole System Reform, Michael Fullan emphasizes the need to include all stakeholders in collaborative efforts. “[A] powerful feature of all systems go,” he says, “is that shared commitment, allegiance, and responsibility for results becomes collectively owned” (2010 p. 49). Partnering with community organizations, who may have greater access to and funding for the most up-to-date technologies not only strengthens the school district’s efforts and opens opportunities for student experiences, it also creates that collective accountability, or what Fullan calls “intelligent accountability” (2010). When students are successful, so is the community and vice versa.
Long Term Goals
Once district and building leaders have built their understanding and skill in technology literacy, they can then lead by example. This is what the ISTE standards for administrators calls “Excellence in Professional Practice” (2009). As Will Richardson points out in Why School? How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere, much of what education leaders do to “improve” their practice is to make better what they have been doing, which is rooted in practices that originate from practices 150 years old. Richardson argues that much of the information deemed important to teach and model 150 years ago can now be accessed with a quick Google search (Daly, 2012). If education leaders are going to model “Excellence in Professional Practice” they should do it in such a way that will promote the critical thinking and technology literacy students should be using currently and will need to use after high school.
Michael Fullan argues that theory will not motivate people to change. People are resistant to change and will be most likely to change when they see success for themselves. One characteristic of a great change leader is to “motivate the masses.” Fullan claims change leaders can do this through helping others realize the effectiveness of the change (2011). If educational leaders practice the change they are trying to convince others to partake in and can share successful stories, educators will be more easily motivated to try it out themselves.
One ISTE standard for administrators is to “facilitate and participate in learning communities that stimulate, nurture, and support administrators, faculty, and staff in the study and use of technology” (2009). Being experts in their own practice is the only way to effectively “stimulate and nurture” faculty and staff. Education leaders need to commit to being life-long learners, not only for their own practice and leadership, but to model the importance of this for their faculty and staff.
The second long-term goal is for educators to “Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments” (ISTE, 2019a). This goal will require educators to learn alongside district and building leaders who have developed their practice and technology literacy. Teachers will need to do their own work with identifying and understanding the tools students are using.
An important consideration during this phase of implementing education technology is creating curricula centered on critical thinking skills. As Will Richardson points out, finding information is easy. Assessing it is the tricky part (Daly, 2012). With the rise of questionable, online “news” sources (Adornato, 2016), teachers will have to first know how to assess information themselves before teaching students how to do it. The fact that 6 in 10 Americans get their news from social media (Gottfried & Shearer, 2016), which is where much of the “fake news” is shared (Adornato, 2016), supports the earlier claim that educators and education leaders need to take social media more seriously and include it in their technology literacy learning.
Much of the language in the ISTE standards for educators that fall under learning and assessments includes student-centered learning that is “customized” and personalized to address curiosity and different learning styles. They call for relevant experiences that use “contemporary tools” (2019a). This is more language to support the need for technology literacy and use of social media tools instead of large, expensive, and cumbersome one-size-fits-all “solutions” like Schoology.
The next long-term goal is to prepare teachers to facilitate learning for students, or what the ISTE standards for educators calls “Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity” (2019a). There is a push currently underway in Seattle Public Schools for culturally responsive and relevant pedagogy. The ISTE standards for educators align with this work, but technology has not been part of the conversation. Part of this could be the result of administrators and educators not having the foundational knowledge as previously discussed.
Culturally responsive and relevant pedagogical strategies center student experiences and strengths, moving them from dependent to independent and co-dependent learners (Hammond, 2016). Since culturally responsive and relevant pedagogy is such a huge focus in Seattle Public schools, the time is ripe to include the ISTE standards for teachers and students. The fact that the district and school leaders are not prepared, however, is disappointing. There is still much learning on the part of adults before the two concepts can be effectively integrated. Therefore, it is a long-term goal.
For education technology reform to be systemic, district leadership needs to take the lead. There is some infrastructure at the district level, in the form of program managers, to build capacity in different content areas. Before this can happen, however, there needs to be an audit of current resources, practices, and organization structure. Barriers to collaboration need to be removed. Vision and goals for implementation of education technology need to be co-created with leaders, educators, and community members. The district needs to also remove internal barriers to collaboration and consider creating an education technology program manager position to facilitate collaboration between CAI and DoTS.
Before effective classroom teaching can be planned and facilitated, there needs to by systemic support at the district and building leadership levels. Systemic, effective professional development can only happen after district and building leaders have done their own technology literacy work. District level policy and practice needs to move away from one-off technology solutions to adapt to rapidly evolving technologic advancements. Policy needs to embrace technologies like smart phones, apps, and social media because that is what students are using most.
If these goals were realized, the district has the potential to move from the “substitute” rung of the SAMR model to the “redefinition” rung. Achieving “redefinition” cannot happen unless the reforms are systemic and barriers at all levels are addressed and removed. Starting with classroom practice and student learning will not achieve this. District leaders and educators need to redefine how they view technology, first.
Adornato, A.C. (09.05.2016). Forces at the gate: Social media’s influence on editorial and
production decisions in local newsrooms. Electronic News, 10. P 87-104. DOI: 10.1177/1931243116647768
Common Sense Media. (Producer). (n.d.). Introduction to the SAMR model [Video file].
Daly, J. (2012). Why school? TED ebook author rethinks education when information is
everywhere [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://blog.ted.com/why-school-ted-ebook-author-rethinks-education-when-information-is-everywhere/
Drew, P., Clif, M., Shepherd, C.E., Inan, F. (2009). Evidence of impact: Transforming teacher
education with preparing tomorrow’s teachers to teach with technology (PT3) grants. Teaching and Teacher Education, p 1-8. Retrieved from https://s3.amazonaws.com/acaemia.edu.documents/4927205/pollyetal.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Epires=155436526&Signature=hiEwHBErhQ3Gvav0t%2FuZGP24%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3Bfilename%3DEvidence_of_impact_Transforming_teacher.pdf
Fullan, M. (2010). All systems go; The change imperative for Whole System Reform. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin, A SAGE Company.
Fullan, M. (2011). Change leader; Learning to do what matters most. San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint.
Gottfried, J. & Shearer, E. (26.05.2016). News use across social media platforms 2016. Pew
Research Center Journalism & Media. Retrieved from https://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2016/
Hammond, Z. (2016). Culturally responsive teaching & the brain; Promoting authentic
engagement and rigor among culturally and linguistically diverse students. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, A SAGE Company.
ISTE. (2009). ISTE standards for administrators. ISTE. Retriever from
ISTE. (2019a). ISTE standards for educators. ISTE. Retrieved from
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Kim, S.H. & Bagaka, J. (2005). The digital divide in students’ usage of technology tools: A
multilevel analysis of the role of teacher practices and classroom characteristics. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education [Online serial], 5(3/4). Retrieved from https://www.citejournal.org/volume-5/issue-3-05/current-practice/the-digital-divide-in-students-usage-of-technology-tools-a-multilevel-analysis-of-the-role-of-teacher-practices-and-classroom-characteristics/
L., H. (30.10.2017). SAMR model: A practical guide for edtech integration. Schoology
Exchange. Retrieved from https://www.schoology.com/blog/samr-model-practical-guide-edtech-integration
Tausend, J. (27.08.2013). How students use technology inside of the classroom; Mobile devices
and free Internet tools have changed the way students learn. EdTech Magazine. Retrieved from https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2013/08/how-students-use-technology-outside-classrooms | <urn:uuid:c7c4ce9e-e481-47d0-a134-4be7d8b18c67> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://teacheractivist.com/2019/04/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370521876.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20200404103932-20200404133932-00513.warc.gz | en | 0.929696 | 4,025 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Speech Therapy under IDEA
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) includes speech and language impairments that adversely affect educational performance among the types of disabilities requiring special education and related services.
In determining eligibility for special education speech and language services, it is critical to distinguish between impairment and disability. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) definitions of these two terms are useful in this regard. According to the WHO, impairment means “any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological, or anatomical structure or function.” The important words in this definition are loss or abnormality of structure or function. The WHO’s definition of disability refers to “reduced ability to meet daily living needs.” When applied to speech and language, impairment refers to loss of, or abnormality in, the comprehension and/or production of speech and/or language.
For purposes of a child’s IDEA eligibility, such impairment is considered a disability when:
- It has an adverse effect on educational performance. and
- By reason of that disability, he or she requires special education and related services.
Note: Special education means specially designed instruction, at no cost to parents, to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability.
Related services are defined as those that may be required to assist a child with a disability to benefit from special education. IDEA has long identified speech and language services as one of the permissible related services. IDEA also has long allowed states to designate speech and language services as special education.
When a child has a primary or sole disability in speech and language, the child’s speech and language services are considered special education (even if the child also needs other special education services to address the speech and language disability). When the speech and language issues are secondary to another disability (e.g., learning disability), speech and language services needed to assist the child to benefit from his or her special education services are considered a related service. IDEA requires demonstrating adverse educational effect when determining eligibility for special education.
Who is eligible for Speech Therapy?
Eligibility for a related service is based upon a child’s need for that service to help him or her benefit from the special education services the PPT has determined are necessary. Notwithstanding this distinction, there continues to be broad consensus among SLPs (speech and language program) around the state that the procedures recommended in these guidelines, including demonstrating adverse educational effect, be used to determine eligibility for speech and language services as either a special education or a related service. This widespread consensus emerged from concerns that the need for decisions about a child’s need for speech and language services as a related service be data-based.
The outcome of the initial PPT meeting does not always have to be a special education speech and language evaluation. Prior to determining whether such an evaluation is warranted, the team needs to: • ensure the presence of the SLP at the meeting;
- discuss the concerns that prompted the referral;
- review what early intervening communication strategies or services were implemented, for what duration and with what effect; and
- determine that the SLP was involved in developing, implementing and monitoring the effectiveness of these strategies or services.
If the SLP was not involved in the regular education early intervening services process, the PPT should determine whether further attempts to resolve the problem might be more successful with such involvement.
How will my child be assessed?
Human communication is a dynamic, interactive process. In the course of a school day, children need to be able to comprehend, integrate and use a number of modalities to process information and communicate effectively. They must be able to communicate in different forms for a variety of purposes, in several settings with different physical arrangements and learning materials, and with many partners who have different communication skills, styles and backgrounds. The competent communicator adapts to all these circumstances, which are not easily controlled. Because of these complexities, adequate sampling of a child’s speech and language cannot be accomplished by a single test or single test session.
While the speech-language evaluation may focus on a particular area of communication, the SLP should be able to comment on the child’s abilities in all areas of communication — language, phonology, fluency and voice. To accomplish this, and to adequately evaluate the educational impact of any communication weaknesses the child exhibits during the assessment, the PPT needs to decide which quantitative and descriptive measures to select.
Quantitative assessments include both norm-referenced and criterion-referenced tests.
Standardized Norm-Referenced Tests: Standardized speech-language tests measure de-contextualized communication skills using formalized procedures. Administered outside the normal contexts in which the child communicates, they capture neither the complexities nor the subtle nuances of the communication process. They are designed to compare a particular child’s performance against the average performance of a group of children with the same age and other characteristics identified by the test authors in selecting the sample or norming population. Meaningful comparisons between the child’s performance and that of the test population are possible only when the test has clear administration, scoring criteria and validity, and when it is reliable and standardized on a sufficiently large and representative sample population. These issues are of particular concern in the implementation of unbiased assessments of culturally and linguistically diverse children, whose life experiences may differ from children in the mainstream culture. Furthermore, existing tests are administered in English or the child’s native language. True evaluation of a bilingual child comes from the interpretation of the information from his or her performance on both the native language and English tests.
Criterion Referenced Tests: Criterion-referenced speech-language tests compare a child’s performance on specific skills, grammatical structures or linguistic concepts to a previously determined performance level. The criterion is based on expectations of what the child should be able to do. SLPs can also design their own criterion referenced measures with language, materials, contexts and interaction patterns that are familiar to the child being tested. The use of criterion referenced measures for culturally and linguistically diverse children continues to be hampered by “the lack of well-established developmental information on certain CLD populations.”
Modifying Testing Procedures: Standardized tests may not be easily administered according to the recommended procedures with certain populations. In some cases, modifications of these procedures may yield important descriptive information about conditions under which the child’s performance improves or deteriorates. Even when a child is able to perform under standardized conditions, procedural modifications may provide useful insights into the nature of the child’s communication problem and suggest intervention strategies. When tests are modified in any way, modifications should be reported and test norms cannot be applied, as they are no longer valid.
Test modifications include:
- Restating or repeating directions;
- Allowing additional response time;
- Allowing native language responses or code-switching;
- Providing extra practice items before the test;
- Substituting culturally relevant stimulus items;
- Presenting the stimuli in meaningful situations;
- Providing feedback to the child about his or her performance (simple or elaborated);
- Asking the child to verbalize by describing the test question and how they arrived at their answer; or
- Interviewing the child during the test about the thought process he or she is using (requires meta-linguistic and meta-cognitive skills).
Descriptive (Qualitative) Assessments
Descriptive approaches to assessment examine how a child uses his or her knowledge of linguistic structure and communication rules with different communication partners in a variety of settings at various times and with various levels of support. They provide a more realistic picture of how a child naturally uses his or her communication knowledge and abilities in everyday situations and the impact of speech-language deficits in those settings.
Observation: The purpose of observation is to collect data regarding the child’s functional communicative performance in a variety of naturalistic settings and activities or simulations thereof. The particular aspects of communication to be observed and the selection of settings for such an ecological assessment will be driven by the concerns cited in the referral. If the child attends school, observation should, at a minimum, occur in the classroom. Other recommended settings include the playground, cafeteria, gymnasium, home, daycare facility or preschool, as appropriate. It may be necessary to conduct more than one observation in any of these settings to ensure reliability of the data collected. The number and duration of observations will depend on the data to be collected and the success in gathering them.
The target of the observation is not merely the child’s communication skills, but the various factors that may affect that child’s communication. These include: the communication demands of the situation (including the curriculum materials and rules of discourse and behavior), the communication style of the teachers, the structure of the lessons being observed and the general environment of the observation site.
Informal Comprehension Probes: Communication comprehension cannot be directly observed; it is inferred from behavior. It is heavily influenced by a child’s culture and background knowledge and the communication context. Comprehension probes can be designed to observe a child’s response to requests to: follow expected and unexpected directions in familiar settings and with familiar materials; identify what is silly in improbable commands or statements; carry out unpredictable actions with items not generally associated with each other; or learn nonsense words within meaningful utterances and use the information from those utterances to figure out the conventional word. Discourse comprehension can be probed by the having the child retell a story that has been read or told or respond to inferential questions about the story. The child may also be asked to explain jokes, riddles and puns to explore comprehension of more complex language and meta-linguistic knowledge. Analyzing the linguistic strategies a child uses in interpreting sentences with unexpected syntactic rules following presentation of sentences with more familiar rules can help identify the source of a child’s comprehension problems.
Speech-Language Sampling: Collecting representative speech-language samples allows the SLP to identify and analyze the child’s comprehension and use of various linguistic features in functional communication, including: phonological, semantic, grammatical, morphological and syntactic structures; rules and organization of discourse (e.g., conversational, narrative, expository and persuasive); voice and fluency parameters; pragmatic functions of communication. Analyzing speech-language samples of culturally and linguistically diverse children requires knowledge of the linguistic and social rules of the child’s native language and their potential influence on the English sample
Factors to consider in selecting a particular approach to gathering the sample include:
- age, gender and cultural appropriateness of the activity and materials that will be;
- the child’s familiarity with the environment and materials;
- strategies used to collect the sample; length of the sample desired;
- languages or mode of communication in which the sample should be obtained and the role of an interpreter; and
- communication partners with whom the child will interact during the sampling.
The procedures for analyzing the sample will vary according to the nature of the sample and the child’s stage of language development. Language sampling is labor intensive because of the time to transcribe and analyze the sample, in addition to recording the samples by hand or using audiotapes or videotapes. Even using available computerized applications for sample analysis requires sample transcription, which may require several replays to ensure correctness of the transcription.
Curriculum-Based Assessment (CBA)
The purpose of curriculum-based speech and language assessment is to examine the child’s communication skills in relation to the communication demands of the school setting, particularly the classroom, in order to identify mismatches. In speech and language pathology, CBA has come to refer to more than classroom curriculum.
Types of curriculums that the SLP should consider:
- Official: an outline of the goals, objectives and content of various subjects or courses;
- Cultural: the background or world knowledge gained inside and outside school that students must acquire to become literate and educated;
- De facto: the textbooks and other materials used in the classroom;
- School culture: the explicit and implicit rules that guide appropriate behavior; and
- Hidden: the subtle messages conveyed by teachers.
CBA has valuable potential to clarify the educational impact of communication problems and to help identify relevant intervention targets, including modifications in teacher expectations or instructional approaches that will facilitate the student’s access to the curriculum. Besides examining curriculum materials and student work samples, CBA includes observations and interviews.
This interactive assessment approach is similar to what in earlier years was referred to as “diagnostic therapy,” but has more focus on selecting targets and collecting data about changes in performance in response to specific facilitation techniques. Based on this principle, examples of commonly used dynamic assessment approaches include: test-teach-retest; modifying the presentation of formal tests; and providing graded prompts. Dynamic assessment is another important avenue for reducing bias in assessing children from culturally and linguistically diverse groups because of its emphasis on a child’s learning potential rather than test performance that “may reflect different learning experiences or a lack of educational opportunity.”
Collaboration among professionals to evaluate a student’s communicative behavior should be a natural outcome of the basic premises of these guidelines articulated earlier, the legal requirements for evaluation and the recommended assessment procedures described above. Classroom teachers, other pupil support specialists and community service providers are logical partners in the communication evaluation. If the collaboration is planned when the evaluation is being discussed, it should produce more comprehensive, holistic information while using the time of school personnel and the student more effectively. Professional partnering can also facilitate the eligibility decision and lead to the development of a more integrated IEP for the student when a disability is identified. Eligibility decisions for students with cognitive or developmental problems and for culturally and linguistically diverse populations are just two examples of the complexities that can be better addressed when there is collaboration between the SLP and professional colleagues, such as school psychologists and ESL/bilingual teachers.
IDEA 2004, § 602(3)(A); 34 CFR, 300.8(a)(1); and 34 CFR, 300.8(c)(11).
34 CFR § 300.8(c)(11).
IDEA 2004, § 602(3)(A).
IDEA 2004, § 602(29); 34 CFR § 300.39.
IDEA 2004, § 602(26).
State of Connecticut, Department of Education, Guidelines for Speech and Language Programs (2008) http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/PDF/DEPS/Special/Speech_Language_2008.pdf. | <urn:uuid:13c3ef1e-72a0-4192-9b19-512bd092719b> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | http://www.mayalaw.com/practice-areas/education-law/speech-therapy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370494064.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20200329074745-20200329104745-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.927267 | 3,052 | 3.640625 | 4 |
16. "Ye Shall Be Called the Children of Christ"
"The Treaty/Covenant Pattern in King Benjamin's Address (Mosiah 1-6)," Stephen D. Ricks, BYU Studies, Vol. 24, no. 2
Covenant-making has been studied by scholars as a fundamental part of ancient Near East society, both in civic life and in religion. Studies of Assyrian and Hittite treaties as well as passages from the Old Testament show that ancient treaties or covenants followed a relatively consistent pattern. In BYU Studies (24:2, 1984), Professor Stephen D. Ricks shows in ample detail that this pattern is also present in King Benjamin's address to his people. The pattern includes a preamble, sharing of antecedent history, outlining individual stipulations, participants giving oaths of acceptance, warnings of curses to attend covenant-breakers, promises of blessings to covenant-keepers, and the recording and depositing of the text. Not only does this pattern help modern readers to take their own personal covenants more seriously, but also, as Ricks writes, "the extent to which the Book of Mormon accords with ancient Near Eastern canons of literary style and structure may...provide a test of authenticity" for the reality and validity of the Book of Mormon.
"What Parents Should Teach Their Children from the Book of Mosiah," Kenneth W. Anderson, The Book of Mormon, Salvation Only Through Christ
This paper presents five simple, yet powerful scriptural lessons from the book of Mosiah that parents can teach their children. It will also give practical suggestions on how to make these principles in the right spirit, they will be better able to reach out to them in love as they invite them to live by the light of the gospel.
"Benjamin's Covenant as a Precursor of the Sacrament Prayers," John W. Welch, from King Benjamin’s Speech: That Ye May Learn Wisdom
King Benjamin’s covenant language in Mosiah 5 figures seminally as an early text to which Jesus was apparently alluding when he articulated in 3 Nephi 18 words that provided the basis for the final form of the Nephite sacrament prayers in Moroni 4–5. A historical, textual relationship exists between the words of the Nephite covenant text of King Benjamin, the words of Jesus in 3 Nephi 18, and the phrases used in the Nephite sacrament prayers; the precision and persistence of basic terms throughout all three of these texts, separated from each other by many years and pages of Nephite history, speak highly of the faithful and logical orderliness, the linguistic sensitivity, and the progressing revelation and inspiration present in this history.
"Benjamin and the Mysteries of God," M. Catherine Thomas, King Benjamin’s Speech: That Ye May Learn Wisdom
King Benjamin had been praying for his people; in response, an angel appeared with an important announcement. The king then summoned his people to the temple to receive the angel’s message in connection with a sacred name. The people embraced the angel’s message, were born again, and entered into a holy covenant. In this simple statement of basic facts from the Book of Mormon account, we discover at least four interesting questions: (1) What was Benjamin’s role in the rebirth experience at the temple, and for what was he praying? (2) What was it the angel came to announce? (3) How would the name the king gave his people distinguish them from earlier Nephites, who, for five hundred years, anticipated the coming of Christ? (4) What was the nature of the change that the people received, and what does it all have to do with the mysteries of God? In the pursuit of answers to these questions, we will explore the nature of priesthood and its relationship to the mystery of spiritual rebirth.
King Benjamin's Speech: "That Ye May Learn Wisdom", edited by John W. Welch and Stephen D. Ricks
The contributors examine this speech in the multifaceted contexts in which it was delivered: as a classic speech of a departing leader near the time of his death, as the focus of an annual festival season mandated anciently under the law of Moses, as part of a covenant renewal ceremony delivered within the sacred precinct of the Nephite temple in Zarahemla, and as preparation for the coronation of a new king. Historical and linguistic tools and information are employed in these essays to help the reader to better grasp the speech’s historical setting, its doctrinal implications, its literary qualities, its influence then and now, and its overall brilliance.
King Benjamin's Speech Made Simple, edited by John W. Welch and Stephen D. Ricks
King Benjamin’s inspired words influenced Book of Mormon prophets for generations, and they continue to reach across time to stir countless people today. King Benjamin’s Speech Made Simple is a popular abridgment of the expansive volume King Benjamin’s Speech: “That Ye May Learn Wisdom.” Prepared with the general reader in mind, this streamlined version presents the essential contents of the original book. Eleven studies examine the classic speech from many angles, viewing it as a manual for Christian discipleship, a coronation and covenant-renewal text, an ancient farewell address, a key part of a religious celebration, a prophetic lawsuit, a masterful oration of stunning structural complexity, and much more. It acquaints readers with a great religious leader whose wisdom, inspired teachings, and parting testimony invite studious attention and lasting admiration. This book is a rich resource, spotlighting and making simple the profound meanings and intriguing complexities of Benjamin’s carefully wrought words.
"King Benjamin's Manual of Discipleship," Elder Neal A. Maxwell, Ensign January 1992
In his speech at the temple, King Benjamin taught us how to become saints through the Atonement of Christ. Elder Maxwell emphasizes the different aspects of King Benjamin's speech that draw us closer to our Savior.
"King Benjamin: The Drama's Sacral Kingship is About Being a Child of God," LeGrand Baker, Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord: The Psalms in Israel's Temple Worship in the Old Testament and in the Book of Mormon
While LeGrand Baker recognizes the importance of the Israelite religious festivals surrounding this speech, he approaches King Benjamin's speech and the coronation of Mosiah as an exposition on our divine heritage.
"King Benjamin: In the Service of Your God," Susan Easton Black, A Book of Mormon Treasury: Gospel Insights from General Authority and Religious Educators
Susan Easton Black takes a humanitarian approach to King Benjamin's speech as she outlines how King Benjamin exemplified his own teachings. King Benjamin was among the people and spent his days serving his people, just as God commands us to do. She concludes by connecting service with the Atonement. We are all in need of service, and as we serve others we can receive a remission of our sins, as King Benjamin teaches us in Mosiah 4:26.
"King Benjamin" James Fullmer. Original Painting.
"The Natural Man: An Enemy to God," Robert Millet, The Book of Mormon: Mosiah, Salvation Only Through Christ
Robert Millet takes a devotional approach to King Benjamin's speech, reflecting on man's natural disposition in comparison to becoming as God. Millet attends primarily to a doctrinal message about humanity that was delivered to king Benjamin by an angel of God. At the same time he considers related passages in the Book of Mormon which bear upon and amplify this timeless truth—that the natural man is an enemy to God and a foe to all righteousness.
"Service and Temple in King Benjamin's Speech," Donald W. Parry, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 16:2
King Benjamin’s speech focuses almost entirely on service, repeating four variations of the word—servants, serve, served, and service—fifteen times in only eighteen verses. Benjamin gave the discourse in such a manner that his audience could have understood service in multiple ways. Given the significant temple setting for the discourse and the references to temple service in the Old Testament, Parry seeks to highlight the emphasis on temple service. To further strengthen his focus on temple service, Benjamin links service to the concept of blood on garments and his need to wash his garments of his people’s blood, bringing to mind the priests with blood on their garments from temple rituals, who were required to wash their garments. The temple setting, where sacrifices were made under the law of Moses, and the focus on service point to Jesus Christ’s atoning sacrifice—the supreme and final act of service.
"Democratizing Forces in King Benjamin's Speech," John W. Welch, Pressing Forward with the Book of Mormon
In Mosiah 6, we read that every soul had entered into the covenant and had taken upon them the name of Christ. In this narrative we see a profound equality of society, where an entire people take part in the same covenants and contribute to egalitarian principles. In King Benjamin's speech, we read of many principles that contribute to an equal society in Christ. King Benjamin himself serves as an example of noble humility, in working among his fellow men, instead of lording above them.
"Becoming Sons and Daughters at God’s Right Hand: King Benjamin’s Rhetorical Wordplay on His Own Name," Matthew L. Bowen, Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 21:2
Royal sonship is a key theme of Mosiah 1–6, including King Benjamin’s seminal address at the temple in Zarahemla (Mosiah 2–5) on the occasion of his son Mosiah’s enthronement. Benjamin, however, caps this covenant sermon not with an assertion of his son’s royal status and privileges, but with a radical declaration of his people’s royal rebirth (or adoption) as “the children of Christ, his sons and his daughters” (Mosiah 5:7) and their potential enthronement at God’s “right hand” (5:9). Similar to rhetorical wordplay involving proper names found in the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and other ancient texts, Benjamin’s juxtaposition of “sons”/“daughters” and the “right hand” constitutes a deliberate wordplay on his own name, traditionally taken to mean “son of the right hand.” The name of Christ, rather than Benjamin’s own name, is given to all his people as a new name—a “throne” name. However, he warns them against refusing to take upon them this throne name and thus being found “on the left hand of God” (5:10), a warning that also constitutes an allusion to his name. Benjamin’s ultimate hope is for his people’s royal, divine sonship/daughterhood to be eternally “sealed.” | <urn:uuid:77538660-9b48-4bba-b180-136287b5feb5> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | http://byustudies.byu.edu/lessons/16-ye-shall-be-called-children-christ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370510352.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20200403061648-20200403091648-00554.warc.gz | en | 0.948406 | 2,275 | 3.078125 | 3 |
What is an Accountant?
An accountant is one of the specialists whose main duty is to inspect or keep financial accounts. Accountancy or accounting is the measurement or the provision of assurance about financial information that will help tax authorities, investors, and many other to make right decisions about the allocating resources.
Job Description of an Accountant
The typical job of an accountant mainly involves duties and tasks that are built upon, educational background, knowledge, practice, and a set of skills that are necessary to have a successful career. The main duties of accountant are based on providing any necessary financial information to management through or by researching and analyzing accounting data, or preparing reports.
Their job is to recommend in a proper way financial actions by analyzing the accounting options that exist. They also need to summarize the current or actual financial status by collecting information, prepare profit, balance sheet, and loss statement as well as prepare other reports.
By analyzing account information and by complying those an accountant can prepare the liabilities, the asset, and the capital account entries. These professionals also have the responsibilities to maintain accounting controls by recommending procedures and policies, as well as maintaining financial security by following internal controls. Accountants also secure financial information by completing database backups, prepare payments by verifying documentation, and requesting disbursement.
An accountant also has the duty to prepare financial reports through a process of collecting, analyzing and summarizing the account information or in some other cases trends. Accountants have to make sure that they follow and apply with the state, federal and local legal requirements by studying the new legislation or the one that already exists. Any result in the job that they are doing is accomplished by performing the duty.
To be a good accountant you’ll need a set of skills that will help you a lot with the work you are doing, skills that involve a very good time management, accounting, and excellent attention to details, confidentiality, math skills on a general line, a good management when it comes to data entry as well as being oriented on finishing up in time any required deadline.
By possessing a certification, your role will increase leading to work on improving efficiency and maximize the organization profitability. Their skills are very searched in many public practice firms, commercial, private as well as other sectors. They also administer payrolls, control income and negotiate any of the existent business terms with associate associates and clients.
How to Become an Accountant?
In order to grow to become an accountant, you’ll need to fulfill a few steps that will lead you to your dream career. The steps to make are such as obtaining a high school diploma, having an excellent proficiency in math. You will also need to pass the college entrance exams, earn either associate’s or bachelor’s degree, follow an internship, obtain work experience. Furthermore, you must take CPA or CMA test preparatory classes and the 4 part CPA or CMA test. Other things that will help after are such as obtaining a Master’s degree and remaining licensed.
An accountant role involves also to prepare the proper documentation in finances such as taxes. The most common career path in this field is to become a CPA else known as a Certified Public Accountant. Those who graduate in this field can also choose to become Management Accountants, Auditors, or even Government Accountants.
Everything starts from high school, even your career choices. If on campus you have the opportunity start by taking some finances classes. The next level is to learn what are the college entrance exams and take them. You can also use the SAT or the ACT scores to apply for any bachelor degree program that you find the most appropriate.
Having the right to practice is very important when it comes to any job in the US. Even though the license requirements can be modified, there is some evidence in a few states that will help you become a licensed CPA. This including associate’s and bachelor’s degrees.
The first step in becoming an accountant is searching an accredited degree program in accountancy. The road to fulfilling it can differ from state to state and can lead you either to follow the classes of a two-year associate’s degree in accounting or to earn a four-year degree. If your choice is the first, then you should look for programs that will have you placed in entry-level positions and help you with the uniform accounting exams.
With this option of choice, you might be required to have a background of 2 years of experience of work before you actually become a licensed CPA instead of 1 year. The four-year degree path is very sure for those who are not sure in which state they will want to practice. Having more of the educational hours, you’ll need only one year of work experience before you enroll for a license.
If your position is in the business world and you’ll consider that a CPA will help you advance in the career field then here’s what to do. You can take into consideration some of the Master’s degrees that have their focus on the CPA preparation.
The idea of an internship can be very great since you’ll need work experience when you apply for a license or a job placement when you’ve graduated. You can work an internship during your college or on summer vacations.
As mentioned earlier a license in this field is obtained by having work experience. At the end of your college accredited degree program, you can find an entry level position, under a licensed accountant, position that will help you earn your license. Your work for a licensed accountant it is recommended to have a period of 1 and up to 2 years.
The uniform accountancy exams are not that easy to pass. The best way to succeed is to review all the courses that you had, going back time span of several months and up to several years before. There are four sections or parts uniform to take when it comes to the CPA else known as Certified Public Accountant or the CMA else known as Certified Management Accountant.
Once you’ve passed the initial section of the test, you’ll have a length of 18 months in which you’ll have to complete and pass the three sections that were left. You might have to show proof of the degree program that you’ve graduated from, classroom hours and a successful completion of an ethics course.
To follow some state CPA tracks, you might need a master’s degree. However, you can return to school for a master’s of business accounting or administration that will help you set on a track that is based on management. A Master’s degree will help you to be properly qualified to work for larger financial institutions.
The last step after getting your license is to make sure that you’ll keep it. Take continuous education credits that will allow you to have the right to practice in the state in which you are licensed.
Work Environment and Schedule
Working as an accountant means having to deal with various situations, adapting to new and face any challenge that might occur. In order to make appropriate decisions and provide right answers, you’ll be faced as an accountant to use every professional judgment that you’ve gained, and you have.
An accountant working environment is mainly based on deadline-oriented terms as well as fast paced working field. Much of the accounting work will assume that the individuals that are working on these positions must act and work as a team. A teamwork will help to a reliable and best completion of the projects, and a great spread of the achieved knowledge between the team members.
The traditional business hours for someone working as an accountant is of 40 hours per week, but in some situations the hours of work will increase. For instance, those who work in the public accounting will have to be at work 45 hours per week. Furthermore, in some other cases, working means from 55 work hours up to 80 hours per week during the 3-month busy season. Working in an accounting firm will mean that your dress will be business casual.
The great fact of being an accountant involve the four main branches inside of accounting. Those are management, financial, taxes, and auditing. Since there is a diversity in the field as an Accountant, you can choose the best work environment. For instance, you can find work for a private institution, for the government, or at a large company, or you can have a small firm.
Pros and Cons of Being an Accountant
Being an accountant will involve many times pros and cons of the career in which you are working. The pros that define this career involve that you are certain upon the path that you follow. Studying accounting will lead you to a future that is based upon analyze the costs and dealing a lot with numbers. You’ll also gain specific training that is very useful in your career. Even as an accounting student you’ll have the clear vision and idea that you know where you are going in your career.
Another pro is that the accountant career includes a huge potential for growth since even after graduation you can start as an entry level associate that in a few years can lead you to move up the ranks. You should also know there is a great demanding for accountants since there are many people who need help with their taxes. Another reason is the fact that many organizations and businesses are in need of an accountant.
This career is very stable despite the fluctuation that is often encountered in the economic flux. There is also a high potential of well-paid incomes, and those who work on a full-time basis can expect to receive great pensions, vacation times, healthcare as well as other great benefits.
On the other hand, the cons that appear in this field appear when it comes to being certified. A CPA is accredited by the AICPA else known as the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. A CPA will gain a higher salary and will have the opportunity to advance to a higher rank in his or her career then an Accountant, who doesn’t have a certification. The time that you’ll have to invest in this certification will vary between 6 months and up to 1 year of study and pass all four parts of the exam.
This path is very challenging since the exam is very hard, and you’ll have to study a lot to take it. Another con, when referred to the life of an accountant, is the level of stress that you’ll have to deal with. As reminded earlier, the typical business working hours for an accountant will include a 9 to 5 standard job. However, in the tax season you’ll have to spend up to 80 hours per week inside of an office.
With all these, you can add the sense of being bored if your personality will not fit with the usual monotony that is to be found in this field. Your work can repeat itself and will ask from your part a meticulous job. Be prepared right from the start to be a problem solver, have a great detail-oriented attention that will help you avoid errors. You should also be convinced that you are fit to spend a lot of time behind a desk working at a computer.
Positions offered as accountants will offer higher incomes for the top of them, the figures will even encompass $100,005 per year. According to many surveys, the median annual salary in the United States is estimated to reach about $61,691 per year. Nowadays the estimated average salary for the North America reaches at $31,078 per year.
As the working experience in the life of an accountant will reach up to 5 years, the annual salary can reach around $65,676 per year. If your position in the career of accounting includes an entry-level employment, then you can expect to take home an income that is comprised between $35,010 per year and up to $45,010 per year.
The job outlook for this field is a positive one even with the fluctuations in the economy these professionals are needed everywhere and anywhere in work that will include taxes and examine as well as prepare financial records.
Other factors that will influence the income of these professionals are linked with the location, as reminded earlier years of experience in the field, as well as the gained certification. The annual accountant bonus that is offered is expected to range between $210 and up to $610.
Those who are in an entry level position with less than one year of work experience can expect to an annual bonus that reaches at $204 per year. Then with less than five years of work in the field the bonus that is usually granted reaches at $967 per year. An accountant, who works in this field for more than 20 years, can reach to an annual bonus estimated at around $610 per year.
The salary will also vary according to each state. For instance, if you are working as an accountant in Alaska your income is around $57,010 per year. At the same time, those who are working in California can expect to take home an income of around $61,010 per year. The highest incomes can be found in states such as New York and Mississippi that offer around $65,010 per year.
Salary of an Accountant in 2016
In the US, the salary for 2016 is estimated ad based upon the number of demanding. These professionals are in high demand due to the taxes that must be paid and must be accurate. The job outlook is best since new accounting and finance jobs are created in order to support and maintain a constant growth in business.
The salaries in the field of accounting for the year 2016 are estimated to have an annual average that is comprised between $54,510 per year and up to $80,251 per year.
Accountant Salary in Canada, Australia and the UK
The average median payment for someone working in Canada as an accountant is estimated to reach about C$62,923 per year. The salary is usually comprised between C$40,963 per year and up to C$100,210 per year. The bonus that is granted for these employees can reach up to C$12,066 per year while the profit sharing can reach up to C$58,556 per year. This will lead in the end to a total annual earning that is usually comprised between C$42,534 per year and up to C$105,637 per year.
In Australia, the income of a qualified Accountant usually reaches of around AU$82,792 per year. On the other hand, the average median salary for these professionals usually is estimated to reach at AU$54,786 per year. The annual salary for those working in this field is estimated to range between AU$39,658 per year and up to AU$80,591 per year. The bonus that is granted can reach up to AU$7,118 per year while the profit sharing is estimated to reach at around AU$10,407 per year. The commission will reach up to AU$3,010 per year. In the end, the total payment is estimated to be comprised between AU$39,846 per year and up to AU$82,863 per year.
In the UK, the starting salaries for accountants will vary greatly depending on several factors such as location, the size of the company for which they are working for, the sector, and the firm. Graduate students can expect to take home an estimated income of around £25,010 per year. Those individuals who do not hold a degree will earn less. A full qualified accountant can expect to earn between £25,010 per year and up to £50,010 per year. According to some surveys that were made in 2014 the average earning for someone working as an Accountant with two years of experience reached at £47,910 per year plus bonus.
The annual salary in the United Kingdom that on average is granted in business is £90,810 per year. The highest salaries are also gained in the field of capital markets and banking. The salary packages might include benefits such as medical insurances, pensions, bonuses, profit sharing, and other.
Conclusion on Accountant Salary
The field of accounting is considered to be one very stable and on high demand, and the search for these professionals is more needed than ever. This will stay valid due to the job outlook and the years of experience in the field. | <urn:uuid:b8e77e11-5eb7-443e-9499-5f6cffd112b8> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.salaryvoice.com/accountant-salary | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370510287.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20200403030659-20200403060659-00114.warc.gz | en | 0.971999 | 3,356 | 3.1875 | 3 |
By Dr. Jeannie Thomason
If dogs are carnivores; which they have proven to be just from their teeth and digestive tract… why do we feed them grains in pet food?
While this may come as a surprise to some of you, commercial pet diets are not well-suited to the dog’s and cat’s nutritional needs, physical make up or metabolism. In other words, they simply, are not ‘biologically appropriate.’ They are primarily made up of grains and grain by-products as well as being cooked/processed at high enough temperatures to destroy any true available nutrition.
Contemporary canine nutritionists agree that dogs, being carnivores, are not only unable to process complex carbohydrates (grains & potato products) well but they have no dietary need for them.
Studies demonstrate that unlike humans/omnivores, dogs (carnivores) do not ‘carbo-load,’ that is, they do not store up energy from meals high in complex carbohydrates. While human athletes successfully practice this technique, it results in an accumulation of lactic acid in dogs (which causes the muscular pain experienced after unaccustomed exercise).
Based on research in the dog and with other species it has been found that dogs can be more healthfully maintained without carbohydrates, especially when the diet supplies enough fat and protein from which the metabolic requirement for glucose is derived.
Dogs, being the carnivores they are, are not designed to eat grains and do not produce the necessary amounts of enzymes in their saliva (amylase, for example) to start the break-down of carbohydrates and starches; amylase in saliva is something omnivorous and herbivorous animals possess, but not carnivorous animals. This lack of the necessary enzymes, places the burden entirely on the pancreas, forcing it to try to produce large amounts of amylase and cellulase to deal with the starch, cellulose, and carbohydrates in grains and plant matter. (The carnivore’s pancreas was not designed to secrete cellulase to split the cellulose into glucose molecules), nor have dogs “evolved” to become efficient at digesting and assimilating and utilizing gains or plant material as a source of high quality protein. Herbivores do those sorts of things. Read Canine and Feline Nutrition Case, Carey and Hirakawa Published by Mosby, 1995
Grains are full of carbohydrates which once eaten, easily convert to sugars. Cancer cells feed on sugars, and it is believed that by decreasing the amount of carbohydrate in the diet, we may greatly reduce the risk of our pets getting cancer (which is a growing problem among modern dogs and cats).
Grains and or grain based foods are also, the main cause of yeast infections, such as Candida Albicans in our pets. Symptoms of yeast over-growth or infections include:
habitual scratching, usually the ears, sides of the torso and underbelly
chronic ear infections
incessant licking of the genitals or the paws or both
rashes, most often on the underbelly
blackening and rough skin patches
Allergies (so called)
And when the yeast begins to move into the head; loss of hearing; loss of eyesight; loss of intelligence, memory and comprehension.
Yeast infections always start somewhere in the digestive system; but then as the multiply, they move to the genital area and/or on to the ears; then finally to the brain, taking over the entire body. It is insidious. In allopathic/conventional medicine, these symptoms are treated with antibiotics or steroids; which only serve to make matters worse by killing off the friendly flora or bacteria in the body and thus lowering the immune system.
For more information on Yeast Infections click HERE
The multi-billion dollar pet food industry (yes they even make so called “prescription dog foods”), advertise their use of high-quality, whole grains in their food. They say these provide an “excellent source of protein” for our dogs and cats.
When you see a pet food being recalled it is usually due to being tainted with moldy grains – Mycotoxins
Mycotoxin contamination in pet food poses a serious health threat to pets. Cereal grains and nuts are used as ingredients in commercial pet food for companion animals such as cats, dogs, birds, fish and rodents. Cereal by-products may be diverted to animal feed even though they can contain mycotoxins at concentrations greater than raw cereals due to processing (Moss, 1996; Brera et al., 2006)
Large amounts of grain may be an appropriate source of protein for omnivore species…but NOT so for our cats and dogs that are primarily designed to eat meat as their protein!
This brings me to what ‘grains’ in commercial pet food really are. When whole grain is used in dog food, (and even cat food), (be it oats, barley, wheat, rice, kumut or corn – GMO or not) it has often most often been deemed unfit for human consumption due to mold, contaminants, or poor handling practices. Some brands reportedly contain damaged, spilled, and spoiled grain known as “the tail of the mill.” This can include the hulls, chaff, straw, dust, dirt, and sand swept from the mill floor at the end of each week, which are totally unnatural nutritional ingredients! Most of these ingredients, such as peanut hulls, are used strictly for “filler” and have no nutritional value at all! They are also economical for the pet food companies to use!
Imagine AAFCO approving ‘the tail of the mill’ as acceptable grains in your pet’s diet! Unbelievable? Sorry, but this is true!
GRAINS – Could this be why your pet scratches constantly?
Yes, grains are one of the most common causes of “allergies” in pets. Other symptoms brought on by feeding grains and the over-growth of yeast (as mentioned above) may be as broad ranging but serious as: Mal-absorption of food nutrients, joint problems, arthritis, diabetes, colitis and kidney or bladder infections.
Too much money has already been spent by American pet owners to their veterinarians, to “treat” the above-mentioned symptoms. It’s a shame that most veterinarians do not take their patient’s diet into consideration FIRST, when in fact, most of these symptoms are directly related to what the pet is eating. Sadly the feeding of cooked  meats and/or grain laden foods help keep your veterinarian in a thriving business by charging you great amounts of needless money on lab work, steroid pills, creams, shampoo and antibiotics to treat the symptoms of itching as well as keeping you coming back for frequent vet visits when the symptoms return as soon as the medications run out…
Not all Carbohydrates in Pet Food are Grains
With the word out on grains not being digestible and causing allergic reactions in our dogs, the latest trend in pet foods is the elimination of most grains or even all and the addition of potatoes – whether regular white or orange sweet potoatoes to help bind the processed product together and be a source of carbohydrates.
In theory it all sounds great right? Never mind that potatoes are still not digestible to dogs and cats but they also contain a carcinogen- *acrylamide. As a daily maintenance food, potatoes are not a good thing! They may actually be a part of the cancer epidemic in our pets! The August 14, 2002 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, reported presence of high levels of acrylamide in carbohydrate rich foods like potatoes.
*Acrylamide induces gene mutations and has been found in animal tests to cause malignant stomach tumors. It is also known to cause damage to the central and peripheral nervous system.
Tapioca is often used instead of potatoes in processed pet food as a binder. Tapioca is almost pure carbohydrate and on top of this fact, it is often chemically modified before formulation in food products and as such, presents a threat to health by binding essential minerals that play key roles in many critical enzyme systems, and also producing the disease, parakeratosis.
Furthermore, natural tapioca contains cyanogenic glycosides (specifically linamarin and lotaustralin) which yield hydrocyanic acid upon hydrolysis (as occurs in the stomach). Hydrocyanic acid (hydrogen cyanide) is highly toxic to humans and animals. The toxicity is dose dependent and therefore animals or humans fed a steady diet of any food that yields hydrogen cyanide are at risk with accumulation over time.
Genetically Modified (GM) Products
I will not get too deep into the controversy over GMOs in foods here but I do want to point out that the FDA does not require pet food (or human food for that matter) labels to inform consumers if a product contains a GM grain or meat source.
So, as I see it, if our pets were never designed to eat grains or carbohydrates in the first place and they have no access to them in the wild, why on earth would we want to feed them at all? Would you feed a horse or a rabbit a juicy steak? Why not? Â Because horses are not carnivores. Â Well guess what? Â Dogs are not omnivores contrary to what the pet food and veterinary industry would like you to think – they are carnivores. So why would you feed your pets a cooked diet that contained grains or other carbohydrates for that matter?
Dr Jeannie and The Whole Dog recommends an all raw S.A.R.F. (Species Appropriate Raw Foods) diet of raw meat, bones and organs.
A consultation is highly recommended before transitioning your pet to a raw diet.
The information and material provided in this article and on this site by Dr. Jeannie Thomason is intended to provide general guidance and education only. Nothing on the web site, in this article or during a regular consultation constitutes traditional allopathic veterinary advice. Consultations are designed to share and suggest additional options to think about, and other areas to explore, based on your individual dog's condition. The articles on this website are not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease.
Copyright 2003 -2014 This article is the sole property of Dr Jeanette (Jeannie) Thomason and The Whole Dog and is for educational purposes. It cannot be reproduced in any form whatsoever without the expressed written consent of the author. Updated July 27, 2015 | <urn:uuid:f58d09c4-6b18-4824-8210-023b1a5d6d14> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://thewholedog.com/grains-in-pet-food/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371807538.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20200408010207-20200408040707-00394.warc.gz | en | 0.943883 | 2,209 | 2.890625 | 3 |
World is urbanising fast, and this unprecedented pace is causing problems. Some of the problems of urbanisation are
- Urban Sprawl
- Slums and Squatter Settlements
- Sewerage Problems
- Trash Disposal
- Urban Crimes
- Urban Pollution!
- Climate Change
- Influx of Refugees
The huge size of the urban population, haphazard and unplanned growth of urban areas and a severe lack of infrastructure are the main causes of pathetic situation. The rapid growth of urban population both natural and through migration has put heavy pressure on public utilities like housing, sanitation, transport, water, electricity, health, education and so on.
Urban sprawl or unplanned expansion of the towns and cities, of rapidly growing cities is perhaps the cause of urban problems. In most cities, the economic base is incapable of dealing with the problems created by their excessive size. Massive immigration from rural areas as well as from small towns into big cities has taken place almost consistently; thereby adding to the size of cities.
Poverty, unemployment and under employment among the rural immigrants, beggary, thefts, dacoities, burglaries and other social evils are on rampage. Urban sprawl is resulting in the rapid loss of the precious fertile agricultural land.
The greatest pressure of the immigrating population has been felt in the central districts of the city (the old city) where the immigrants flock to their relatives and friends before they search for housing. Population densities beyond the “old city” decline sharply.
Brush (1968) has described this situation in the central parts of the cities as “urban impulsion” which results from concentration of people in the centre of the city close to their work and shopping. Incidentally many of the fastest growing urban centres are large cities.
This is due to the fact that such large cities act as magnets and attract a large number of immigrants by pull of employment opportunities and modern way of life. Such hyperurbanisation leads to projected cities sizes of which defy imagination. Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, etc. are examples of urban sprawl due to large scale migration of people from the surrounding areas.
In many big cities wealthy people are constantly moving from the crowded centres of the cities to the more pleasant suburbs where they can build larger houses and enjoy the space and privacy of a garden around the house. In some cities, the outskirts are also added to by squatters who build makeshift shacks of unused land although they have no legal right to the land. The difficulty of restricting town growth in either case is immense and most towns and cities are surrounded by wide rings of suburbs.
Historically suburbs have grown first along the major roads leading into the town. This type of growth is known as ribbon settlement. Such sites are first to be developed because of their location near the road gives them greater accessibility. But soon the demand for suburban homes causes the land between ribbon settlements to be built and made accessible by constructing new roads.
This type of development is known as ‘infil’. Simultaneously small towns and villages within the commuting distance of major cities are also developed for residential purposes. In this way towns are continuously growing and in some areas the suburbs of a number of neighbouring towns may be so close together as to form an almost continuous urban belt which is called conurbation. Urban sprawl is taking place at the cost of valuable agricultural land.
Overcrowding has described as the situation of too many people living in too little space. Overcrowding is a logical consequence of over-population in urban areas. It is naturally expected that cities having a large size of population squeezed in a small space must suffer from overcrowding.
Overcrowding leads to a problem of the shortage of housing in urban areas. This problem is specifically more acute in those urban areas where there is a large influx of unemployed or underemployed immigrants who have no place to live in when they enter cities/towns from the surrounding areas.
The problem of unemployment is no less serious than the problem of housing. Urban unemployment in India for example is estimated at 15 to 25 per cent of the labour force. This percentage is even higher among the educated people.
One of the major causes of urban unemployment is the large scale migration of people from rural to urban areas. Rural-urban migration has been continuing for a pretty long time but it has not always been as great a problem as it is today. The general poverty among the rural people pushes them out to urban areas to migrate in search of livelihood and in the hope of a better living. Since the number of people aspiring for jobs is more than jobs available, unemployment is a natural outcome of situation.This affects the cities in a big way.
But the growth of economic opportunities fails to keep pace with the quantum of immigration. The limited capacity of urban areas could not create enough employment opportunities and absorb the rapid growth of the urban labour force. Efforts made by the central and the state governments to create employment opportunities in rural areas and to check the large scale rural-urban migration have not met with much success.
Slums and Squatter Settlements:
The natural result of unplanned and growth of urban areas is the growth and spread of slums and squatter settlements.
The rapid urbanisation in conjunction with industrialisation has resulted in the growth of slums. The proliferation of slums occurs due to many factors, such as, the shortage of developed land for housing, the high prices of land beyond the reach of urban poor, a large influx of rural migrants to the cities in search of jobs etc.
In India, Slums have been defined under section 3 of Slum Areas (Improvement and Clearance) Act 1956. As areas where buildings:
(i) Areas unfit for human living.
(ii) Area by reason of dilapidation, overcrowding, faulty arrangement and design of such buildings, narrowness or faulty arrangement of streets, lack of ventilation, light, sanitation facilities or any combination of these factors, which are detrimental to safety, health and morals.
The following criteria characterises an area as Slum:
(i) All areas notified “Slum” by state govt. under any Act.
(ii) All areas recognised as slum by state govt. which have not been formally notified as slum under any Act.
(iii) A compact area of at least 300 populations or about 60-70 households of poorly built congested tenements in unhygienic environment usually with inadequate infrastructure and lacking in proper sanitary and drinking water facilities.
Socially, slums tend to be isolated from the rest of the urban society and exhibit pathological social symptoms (drug abuse, alcoholism, crime, vandalism and other deviant behaviour). The lack of integration of slum inhabitants into urban life reflects both, the lack of ability and cultural barriers.
Slums are not just huts and dilapidated buildings but are occupied by people with complexities of social-networks, sharp socio-economic stratification, dualistic group and segregated spatial structures.
In India, slums are one or two-room hutments mostly occupying government and public lands. The houses in slums are built in mud or brick walls, low roofs mostly covered with corrugated sheets, tins, bamboo mats, polythenes, gunny bags and thatches, devoid of windows and ventilators and public utility services.
Slums have invariably extreme unhygienic conditions. They have impoverished lavatories made by digging shallow pit in between three or four huts and with sackcloth as a curtain, hanging in front. When the pit overflows excreta gets spread over the surrounding area and is rarely cleaned.
The children cultivate the habit of defecating anywhere in the slum area. Slums have practically no drains and are marked by cesspools and puddles. Piped water is not available to slum dwellers and they mainly depend upon shallow hand-pumps for water supply.
Such handpumps are generally dug in the middle of a stale dirty pool. People wash their clothes and utensils under the handpumps. The entire muck around the handpump percolates into the ground and contaminates the ground water. This contaminated ground water is taken out through the handpump which adversely affects the health of the slum dwellers.
Consequently people suffer from water-borne diseases like blood dysentery, diarrhoea, malaria, typhoid, jaundice, etc. These diseases stalk the people all the year round. Children with bloated bellies or famished skeletons, many suffering from polio, are a common sight. Most of the slums are located near drains (Nullahs) which contain filthy stagnant water.
Billions of flies and mosquitoes swarming over these drains cause infectious diseases. These drains are used as open lavatories by the inhabitants and are always choked. Such drains (Nullahs) pose serious threat to health of the people.
Slums are known by different names in different cities. They are called bustees in Kolkata, jhuggi- jhoparies in Delhi, Jhoparpattis or Chawl in Mumbai and Cheri in Chennai.
No clear-cut distinction can be drawn between slums and squatter settlements in practice except that slums are relatively more stable and are located in older, inner parts of cities compared to squatter settlements which are relatively temporary and are often scattered in all parts of the city, especially outer zones where urban areas merge with their rural hinterland.
Usually, squatter settlements contain makeshift dwellings constructed without official permission Such settlements are constructed by using any available material such as cardboards, tin, straw mats or sacks. Squatter settlements are constructed in an uncontrolled manner and badly lack essential public services such as water, light, sewage.
This environment leads to health problems. Determining size of squatter settlement is a difficult job. Some may occur singly or in small groups of 10-20 dwellings while others occur in huge agglomerations of thousands of houses. They can occur through organised rapid (almost overnight) invasions of an area by large number of people or by gradual accretion, family by family.
With traffic bottlenecks and traffic congestion, cities are suffering from acute form of transport problem. Transport problems increase and become more complex as the town grows in size. With its growth, the town performs varied and complex functions and more people travel to work or shop.
As the town becomes larger, even people living within the built-up area have to travel by car or bus to cross the town and outsiders naturally bring their cars or travel by public transport. Wherever, trade is important, commercial vehicles such as vans and trucks will make problem of traffic more complicated.
Since most of the commercial activities of the towns are concentrated in the Central Business District (C.B.D.), the centres are areas of greatest congestion. However, other parts of the town are not free from traffic congestion.
Such areas include the roads leading to factories, offices, schools, etc., which will be thronged with people in morning and evening; minor shopping centres which grow up in the suburbs; sporting arenas, entertainment districts which will be busy at night, roads leading to residential and dormitory towns which will be busy when commuters flock to the cities in the morning to work and return home in the evenings.
Congestion becomes greater when the centre is built up in tall skyscraper blocks whose offices sometimes employ thousands of workers, because at the end of the office hours everyone leaves the building within a short space of time to make their way home.
This puts tremendous pressure on public transport and causes journeys to take much longer period than they normally would. In most cities the rush hour or peak traffic hour lasts for about two hours and during that period buses and trains are crammed to capacity, roads are overcrowded with vehicles and the movement of traffic becomes very slow.
In other towns, the narrowness of the streets, which were built long before the motorised transport and lack of parking facilities are the main cause of congestion. Cars may be parked along the edges of the roads restricting movement to a narrow lane and the multiplicity of narrow streets, sharp comers and waits to turn into lanes of traffic may slow down the movement and thus create even greater congestion.
What is one of the most vital elements of nature to sustain life and right from the beginning of urban civilisation, sites for settlements have always been chosen keeping in view the availability of water to the inhabitants of the settlement(wet point settlements). However, supply of water often falls short of demand as the cities grow in size and number.
Urban areas suffer with insufficient and inefficient sewage facilities, especially in Asia. For example, not a single city in India is fully covered by the sewer system. Resource crunch faced by the municipalities and unauthorised growth of the cities are two major causes.
As cities grow in number and size the problem of trash disposal is assuming alarming proportions. Huge quantities of garbage produced by our cities pose a serious health problem. Most cites do not have proper arrangements for garbage disposal, and the existing landfills are full to the brim. These landfills are hotbeds of disease and innumerable poisons leaking into their surroundings. Even the oceans are not spared!!
Road of the cities and the highways connecting them are often good but in Asia it is not always the case. There are bad roads in Indian cities and they reflect gaps in city infrastructure. Roads are vital components in urban growth from the start.
Cities are hub of people from different walks of life having no affinity with one another. Like other problems, the problem of crimes increases with the increase in urbanisation. In fact the increasing trend in urban crimes tends to disturb peace and tranquility of the cities and make them unsafe to live in particularly for the women.
With fast pace of urbanisation, industries and transport systems grow in huge systems. These developments are primarily responsible for pollution of environment, particularly the urban environment.
Urban poverty differs from rural Poverty.In urban areas poverty is often, though not always, a result of a lack of access to urban infrastructure. The urban poor have much higher cash income than the rural poor, but are excluded from access
Noise is a critical problem of cities.Natural migration trend from rural areas to cities which are experiencing an exponential growth in people, activity, vehicle traffic, congestion and, therefore, pollution in various forms. If we consider that by 2050 it is forecast that 70% of the global population will live in urban areas, ensuring both a sustainable economic and social environment represents a huge challenge. The increase in population and frenetic activity of our cities is causing a proportional increase in the noise generated by vehicle traffic, followed by industrial, business and night-life activity. | <urn:uuid:6ee54a1e-ea09-4207-af97-c4a592d36fc3> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://rashidfaridi.com/2018/10/25/18158/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371810807.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20200408072713-20200408103213-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.958735 | 3,054 | 3.125 | 3 |
The famous failed gunpowder plot to blow up Parliament (to kill the King) is remembered each year in the UK on 5 November, but besides parties and fireworks do many really understand why the plot arose and why it failed? The BBC historical drama (showing on Saturday nights) based on the events follows the leader of the plot, Robert (Robin) Catesby and shows the story from his perspective. The fascination behind this production is that Kit Harrington, who is descended from Catesby, plays his ancestor. However, how accurate is the drama historically, and is Catesby seen as a religious fanatic or hero?
First of all, the divide between Catholics and Protestants was already rife, and Elizabeth I encountered many assassination attempts, mainly from her Catholic cousin Mary, Queen of Scots and also her cousin the Duke of Norfolk. Both were executed for high treason, so when Elizabeth I died and James I came to the throne, Catholics were still fighting for the right to openly practice their faith. So why did Catesby decide to execute the King? In this dramatization we see Catesby suffer at watching those close to him being executed for, but were the graphic details necessary? Do we need to see someone pressed to death or hanged, drawn, and quartered? In that era it was normal and was the punishment for treason, but that doesn’t mean to say it was right—it was a harsh deterrent and occurred during Elizabeth I’s reign too. That is to say, Catesby should not have been surprised at the severe punishments. In addition harsh fines were imposed for failing to attend church, aimed at making Catholics suffer, and left many in debt or as landowners with no money. Here, we can see why Catesby gets angry and feels he has been unjustly treated and wants revenge when he has to sell the family silverware to pay the fines.
Harrington’s depiction of Catesby makes him appear as what he is doing is just, and that he believes God is on his side when he concocts a plan to blow up Parliament to kill the King, and kidnap Princess Elizabeth to rule through her. Now anyone who is sane can see the flaws in the plan, because to blow up Parliament means many innocents will also die, and that’s hardly the actions of a devout Catholic? Even if he had succeeded in blowing up Parliament and kidnapping Princess Elizabeth, how would they have been able to get her crowned as James I had two sons, who would have been the natural successors to the throne?
The historical dramatization rushes through the story line, where we saw Catesby rescue a priest who has been captured in the Tower of London. It’s hard to believe he managed to slip in disguised and that corridors of the prisons were left unguarded. To me it seemed foolhardy and unlikely that a wanted man would risk going into the Tower himself to break out a prisoner, but I feel the drama needed to make Catesby look like the hero. Perhaps it was an attempt to garner sympathy for his cause? However, still today the plot doesn’t justify the means. Catholics and Protestants would still be divided whoever sat on the throne.
The scenes in the pubs add character to the series as they are the meeting places for the exchange of messages and where pacts were made. Yet, I must pick fault, Catesby was a wanted man (in the drama) so he was hardly going to walk through the front door of a public house with his fellow conspirators in tow. When this scene came on the screen, I shook my head for if anyone is attempting to be clandestine then at least be inconspicuous. There is the odd messenger with letters in code, buildings with priest holes that add authenticity, but even the escape from the Tower was a little too manufactured with a single boat on the river that no guards saw or were able to apprehend. These historical inaccuracies make the drama less believable.
There are no spoilers here as we all know what did happen; the plot failed as Guy Fawkes was discovered guarding the gunpowder, and under torture he revealed some information, which led to the other conspirators being apprehended. There were 13 main conspirators, but each had a number of followers that supported their cause (the right to be Catholic and openly pray and practice their faith) although not necessarily agreed with the murder of the King and other innocents. The drama focuses on the pathos of Catesby too much, even though Father Henry Garnet warns him that murder was not acceptable under any circumstance when he makes a confession. His cousin Anne Vaux also disapproves of his plan, and I’m sure others did too for it was outrageous and death was a certain outcome if discovered. What isn’t mentioned is that Catesby was born a Catholic but married a Protestant, and when his wife died he became a radical Catholic. I can see the aim was for the audience to understand why the conspirators felt they had no choice but to carry out their actions, yet it fails because Catesby is portrayed as selfish, and arrogant and looks as if he has brainwashed his followers.
In the end the drama attempts to make Catesby look as if he died as a hero, yet I fail to see anything heroic in leaving a child orphaned and who would be tarred with being the son of a traitor. If anything it shows murder is not the answer to get what you desire, and hoping a confession to a priest will admonish you of any wrongdoing is plain irresponsible. However, I see people doing this daily—they say and do bad things intentionally and think going to confession each week makes it okay. It’s not and religion shouldn’t be about getting what you want at any cost, and they praying for forgiveness. Some may see this as a group dedicated to their cause, but one must question any blood shed in battle over religion is hardly the act of one who is devoutly religious.
The plan wasn’t impulsive, but was costly and took months to prepare which isn’t wholly explored in the drama, therefore, it is hard to sympathize with those whom wish to do harm to others who are following the law of the land. When confronted with the likelihood that innocents would die, the conspirators saw that as God’s will and they were collateral damage. Again, I can’t see that is the behavior or thoughts of someone who is genuinely religious. Although I binge watched the episodes back to back (three in all), the plotters eventually looked foolish in the dramatization, not only in their actions but in their beliefs. Ego and arrogance played a large part and not only a thirst for revenge. Ultimately their actions made the lives of Catholics much harder, so they failed in their cause and possibly ruined the lives of many other Catholics afterwards who were bound to be under suspicion after the plot was foiled.The lesson here is plotting to murder doesn’t work out and others will suffer!
Others have complained that some scenes were too graphic (lots of blood and guts), and too biased towards the Catholic persecution, so it’s no surprise the writer is a Catholic. Ronan Bennett is a left wing writer who had ties to the IRA and clearly his beliefs in violence for a cause are depicted through some of his scenes. One would ask if that is a fair and balanced portrayal of events? If the Catholics had stopped trying to kill the King perhaps he would have left them alone?
Robert Cecil, acted as spymaster to protect the monarch appears to be the hero, but in the drama is poorly portrayed by Mark Gattiss who doesn’t suit the role and comes off as sleazy and trying to favor the court. I always imagined Cecil to be less flamboyant and one who watches in the sidelines rather than attract attention in order to be successful, besides Cecil was short and Gattis is over 6 feet. I’m a fan of Peter Mullan, but he is Scottish playing an English priest, and it doesn’t seem to work either. Maybe they were looking for names rather than the right characters when they were casting, and while names can help, people are always drawn to dramas based on real events so there really was no need. You only have to look at someone the flops Jennifer Lawrence has been in—a name doesn’t guarantee viewers or success.
Guy Fawkes gets a raw deal in history being remembered as the main plotter, but it was he who managed to hang himself (jumping off the ladder early) and spared further torture of the disemboweling and dismembering. For the record, here are the actual conspirators and how they died (most were friends or related to Catesby either through marriage or the parental lineages):
- Robert Catesby (leader) died from a gunshot wound in Holbeche House, 8 November 1605. Exhumed and decapitated to serve as a deterrent to treason.
- Thomas Percy (organizer) died from a gunshot wound at Holbeche House on 8 November 1605. Exhumed and decapitated, along with Catesby his head was displayed at Parliament.
- Guy Fawkes was captured, tortured, tried, hung, and dismembered 31 January 1606.
- Thomas Wintour, cousin of Catesby. Captured at Holbeche House, tried, hanged drawn, and quartered 31 January 1606.
- Robert Wintour, cousin of Catesby. Escaped Holbeche House, and went into hiding. Captured after being informed upon. Hanged, drawn, and quartered 30 January 1606 for treason.
- John Grant hanged, drawn, and quartered 30 January 1606 for treason.
- Ambrose Rookwood, hanged, drawn and quartered 31 January 1606 for treason.
- Robert Keyes, hanged, drawn and quartered 31 January 1606 for treason.
- Everard Digby, a cousin of Anne Vaux (cousin of Tresham) Hanged, drawn, and quartered 30 January 1606 for treason.
- Thomas Bates, a servant of Catesby. Hanged, drawn, and quartered 30 January 1606 for treason.
- Christopher Wright (brother-in-law to Percy) died from a gunshot wound at Holbeche House on 8 November 1605.
- John Wright (brother-in-law to Percy) died from a gunshot wound at Holbeche House on 8 November 1605.
- Francis Tresham, a cousin of Catesby died in prison awaiting trial on 23 December 1605. | <urn:uuid:a3ab7f3e-0db6-4b6b-b3ca-ec9242a30db0> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | http://greatmindsandthinkers.com/gunpowder-a-historical-or-fictional-drama/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371805747.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20200407183818-20200407214318-00515.warc.gz | en | 0.987132 | 2,209 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Why Descendants of the Ten Tribes are not Accepted into Israel at Present.
- The Recurring Query: May I Return under the Law of Return?
- Exceptions Exist.
- The Seven Reasons why the Law of Return Does Not Apply to Lost Israelites.
- What then is the POINT of it All?
- Brit-Am/Hebrew Nations teaches that the Lost Ten Tribes are now to be found amongst Western Nations. That is where the Bible says they will be found and where they will acheive their Israelite Tribal Expression. This is confirmed by historical and other secular studies.
- Upon being informed of our teachings it happens that we are then asked:
On the basis of this information, would I be accepted by the State of Israel under the Law of Return?
- The answer is, NO! The Law of Return only applies to Jews and descendants of Jews. The Lost Ten Tribes are not Jews but rather Israelites who lost awareness of their Israelite identity.
- Brit-Am Findings are not Suffiiciently Known About.
- A Significant Percentage of Israelites does not necessarily mean a majority.
- Individuals are unable to guarantee their Israelite Ancestry. The Uncertainty is there for a reason.
- The Change of Status from Israelite to Stranger has not been reversed. Religious Uncertainty.
- The Tribe or Nation as a whole needs to act on the knowledge, not solitary individuals.
- Prophecy Needed. Prophecy will be renewed. We will have the answers then.
- Task to be Fulfilled. The Ten Tribes have their own role to play and its members should do their part.
Knowledge concerning the Israelite Ancestry of Western Peoples needs to be made known to others.
For us our researches concerning the Ten Tribes being now amongst Western Peoples are conclusive. Others may not agree. The findings need to be confirmed, added to, and refined. Additional research needs to be done. The Research Findings of Brit-Am/Hebrew Nations need to be publicized more.
All of this requires work and effort on our behalf. To do this, we need the support of others. Supporting Brit-Am/Hebrew Nations needs to be the first step.
All future dialogue and consideration of this matter is dependent on Brit-Am being helped to function.
In fact until Brit-Am/Hebrew nations findings receive the attention they deserve there is nothing to talk about.
The Lost Ten tribes are where we say they are according to the sources. They almost certainly comprise a significant proportion of the population in their home countries.
The question is whether most of the peoples in question are of Israelite descent or only a minority of them? Â Our impression is that the Hebrew element may well be an overwhelming majority but we could be wrong on this point. The sources do not say. They only say that the Israelites in the End Times will be exceedingly numerous. This could mean anything. In other words the fact that someone comes from one of the peoples that derive from Israelites is indicative of Israelite Ancestry BUT it is not certain.
This is connected to the previous point. An individual from one one of the peoples we identify as Israelite may well feel an inner certainty that they too are of Hebrew origin. This is not enough. No-one can be entirely sure that they do not derive from the non-Israelite elements amongst their population. In some cases the non-Israelite section may well comprise the majority. In such a case  the statistical probability would be against an individual picked at random being of Israelite origin. An uncertainty exists.
This uncertainty was intended by Divine Providence for our time. It is there for a reason. Perhaps it has come to tell us that at the beginning we all should progress slowly and with humility? We may personally feel confident of our Israelite origins but objective fact is also required and this is lacking.
The Ten Tribes when they were exiled from a religious point of view had their spiritual status as Israelites suspended.
We have spoken of this elsewhere. In the future the Ten Tribes will return and once again be considered as full-fledged Hebrews and obligated by the Law.
At present they are not so obliged. They do however have a task of their own to fulfil. The intermediate status that they do now have may be the reason why when the Ten Tribes return they will first of all establish colonies around the Periphery of the Land of Israel. They will not settle in the Heart of the Land straight away. This makes sense. It is logical. It is what the sources indicate.
Prophecy indicates that when the Ten Tribes return they will do so in the aggregrate, as whole tribes. They will not come in drabs and dribbles. Non-Israelites who believe their peoples are descended from Israelites should work to spread the knowledge amongst their fellow citizens in the places they now dwell in. We should all be concerned for the peoples we live amongst.
When the Jews returned to the Land of Israel trhey did so mainly as individuals, or as families, or small groups. The whole Jewish People did not return as one body altogether. One tradition says they were forbidden to do so. The Ten Tribes however it seems will come, or move from one place to another, as entire entities.
How this will come about we cannot say. With global climate changes, possible natural disasters, war, etc, there are several possible scenarios that could necessitate the movement of entire peoples.
Should The Lost Ten Tribes Come Back Now?
....I agree that Judah AND Joseph need to find each other, and that Judah should help bring Joseph back to the "Law" however, if one reads the Scriptures rightly, one will see that it will be Messiah who will bring Joseph back to Judah, not we ourselves, and it will be AFTER He returns to reign upong David's throne in Jerusalem. In fact, we are told WHEN the regathering will take place:
Is.27:12-13 And it shall come to pass in THAT Day, that the LORD shall beat off from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be GATHERED one by one, O ye children of Israel. (13) And it shall come to pass in THAT Day that the GREAT TRUMPET [Hebrew: Shofar] shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the LORD in the holy mount at Jerusalem.
...Yes, even though the tribes as a whole will NOT be regathered UNTIL Messiah comes back, it is pertinent that they be made aware of their condition and position and that is where the work of Brit-Am and others come in. ..
Prophecy has ceased. Traditionally Prophecy ended shortly after the Jews returned from Babylon and rebuilt the Temple. Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi were among the last Prophets. They overlapped the First of the Sages. Tradition says that towards the End Times, Prophecy will return. Many questions and conundrums will be solved by Prophecy.Â
The Tribal Identity of each Israel shall be made known. This should answer many questions.
The Messiah (or a Messianic-connected process) will inform with certainty each Israelite to which Tribe they belong, as explained in the Brit-Am Commentary (BAC) to Malachi 3:3:
# In the days of the Messianic King: When his kingdom shall be settled and all of Israel gather unto him, he shall then give the Tribal-genealogy of each one. He shall do this through Divine inspiration. As it says, HE SHALL SIT AS A REFINER AND PURIFIER (Malachi 3:3). He will purify the Tribe of Levi first, as it says, "till there be stood up a priest with Urim and with Thumim" (Ezra 2;63). He [the Messiah] gives the genealogy of Israel only concerning which tribe each one belongs to...
[Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, The Laws of Kings, ch. 12, no.3]. #
The Ten Tribes in their Places of Exile have a Task to Fulfil. It may be the duty of indiviuals amongst them who are aware of their ancestry to help their Tribal Groups as a whole do their historical duty.
In these days of ease of travel, the Internet, International communications, etc, the constrictions of geography are less important than they used to be. Nevertheless they still mean something. An Israelite who comes to live in Israel in effect links their fate with that of Judah. This is a consideration that those concerned need to be fully aware of.
There are some who may react to the above points by saying:
Since I will not be accepted anyway into the Land of Israel (other than as a tourist) why should I care whether or not I descend from Israelites?
The answer is that the Almighty WANTS you to know who you are. You have a duty to take an interest in this matter. The Ten Tribes have a God-given role of their own to play out. You also should support the Jews and the State of Israel.  You should do what you can to increase the Biblical Conscious and Biblical Conscientiousness in your own communities. Awareness concerning the Israelite Origins of Peoples in the West in Our Generation is an aspect of Biblical Consciousness. In human terms it helps prove  and explain the Bible.
It may be that somewhere along the line this information will be more important than it now seems. You may need it.
This is like a large check that cannot be cashed at the moment. You should still hold on it. It may be tradable later. Value it.
For a contination of this subject, See: | <urn:uuid:b4bf70d1-57c5-4a4a-8d98-e98f1120bfe0> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://hebrewnations.com/articles/eph/seven-points.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370503664.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20200331181930-20200331211930-00193.warc.gz | en | 0.955257 | 2,076 | 2.703125 | 3 |
In physics, motion is the change in the position of an object over time. Motion is mathematically described in terms of displacement, distance, velocity, acceleration, speed, and time. The motion of a body is observed by attaching a frame of reference to an observer and measuring the change in position of the body relative to that frame.
If the position of an object is not changing relatively to a given frame of reference, the object is said to be at rest, motionless, immobile, stationary, or to have a constant or time-invariant position with reference to its surroundings. As there is no absolute frame of reference, absolute motion cannot be determined. Thus, everything in the universe can be considered to be in motion.:20–21
Motion applies to various physical systems: to objects, bodies, matter particles, matter fields, radiation, radiation fields, radiation particles, curvature and space-time. One can also speak of motion of images, shapes and boundaries. So, the term motion, in general, signifies a continuous change in the positions or configuration of a physical system in space. For example, one can talk about motion of a wave or about motion of a quantum particle, where the configuration consists of probabilities of occupying specific positions.
The main quantity that measures the motion of a body is momentum. An object's momentum increases with the object's mass and with its velocity. The total momentum of all objects in an isolated system (one not affected by external forces) does not change with time, as described by the law of conservation of momentum. An object's motion, and thus its momentum, cannot change unless a force acts on the object.
Laws of motion
In physics, motion of massive bodies is described through two related sets of laws of mechanics. Motions of all large-scale and familiar objects in the universe (such as cars, projectiles, planets, cells, and humans) are described by classical mechanics, whereas the motion of very small atomic and sub-atomic objects is described by quantum mechanics. Historically, Newton and Euler formulated three laws of classical mechanics:
|First law:||In an inertial reference frame, an object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a net force.|
|Second law:||In an inertial reference frame, the vector sum of the forces F on an object is equal to the mass m of that object multiplied by the acceleration a of the object: F = ma.
If the resultant force F acting on a body or an object is not equals to zero, the body will have an acceleration a which is in the same direction as the resultant.
|Third law:||When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.|
|Part of a series of articles about|
Classical mechanics is used for describing the motion of macroscopic objects, from projectiles to parts of machinery, as well as astronomical objects, such as spacecraft, planets, stars, and galaxies. It produces very accurate results within these domains, and is one of the oldest and largest in science, engineering, and technology.
Classical mechanics is fundamentally based on Newton's laws of motion. These laws describe the relationship between the forces acting on a body and the motion of that body. They were first compiled by Sir Isaac Newton in his work Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, first published on July 5, 1687. Newton's three laws are:
- A body either is at rest or moves with constant velocity, until and unless an outer force is applied to it.
- An object will travel in one direction only until an outer force changes its direction.
- Whenever one body exerts a force F onto a second body, (in some cases, which is standing still) the second body exerts the force −F on the first body. F and −F are equal in magnitude and opposite in sense. So, the body which exerts F will go backwards.
Newton's three laws of motion were the first to accurately provide a mathematical model for understanding orbiting bodies in outer space. This explanation unified the motion of celestial bodies and motion of objects on earth.
When an object moves with a constant speed at a particular direction at regular intervals of time it's known as the uniform motion. For example: a bike moving in a straight line with a constant speed.
Equations of Uniform Motion:
If = final and initial velocity, = time, and = displacement, then:
Modern kinematics developed with study of electromagnetism and refers all velocities v to their ratio to speed of light c. Velocity is then interpreted as rapidity, the hyperbolic angle φ for which the hyperbolic tangent function tanh φ = v/c. Acceleration, the change of velocity, then changes rapidity according to Lorentz transformations. This part of mechanics is special relativity. Efforts to incorporate gravity into relativistic mechanics were made by W. K. Clifford and Albert Einstein. The development used differential geometry to describe a curved universe with gravity; the study is called general relativity.
Quantum mechanics is a set of principles describing physical reality at the atomic level of matter (molecules and atoms) and the subatomic particles (electrons, protons, neutrons, and even smaller elementary particles such as quarks). These descriptions include the simultaneous wave-like and particle-like behavior of both matter and radiation energy as described in the wave–particle duality.
In classical mechanics, accurate measurements and predictions of the state of objects can be calculated, such as location and velocity. In the quantum mechanics, due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the complete state of a subatomic particle, such as its location and velocity, cannot be simultaneously determined.
In addition to describing the motion of atomic level phenomena, quantum mechanics is useful in understanding some large-scale phenomenon such as superfluidity, superconductivity, and biological systems, including the function of smell receptors and the structures of protein.
Third law of the Newtonian motion states that "For every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction".
List of "imperceptible" human motions
Humans, like all known things in the universe, are in constant motion;:8–9 however, aside from obvious movements of the various external body parts and locomotion, humans are in motion in a variety of ways which are more difficult to perceive. Many of these "imperceptible motions" are only perceivable with the help of special tools and careful observation. The larger scales of imperceptible motions are difficult for humans to perceive for two reasons: Newton's laws of motion (particularly the third) which prevents the feeling of motion on a mass to which the observer is connected, and the lack of an obvious frame of reference which would allow individuals to easily see that they are moving. The smaller scales of these motions are too small to be detected conventionally with human senses.
Spacetime (the fabric of the universe) is expanding meaning everything in the universe is stretching like a rubber band. This motion is the most obscure as it is not physical motion as such, but rather a change in the very nature of the universe. The primary source of verification of this expansion was provided by Edwin Hubble who demonstrated that all galaxies and distant astronomical objects were moving away from Earth, known as Hubble's law, predicted by a universal expansion.
The Milky Way Galaxy is moving through space and many astronomers believe the velocity of this motion to be approximately 600 kilometres per second (1,340,000 mph) relative to the observed locations of other nearby galaxies. Another reference frame is provided by the Cosmic microwave background. This frame of reference indicates that the Milky Way is moving at around 582 kilometres per second (1,300,000 mph).[failed verification]
Sun and solar system
The Milky Way is rotating around its dense galactic center, thus the sun is moving in a circle within the galaxy's gravity. Away from the central bulge, or outer rim, the typical stellar velocity is between 210 and 240 kilometres per second (470,000 and 540,000 mph). All planets and their moons move with the sun. Thus, the solar system is moving.
The Earth is rotating or spinning around its axis. This is evidenced by day and night, at the equator the earth has an eastward velocity of 0.4651 kilometres per second (1,040 mph). The Earth is also orbiting around the Sun in an orbital revolution. A complete orbit around the sun takes one year, or about 365 days; it averages a speed of about 30 kilometres per second (67,000 mph).
The Theory of Plate tectonics tells us that the continents are drifting on convection currents within the mantle causing them to move across the surface of the planet at the slow speed of approximately 2.54 centimetres (1 in) per year. However, the velocities of plates range widely. The fastest-moving plates are the oceanic plates, with the Cocos Plate advancing at a rate of 75 millimetres (3.0 in) per year and the Pacific Plate moving 52–69 millimetres (2.0–2.7 in) per year. At the other extreme, the slowest-moving plate is the Eurasian Plate, progressing at a typical rate of about 21 millimetres (0.83 in) per year.
The human heart is constantly contracting to move blood throughout the body. Through larger veins and arteries in the body, blood has been found to travel at approximately 0.33 m/s. Though considerable variation exists, and peak flows in the venae cavae have been found between 0.1 and 0.45 metres per second (0.33 and 1.48 ft/s). additionally, the smooth muscles of hollow internal organs are moving. The most familiar would be the occurrence of peristalsis which is where digested food is forced throughout the digestive tract. Though different foods travel through the body at different rates, an average speed through the human small intestine is 3.48 kilometres per hour (2.16 mph). The human lymphatic system is also constantly causing movements of excess fluids, lipids, and immune system related products around the body. The lymph fluid has been found to move through a lymph capillary of the skin at approximately 0.0000097 m/s.
The cells of the human body have many structures which move throughout them. Cytoplasmic streaming is a way which cells move molecular substances throughout the cytoplasm, various motor proteins work as molecular motors within a cell and move along the surface of various cellular substrates such as microtubules, and motor proteins are typically powered by the hydrolysis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), and convert chemical energy into mechanical work. Vesicles propelled by motor proteins have been found to have a velocity of approximately 0.00000152 m/s.
According to the laws of thermodynamics, all particles of matter are in constant random motion as long as the temperature is above absolute zero. Thus the molecules and atoms which make up the human body are vibrating, colliding, and moving. This motion can be detected as temperature; higher temperatures, which represent greater kinetic energy in the particles, feel warm to humans who sense the thermal energy transferring from the object being touched to their nerves. Similarly, when lower temperature objects are touched, the senses perceive the transfer of heat away from the body as feeling cold.
Within each atom, electrons exist in a region around the nucleus. This region is called the electron cloud. According to Bohr's model of the atom, electrons have a high velocity, and the larger the nucleus they are orbiting the faster they would need to move. If electrons 'move' about the electron cloud in strict paths the same way planets orbit the sun, then electrons would be required to do so at speeds which far exceed the speed of light. However, there is no reason that one must confine one's self to this strict conceptualization, that electrons move in paths the same way macroscopic objects do. Rather one can conceptualize electrons to be 'particles' that capriciously exist within the bounds of the electron cloud. Inside the atomic nucleus, the protons and neutrons are also probably moving around due to the electrical repulsion of the protons and the presence of angular momentum of both particles.
Light moves at a speed of 299,792,458 m/s, or 299,792.458 kilometres per second (186,282.397 mi/s), in a vacuum. The speed of light in vacuum (or c) is also the speed of all massless particles and associated fields in a vacuum, and it is the upper limit on the speed at which energy, matter, information or causation can travel. The speed of light in vacuum is thus the upper limit for speed for all physical systems.
In addition, the speed of light is an invariant quantity: it has the same value, irrespective of the position or speed of the observer. This property makes the speed of light c a natural measurement unit for speed and fundamental constant of nature.
Types of motion
- Simple harmonic motion – (e.g., that of a pendulum).
- Linear motion – motion which follows a straight linear path, and whose displacement is exactly the same as its trajectory.
- Reciprocal motion
- Brownian motion (i.e. the random movement of particles)
- Circular motion (e.g. the orbits of planets)
- Rotatory motion – a motion about a fixed point. (e.g. Ferris wheel).
- Curvilinear motion – It is defined as the motion along a curved path that may be planar or in three dimensions.
- Rotational motion
- Rolling motion – (as of the wheel of a bicycle)
- Oscillatory – (swinging from side to side)
- Vibratory motion
- Combination (or simultaneous) motions – Combination of two or more above listed motions
- Projectile motion – uniform horizontal motion + vertical accelerated motion
- Wahlin, Lars (1997). "9.1 Relative and absolute motion" (PDF). The Deadbeat Universe. Boulder, CO: Coultron Research. pp. 121–129. ISBN 978-0-933407-03-9. Retrieved 25 January 2013.
- Tyson, Neil de Grasse; Charles Tsun-Chu Liu; Robert Irion (2000). The universe : at home in the cosmos. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. ISBN 978-0-309-06488-0.
- Newton's "Axioms or Laws of Motion" can be found in the "Principia" on p. 19 of volume 1 of the 1729 translation.
- Safkan, Yasar. "Question: If the term 'absolute motion' has no meaning, then why do we say that the earth moves around the sun and not vice versa?". Ask the Experts. PhysLink.com. Retrieved 25 January 2014.
- Hubble, Edwin, "A Relation between Distance and Radial Velocity among Extra-Galactic Nebulae" (1929) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Volume 15, Issue 3, pp. 168–173 (Full article, PDF)
- Kogut, A.; Lineweaver, C.; Smoot, G.F.; Bennett, C.L.; Banday, A.; Boggess, N.W.; Cheng, E.S.; de Amici, G.; Fixsen, D.J.; Hinshaw, G.; Jackson, P.D.; Janssen, M.; Keegstra, P.; Loewenstein, K.; Lubin, P.; Mather, J.C.; Tenorio, L.; Weiss, R.; Wilkinson, D.T.; Wright, E.L. (1993). "Dipole Anisotropy in the COBE Differential Microwave Radiometers First-Year Sky Maps". Astrophysical Journal. 419: 1. arXiv:astro-ph/9312056. Bibcode:1993ApJ...419....1K. doi:10.1086/173453.
- Imamura, Jim (August 10, 2006). "Mass of the Milky Way Galaxy". University of Oregon. Archived from the original on 2007-03-01. Retrieved 2007-05-10.
- Ask an Astrophysicist. NASA Goodard Space Flight Center.
- Williams, David R. (September 1, 2004). "Earth Fact Sheet". NASA. Retrieved 2007-03-17.
- Staff. "GPS Time Series". NASA JPL. Retrieved 2007-04-02.
- Huang, Zhen Shao (2001). Glenn Elert (ed.). "Speed of the Continental Plates". The Physics Facebook. Retrieved 2016-12-29.
- Meschede, M.; Udo Barckhausen, U. (November 20, 2000). "Plate Tectonic Evolution of the Cocos-Nazca Spreading Center". Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program. Texas A&M University. Retrieved 2007-04-02.
- Wexler, L.; D H Bergel; I T Gabe; G S Makin; C J Mills (1 September 1968). "Velocity of Blood Flow in Normal Human Venae Cavae". Circulation Research. 23 (3): 349–359. doi:10.1161/01.RES.23.3.349. PMID 5676450.
- Bowen, R (27 May 2006). "Gastrointestinal Transit: How Long Does It Take?". Pathophysiology of the digestive system. Colorado State University. Retrieved 25 January 2014.
- M. Fischer; U.K. Franzeck; I. Herrig; U. Costanzo; S. Wen; M. Schiesser; U. Hoffmann; A. Bollinger (1 January 1996). "Flow velocity of single lymphatic capillaries in human skin". Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 270 (1): H358–H363. doi:10.1152/ajpheart.1996.270.1.H358. PMID 8769772.
- "cytoplasmic streaming – biology". Encyclopædia Britannica.
- "Microtubule Motors". rpi.edu. Archived from the original on 2007-11-30.
- Hill, David; Holzwarth, George; Bonin, Keith (2002). "Velocity and Drag Forces on motor-protein-driven Vesicles in Cells". APS Southeastern Section Meeting Abstracts. 69: EA.002. Bibcode:2002APS..SES.EA002H.
- Temperature and BEC. Archived 2007-11-10 at the Wayback Machine Physics 2000: Colorado State University Physics Department
- "Classroom Resources". anl.gov. Argonne National Laboratory.
- Chapter 2, Nuclear Science- A guide to the nuclear science wall chart. Berkley National Laboratory.
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MUMMIFICATION IN ANCIENT EGYPT
THE MUMMIFICATION PROCESS
- 1. The first mummies in Egypt were preserved naturally when the deceased was buried in the desert sands. This enabled desiccation (drying out) to take place. Bodily fluids would seep into the sand and what remained namely; skin, hair, tendons and ligaments, would dry out naturally.
Other ways that bodies have been preserving around the world are; ice, sunlight, smoke, fire, chemicals, peat bogs, certain soils and muds.
- 2. The ancient Egyptians believed that to enjoy the Afterlife, the body of the deceased should bear as close a resemblance to the living person as possible. Features of the face were often modelled in linen bandages and painted. Even nipples and the male sex organs have been found modelled in cloth and placed in position so the deceased would be entire in the afterlife.
- 3. When graves became more elaborate and the deceased were no longer just buried in the desert, the ancient Egyptians found that the bodies started to decay. Which was the complete opposite to what they strived for. So, they started to look for ways to emulate, by artificial means, the preserving properties of the sand graves.
- 4. By the first dynasty there is evidence that natron, a natural salt found in Egypt, was being used. The body would be covered in the salt, which acted like the hot desert sand and started the process of desiccation.
- 5. However using natron alone proved not to be enough, as bodies would still decompose due to internal organs.
- 6. Evisceration (disembowelling) was the next stage of development in mummification, which involved removing the internal organs so the moisture they contained did not cause internal rotting of the corpse.
- 7. Removal of the brain was done through the nose, using a pick. The heart was left in place as the Egyptians believe it housed the person's soul.
- 8. Removed body organs would be wrapped in linen, coated in resin and laid close by, either in a recess, or in later dynastic periods, in four canopic jars. This was to ensure that the deceased would still be whole in the afterlife.
- 9. The entire body was covered in many layers of linen, impregnated with resin to try and keep out the elements.
- 10. However it was eventually realised that the decaying process started from within the body and not by the outside elements.
- 11. The quality of the linen varied according to the quality of the mummification.
- 12. The reams and reams of bandages gave shape to the dried out corpses.
- 13. It's believed that the word 'mummy' comes from the Arabic word 'mummiya' meaning bitumen - a tar-like substance. This is because when early Arabs saw mummies, which were covered in black resin, they thought that the ancients had used bitumen.
- 14. Immortality depended upon the mummification of the body, as it also preserved the 'Ka' - the spirit that accompanied the physical body in life. If the body decayed so did the person's 'Ka' spirit.
- 15. The New Kingdom (18th - 20th dynasties 1600 - 1050 BC) produced some of the best-preserved mummies.
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- The process of mummification started in the 'House of Purification' where the body would be washed in Nile water.
- Next the body was taken to the 'House of Mummification' where the organs were removed and the body's cavity washed out with palm wine. The body was then covered with natron (salt) for 40 days whilst it dried out.
- After the salt was removed the body was taken back to the 'House of Purification' where the body cavity was filled with various materials, including natron and linen. The corpse was then covered with resin to seal out moisture and finally wrapped in bandages.
- The wrapping process was very involved and could take a few weeks to complete. They usually started with the hands or feet, wrapping each digit individually.
- Resin was applied to each new layer, gluing them together.
- Spells and incantations were uttered by the temple priests and amulets such as; ankhs, scarabs, djed pillars were placed within the bandages to offer protection in the Afterlife.
- Death masks were often placed on the corpse and the finished mummy would be placed in a body shaped coffin, 'Suhet'(sarcophagus) which was then placed in the tomb along with all the items the deceased would need in the afterlife - eg food, drink, games, clothes, jewellery, furniture, writings, and even servants in the form of Shabti or Ushabti (clay figures).
Left click - load to screen - save to hard drive (floppy disc icon on acrobat toolbar).
QUOTE: Revealed, secret of the mummies"
Researchers have unravelled the mystery of how the ancient Egyptians mummified their dead,
using sophicated science to track the preservative to an extract of the cedar tree.
German chemists replicated an ancient treatment of cedar wood and found it contained a
preservative chemical called guaiacol. Tests showed it had a high anti-bacterial effect
without damaging body tissue.
"Modern science has finally found the secret of why some mummies can last thousands of years"
Ulrich Weser, of Tuebingen University, told the scientific journal Nature.
Read More Here
WHAT HAPPENS TO THE BODY WITHOUT MUMMIFICATION:
GENERAL FACTS: DECOMPOSITION
Without mummification a body will start to decay (decompose) in a matter of hours
and within a few months will be reduced to a skeleton if left uncovered. Different cells
die at different rates, for example the brain cells die within 3-7 minutes, whilst skin cells
can take over 24 hours. Decomposition in the air is twice as fast as decomposition under water
and four times fastest than those underground. Generally speaking corpses take longer to decay
the deeper they are buried.
Soon after death rigor mortis occurs, which is caused by a complex
chemical reaction (involving lactic acid and myosin), which forms a gel like
substance which creates the body's stiffness. Rigor mortis lasts approximately 24 hours
(depending upon ambient temperature), during which time decomposition has already started.
The body temperature drops soon after death but, as organisms and enzymes
start to break down cells, the temperature of the corpse will begin to rise again
due to gases being produced by the active bacteria. Internal organs decompose at
different rates, first to be attacked are the intestine and blood.
The stages of decay can be divided into different stages:
- Initial decay (Known as 'autolysis') - externally
the corpse looks okay, but internally the organs are breaking down.
- Putrefaction - after approximately two-three days bacteria are active and
the body is swollen with gases and accompanying odours.
- Black Putrefaction - Skin starts to
turn black and the corpse collapses as gases escape.
- Fermentation - Very strong odours with some surface mould but the body has
begun to dry out.
- Dry Decay - The cadaver has for the most part dried out and the rate
of decay has slowed considerably.
A FEW GRUESOME DECOMPOSITION FACTS:
(For the curious amongst you - not the squeamish!)
Further Reading: Australian Museums - Decomposition (Includes movie)
- Approximately 150,000 maggots can be found on an exposed corpse.
- Blood settles in the those parts of the body that are closest to the ground, turning the
top part grayish white and waxy looking, whilst darkening the underside. This results in a
deep red-brown stain. For example if a person was to die and keel over then the blood
would settle in their head, which would result in a bruised-like stain to the face and neck.
- Within 8 to 12 hours the deseased's eyes will have sunken and the body extremities will
have turned blue.
- Bacteria first eat through the gut, with the first sign usually being a greenish patch on
the lower right belly. The putrefaction spreads across the stomach, down the thighs,
over the chest.
- Internal gases push the intestines out through the rectum.
Gases produced include hydrogen sulphide (the smell produced by rotting eggs) and methane.
- The tongue may protrude and fluid from the lungs oozes out of the mouth and nostrils.
- A hollow needle can be inserted into a corpse to release the gases and this may cause the
body to lunge forward. (Not a job for the faint-hearted)
- A corpse left above ground is rapidly broken down by insects and animals,
including bluebottles and carrion fly maggots, beetles, ants and wasps. A corpse can become
a moving mass of maggots within days, even hours in hot climates.
- After about a month or so the tissues become liquefied if the body is above ground
- It is a myth that fingernails and hair continue to grow after death. What happens is that
the skin dries outs and pulls away from the nails and hair which makes them stand out more
- The hair, teeth, and nails begin to loosen after a couple of weeks and sometimes fall out.
- Buried six feet down, without a coffin, in ordinary soil, an unembalmed adult normally
takes ten to twelve years to decompose to a skeleton.
- Funeral directors (Undertakers) tend to lift the head of a corpse in the coffin in order
to prevent discolouring of the face.
- Glue is used to shut the eyes and lips as these would naturally draw back
- Undertakers make sure that the body is properly groomed. The hair will be washed and
styled, while the face is skillfully made-up using cosmetics.
- After cremation, the ashes of an average size man weigh approximately 7.4 pounds,
whilst those of a woman, about 5.8 pounds.
- In England and Japan cremation is the most common form of disposition and the
second most common in the United States.
- During the actual cremation process the coffin is placed in a chamber (furnace) which is
heated to an extremely high temperature. After several hours all that is left are small bone
fragments. These are then reduced to ashes which are placed in an urn and returned to the family.
The text and images in any of the articles on this website are not
to be reproduced without permission from the author, or ancientnile.co.uk. Please be sure to read our Terms and Conditions before making use of the content of this website.
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OTHER EGYPTIAN ARTICLES ON THIS SITE:
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OTHER SUGGESTED MUMMY LINKS:
Mummification process revealed
How Mummies Work
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The key word in that question is the word “need.” The word “need” implies that you have a goal. Is your goal to:
- Lose weight?
- Survive for a long period – say a month or longer?
- Power your body so that you can do more?
- Sustain your current weight?
The reality is that the amount of food we need changes based on what our goals are. In modern prepping the line between what we need and what we store is blurry. Just because a can of dried fruit has the words, “Emergency Food” on the label does not mean it is the type of food you need in an emergency. In fact, the word “food” is completely wrong for this conversation. A better way to start this question is not to talk about food, but to discuss calories. Calories are what you need in an emergency.
How Much Emergency Food Do You Need?
- 1 Start with Your Caloric Needs Before an Emergency
- 2 Calories are One Thing, Nutrition is Another
- 3 Case Study: Emergency Dried Meals
- 4 Simple vs Complex
- 5 Make Energy Bars a Way of Life
- 6 Emergency Food Includes Drinkable Water
- 7 The Difference in Emergency Food
- 8 Final Word
Start with Your Caloric Needs Before an Emergency
So, how many calories do you need to consume on a typical day that does not involve an emergency? In this case, your calorie goal is about obtaining enough nutrition to meet your body’s daily needs. To make this more confusing, there is no true blanket answer. We each have different needs and should plan accordingly for daily caloric intake.
Use a Calorie Counter to figure out a base number of calories that fits your lifestyle. Two calculators that work well are:
Once you know how many calories you should consume, find out what the ideal caloric intake is for each family member. This gives you the food and calorie target for “normal” living. It helps you better plan your emergency food stores that represent those times when:
- Regular access to food is disrupted, such as a flood, road closures, etc.
- You must bug-out for a specific time.
- A non-emergency situation when your caloric needs do not change.
Calories are One Thing, Nutrition is Another
A cup of sugar has 773 calories, yet we cannot survive for long by just consuming raw sugar. Our body needs vitamins, minerals, and nutrients for its many systems to function. Yet, many processed foods have too much sugar, too much salt, and too much fat while not enough healthy nutrients.
Case Study: Emergency Dried Meals
Honeyville Rotini with Meat Sauce – Serving Size – 59 grams -Sodium 750mg or 18 percent of your RDA.
Mountain House Beef Stroganoff Pouch – Serving Size 1 Cup – Sodium 800mg or 33 percent of your RDA.
Hormel, Dinty Moore Beef Stew – Canned – Serving Size 236 grams – 984mg or 41 percent of your RDA.
Frito-Lay – Doritos Nacho Cheese Single Serving Bag – Serving Size 1 ounce or 11 chips – Sodium 210 grams or 9 percent of your RDA.
- RDA for most nutritional labels is for a 2,000-calorie diet. The percent of RDA changes based on your recommended daily caloric intake.
Prepping for an emergency is planning. If we are going to prep for the big “What if” then shouldn’t we consider health because our overall fitness plays a role in whether we CAN survive an emergency.
What is the Difference Between Daily Caloric Intake and Emergency Caloric Intake?
Runner’s World helps show us the difference in caloric consumption between walking and running. They used a 156-pound person who walked a mile in 18.36 minutes and who ran a 10-minute mile.
- Walking: 88.9
- Running 112.5
They also include something that many of us probably don’t think about and that is the number of calories that we burn after exerting energy such as after we walk or run.
- Walking 21.7
- Running 46.1
The new total for walking or running a mile is:
- Walking 110.6
- Running 158.6
What this illustrates for us is that there is a difference in caloric burn between everyday living and emergency living. Calorie intake should match calorie burn to maintain your weight. Consume too many calories, and you gain weight. Take in too few calories, and your body loses weight. That ratio is different for each of us, which is why you should start with understanding how many calories it takes to maintain your current weight.
In an emergency, we burn way more calories than we would if we just ran or exercised. Emergency situations involve massive amounts of emotions such as stress and worry. Our bodies undergo changes such as the production of insulin and adrenaline. It becomes difficult to sleep. Our pulse rate increases. We are tense. All those events take energy and energy is caloric intake.
Therefore, understanding the difference between emergency food types is important. That understanding helps us understand how much emergency food we need. Not every emergency is the same. Not being able to go to the grocery store and having to rely on emergency food stores is very different from having to march for ten miles to escape a wildfire. Those two situations require two different types of emergency food. In short, what we are discussing is the role that simple and complex carbs play during difficult situations.
Simple vs Complex
The key bit of information when you discuss nutrition is bioavailability – how fast the food you eat is available for your body to use it. The bioavailability of simple carbs is quick. The bioavailability of complex cards tends to be longer. It sounds simple enough; sadly, it’s a little more “complex” than just storing up a bunch of simple carbs for the next time you must outrun a bear.
One of the key points about carb intake involves the duration of the carb as a fuel. Our body has a store of energy for short periods of time – fight or flight. The exact length of time that carbs last depends on our health, fitness, and overall diet. If you have not gotten off the couch in ten years and you are 40-pounds overweight chances are you are not going to run a mile no matter what’s chasing you. Your body is simply not going to endure.
Simple carbs tend to burn quickly while complex carbs tend to burn slowly and for longer periods. If you must force-march for ten miles which type of carb is best? When the duration of what you face is long, then complex carbs, are good, but they may not be enough. Energy bars are a mixture of both simple and complex carbs.
They are in fact, two types of energy – short and long. The sugars in an energy bar act quickly to supply our body with fuel. The nuts and whole grains are complex carbs, and they become bioavailable after our body burns the simple carbs. This mixture works well because it helps our body overcome low blood sugar or sugar crashes following exertion.
Make Energy Bars a Way of Life
There are lots of recipes online energy bars. Many of the recipes are simple, and you can customize them. If you grow fruit, then consider dehydrating it and adding to the energy bar recipe that you use. If you make energy bars at home, choose a recipe that freezes well. A good tip is to make them part of your food rotation plan. Energy bars make a great addition to lunches or for snacks. They literally power your day.
Emergency Food Includes Drinkable Water
Do you have a plan to address the need for potable water?
Under normal conditions, most adults should consume 64-ouces of water per day. In an emergency, your body might require more water. There are many ways to make water potable. FEMA does a good job of outlining how to handle your emergency water supply and how to collect water and treat it. Food and Water in an Emergency – FEMA
The Difference in Emergency Food
When we discuss emergency food, it is important to put its context into the conversation. There is a difference between emergency food – those meals that are meal replacements – and survival food – food that powers us through a crisis. There is no denying that preppers blur the lines between these two types of emergency foods. What is important is that those of us who plan for an emergency consider the types of emergencies that we might face and then plan accordingly.
It is also important to take into consideration the needs of growing children. As children grow, they require more food. Teenagers especially need a higher intake of food because their bodies are already using an increase in energy to promote healthy growth and physical changes as they approach adulthood. These kinds of considerations mean the difference between just getting by and being prepared to do more than just survive.
In highly complex emergencies you may face one crisis after another. How you prepare for those events impacts your ability not just to survive but the quality of your life during an emergency. Hard times need not be made harder by the lack of resources. That is what prepping is – the creation of resources that help you overcome difficult situations.
As a prepper, do you prepare for different types of food emergencies? What are some of the things that you’ve thought about and included in your emergency food plan?
David is an active prepper and freelance writer. He lives in rural Northern California in the shadow of an active volcano. He hunts and fishes as a means of providing. He brings a science background to his writing and discusses botany, biology, geology, and weather as they apply to living, growing your own food, and surviving. He is a master gardener and understands food production, storage, and preserving. He lives five miles down a single-lane road and he deals with power outages, wildfires, earthquakes, flooding, and crazy pot growers, raiders, medical emergencies, law enforcement and the potential of that volcano.
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Published: February 6th 2007
Flickr Set: Arizona / New Mexico
With 2 months off, hardly and money but with unlimited freedom I ventured to see the magical deserts and mountains of Arizona. Crossing the foothill sized Pacific crest
from San Diego, the landscape changed dramatically from a fog enshrouded ocean paradise to a hot and dry desert. But underneath the threatening veil of abandon lay something more special- a timeless place where only the strong survive. Wide open vistas, tall mountains, deep blue skies and curious plants make the pacific deserts a place where you contemplate your existence.
First stop? Saguaro National Park
In the taxonomy of plants cactus are advanced. As flowering plants, the cactus evolved
with mammals and birds over the last 60 million years since the Jurassic extinction. They evolved in the Americas, with the only similar plants in the world being the succulents of South Africa
. The only difference between succulents and cacti are that cacti have spines. Evolutionary conditions in the Americas has been dry for a long time period, and leaves of plants were forced to be able to store water. Soon the leaves evolved into thick structures meant for storing water and reduced transpiration. To conserve surface area, this great cactus
ancestor grew thin and tall, and the spines developed as a means to avoid predators looking for nectar, seeds or seed pods. The Desert
is a harsh place, and these plants had to survive the harshest of conditions involving continuous drought. There are places in the Atacama desert of Chile that have yet to record rainfall after 300 years. Recent studies suggest the Atacama desert
has been a desert for 40 million years, as opposed to deserts like the Sahara and Gobi. Asian deserts have abruptly become deserts because of shifting climate conditions, while the Australian Desert and South Africa has succulents, but no spiny cacti.
Why is South America so important to cactus history? This is where the first proto cactus, the first true cactus who's progeny then spread and evolved into every nook and cranny of the deserts of the Americas. In fact the living relative of this earliest cactus can be found in certain areas of Peru, and it looks a lot like a Saguaro Cactus. Although the Saguaro is a larger cactus and its true cousin is found in Argentina(Echinopsis atacamensis
), all of these plants share the same traits. Basically one large photosynthetic stem with branches, a stem
that can absorb large amounts of rainfall overnight in response to thunderstorms- then survive 7 months of drought.
The Saguaro is a giant, able to live 250 years and reach heights of 51 feet(16 meters) with a 7-foot(2.2 meters) diameter base. Its flowers attract raptors and other birds, its fallen trunks giving habitat to ground animals. Not just the cactus, the entire Sonoran Desert Biome
is something special. There is as much biodiversity as any forest. One look around my 30x30 foot (10x10 meter) campsite had me counting the number of different plants and cactus I saw. I lost track after getting to 25. It was spring and the desert was in bloom. But it wasn't just the Saguaros and wildflowers in bloom, the rare blooms of the Ocotillo in the Mojave Desert was in bloom as well.
Sunsets in the desert inspire poetry and art. Being above 4000 feet so far into a large continent, the rays of light from the setting sun, the clean air, and the views of lofty mountains in the distance create a magical scene. Instead of alpenglow, the desertglow illuminates the sentinels of the desert with hues of red and yellow one has seldom
encountered before. The moon started to rise, the fishhook cactus begged me to take its picture. Gazing at the moonlight, I heard the Chiricahua Mountains
calling my name... I left early the next morning.
Driving into Southest Arizona past Tucson, the landscape changes. As elevation increases, so do mild temperatures. Here, the summer monsoons also come on stronger, giving more rainfall. Yes, this doesn't look or feel like what I expected. A stream with a huge Sycamore tree, Grasses, Junipers, Pines...What happened to the desert? My mind was playing tricks on me, but Kartchner Caverns State Park
soon set me straight.
The Caverns were fantastic. I've been to my fair share of show caves and some wild ones, and Kartchner is a cave without equal. Discovered in the late 1970's the cave was kept secret. When the rancher sold the land in 1988, the cave became a model for preservation and sustainable visitation. The air inside the cave is 100%!h(MISSING)umidity(rare for a desert cave), and opening an entrance for visitors would soon alter the cave environment by introducing warm, dry air. Dust and lint from humans would dirty the cave formations, and both of these things have happened in Carlsbad Caverns
. So to
visit Kartchner, you must put on light plastic jackets, be sprayed with gentle water mists in a special room, then pass through 3 air locks before entering the cave environment. The cave was incredible, a must see collection of completely virgin and pristine formations, moist and warm, and otherworldly. Hiking around the abandoned mines near the cave, I knew I had seen the shimmering heart of the planet- and it was far more beautiful than anything at the surface.
Off to the Chiricahua Mountains, a special stronghold of forested desert crags that gave spiritual meaning and shelter from invading Anglo's to the Chiricahua Apache
. Geronimo himself retreated into them, his people having held the mountains sacred for thousands of years. South of Geronimo's Stronghold lays Chiricuhua National Monument. The landscape goes from grasslands to canyons and forest, culminating in the giant volcanic spires that inspired the protection of this Monument. These highlands were like a little piece of paradise in a desert sea of sunshine and rocks, a dense forest with pinnacles of rock standing 100 feet high. Intimate caves and slot canyons are everywhere, and the sunset from the 7000 foot ridge was even better than in the lowlands
of the desert. Several different species of evergreen trees forest the slot canyons and ridges. One thing is for sure, if I was anywhere near Tucson again a stop in Chiricahua Mountains would be at the top of my list of things to do.
The next day was very exciting for me. I would be travelling north to Safford, Arizona to a small state park that has a small lake and a hot spring. A novel idea I thought, a simple rock tub built around a hot spring in an unheard of state park in the middle of nowhere Arizona. A good place to shower, rest and relax. The past few days hiking in the cactus and desert left me feeling a bit dried out. Arriving at Roper Lake State Park
, I was giddy with enthusiasm- even though the flat and lifeless landscape would have most praying for a change of venue.
One of the great things about travelling is the unexpected. For some, that means meeting new friends of having plans change 180 degrees in an instant. For me, that means paying attention to the landscapes and being shocked at the things I don't expect. Safford
is on a large
flat plain, and expanse of land in the rain shadows of the huge mountains around it. I had no idea a mass of mountains over 10,700 feet( tall towered over this place, but they were. For some reason mountains give me happiness, a security inside. I felt like I could easily call this place home.
The state park was at first glance a disappointment. Just a small man-made lake with reeds covering the shore in the middle of the desert with hardly any people. But the campsites had large open air picnic tables, perfect for making a bed for excellent rest and stargazing. There was a large BBQ grill for cooking and the bathrooms were large, clean and had hot showers. The lake itself had easy access, and was colder than I expected. So cold a 20 minute dip made my body completely numb, which was just what it needed after all the driving.
Then came the hot springs stone tub, which I shared with a family of 5. The little kids were easy to get laughing, and it didn't take long before they left. Soon I was relaxing in an incredible cut stone hot tub by myself.
I realized the water in the tub was being piped in. But not with pressure, for the 6" pipe slowly poured this water in and would occasionally gurgle as the water tumbled out. The original spring was sealed, and the water directed through a pipe which travelled 50 feet downhill to the tub. You could immerse yourself completely and let the water pour on your head. How many thousands of years ago did the water enter the earth, only to be heated and forced back to the surface to provide humans with such a simple pleasure?
Yes, this was definitely a place of healing for the Chiricahua.
The water was hot, 104 degrees. The sun was setting. I couldn't believe the different things I was experiencing. "Who here can tell me the significance?" I asked. A jeweled cave that was 500,000 years old. A forest of cactus as diverse as any rainforest. Ancient Lava, carved by rain raised high by time and settled by an evergreen forest. An ice cold lake in the middle of the hot desert. A steady flow of hot water from deep within the earth, all for me as the sun set over Mt. Graham. I had a flashing thought- I was not separate from this incredible place, but a part of it. My connection was undeniable, for why else would the earth provide
me with 104 degree water to replenish my soul?
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The current commemoration of the First World War brings the composers of the time and music that was inspired by the war into focus. When the war started the Irish composer Ina Boyle (1889-1967) was 25 years of age. Some of the works that she composed between 1914 and 1918 reflect the influence of events in Europe.
By Dr Ita Beausang
Ina Boyle had showed musical talent from an early age together with a determination to compose. Living in Bushey Park, Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow, she was home-schooled and given violin and cello lessons with her sister by their governess. From the age of eleven she studied theory and harmony privately with Samuel Spencer Myerscough (1854-1940), an English organist who founded the Leinster School of Music in 1904.
She also took correspondence lessons with a relative by marriage, Dr Charles Wood (1866-1926). Wood was a lecturer in harmony and counterpoint at Cambridge University, where he later succeeded Charles Villiers Stanford as professor of music, and he also taught in the Royal College of Music. He was married to Boyle’s cousin, Charlotte Wills-Sandford, and took a keen interest in Boyle’s musical progress.
In 1910 Boyle began lessons with Dr Percy Buck (1871-1947) who had just been appointed professor of music at Trinity College Dublin. Her early compositions preserved in TCD Manuscripts Library, with copious corrections by her teachers, consist mainly of songs with added parts for violin and violoncello.
By 1913 Boyle had yet another teacher, Dr C.H. Kitson, an Oxford graduate, who came to Dublin as organist and choirmaster of Christ Church Cathedral and was later appointed professor of music at University College Dublin. She began to concentrate seriously on composition and was awarded first and second prizes in the composers’ competition at Sligo Feis Ceoil in 1913 with Elegie for cello and orchestra and a setting of ‘The last Invocation’ by Walt Whitman, whose poetry was a popular choice for many composers at that time.
The War Years
Only a few months after the outbreak of the war its impact was felt in Enniskerry when on 21 October 1914 Captain Henry Stanley Monck of the Coldstream Guards, son of Viscount Monck of Charleville House, was killed in action in St. Julien. There are two plaques in St. Patrick’s Church, Enniskerry – where Boyle’s father, Rev. William Foster Boyle was curate – a Monck Memorial and a Great War Memorial to commemorate ten members of the parish who lost their lives in the war. In addition a brass communion rail and chancel, designed by Lord Powerscourt, was inaugurated in their memory on Easter Sunday 1919.
Like many other local families the Boyle family were directly affected by the war. On 4 September 1915 Captain Grenville Fortescue, 11th Battalian, husband of their cousin Adelaide Jephson and father of two children, was killed in action in France at the age of twenty-eight.
Another cousin, Lieutenant Patrick Bryan Sandford Wood, R.A.F., aged nineteen, eldest son of Charles and Charlotte Wood, was killed on 24 May 1918 in an aeroplane accident on active service in Italy, where he is buried in Taranto Town Cemetery.
It is likely that the connection with Christ Church cathedral through her teacher C.H. Kitson encouraged Boyle to compose two anthems, which she paid to have published in 1915. The Funeral Anthem, ‘He will swallow up death with victory’ (Isaah XXV 8,9) for solo soprano, choir and organ, was published by Stainer & Bell. In her Memoranda notebook she notes
‘Dr Kitson said he would do it at Christ Church cathedral but afterwards said he did not like it so well on second thoughts, so it was never sung. Sent a copy to Charles Wood who said he liked it.’
The other anthem, ‘Wilt not Thou O God go forth with our Hosts’ (Psalms 108, 33) for choir and organ, a War Anthem dedicated to the Ulster Division, was published by Novello. According to her Memoranda ‘This was to have been sung by the choir of Derry Cathedral but so many of the men went to the war that it could not be given.’ It is hoped to have the anthems performed in Dublin and Derry during the 2014 commemoration of WW1.
‘Have you news of my boy Jack?’ (1916)
Among Boyle’s ‘Early Compositions’ in TCD Manuscripts Library there is a setting for voice and piano, dated December 1916, of Rudyard Kipling’s poignant poem ‘My boy Jack?’
“HAVE you news of my boy Jack?”
Not this tide.
“When d’you think that he’ll come back?”
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
“Has any one else had word of him?”
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
“Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?”
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind—
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.
Then hold your head up all the more,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide.
There are conflicting opinions on whether the poem refers to Kipling’s son John, who went missing in the battle of Loos in October 1915, or to generic victims of the war. In any case it was widely disseminated at the time and was set to music in 1917 by Edward German and recorded in that year by Clara Butt. Boyle’s setting in December 1916 predates this but she does not include the song in her Memoranda. It is a less dramatic interpretation of the text and is well worth revival.
‘Soldiers at peace’ (1916)
The most ambitious work composed by Boyle during the war is ‘Soldiers at peace’ (1916), a setting for choir and orchestra of a sonnet by Captain Herbert Asquith, second son of the British Prime Minister. She paid £11.7.0 to have the vocal score published by Novello and in 1918 her first review was published in The Musical Times:
Soldiers at peace’ (Novello) is a poem by Herbert Asquith set for chorus and orchestra by I. Boyle. The words have a pathos that is sympathetically reflected in the music. A certain striking ‘motif’ comes about twenty times in the instrumental part, and in a way binds the beginning to the end. The vocal part-writing is smooth and singable. The piece is a very suitable one for a choral performance in which the programme should have the war note on its pathetic side. It takes about four or five minutes to perform.
A brief notice in a survey of New Vocal Music in The Times was less complimentary:
There are those who do not know when they are putting their hand on the ark. Ina Boyle has set for chorus Herbert Asquith’s ‘Soldiers at Peace’ without understanding.
In 1917 Boyle entered the work for the first competition of the Carnegie Trust. There were 136 entrants, including Stanford and Vaughan Williams. She was gratified when her entry was commended, and placed on the list of ‘Works of Special Merit’ for the information of conductors.
In 1920 ‘Soldiers at peace’ was performed at Woodbrook, Bray by Bray Choral Society, conducted by Thomas Weaving, then organist at ChristChurch cathedral. Turner Huggard, assistant organist at St. Patrick’s cathedral, played the wind parts on the organ and the strings were played by local amateurs, including Boyle’s sister and their governess. The performance was reviewed in The Irish Times the following day:
When one reads the noble words of Captain Asquith’s sonnet one rather feared the temerity of the young Irish composer, Miss I. Boyle. There was no need. Miss I. Boyle has more than promise. Her handling of the orchestral effects as a background to the chorus was what we have grown to call ‘masterly’. The writing is always clever and original, especially the violin parts, used to heighten the suggestion of ideals of youth. To the cello is left the picture-touches – very effectively The choir entered displaying mobility and oneness of movement and a fine tone-equality throughout, the final line rather wavered, and hardly suggested the poet’s or, one would think, Miss Boyle’s idea. The work was enthusiastically received, Miss I Boyle having to come from the body of the hall to acknowledge the ovation. One can easily predict for this talented young Irish girl, the daughter of Rev. W.F. Boyle of Enniskerry, a brilliant future if she develops as one would expect.
Boyle’s future would include her travels to London for lessons with Ralph Vaughan Williams from 1923 until the outbreak of the Second World War, performances in England of her most successful work, the orchestral rhapsody ‘The Magic Harp’, and a lifetime of devotion to composition, which was foreshadowed by the works which she composed during the First World War.
Works composed by Ina Boyle 1914-1918:
- 1914 ‘The joy of earth’ (AE George Russell), voice and piano (TCD MS 4119)
- 1914 ‘Ireland’ (Walt Whitman), baritone, SATB chorus, orchestra ( TCD MS 4054-4054c)
- 1915 Funeral Anthem ‘He will swallow up death in victory’ (publ. Stainer & Bell 1915; TCD MS 4162)
- 1915 War Anthem ‘Wilt not Thou O God go Forth with our Hosts’ (publ. Novello 1915; TCD MS 4162, BL)
- 1916 ‘Have you news of my boy Jack?’ (Rudyard Kipling) voice and piano (TCD MS 4050)
- 1916 ‘Soldiers at peace’ (Herbert Asquith) SATB chorus, orchestra (publ. Novello 1917; TCD MS 4055-4055c BL)
- 1917-18 ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ (Julia Ward Howe), soprano solo, SATB, orchestra (TCD MS 4056-4056b)
- 1918 Phantasy for viola and piano (TCD MS 4120)
- 1918-19 ‘A Sea Poem’, Theme, variations and finale for orchestra (TCD MS 4057-4157a)
Irish Times 24 April 1919.
Ina Boyle Memoranda, 3.
The Musical Times, lix, 900, 69.
The Times, 23 Feb. 1918.
Ina Boyle, Memoranda. 4.
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Head and neck cancer(patient information)
- Cancers that are known collectively as head and neck cancers usually begin in the squamous cells that line the moist, mucosal surfaces inside the head and neck (for example, inside the mouth, the nose, and the throat). These squamous cell cancers are often referred to as squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck. Head and neck cancers can also begin in the salivary glands, but salivary gland cancers are relatively uncommon. Salivary glands contain many different types of cells that can become cancerous, so there are many different types of salivary gland cancer.
- Cancers of the head and neck are further categorized by the area of the heador neck in which they begin. These areas are described below and labeled in the image of head and neck cancer regions.
- Oral cavity: Includes the lips, the front two-thirds of the tongue, the gums, the lining inside the cheeks and lips, the floor (bottom) of the mouth under the tongue, the hard palate (bony top of the mouth), and the small area of the gum behind the wisdom teeth.
- Pharynx: The pharynx(throat) is a hollow tube about 5 inches long that starts behind the nose and leads to the esophagus. It has three parts: the nasopharynx (the upper part of the pharynx, behind the nose); the oropharynx (the middle part of the pharynx, including the soft palate [the back of the mouth], the base of the tongue, and the tonsils); the hypopharynx (the lower part of the pharynx).
- Larynx: The larynx, also called the voicebox, is a short passageway formed by cartilage just below the pharynx in the neck. The larynx contains the vocal cords. It also has a small piece of tissue, called the epiglottis, which moves to cover the larynx to prevent food from entering the air passages.
- Paranasal sinuses and nasal cavity: The paranasal sinuses are small hollow spaces in the bones of the head surrounding the nose. The nasal cavity is the hollow space inside the nose.
- Salivary glands: The major salivary glands are in the floor of the mouth and near the jawbone. The salivary glands produce saliva.
What causes cancers of the head and neck?
- Alcohol and tobacco use (including smokeless tobacco, sometimes called “chewing tobacco” or “snuff”) are the two most important risk factors for head and neck cancers, especially cancers of the oral cavity, oropharynx, hypopharynx, and larynx. At least 75% of head and neck cancers are caused by tobacco and alcohol use. People who use both tobacco and alcohol are at greater risk of developing these cancers than people who use either tobacco or alcohol alone. tobacco and alcohol use are not risk factors for salivary gland cancers.
- Infection with cancer-causing types of human papillomavirus (HPV), especially HPV type 16, is a risk factor for some types of head and neck cancers, particularly oropharyngeal cancers that involve the tonsils or the base of the tongue. In the United States, the incidence of oropharyngeal cancers caused by HPV infection is increasing, while the incidence of oropharyngeal cancers related to other causes is falling.
- Paan (betel quid), immigrants from Southeast Asia who use paan (betel quid) in the mouth should be aware that this habit has been strongly associated with an increased risk of oral cancer.
- Preserved or salted foods, consumption of certain preserved or salted foods during childhood is a risk factor for nasopharyngeal cancer.
- Oral health, poor oral hygiene and missing teeth may be weak risk factors for cancers of the oral cavity. Use of mouthwash that has a high alcohol content is a possible, but not proven, risk factor for cancers of the oral cavity.
- Occupational exposure, occupational exposure to wood dust is a risk factor for nasopharyngeal cancer. Certain industrial exposures, including exposures to asbestos and synthetic fibers, have been associated with cancer of the larynx. Industrial exposure to wood or nickel dust or formaldehyde is a risk factor for cancers of the paranasal sinuses and nasal cavity.
- Radiation exposure, radiation to the head and neck, for noncancerous conditions or cancer, is a risk factor for cancer of the salivary glands.
- Epstein-Barr virus infection, infection with the Epstein-Barr virus is a risk factor for nasopharyngeal cancer and cancer of the salivary glands.
- Ancestry. Asian ancestry, particularly Chinese ancestry, is a risk factor for nasopharyngeal cancer.
What are the symptoms of head and neck cancers?
- The symptoms of head and neck cancers may include a lump or a sore that does not heal, a sore throat that does not go away, difficulty in swallowing, and a change or hoarseness in the voice. These symptoms may also be caused by other, less serious conditions. It is important to check with a doctor or dentist about any of these symptoms. Symptoms that may affect specific areas of the head and neck include the following:
- Oral cavity. A white or red patch on the gums, the tongue, or the lining of the mouth; a swelling of the jaw that causes dentures to fit poorly or become uncomfortable; and unusual bleeding or pain in the mouth.
- Pharynx. Trouble breathing or speaking; pain when swallowing; pain in the neck or the throat that does not go away; frequent headaches, pain, or ringing in the ears; or trouble hearing.
- Paranasal sinuses and nasal cavity. Sinuses that are blocked and do not clear; chronic sinus infections that do not respond to treatment with antibiotics; bleeding through the nose; frequent headaches, swelling or other trouble with the eyes; pain in the upper teeth; or problems with dentures.
- Salivary glands. Swelling under the chin or around the jawbone, numbness or paralysis of the muscles in the face, or pain in the face, the chin, or the neck that does not go away.
How common are head and neck cancers?
- Head and neck cancers account for approximately 4% of all cancers in the United States. These cancers are more than twice as common among men as they are among women. Head and neck cancers are also diagnosed more often among people over age 50 than they are among younger people.
- Researchers estimated that more than 65,000 men and women in this country would be diagnosed with head and neck cancers in 2017.
How can I reduce my risk of developing head and neck cancers?
- People who are at risk of head and neck cancers―particularly those who use tobacco―should talk with their doctor about ways that they may be able to reduce their risk. They should also discuss with their doctor how often to have checkups. In addition, ongoing clinical trials are testing the effectiveness of various medications in preventing head and neck cancers in people who have a high risk of developing these diseases. Descriptions of these clinical trials can be accessed by searching NCI’s list of cancer clinical trials. NCI’s list of cancer clinical trials includes all NCI-supported clinical trials that are taking place across the United States and Canada, including the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, MD. For information about other ways to search the list, see Help Finding NCI-Supported Clinical trials.
- Information specialists from NCI’s Cancer Information Service (CIS) can also help people find clinical trials for the prevention of head and neck cancers. The CIS can be reached at 1–800–4–CANCER (1–800–422–6237) or by chatting with a cancer information specialist online through LiveHelp.
- Avoiding oral HPV infection may reduce the risk of HPV-associated head and neck cancers. However, it is not yet known whether the Food and Drug Administration-approved HPV vaccines Gardasil®, Gardasil 9®, and Cervarix® prevent HPV infection of the oral cavity, and none of these vaccines has yet been approved for the prevention of oropharyngeal cancer. More information about these vaccines is in the NCI fact sheet Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccines.
How are head and neck cancers diagnosed?
- To find the cause of the signs or symptoms of a problem in the head and neck area, a doctor evaluates a person’s medical history, performs a physical examination, and orders diagnostic tests. The exams and tests may vary depending on the symptoms. Examination of a sample of tissue under a microscope is always necessary to confirm a diagnosis of cancer.
- If the diagnosis is cancer, the doctor will want to learn the stage (or extent) of disease. Staging is a careful attempt to find out whether the cancer has spread and, if so, to which parts of the body. Staging may involve an examination under anesthesia (in an operating room), x-rays and other imaging procedures, and laboratory tests. Knowing the stage of the disease helps the doctor plan treatment.
How are head and neck cancers treated?
- The treatment plan for an individual patient depends on a number of factors, including the exact location of the tumor, the stage of the cancer, and the person’s age and general health. Treatment for head and neck cancer can include surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, targeted therapy, or a combination of treatments.
- People who are diagnosed with HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer may be treated differently than people with oropharyngeal cancers that are HPV-negative. Recent research has shown that patients with HPV-positive oropharyngeal tumors have a better prognosis and may do just as well on less intense treatment.
What are the side effects of treatment?
- Surgery for head and neck cancers often changes the patient’s ability to chew, swallow, or talk. The patient may look different after surgery, and the face and neck may be swollen. The swelling usually goes away within a few weeks. However, if lymph nodes are removed, the flow of lymph in the area where they were removed may be slower and lymph could collect in the tissues, causing additional swelling; this swelling may last for a long time.
- After a laryngectomy (surgery to remove the larynx) or other surgery in the neck, parts of the neck and throat may feel numb because nerves have been cut. If lymph nodes in the neck were removed, the shoulder and neck may become weak and stiff.
- Patients who receive radiation to the head and neck may experience redness, irritation, and sores in the mouth; a dry mouth or thickened saliva; difficulty in swallowing; changes in taste; or nausea. Other problems that may occur during treatment are loss of taste, which may decrease appetite and affect nutrition, and earaches (caused by the hardening of ear wax). Patients may also notice some swelling or drooping of the skin under the chin and changes in the texture of the skin. The jaw may feel stiff, and patients may not be able to open their mouth as wide as before treatment.
- Patients should report any side effects to their doctor or nurse, and discuss how to deal with them.
Where can I find more information about clinical trials for patients with head and neck cancers?
- Clinical trials are research studies conducted with people who volunteer to take part. Participation in clinical trials is an option for many patients with head and neck cancer. Ongoing clinical trials are testing the effectiveness of treatments for head and neck cancers. Descriptions of these clinical trials can be accessed by searching NCI’s list of cancer clinical trials, which includes all NCI-supported clinical trials that are taking place across the United States and Canada, including the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, MD. For information about other ways to search the list, see Help Finding NCI-Supported Clinical Trials.
- Alternatively, call NCI's Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237) for information about clinical trials for individuals with head and neck cancer, or chat with a cancer information specialist online through LiveHelp.
- People interested in taking part in a clinical trial should talk with their doctor. Information about clinical trials is available in the NCI publication Taking Part in Cancer Treatment Research Studies. This resource describes how research studies are carried out and explains their possible benefits and risks. | <urn:uuid:47d54319-2d33-4087-b136-8ccfb612ace1> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | http://es.wikidoc.org/index.php/Head_and_neck_cancer(patient_information) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370506673.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20200402045741-20200402075741-00035.warc.gz | en | 0.939321 | 2,634 | 3.859375 | 4 |
Remember, if you are in crisis, get help immediately. You may already know how to do that locally. If not, I have a link here to crisis lines worldwide.
Also, if this is your first depression homework exercise that you are doing in this series, please read the brief introduction here.
Remember how to play…
Today’s exercise is about remembering how to play and reconnecting with the fundamental part of yourself that is capable of joyful play. Imagine you are a child again and think back to the joyful moments in which you were able to suspend your disbelief, be silly, and play.
What if you never played before?
If you had a childhood in which you can think of no such moments, and this is true for some people who had terribly abusive childhoods, consider a kitten or a puppy rolling on its back fully absorbed with a ball of yarn or running around chasing its own tail, happily absorbed in silliness. If you happen to have a cat or dog, you might notice that there are moments in its adult life where it starts randomly chasing something silly or rolling around. It gets playful. Animals instinctively seem to know that they need a break from being adults. We also need a break every once in a while.
What is play therapy for adults? Is that what this is?
There is actually even a branch of therapy called play therapy for adults. This can be very helpful for some people, but that is not exactly what we are discussing here. This is about just taking some time to play as I will explain below.
By the way — slightly off topic, but related — I read a news article about a lady with relatively advanced dementia who was very depressed and not really speaking. Someone gave her the gift of a very realistic-looking doll that looked like a baby. It had a profound impact on her life. She started talking to her “baby” and taking care of her “baby”. She was lost within her dementia, but play brought her out. (It’s interesting that more people do not think of giving “childish” toys to adults with dementia. It seems obvious when you think about it.)
However, this homework activity is geared towards “normal” but depressed people:
What types of play can adults do?
Adults can do any type of play they want to, within the bounds of the law. That is the joy of being an adult! However, often, when we are depressed, we forget how to play.
Make a play date with yourself
First, make a play date with yourself. Clear some time that is distraction-free and just for you. Try to do this three or four times a week, but if that is not possible, at least once a week. It should be at least one hour.
Prepare to “waste” some time…
There is a compulsion as adults to make our time “productive”. Time is money, we say. However, it is very important that we “waste” some time by playing. It is essential.
“You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by; but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by.” – J.M. Barrie (author of Peter Pan)
So, playtime should not be about productivity, making something, or winning something. Sometimes, you might find you are very creative during playtime and, later, you may want to use what you have created for some purpose. However, it is important that you give this matter absolutely no thought during playtime.
For example, if you paint a picture, imagine it is going to be lovingly placed on the fridge door with a magnet — in other words, it does not have to be any good — whether it is good or bad is completely irrelevent. The feeling of sweeping the brush or your fingers over the page is what matters.
Types of play:
There are many types of play and you can experiment and find out what appeals to you most. And you do not have to limit yourself to this list. Do whatever play you love.
- Movement play. This can take many forms. You can roll around on the floor. I once took a course with a lady who was in a wheelchair and she told me about how she really enjoyed dancing by having music on and lying on the carpet and just moving to the music. The carpet felt good beneath her and the movement felt good. She was limited in the movements she could do, of course, but she was doing what she could to bring herself joy. Feel free to turn on your favorite songs and dance like no one is watching. If you are super out of shape, just dance for a few minutes and then sit down or dance sitting down. Belly dance, belly dance, belly dance…
- Sand play. Play in the sand at the beach if you live near a beach. Get a bucket and spade and go. You may find that if you engage in this type of play, you end up with some little helpers, so do this if you are okay with that happening. Sand play can also be done indoors. You can get a children’s sand table, a sand tray, a Zen garden, or some new age sand that doesn’t make a mess. Here are some examples (these are my affiliate links):
Toysmith Deluxe Zen Garden:
National Geographic Sand – acts wet while keeping your hands dry!
- Nature play. This can involve:
- Arts and Crafts. For arts and crafts play, you can really let your imagination soar! You can choose to use cheap materials that you get from the dollar store or more expensive tools and items. Some people prefer to have a book or magazine (or the internet) that gives them a specific plan for what they are going to craft while others prefer to really explore their materials in a freestyle way. You can try both and see what is the best fit for you. It might be best to start with less expensive materials because this might encourage a sense of play. I recommend Crayola art kits. They are designed with kids and play in mind. That is exactly what we are trying to achieve! Types of crafts include:
- Paper crafts – These include:
- Jewelry making – This includes:
- Wire wrapping
- Chain mailled jewelry
- Candle making
- Soaps and lotions
- and so much more!
- Creative writing. Set a timer for 20 – 30 minutes. Open your notebook. Get a writing prompt from anywhere. Start the timer. Write until the timer goes off. Do not stop writing. Do not judge what you are writing. Try not to consider the quality of what you have written or pause to cross things out. This is writing play. Playing with words. If you feel like it, repeat the process. Writing prompts don’t have to just come from Google. You can choose an old object, essential oils, a piece of music, a piece of fabric, etc. — anything that evokes an idea or sensation. Try to write with your five sense in mind.
- Do puzzles. These can be any type of puzzles:
- jigsaw puzzles
- crossword puzzles
- word search
- Sing. It doesn’t matter if you have a “good” voice or if you are tone deaf. This is about joyfully expressing your voice. Sing along to your favorite song or just make silly noises. I have heard “primal screaming” is therapeutic too, and I am always willing to try anything if it will help. Feel free to sing in your highest operatic voice or in your lowest bass. Be silly. Play is about feeling free to be silly if you want to. Go to karaoke. People aren’t allowed to judge you at karaoke. It is a golden karaoke rule. If anyone breaks it, they are sent directly to karaoke jail.
- Make music (or, rather, sound). Break out the bongos and drum away. Play random notes on your Casio keyboard. Play.
- Mini-trampoline. Assuming you are in good enough physical condition, get a mini-trampoline, turn on some music and bounce like a crazy person. Bouncing has the side benefit that it is extremely good for the immune system and releases endorphins. (This could have been under “movement play,” but it can be so much fun, I thought it deserved its own heading.)
- Join or Start an Amateur Improv Group. As an adult, there are few opportunities to play “let’s pretend”. Improv is improvisational theatre — where the actors make it up as they go along. The fun of it is that you accept the reality that the other actors present to you and make it work even if it is terribly silly. This helps relieve you of inhibition and really lets you be your authentic and possibly silly self.
Try to play at least once a week, but three or four times is even better. In fact try to make as much time for play as possible. Experiment with new types of play that you might not have considered before. Work on expanding your comfort zone, especially if you see yourself as being very “proper”.
Doing things that scare you (but are not dangerous) is exhilerating and makes life worth living. However, play does not necessarily have to be scary. If you prefer to start off doing crossword puzzles and knitting, that is perfectly acceptable as long as it is FUN for you and you do it with a spirit of play.
Feel free to join a group or class devoted to your particular type of play. For example, there are stitching groups and jewelry-making classes. Make sure that if you do join a group, it is about PLAYING.
Have fun. It can be hard to learn or re-learn how to have fun when you have been depressed, but it is important because fun is a big part of what makes life worth living. Play, laugh, enjoy, get a little better each day.
I will leave you with a list of some of my favorite toys for adults (some of them were designed for kids, but kids can’t have all the fun). (Note: as per usual, these are my affiliate links):
The important thing is just to find some time to just have fun and play! | <urn:uuid:7ddc877d-1c47-4904-9ce1-845f14f8d9d8> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.infocounselling.com/depression-homework-activity-4-remembering-how-to-play/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370505359.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20200401003422-20200401033422-00073.warc.gz | en | 0.972211 | 2,175 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Gaining insight into what the TPP entails and the positions of its prospective signatories would be of great interest to China.
In late June 2015, President Barack Obama’s controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) successfully passed through Congress. It gives the president additional powers for six years and authorizes him to present trade deals to Congress for a vote on a specified timeline without lawmakers being able to amend the terms. While there is still much debate in the United States with regard to the TPP’s benefits for the United States, China’s exclusion from the process is noteworthy given the geographical nature of the TPP and China’s own “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) regional economic initiatives. Due to the secretive nature of the TPP, details governing the 29 chapters of the agreement remain unexamined. Given that the TPP aims to challenge China’s OBOR efforts, pro-Beijing interests can be expected to leverage cyber espionage to target TPP stakeholders during the negotiation process in an effort to gain sensitive information pertaining to the agreement, stakeholder positions, and future planning, for decision advantage.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership
Via the questionable and overly secret TPP, the U.S. looks to further its economic growth and the creation of jobs by increasing exports in a region whose economies represent almost 40% of the global gross domestic product, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Currently, the United States is negotiating with 11 governments, most of them located in the region. The goal of the TPP is to create a “free trade” zone, which if agreed to by stakeholders, will become the world’s largest trade deal. The TPP sets the terms for trade between the participating members and includes several major areas where competition will undoubtedly increase. Among some of the topics addressed are environmental, labor, and intellectual property standards; data flows; services; and state-owned businesses.
While the TPP is billed as an “open architecture document” that could be easily adopted by additional Asian governments, China is noticeably not among the nations engaged in these early discussions, which seems odd for one of the world’s top growing economies. Recent reports indicate China’s interest in joining the TPP; however, signatories are expected to maintain high labor and environmental standards, which China is not presently prepared to meet. This likely is designed to pressure China to make certain reforms if it wants to gain access to the U.S. market.
China Has its Own Plans
Economic growth has been instrumental in promoting Chinese influence around the world, as well as making it possible to maintain double-digit defense spending levels. China’s goal of becoming a global leader economically and militarily must start at the regional level, which is why China looks to promote regional development through such economic initiatives as the OBOR and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
The “One Belt One Road” initiatives—composed of the land Silk Road Economic belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road—are designed to create regional connectivity and a large free trade zone. The efforts will link Africa, Asia, and Europe together in a new offer in international order in which all participants gain clear advantages. Projects that have been approved include an upgrade of the Gwadar Port, as well as a new airport, roads, rail links, and resource pipelines.
The China-backed and -led AIIB will focus on the development infrastructure projects and other productive sectors (e.g., energy, power, telecommunications) in Asia. Notably, 50 governments recently backed the AIIB, many of which are considered U.S. allies. At this time, two of them—India and South Korea—are not a part of the original 11-nation TPP. China provided 30% of the $100 billion operating capital for the AIIB and has 26% of the voting power, which will greatly enhance China’s ability to influence regional economies to better support Beijing’s national interests
Taken collectively, these two ambitious economic initiatives can potentially make China an economic force in the region, providing counterbalance to U.S. and Western-led institutions (e.g., the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund).
The Type of Information China May Want
Despite the controversy surrounding its arcane content, the TPP is a prominent bilateral agreement whose participants can be expected to be targeted by cyber espionage actors, primarily ones suspected of being Chinese, based in China, or working on behalf of the Chinese government.
China has three primary national security objectives: sustaining regime survival, defending national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and establishing China as both a regional and national power. China’s 12th Five Year Plan reflects overall goals and objectives of the government to promote economic industry growth and reform.
The TPP threatens to stem China’s aspirations by targeting two areas Beijing considers national priorities: its continued economic growth and its emergence as the dominant regional influence. China’s exclusion from the TPP prohibits its ability to have a voice in how it operates. Many of the nations involved in TPP discussions are those that have maritime disputes with China and economic opportunities independent of China may bolster their resolve and weaken Chinese influence in settling them through non-violent means.
Further complicating matters is the secretive nature of the details contained in the TPP’s 29 chapters. Of the chapters being negotiated, only five address traditional trade issues intimating that the others such as the one dealing with expanding copyright and intellectual property protections and regulate the flow of information on the Internet are focused on influencing government activities. In this context, the TPP can be viewed as an “important element in the U.S. rebalancing toward Asia,” which China cautiously perceives as U.S. attempts of containment. The fact that half of the governments negotiating the TPP with the United States are those that are engaged in maritime disputes is not lost on Beijing, and only further bolsters these suspicions.
Gaining insight into what the TPP entails and the positions of its prospective signatories would be of great interest to China. As a result, it can be expected that key participants, as well as the organizations that they represent, would be highly desirable targets for exploitation purposes in order to aggregate as much sensitive information that pertains to the TPP and their respective government’s potential role.
Suspected Chinese cyber espionage has been well documented, and has been identified by the Director of National Intelligence as a “major threat.” Moreover, there is a history of suspected Chinese actors targeting significant international events in order to collect intelligence for political and economic decision advantage. For example, in 2008, the presidential campaigns of Senators Barack Obama and John McCain were targeted in an effort to gain insight into policy positions. In May 2013, suspected Chinese cyber actors conducted cyber espionage against G-20 institutions in the lead up to the G-20 summit. In 2012, Coca-Cola was hacked by alleged Chinese actors for sensitive information pertaining to its potential purchase of China Huiyuan Juice Group, a deal that invariably fell through.
Based on such anecdotal examples, and the importance of the TPP’s potential to disrupt China’s objectives, it is highly likely that some of the more sophisticated and reliable cyber actors will engage TPP stakeholders using tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that have yielded successful results in prior operations. Targeted spearphishing (the implementation of socially engineered e-mail messages with embedded malware in attachments) and watering-hole attacks (the attacker observes which websites the target group often uses and infects one or more of them with malware) have been favored vectors by suspected Chinese cyber actors. TPP stakeholders should understand this and prepare accordingly as TPP negotiations continue.
While the unnecessary secretive nature of the TPP agreement could be interpreted as an attempt to keep China from knowing what’s being discussed, some of the TPP’s questionable chapters give serious pause, as the public doesn’t have insight into all of the contents that will invariably affect them that are being discussed among the stakeholders. The mystery surrounding the agreement coupled with fast-track nature of trying to get it passed have attracted attention from more than the Chinese. For example, one controversial chapter of the draft agreement garnering much attention includes an investor-state dispute settlement clause that would allow firms to “sue” governments to obtain taxpayer compensation for loss of “expected future profits.” Several other chapters also have disputed benefits. As a result, there has been substantial backlash toward the agreement from healthcare, environmental, and even bipartisan activists, all rallying against the alleged merits of the TPP.
In a 2013 interview, President Obama acknowledged a government’s prerogative to engage in intelligence gathering, particularly with regards to acquiring information such as talking points with a foreign government that might provide insight into espionage sponsor. If China is the pervasive orchestrator of global cyber espionage against private and public sector organizations, as many believe, the TPP presents a prime, opportune target for these efforts.
There have been many recent white papers regarding the role of cyber intelligence, how to do it, what it constitutes, and how customers should consume it. Terms such as “actionable,” “accurate,” “operational,” and “tailored” are shared by many of these reports. In a threat space where hostile activities can occur in nanoseconds, one word that is not frequently mentioned is “advanced or indications and warning.” The process includes forewarning of adversary actions or intentions, imminent hostilities, or attacks. While many tout the virtue of “knowing your enemy,” looking at the body of work and applying successful observed tactics and techniques to future developments is not being done. Understanding who they are, and perhaps more importantly, how they operate can better provide organizations the information to architect an appropriate security posture to mitigate this activity. TPP members have been warned.
Nakamura, D. (2015, June 25). Obama Scores a Major Trade Win, Burnishing His Foreign Policy Legacy. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-poised-for-a-major-trade-win-burnishing-his-foreign-policy-legacy/2015/06/24/e940c6fa-1a77-11e5-93b7-5eddc056ad8a_story.html.
Worthington, B. (2015, June 16). Growing Doubts About the Trans Pacific Partnership if China Excluded. Australian Broadcasting Company. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-16/tpp-doubts-china-fta/6549280.
China to Adapt as TPP Deal Spells Deals for the U.S. & Asia. (2015, June 29). China Briefing. Retrieved from http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2015/06/29/china-to-adapt-as-tpp-deal-spells-opportunities-for-the-united-states-asia.html.
Granville, K. (2015, May 11). The Trans-Pacific Partnership Explained. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/business/unpacking-the-trans-pacific-partnership-trade-deal.html?_r=0.
Granville. The Trans-Pacific Partnership Explained.
Beattle, V. (2015, June 4). Obama: China to Put Feelers Out On Joining TPP. Voice of America. Retrieved from http://www.voanews.com/content/obama-china-put-out-feelers-about-joining-tpp/2806949.html.
Nakamura. Obama Scores a Major Trade Win, Burnishing His Foreign Policy Legacy.
Granville. The Trans-Pacific Partnership Explained.
Lunan, Liu. (2015, June 29). Silk Road Initiative Connects Countries on Path of Prosperity. China Watch. Retrieved from http://chinawatch.washingtonpost.com/2015/06/silk-road-initiative-connects-countries-on-path-of-prosperity/.
Denver, S. (2015, June 30). China Launches Development Bank for Asia, Calls it First Step in Epic Journey. The Washington Post,. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/china-launches-infrastructure-bank-first-step-in-an-epic-journey/2015/06/29/e7d8bd7a-ca11-46fa-9bad-15ba856f958c_story.html.
Denyer. China Launches Development Bank for Asia, Calls it First Step in Epic Journey.
Spade, Colonel J.M. (2012). Information as Power: China’s Cyber Power and America’s National Security. U.S. Army War College. Retrieved from http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB424/docs/Cyber-072.pdf.
Military and Security Development Involving the People’s Republic of China. (2014). Department of Defense Annual Report to Congress, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Retrieved from http://www.defense.gov/pubs/2014_DoD_China_Report.pdf.
China Releases Guidelines for Economic Reform Priorities. (2015, May 18). Reuters. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/19/us-china-reform-idUSKBN0O406Q20150519.
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Isikoff, M. (2013, June 6). Chinese Hacked Obama, McCain Campaigns, Took Internal Documents Officials Say. NBC News. Retrieved from http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/06/18807056-chinese-hacked-obama-mccain-campaigns-took-internal-documents-officials-say.
Schectman, J. (2013, August 27). Hackers Target G20 Summit. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2013/08/27/hackers-target-g20-summit-researchers-say/.
Elgin, B., Lawrence, D., and Riley, M. A. (2012, November 4). Coke Gets Hacked and Doesn’t’ Tell Anyone. Bloomberg. Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-11-04/coke-hacked-and-doesn-t-tell.
Johnson, D. (2015, March 27). Campaign for America’s Future. Ourfuture.org. Retrieved from http://ourfuture.org/20150327/now-we-know-why-huge-tpp-trade-deal-is-kept-secret-from-the-public.
Weisman, J. (2015, June 10). US Shifts Stance on Drug Pricing in Pacific Trade Pact Talks, Document Reveals. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/11/business/international/us-shifts-stance-on-drug-pricing-in-pacific-trade-pact-talks-document-reveals.html.
Page, S. (2015, June 18). With the New House Bill, Even Obama Might Not Want the Obama Trade Agreement. ThinkProgress.Org. Retreived from http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/06/18/3671309/tpa-passes-house-without-labor-companion/.
Frankel, J. (2015, June 18). What Is the Trans Pacific Partnership? The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judy-frankel/what-is-the-trans-pacific_b_7594950.html.
President Obama Redefines Cyber Espionage. (2013, June 27). Terebrate blog. Retrieved from http://terebrate.blogspot.com/2013/06/president-obama-redefines-cyber.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SecurityBloggersNetwork+%28Security+Bloggers+Network%29. | <urn:uuid:09b07fed-97d7-4eac-a676-f427a4184b84> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2015/07/20/with-the-trans-pacific-partnership-comes-cyber-espionage/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370510352.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20200403061648-20200403091648-00555.warc.gz | en | 0.916833 | 3,553 | 2.796875 | 3 |
The SSH (Secure Shell) protocol, which uses for encrypted data transmission, uses 22 port number and provides machine control management by providing a remote connection.
What is SSH?
SSH or Secure Shell is a remote management protocol that allows users to control and modify their remote servers over the Internet. This protocol was created as a secure back up for unencrypted Telnet and uses encryption techniques to ensure that all communications to the remote server are encrypted.
It is the name of the program that implements it and is used to access remote machines over the network. It allows us to fully manage the computer through a command interpreter and also can redirect X traffic to execute graphics programs if we have a working X Server (on Unix and Windows systems).
In addition to connecting to other devices, SSH allows us to securely copy data (simulate both single files and encrypted FTP sessions), manage RSA keys and pass through another application data channel to avoid typing keys when connecting to devices.
SSH works the same as Telnet. The main difference is that SSH uses encryption techniques that make the information circulating in the media unreadable and no third party can find the username and password of the link or what was written throughout the session; With REPLAY attacks, it is possible to attack such systems and thus change the information between the targets.
At first there were r commands based only on the rlogin program, which worked similarly to telnet.
The first version of the protocol and program was free and was created by Finn named Tatu Ylönen, but its license was changed and the SSH Communications Security company appeared, which offered free for local and academic use, but demanded payment to others.
It was proposed as a draft in IETF in 1997 (two years after the first version was created).
In early 1999, it started to write a version of OpenBSH that would become an excellent application called OpenSSH.
SSH allows the user to authenticate using the normal Unix password. The only (and important) difference is that the password never roams clearly over the network. If we use SSH to change telnet, rlogin or FTP, we will prevent our password from being caught by potential “sniffers” on the network.
On the other hand, we will continue to be vulnerable to “dictionary attacks” against the password: if an attacker has access to the /etc/passwd file, it is not difficult to find passwords of words that may appear in the dictionary. This means that it is extremely important for the administrator to properly protect the /etc/passwd file and for users to use “secure” passwords (combining as many random, upper case, lower case, numbers, and punctuation as possible).
Public key authentication
The second authentication alternative uses a public/private key scheme, also known as an asymmetric key. This scheme uses a pair of keys:
1. A public key that is copied to all servers we want to connect to.
2. A private key that we have only; For additional security, this key is encrypted with a password.
These two keys have an important feature: Text encrypted with a public key can only be decrypted using a private key, while text encrypted with a private key can only be decrypted using a public key.
Let’s see how this feature is applied to the authentication process:
The server sends us a message that we need to return encrypted with our private key.
The server decrypts the reply message with our public key.
The server compares the message obtained with the original text; if they match, the server will see us as authentication correctly.
Of course, this whole process is transparent to the user; we only need to worry about typing the password when the program requests it. The weakest point of this scheme is how to get our public key to the server. Currently, there is no automated way to do this, and there is no other way than to do it manually.
The main advantage of this authentication method is that even if an attacker manages to compromise the server, they can only access our public key, but they can never access our private key. However, the private key must be protected with an appropriate password to prevent compromised customer security. In this way, no one can use it even if they somehow managed to take it over.
In the case of connecting from the Unix machine, a secondary advantage is that an authentication agent can be used to prevent the password from being written on each connection.
The major drawback of public-key authentication is the preconfiguration phase, which can be a bit cumbersome. Steps to follow are:
Creation of keys.
Propagation of the public key.
Selection of the key pair
Connecting to a Remote Server
To connect to a remote SSH server from a Unix/Linux client, we can open a console and write:
$ ssh example.com
If we want to connect as root on a remote server, but as a client, we are like other users:
$ ssh -l root example.com
It provides a mechanism for transferring data from the client to the server and forwards it back to the client by authenticating a remote user.
After installing an SSH Server on your computer, you must use the SSH Client program to access your server over LAN or WAN.
When you connect to a server on a network from a remote location, your data transfer with a strong encryption algorithm.
Secure data transfer using the SSH protocol takes place over TCP. You must configure the TCP/22 Port on your ADSL Modem or Router to access the server from a remote location.
Is SSH Connection Secure?
This connection type uses an SSL certificate for data security. For example, when you visit a website, you will see a green icon in the upper left corner. This icon indicates that the website has an SSL certificate and that your data transmits securely. As a result, the reliability of the data stream ensures.
How to Install SSH Server on Windows Computer
After explaining what the SSH protocol is, let’s examine how to use SSH in Windows 10 operating system.
In our previous articles, we reviewed the Telnet protocol. On Windows 7,8,8.1 and Windows 10, we have enabled Telnet Client from Windows Features. We cannot simply activate SSH Client on Windows from Windows Features.
Therefore, you need a 3rd Party program like Putty to connect to the server.
When you compare this protocol with Telnet, you can see that it is much more secure.
To run and connect to an SSH server on your Windows 10 computer, download the OpenSSH and Putty programs to your computer by clicking the buttons below.
To use the VMware virtual machine as a server, we will install and configure OpenSSH on it. For SSH Server installation, follow the steps below.
Check the IP address of the network adapter on your host.
Configure the network settings of the Windows 10 virtual machine you have installed on VMware Workstation as VMnet4 / Bridged, and then check the IP address the machine receives from the DHCP server.
Check the network adapter setting of the Windows 10 virtual machine from the Virtual Network Editor.
In VMware Virtual Network Editor, you can create VMnet4 or a new VMnet. Check that the VMnet4 adapter card is set to Bridged.
Copy the downloaded OpenSSH program to the virtual machine and run the file as an administrator to start the installation.
Select the language of the program to be installed and click OK.
The OpenSSH program is preparing for installation.
In the OpenSSH installation window, click Next.
Accept the OpenSSH license agreement and click Next.
In the Components window, select the Server option and click Next.
In the installation location window, leave the default settings and click Next.
In the Select start menu folder, click the Next button.
In the Run as LOCAL_SYSTEM window, select this setting and click Next.
We have specified that the default port number for the SSH connection is 22. Leave the default setting and click Next.
It will generate Key for a secure connection. Continue by selecting the default setting here.
In the User Setup window, continue by selecting Local Users.
Wait while installing OpenSSH on Windows 10.
After the OpenSSH installation is complete, go to the next step.
After installing it, you must now create a new user for the Customer.
Open Computer Management to create a new user.
In the Computer Management window, click Users, then Right-click on the free space.
When the user creation window opens, click New User here.
After configuring a new user, password, and description, click the Create button.
After creating a new user for the client, click Close to close the window.
Double-click SSHUser to make an administrator.
Click the Add button on the Membership tab to continue.
In the Select group window, click the Advanced button at the bottom.
You will then click Find to search for groups on the operating system.
Select the Administrator account and click OK.
In the SSHUser Properties window, click OK again.
After making the user a member of the Administrator group, click the OK button.
Now, we will use the Putty program to connect to the Server from the Host PC. Putty will provide us with an SSH Client service. Double-click Putty to open it.
After opening Putty, type the IP address of the Windows 10 virtual machine (OpenSSH Server) and click the Open button.
You can examine the connection to OpenSSH Server from the image below.
Type the SSHUser user name that you created on the virtual machine.
Type the password of SSHUser and press Enter.
You have successfully connected to SSH Server using Putty!
To obtain the hostname of the server, use the “hostname” command.
You can also check your Hostname through Windows 10 OpenSSH Server.
Run the “md FolderName” command to create a new folder on the server.
Go to the virtual machine and check the C: drive to see that the new folder creates.
How to Use the Secure Shell Protocol ⇒ Video
To install and configure OpenSSH Server on your computer or VMware virtual machine, you can watch the video below and also subscribe to our YouTube channel to support us!
In this article, we reviewed how to install a free SSH Server on Microsoft Win 7, 8, 8.1, and 10 operating systems. Using OpenSSH, you can securely connect to your server from a remote location and transfer files. Thanks for following us! | <urn:uuid:5512511f-53e9-4b77-93c7-2ef63f99ed7d> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.sysnettechsolutions.com/en/use-ssh-on-windows-10/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370508367.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20200402204908-20200402234908-00234.warc.gz | en | 0.87843 | 2,218 | 3.6875 | 4 |
The first year of publication: 1902
The edition I read: 11th edition
The number of pages it has: 125 pages
The story begins at a normal morning in the house of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. Watson. They are examining a stick, left behind by a visitor, it is immediately clear that Holmes is extremely intelligent because he knows what kind of man the owner of the stick is, a country doctor with who does a lot of walking and that he has a dog.
Then the owner of the stick is visiting them and he turns out to be quite right. The man is called Dr. Mortimer and he came visiting them to ask Holmes for assistance in a case, he brings along an old eighteenth-century manuscript, which tells the story of the “curse of the Baskervilles”:
In the time of the Civil War Hugo Baskerville had kidnapped a country girl and locked her up in a room. When he found out that she had escaped he chased her over the moor. His friends followed him and when they came to an open space they saw the bodies of the girl and of Sir Hugo and over the body of Sir Hugo stood a great, black beast, shaped like a hound yet larger then anyone had ever seen before. Since then, that hound has plagued the Baskervilles and many of them died of mysterious causes.
Holmes laughs at this story but then Dr. Mortimer reads a recent newspaper account, which tells about the death of Sir Charles Baskerville. His body was found dead on the Moor, near his house, Baskerville Hall. There were no signs of violence on the body but a few yards away from it, they found the footprints of a gigantic hound.
Sir Charles’s heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, has come over from Canada would arrive the next day at Waterloo station. Holmes invites both of them, Dr. Mortimer and Sir Henry, the next morning to his house on Baker Street in London.
The next morning Sir Henry Baskerville and Dr. Mortimer visit Holmes. Sir Henry tells him that he has received an anonymous letter in which he is warned to stay away from the moor; he also tells that one of his new boots is missing.
When Sir Henry and Dr. Mortimer leave, Holmes and Watson decide to follow them and they find out that a black bearded man is following their guests.
The next day Sir Henry tells Holmes that he has found his missing boot but now he is missing his old boot. Dr. Mortimer tells Holmes that the only black bearded man he knows on the moor is Mr. Barrymore, Sir Charles’s butler. Holmes wants to check if Barrymore is at Baskerville Hall, he sends him a telegram:
“Telegram to Mr. Barrymore; to be delivered into his own hand. If absent, return wire to Sir Henry Baskerville.”
Sir Henry is planning to go to Baskerville Hall, which is located on the Dartmoor in Devon accompanied by Dr. Mortimer. Holmes insists that Watson is also coming along to look after Sir Henry, for Holmes is convinced that his life is in great danger.
There comes a telegram back for Holmes, which says that Barrymore is at Baskerville Hall.
Dr. Watson, Dr. Mortimer and Sir Henry then set off to Baskerville Hall; when they arrive there Mr. and Mrs. Barrynore are welcoming them.
The next day Dr. Watson visits the Stapletons of Merrepit house, Mr. Stapleton is a small man between thirty and forty years old, he is a collector of butterflies and other botanical specimens. When Mr. Stapleton has left him Miss Stapleton, a beautiful woman, comes running towards him and she begs him to go back to London but when she sees that it is Dr. Watson she explains that she thought he was Sir Henry.
In Dr. Watsons first report to Holmes he tells him about the escaped convict on the moor, it is the Notting Hill murderer and he escaped from the Dartmoor prison. Watson has also seen Barrymore sneaking around in the house at night, he was standing in front of a window with a candle in his hand and staring out over the moor.
Watson talks with Sir Henry about Barrymore and they make a plan to see what he is doing at night.
The next day Sir Henry, who felt attracted to Mr. Stapletons Beautiful sister, Miss Stapleton, declares his love for her but when Mr. Stapleton sees this he becomes angry and takes his sister away from Sir Henry. However, this quarrel was made up.
That night Sir Henry and Dr. Watson trap Barrymore staring out over the moor again. He explains that the brother of his wife, the Notting Hill murderer called Selden is starving on the moor and he and his wife give him food and clothing every night. The candle is used to signal to Selden. Dr. Watson and Sir Henry look trough the window and they see a small light out on the moor. They decide to go out and capture Selden but he manages to escape however Watson sees a silhouette of a tall, thin, silent figure standing on top of a hill nearby, the next moment he vanished. Watson knew that this mysterious man was not Selden.
The next morning Barrymore asks Sir Henry and Dr. Watson not to hunt on his brother-in-law anymore, Sir Henry and Dr. Watson agree with that and Barrymore wants to do something in return for that. So he tells them that he found a part of a letter addressed to Sir Charles by a lady who signed herself L.L. In it, she asked Sir Charles to be at the gate by ten o’clock at the day that he died.
Dr. Watson finds out that the woman who sent the letter is Laura Lyons but when he asks her some questions she wouldn’t answer them.
When Dr. Watson visits Mr. Frankland, another man who lives on the moor, he sees trough Mr. Franklands telescope that a small boy is running across the moor with a bundle over his shoulder.
Dr. Watson than goes to the place where he had last seen the boy and he finds an old stone hut on the moor in which someone had lived in. He decides to wait and see who comes to the hut and to his utter astonishment he finds out that it is Sherlock Holmes. Holmes tells him that he was the man Watson saw on the hill the night they attempted to capture Selden.
Holmes tells Watson that Miss Stapleton is actually married with Mr. Stapleton and that there is an intimacy between Mr. Stapleton and Miss Laura Lyons. He also tells him that Mr. Stapleton is the murderer of Sir Charles and that he is now planning to kill Sir Henry. Stapleton was also the man who followed Sir Henry in London. Holmes tells Watson that his net are closing in on Stapleton and that is only to hope that he does not strike Sir Henry before his net are finished
But as they are talking in the hut they hear a terrible scream. Holmes and Watson run towards it and they find the body of a man wearing Sir Henry’s clothes but it turns out to be Selden who was wearing Sir Henry’s clothes, which Barrymore had given him. The hound has been laid on from Sir Henry’s missing boot, which was stolen in the hotel.
Holmes doesn’t know Stapletons motive but one of the many portraits at Baskerville Hall shows a remarkable likeness with Stapleton. It turns out that Stapleton is actually the son of Sir Charles’s younger brother.
The next thing they do is visiting Miss Laura Lyons. Stapleton had offered her a marriage under the condition that she could get divorced from her wicked husband. Miss Laura Lyons sent Sir Charles a letter on suggestion of Stapleton. He gave her the reason that Sir Charles would help to cover the expenses connected to her divorce. But then Stapleton told her not to go but Sir Charles didn’t know that so he was at the gate of the moor where Stapleton released his hound.
Holmes calls in the help of his rival Lestrade. Holmes’s plan was to let Sir Henry visit Stapleton and to let him walk back across the moor, Stapleton would unleash his hound and Holmes Watson and Lestrade would kill it.
That night the hound is unleashed and Holmes kills it by shooting five barrels into his flank.
Next, they hurry to Stapletons house where they hope to catch Stapleton but he has escaped, they do find his wife tied up to an upright beam in his house.
The next day they find out that Stapleton had tried to reach an island in the middle of the great mire on the moor, this is the place where he kept his hound. But he had drowned in the mire because he couldn’t see the small path in the dark and foggy night.
When Stapleton found out there where only two men between him and a valuable estate he decided to kill them. So he bought the biggest hound he could get and treated it with phosphorus for a furious look. This look scared Sir Charles to death. His plan almost succeeded but it didn’t because of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.
Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson
Sherlock Holmes is a thin and tall man, for relaxation he plays the violin and smokes the strongest tobacco available. Holmes became familiar to the public by his eccentrics, his clothes, his tools and most of all his amazing mental powers. Holmes’s companion and assistant, Dr Watson, is a naive medical man. His stupid mistakes are most often vital for solving the case. They serve to set off the superhuman intelligence of Sherlock Holmes.
Holmes’s behaviour does not really change and neither does Dr. Watsons. There is just one line in the book where Holmes’s emotions are not calm and cool, which is when they hear the terrible scream when Selden dies. Watson says that the “man of iron” is shaken to the soul.
The pair became so famous that many people believed and still believe that they really existed. The house in Baker Street where they are supposed to have lived still recieves thousands of letters every year, addressed to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. But When Conan Doyle became tired of Sherlock Holmes he decided to kill him off in one of his books (“the final problem”). Holmes fans from all over the world sent in vehement letters of protest against the author and the author was forced to bring him back alive in one of his books (“the empty house”). It is hardly an exaggeration that Holmes has become part of the mythology of the western world.
I think that the title of the book is what it is all about. The whole book is about this mysterious hound of the Baskervilles so the author thought it also had to be in the title.
The theme of the book is that the detective Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. Watson are being called to solve a mysterious case about a ferocious hound, which lives on the moor and murders the Baskerville family.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburg, may 22nd 1859. He studied medicines in Edinburg and practised it for a number of years in Southsea. His books A study in scarlet (1887), Micah Clarke (1888) and The sign of four (1890) had so much success that he decided to abandon his medical career and become a writer. Conan Doyle is chiefly remembered for his creation of the amateur detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. Watson. In the later years of his life he became more and more interested in the spiritualism and he wrote a book about it, History of spiritualism (1926). His most famous detective novel is the hound of the Baskervilles (1902).
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in Crowborough, 7th July 1930.
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- Open Access
- Total Downloads : 89
- Authors : Seban James
- Paper ID : IJERTV8IS100081
- Volume & Issue : Volume 08, Issue 10 (October 2019)
- Published (First Online): 17-10-2019
- ISSN (Online) : 2278-0181
- Publisher Name : IJERT
- License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Neuro-Robotic Car Control using LabVIEW
Department of Mechanical Engineering
St. Josephs College of Engineering and Technology Palai, India
AbstractAll of the billion neurons which make up human brain are constantly exchanging information using chemical processes resulting in bio-electricity production which is measurable in active region of brain directly over the scalp surface using a Neuroheadset. High bandwidth transfer of information between machines and brain is possible using Electroencephalography(EEG) Neurosky Mindwave headset with its single electrode process and amplify brain signals to get real time cognition data which can be used for actuating any NeuroRobotic hardware. Human -machine interfaces promise motor and sensory function restoration and treatment of disorders related to neurological illnesses. Cognitive neuroscience and improvement in imaging of brain showed that neural electrical action in the motor cortex provoked all physical action. BrainComputer Interface (BCI) supports differently abled or aged people with neuromuscular disorders to use devices using only cerebral or mental commands, could be considered a boon.
Main purpose of robot car is to investigate the feasibility of BCI technology to control a robotic car, as this work will demonstrate. This project focuses on the scope of using BCI within the field of transportation and driving for disabled people using neurofeedback. A robot car is designed and controlled remotely using Neuroheadset that leverages EEG encoded in human cortical brain signals to synthesize communication between users brain signals and the robot car. HC-05 Bluetooth module is used for data transfer, while Arduino execute programmed instructions stored for movement using driver motors connected with drive wheels. Finally we use LabVIEW software, for data acquisition, processing and analysis.
Keywords Arduino IC; Neurosky Mobile; ThinkGear; Electroencephalograph(EEG); Neuroheadset; LabVIEW.
Imagine driving your car by using only thoughts. A grand revolutionary change could be witnessed if this was a possibility where demarcation between the disabled people and abler vanishes in our society. Electrophysiological driver monitoring could reflect all the different mental commands accurately which if recorded in Real-time used to drive Intelligent Transportation Systems. Electroencephalography technology is used to record brain electrical activity. If used for the control a car can produce remarkable changes in the field of transportation. The possibility to drive the robot car using electroencephalography will inspire the disabled people to have confidence to drive. The low cost of the robot car makes it accessible for creation of various practical applications. High success rate in advanced automation engineering field is best understood evaluating automation level of laser operations. Electroencephalogram, technique is used for brain mapping which works by recording electric
pulses which are generated inside the brain, tracking the state of mind is possible by extracting the various Bio-Signals, for example meditation, attention etc. The state of mind can be decoded using different brain frequencies from people who are differently abled using an electroencephalogram neuroheadset, which is used for robot car wheel movement control implemented by recognition users thoughts making brain control a reality.
BrainComputer Interface can help to make a controlled by users intension which operates like a direct channel linking users brain and computer system, neuroprosthesis control of a wheelchair by people with damaged physical system will help activity recovery, using a robot . Second, healthy people, an additional interface with machine, can drastically increase the efficiency and productivity in tasks requiring high-throughput.
The classification of BCIs are 1. Non-Invasive BCIs 2. Partially Invasive BCIs and 3. Invasive BCIs. Electroencephalography (EEG) non-invasive techniques for measurement of brain electrophysiological oscillation signals is used commercially with excellent results, enabling real time link using Brain Computer Interface .
Electroencephalography method of monitoring biosignals can be used to record all the brain electrical activity occurring on the brain surface by using electrodes placed on brain scalp. Electroencephalography electrical signals measurement from brain shows fluctuation of voltage occurring within neurons inside the brain. Connecting brain implanted electrodes to a computer screen, in turn, gives waveforms with amplitude variation as digital or voltage values.
Classification of EEG waveforms is according to their frequency, shape, amplitude and the scalp site electrical signals, frequency waveforms like alpha, theta, beta and delta. Diagnosing stoke and epilepsy which cause irregular electroencephalography readings are among the various uses of electroencephalography. It can also be used for diagnosing sleep disorders, brain death, encephalopathies, and coma. Primary method used for diagnosis of epilepsy, tumor, brain disorders and stroke is EEG .
Disability caused by epilepsy, stroke, brain injury, muscle injury and back bone injury are directly affecting millions all around the world. About 900,000 people reported various severe problems related to muscle function, produces noticeable improvement after 4 months by conventional therapy post injury . Losing function of hand causes a decrease in quality of life for disabled people. BCIs promise hope for new treatment, so existing problem can be solved by
developing Brain-Computer Interface system with an easily usable graphical user interface .
All the feelings and emotions are almost unconscious and to describe them generally is hard. Electroencephalography research has identified a lot of regions in the human brain sensitive to emotional stimulations and feelings; these are precisely measurable the electric brain signals in micro volts range. A new emerging field for BCI is EEG. Recently more detailed understanding of areas of the brain which are active during stimuli recognition, when the body prepare for movement execution, paves the way for robust EEG devices controlled using activity of the brain. For example, this technology can assist paralyzed people in movement of a cursor or to mentally control their wheelchairs, an exoskeleton for military purpose can be fabricated using BCI technology permits soldiers provided with an electroencephalography cap to move, lift, and carry heavy items based on activity of the brain. Elimination of conventional biological communication between limbic system and motor cortex provides direct human brain and external machine connection.
Provide movement restoration, communication, and environment control for differently abled people.
Provide differently abled individuals with control of wheelchairs, assistance robots, or vehicles.
Provide additional Bionics/Cybernetics control for differently abled individuals with damage in neural pathways of motor cortex.
Monitor long-distance driving, consciousness of aircraft pilots and issue warning in case of lowered attention levels.
Provide direct brain robot control of inhospitable or dangerous situations for example controlling underwater NeuroRobotics.
Long-standing commercial demand for intelligent and self-conscious robotics.
BCI research of patial memory capture, upload or download perceptual processes.
Neuroheadset EEG Sensor
Bluetooth Module HC-05
DC motors and Wheels
Battery and Relay
Embedded C programming
Flash magic software
The Proposed Structure
The user brain activity is detected by the Electro Encephalograph Neurosky Mindwave Neuroheadset. It has a dry electrode which is situated in forehead position of the scalp. The control of NeuroRobotic car is by using, EEG brain signals and Eye-Blinking signal. The corresponding brain signal values from the brain are analyzed by the dry electrode by detection of the brain electrical activity at 514 SPS (sample per second) rate. The recorded values are transmitted using Bluetooth module. LabVIEWsoftware is used for examination of the EEG signals. Neural information from Neurosky Mindwave Neuroheadset can be conditioned to acquire different brain waves signal like alpha, theta, beta and delta. Brain signal analysis is performed using LabVIEW. Depending on levels of attention, meditation and blink an appropriate classification algorithm distinguish the commands which needs to be send to NeuroRobotic car. Bluetooth is used for shifting microcontroller interface signal. The microcontroller recognizes the various commands and then creates relating signal for control, and sends to the motors control.
Basic Block diagram
Fig. 1. Block diagram used for the robotic car
In Fig.1, the overall framework used for EEGs signal processing by using Bluetooth interface is given. Employment of BCI technology synchronizes the computer and EEG sensor. EEG securing was used to extract The EEG signals. In signal receiving end, a Bluetooth wireless module paired to a computer with LabVIEW software interface classifies various raw EEG signals. The control of electric NeuroRobotic is accomplished using raw EEG signals which are converted to electrical voltage.
EEG Signal Detection and Acquisition
The Mobile headset by NeuroSky used for EEG signal Acquisition is shown in Fig.2. The neuroheadset consist a dry electrode sensor which will be in direct contact with users forehead, the ear clipper junction points has the reference electrode, and an onboard chip operates on all the brain data.
Fig. 2. Neuro sky-Mindwave Mobile
The eSence algorithm is used by to exercises the various signals directly from the brain and to wirelessly transmit calculated meditation and attention values through the Bluetooth module to HC-05 module at 1Hz rate. The various frequencies and patterns of brain electrical signals is measured by a sensor positioned on front of the scalp. In headset, ThinkGear chip is used to meter the brain electrical signals obtained from EEG sensor and to convert them into usable digital signals; allowing the device user brainwave integration.
Fig. 3. A photo of the robot car setup
The NeuroSky MindWave Headset when worn start extracting the raw brain biosignal data from the dry electrode sensor above site above of left eyebrow on and transmits brain signal via HC-05 Bluetooth module to Arduino processing unit. After receiving raw brainwave and additional debugging data wirelessly through a virtual communication port (COM port) over by Bluetooth communications protocol. LabVIEW software on computer is programmed for brain data acquisition these raw signals are processed to bring out
attention magnitude data and meditation threshold parameters from raw brain EEG Waveform.
Fig. 4. LabVIEW Program for signal acquisition
In Fig.4, LabVIEW VI used for acquisition and processing biosignal data is shown. IIR and FIR filters which are used in LabVIEW to filter biomedical signals which is basically reprogrammed to provide a linear phase EEG signal output in response to nonlinear phase raw EEG signal input from Neuroheadset. FFT spectrum is used to decipher acquired brain EEG signals and to process various cases of robot motion from LabVIEW platform. LabVIEW Mapping of the Neurofeedback signals from NeuroSky TGCD by raw EEG signal processing finalizes driver control output using brain attention data for final wheel control.
LabVIEW Front Panel used for visual communication with the BCI robot car is shown in Fig.5, it is also used to process EEG brain wave data signal sent from Neurosky Neuroheadset and to display processed Neurofeedback signal and command signal on the computer. Here different raw biosignal data from the headset sensor data is processed by software for signal acquisition, processing and analysis. The control data is then sent via HC.05 Bluetooth module to Arduino processing unit connected to motor Drive.
Fig. 5. NeuroFeedback using LabVIEW Front Panel
There is two voltage supply (9V and5V) for motor Drive and Arduino. H type connection of motor drive IC L293D amplifies low bridge current and gives the high current for reverse and forward acceleration of the motors.
We could drive two motors in forward and reverse direction from single L293D IC. Arduino is connected to an
external 5V dc current source. This is used to make the robot car wireless.
Neurosky Mindwave Headset forwards beta wave or human attention brainwave signals to the hardware. Mapping brain patterns in real time is used convert brainwaves into appropriate actions. The direction of robot is controlled using interrupt value reception. Each interrupt signal is used to control a function the operation of the robot car. The Arduino microcontroller detects command signal and sends equivalent control signal to the robot car motor circuitry. Thus the robot car is driven by direct actuation of the drive motors from the brain wave signal data of the subject in both forward and direction based on thoughts alone.
RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Forward and reverse commands directly from the individuals brain is decoded and executed suitably via the movements of a cheap and less complex arrangement robot car. Suitable training is required to generate the relevant thought patterns to control the robot car movements. At first the speed value of robot car was set at constant low speed for instilling confidence of the subject till the robot control became effortless for various safety reasons.
Table- I: Experimental Data
Threshold value in micro volts(mv)
The experiment was conducted for controlling robot movement based on attention threshold value spanning from 50 to 100 micro volts for forward movement of the robot car while threshold value for meditation was10, 20, 30, 40..50 micro volts. First three experimental Session mainly focused on moving the robot in forward direction and target of the remaining experimental Session was to make robot move in backward direction. Data will show threshold values above 50 micro volts for users attention drove te robot in forward direction. Threshold value can be changed in the program for testing the robotic car output on whether it will start or not.
As the level of attention differs for each individual, the LabVIEW platform code can be reconfigured for detecting brainwave signal with high precision. The operation Neuro Robotic car project was with human thoughts or assumption of the condition for movement which resulted in corresponding NeuroRobotic car motion. The results verify that LabVIEW software could be used for development and debugging NeuroRobotic hardware with user friendly, responsive graphical interface to assist the differently abled individuals with effortless control over their environment.
Fig. 6. Session #4 Attention Level Graph
LabVIEW software is used to fashion a responsive brain- machine interface for analysis and processing human brain EEG signals. This software is highly efficient in processing and to identify the input command for equivalent data signal generation to initiate the activity of drive motors connected to the robot car. This system is reconfigurable for using eye blink parameter to control the robot movement in various directions.
Fig. 7. Fig. 4. Neurosky Electrode Position Chosen In 10-20 system
During the experiment, the Fp1 channel was the one with highest brain wave activity and signified that this area of the brain is responsible for control of robot movements, as shown by red pointer in Fig.7.As a result, we have verified the use of Fp1channel for high accuracy EEG brain waves recording for average users.
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
In this paper, state-of-the-art control and measurement software LabVIEW was used to develop a user friendly brain- machine interface for analysis and processing EEG signals. In conclusion, further research and development of NeuroRobot will aid in technological enhancement for industrial applications, automotive applications, home applications, and remote control applications for improving living standard. Human Machine interfaces could facilitate hardware control bionic arms or electronic wheelchairs for paralyzed patients.
In the near future human wishes or direct brain signals will be used to directly control all of our devices without any physical movement required on users part, the technology employed in the present work is key for realizing that grand vision.
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Luzheng Bi, Yili Liu and Xin-An Fan, EEG Based Human Brain Controlled Mobile Robots, IEEE transaction on human machine systems, 2013, Vol. 43, pp 161-176. | <urn:uuid:3d3ca966-58eb-4b34-91fd-a5e7db8f73c2> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.ijert.org/neuro-robotic-car-control-using-labview | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371606067.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20200405150416-20200405180916-00475.warc.gz | en | 0.86495 | 3,743 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Internal exclusion is where the pupil remains on the school premises but doesn’t go to all the same lessons as other students. It doesn’t have to be reported to the Government as part of the school’s exclusion statistics (where a child is kept OUT of school).
An indication of the extent of this practice can be seen from advertisements for Internal Exclusion Officers who may come from a youth work or administration background rather than being a qualified teacher Recruitment 1, Recruitment 2, Recruitment 3 , Recruitment 4
4 out of 5 secondary school pupils who are permanently excluded have previously been suspended – known as a fixed period exclusion.
Moreover, the single biggest reason for permanent exclusion from school is “persistent disruptive behaviour.”
Parents should be aware that the school probably won’t issue a fixed period exclusion until various other measures have already been tried. The full extent of “behaviour management” might not be apparent until parents receive a huge file after the child has been permanently excluded and by then of course it’s too late.
For the worst case scenario reason, if for no other, I would always advise parents to get to grips with the school’s practice regarding internal exclusions. It is also important to be clear what is actually allowed by law, as I set out at the end of this post.
Parents who contact me feel they have no choice but to home educate in order to avoid a permanent exclusion. They describe how the child doesn’t organise him/herself to be in the right place at the right time, especially where there are timetable or room variations. One young person can’t stay in segregation for the required time, another keeps gravitating towards school even though he should be staying away during a temporary exclusion.
Failure to comply with sanctions just means more and more sanctions and a longer and longer record of disciplinary breaches.
Many parents described how their child’s problems at school were quickly ascribed to problematic home lives, poor parenting or single motherhood. The majority of parents felt judged and often treated with condescension by schools. [Link]
Sometimes it’s possible to find a comprehensive explanation of various sanctions on the school’s website, but in other cases it’s hard to grasp the potential long term significance of pupils being kept out of certain lessons, especially when they might want to avoid these lessons anyway. (Before I looked into this, I thought that pupils who were struggling with particular subjects could only avoid certain lessons by skipping school.)
This Behaviour Policy explains that parking “refers to the procedure whereby a student is removed for disruptive behaviour from the class by the class teacher to a space within a Department where they can work. This strategy is managed by the Head of Department by rota. A parking rota is produced by the HOD detailing for teaching staff (including cover supervisors) where and when students are to be parked. The rota is to be visible for all staff in every classroom. The space in which the student works can be another classroom or facility where supervision can be given.”
This Behaviour Policy goes into considerable detail about parking:
If a range of strategies have been used with no effect, the student should be parked. [If a serious incident occurs, refer to incident chart]
Student should be parked with appropriate work and a 5 W’s sheet.
It may be necessary to call the Assistant DOL to park the student in an identified class.
Student should hand in work and 5 W’s to class teacher at end of lesson.
Teacher and student have a ‘learning conversation’ as soon as possible after the event. Class teacher applies appropriate sanction (e.g. detention) and makes sure they reconnect and repair situation before the next lesson. It is the responsibility of the class teacher to make this happen. However, support of TLC, Assistant DOL, Form Tutor, DoL, SLT, should be sought, depending on severity of incident.
Class teacher completes negative incident form online. If an incident occurs that requires immediate action, a paper incident form should be completed as soon as possible.
If a student has to be removed from ‘parking class’, the Behaviour for Learning Co-ordinator should be called. The student will then be taken to TLC, DOL or SLT depending on incident.
For students who persistently disrupt a lesson within a department, and are continually parked, then the TLC needs to speak with the student and put into practice intervention strategies. (see TLC Role)
N.B: There will be a timetable for parking on a whole school basis.
Parking should be proximal rather than departmental.”
In addition to “parking”, pupils might routinely spend time out of lessons segregated from other pupils. This could be for a short detention, or for the whole school day. There are various names for this such as “Support Base”, “Reflection Room”, “being placed in the retreat”, “Internal Seclusion Room”, “Isolation Room”, or the “Planning Room“.
This link sets out what pupil might do wrong and lists the consequences as follows:
Moved within class
Removed from class to discuss incident
30 minute detention
60 minute detention
One day in RR [Internal exclusion is called ‘Reflection Room’ or RR]
Extended day in RR
Fixed Period Exclusion
In addition to legal exclusion, there is what the National Autistic Society refers to as ‘grey areas of exclusion‘ :
Informal exclusion is where the school sends a child home “to cool off” or asks parents to pick the child up early. A school might also tell parents not to send the child in to school for a while. This is against the law.
‘Informal’ or ‘unofficial’ exclusions, such as sending pupils home ‘to cool off’, are unlawful, regardless of whether they occur with the agreement of parents or carers. Any exclusion of a pupil, even for short periods of time, must be formally recorded.
Government Exclusions Guidance 2012
Another type of illegal exclusion – also known as offrolling or coerced deregistration – is where the child keeps getting into trouble in the run-up to GCSEs and it can feel as though the school wants parents to snap and take the children out to home educate. (This is often when I become involved as parents ask me about home education.)
Schools do sometimes use part-time or reduced timetables. This is not illegal. However, Government advice on attendance published in October 2014 says this should only be short term and use very sparingly.
Can a school place a pupil on a part-time timetable?
As a rule, no. All pupils of compulsory school age are entitled to a full-time education. In very exceptional circumstances there may be a need for a temporary part-time timetable to meet a pupil’s individual needs. For example where a medical condition prevents a pupil from attending full-time education and a part-time timetable is considered as part of a re-integration package. A part-time timetable must not be treated as a long-term solution. Any pastoral support programme or other agreement must have a time limit by
which point the pupil is expected to attend full-time or be provided with alternative provision.
In agreeing to a part-time timetable a school has agreed to a pupil being absent from school for part of the week or day and therefore must record it as authorised absence.
Government Advice on Attendance 2014
Alternatively, schools might arrange a managed move. This can be presented as a fresh start where a pupil might be at a different school for a shorter or longer time. (Schools trying to avoid permanent exclusions do tend to make more use of managed moves, and I will be blogging about this shortly.)
A pupil can also transfer to another school as part of a ‘managed move’ where this occurs with the consent of the parties involved, including the parents. However, the threat of exclusion must never be used to influence parents to remove their child from the school.
Government Exclusions Guidance 2012
Children’s Commissioner on Illegal Exclusions
6.7 per cent of schools have sent children home for disciplinary reasons without recording it as an exclusion; if these were evenly spread across the country, it would represent 1600 schools, or to put it into context, an average of ten schools in every local authority area
2.7 per cent of schools have sent children with statements of SEN home when their carer, classroom support or teaching assistant is unavailable; if these were evenly spread across the country, it would represent 650 schools, or an average of more than four schools in every local authority
2.1 per cent of schools have recorded pupils as authorised absent or educated elsewhere when the school has in fact encouraged them not to come into school; if these were evenly spread across the country, it would represent approximately 540 schools, or an average of more than three in every local authority
1.8 per cent of schools have encouraged parents to take their children out of school and educate them at home without recording it as an exclusion; if these were evenly spread across the country, it would represent 192 schools, or an average of more than one in every local authority
Parents Guide to School Exclusion
Always Someone Else’s Problem. Children’s Commissioner Report on Illegal Exclusion 2013
GOV.UK: “Permanent exclusion means your child is expelled” https://www.gov.uk/school-discipline-exclusions/exclusions
Fixed Period Exclusion
GOV.UK: “A fixed period exclusion is where your child is temporarily removed [suspended] from school” https://www.gov.uk/school-discipline-exclusions/exclusions
2012 Exclusions Guidance
Exclusions Statistics 2013-14 published July 2015
My website page on exclusions | <urn:uuid:9960afd1-5c48-4ef4-aa83-d45c7c26fe98> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://edyourself.wordpress.com/2015/09/02/parents-guide-to-internal-exclusions-england/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371606067.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20200405150416-20200405180916-00474.warc.gz | en | 0.956902 | 2,101 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Navassa Island seen from the International Space Station
|Area||5.4 km2 (2.1 sq mi)|
|Length||4.7 km (2.92 mi)|
|Width||2.1 km (1.3 mi)|
|Coastline||8.96 km (5.567 mi)|
Navassa Island (//; French: l'île de la Navasse; also La Navasse, La Navase) is a small uninhabited island in the Caribbean Sea. Located northeast of Jamaica, south of Cuba, 40 nautical miles (74 km; 46 mi) west of Jérémie on the south west peninsula of Haiti, the island is subject to an ongoing territorial dispute between Haiti and the United States, which administers the island through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The U.S. has claimed the island since 1857, based on the Guano Islands Act of 1856. Haiti's claim over Navassa goes back to the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 that established French possessions in mainland Hispaniola, that were transferred from Spain by the treaty. As well as the western half of the main island and certain other specifically named nearby islands, Haiti's 1801 constitution also claimed "other adjacent (but unnamed) islands". Navassa was not one of the named islands. Since its 1874 Constitution, and after the establishment of the 1857 U.S. claim, Haiti has explicitly named "la Navase" as one of the territories it claims.
Geography, topography and ecology
Navassa Island is about 2 square miles (5.2 km2) in area. It is located 35 miles (56 km) west of Haiti's southwest peninsula, 103 miles (166 km) south of the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and about one-quarter of the way from mainland Haiti to Jamaica in the Jamaica Channel.
Navassa reaches an elevation of 250 feet (76 m) at Dunning Hill 110 yards (100 m) south of the lighthouse, Navassa Island Light. This location is 440 yards (400 m) from the southwestern coast or 655 yards (600 m) east of Lulu Bay.
The terrain of Navassa Island consists mostly of exposed coral and limestone, the island being ringed by vertical white cliffs 30 to 50 feet (9.1 to 15.2 m) high, but with enough grassland to support goat herds. The island is covered in a forest of four tree species: short-leaf fig (Ficus populnea var. brevifolia), pigeon plum (Coccoloba diversifolia), mastic (Sideroxylon foetidissimum), and poisonwood (Metopium brownei).
Navassa Island's topography, ecology, and modern history are similar to that of Mona Island, a small limestone island located in the Mona Passage between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, which were once centers of guano mining, and are nature reserves for the United States. Transient Haitian fishermen and others camp on the island but the island is otherwise uninhabited. It has no ports or harbors, only offshore anchorages, and its only natural resource is guano. Economic activity consists of subsistence fishing and commercial trawling activities.
There were eight species of native reptiles, all of which are believed to be, or to have been, endemic to Navassa Island: Celestus badius (an anguid lizard), Aristelliger cochranae (a gecko), Sphaerodactylus becki (a gecko), Anolis longiceps (an anole), Cyclura (cornuta) onchiopsis (a rock iguana), Leiocephalus eremitus (a curly-tailed lizard), Tropidophis bucculentus (a dwarf boa), and Typhlops sulcatus (a tiny snake). Of these the first four remain common with the last four likely extinct. Feral cats, dogs and pigs currently inhabit the island.
1504 to 1901
In 1504, Christopher Columbus, stranded on Jamaica during his fourth voyage, sent some crew members by canoe to Hispaniola for help. They ran into the island on the way, but it had no water. They called it Navaza (from "nava-" meaning plain, or field), and it was avoided by mariners for the next 350 years.
From 1801 to 1867 the successive constitutions of Haiti claimed national sovereignty over adjacent islands, both named and unnamed, although Navassa was not specifically enumerated until 1874. Navassa Island was also claimed for the United States on September 19, 1857 by Peter Duncan, an American sea captain, under the Guano Islands Act of 1856, for the rich guano deposits found on the island, and for not being within the lawful jurisdiction of any other government, nor occupied by another government's citizens.
Haiti protested the annexation, but on July 7, 1858, U.S. President James Buchanan issued an Executive Order upholding the American claim, which also called for military action to enforce it. Navassa Island has since been maintained by the United States as an unincorporated territory (according to the Insular Cases). The United States Supreme Court on November 24, 1890, in Jones v. United States, 137 U.S. 202 (1890) Id. at 224 found that Navassa Island must be considered as appertaining to the United States, creating a legal history for the island under US law unlike many other islands originally claimed under the Guano Islands Act. As listed in its 1987 constitution, Haiti maintains its claim to the island.
Guano phosphate is a superior organic fertilizer that became a mainstay of American agriculture in the mid-19th century. Duncan transferred his discoverer's rights to his employer, an American guano trader in Jamaica, who sold them to the newly formed Navassa Phosphate Company of Baltimore. After an interruption for the American Civil War, the company built larger mining facilities on Navassa with barrack housing for 140 black contract laborers from Maryland, houses for white supervisors, a blacksmith shop, warehouses, and a church.
Mining began in 1865. The workers dug out the guano by dynamite and pick-axe and hauled it in rail cars to the landing point at Lulu Bay, where it was put into sacks and lowered onto boats for transfer to the Company barque, the S.S. Romance. The living quarters at Lulu Bay were called Lulu Town, as appears on old maps. Railway tracks eventually extended inland.
Hauling guano by muscle-power in the fierce tropical heat, combined with general disgruntlement with conditions on the island, eventually provoked a rebellion in 1889, in which five supervisors died. A U.S. warship returned eighteen of the workers to Baltimore for three separate trials on murder charges. A black fraternal society, the Order of Galilean Fisherman, raised money to defend the miners in federal court, and the defense built its case on the contention that the men acted in self-defense or in the heat of passion, and that the United States did not have jurisdiction over the island. E. J. Waring, the first black lawyer to pass the Maryland bar, was a part of the defense's legal team.
The cases, including Jones v. United States, 137 U.S. 202 (1890) went to the U.S. Supreme Court in October 1890, which ruled the Guano Act constitutional, and three of the miners were scheduled for execution in the spring of 1891. A grass-roots petition driven by black churches around the country, also signed by white jurors from the three trials, reached President Benjamin Harrison, who commuted the sentences to imprisonment and mentioned the case in a State of the Union Address. Guano mining resumed on Navassa at a much reduced level. The Spanish–American War of 1898 forced the Phosphate Company to evacuate the island and file for bankruptcy, and the new owners abandoned the island after 1901.
1901 to present
Navassa became significant again with the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914. Shipping between the American eastern seaboard and the Canal goes through the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti. Navassa, a hazard to navigation, needed a lighthouse. The U.S. Lighthouse Service built Navassa Island Light, a 162-foot (49-meter) tower on the island in 1917, 395 feet (120 meters) above sea level. A keeper and two assistants were assigned to live there until the Lighthouse Service installed an automatic beacon in 1929.
After absorbing the Lighthouse Service in 1939, the U.S. Coast Guard serviced the light twice each year. The U.S. Navy set up an observation post for the duration of World War II. The island has been uninhabited since then. Fishermen, mainly from Haiti, fish the waters around Navassa.
A scientific expedition from Harvard University studied the land and marine life of the island in 1930. After World War II amateur radio operators occasionally visited to operate from the territory, which is accorded "entity" (country) status by the American Radio Relay League. The callsign prefix is KP1. From 1903 to 1917, Navassa was a dependency of the U.S. Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, and from 1917 to 1996 it was under United States Coast Guard administration.
In 1996 the Coast Guard dismantled the light on Navassa, which ended its interest in the island. Consequently, the Department of the Interior assumed responsibility for the civil administration of the area, and placed the island under its Office of Insular Affairs. For statistical purposes, Navassa was grouped with the now-obsolete term United States Miscellaneous Caribbean Islands and is now grouped with other islands claimed by the U.S. under the Guano Islands Act as the United States Minor Outlying Islands.
In 1997 an American salvager made a claim to Navassa to the Department of State based on the Guano Islands Act. On March 27, 1997, the Department of the Interior rejected the claim on the basis that the Guano Islands Act applies only to islands which, at the time of the claim, are not "appertaining to" the United States. The department's opinion said that Navassa is and remains a U.S. possession "appertaining to" the United States and is "unavailable to be claimed" under the Guano Islands Act.
A 1998 scientific expedition led by the Center for Marine Conservation in Washington, D.C., described Navassa as "a unique preserve of Caribbean biodiversity." The island's land and offshore ecosystems have survived the 20th century virtually untouched.
In September 1999, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service established the Navassa Island National Wildlife Refuge, which encompasses 1,344 acres (5.44 km2) of land and a 12 nautical mile (22.2 km) radius of marine habitat around the island. Later that year, full administrative responsibility for Navassa was transferred from the Office of Insular Affairs to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Due to hazardous coastal conditions, and for preservation of species habitat, the refuge is closed to the general public. Visitors need permission from the Fish and Wildlife Office in Boquerón, Puerto Rico, to enter its territorial waters or land.[failed verification]
Since it became a National Wildlife Refuge, amateur radio operators have repeatedly been denied entry. In October 2014 permission was granted for a two-week DX-pedition in February 2015. The operation made 138,409 contacts.
- "GAO/OGC-98-5 - U.S. Insular Areas: Application of the U.S. Constitution". U.S. Government Printing Office. November 7, 1997. Archived from the original on September 27, 2013. Retrieved March 23, 2013.
- "Navassa Island: The U.S.'s 160-year Forgotten Tragedy | History News Network". historynewsnetwork.org. Retrieved May 14, 2019.
- Spadi, Fabio. "NAVASSA: LEGAL NIGHTMARES IN A BIOLOGICAL HEAVEN?". IBRU Boundary and Security Bulletin, Autumn 2001. p. 116. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved November 22, 2017.
- Constitution de 1874. Port-au-Prince: Haiti.
- An America Territory in Haiti, Posted September 29, 2011, CNN iReport
- Serge Bellegarde (October 1998). "Navassa Island: Haiti and the U.S. – A Matter of History and Geography". windowsonhaiti.com. Archived from the original on October 29, 2007. Retrieved February 6, 2008.
- Rohter, Larry (October 19, 1998). "Whose Rock Is It? And, Yes, the Haitians Care". The New York Times. Retrieved September 16, 2019.
- Ewan W. Anderson (January 27, 2014). Global Geopolitical Flashpoints: An Atlas of Conflict. Taylor & Francis. pp. 277–. ISBN 978-1-135-94101-7.
- Steven Latta; Christopher Rimmer; Allan Keith; James Wiley; Herbert A. Raffaele, Kent McFarland, Eladio Fernandez (April 23, 2010). Birds of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Princeton University Press. pp. 9–. ISBN 1-4008-3410-4.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
- CoRIS - NOAA's coral reef information system. "Navassa Island". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Archived from the original on November 2, 2012. Retrieved November 16, 2012.
- "Wildlife & Habitat—Navassa Island". US Fish & Wildlife Service. September 7, 2017. Retrieved September 16, 2019.
- "Navassa Island". The World Factbook. Central Intellenge Agency. September 10, 2019. Archived from the original on July 26, 2019. Retrieved September 16, 2019.
- Powell, Robert (2003). Reptiles of Navassa Island. Avila University.
- "Archived copy". Archived from the original on October 19, 2017. Retrieved July 20, 2017.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Strangest island in the Caribbean may be a sanctuary for critically endangered coral. Julian Smith. 16 July 2012. Retrieved 11 January 2018.
- Brennen Jensen (March 21, 2001). "Poop Dreams". Baltimore City Paper. Archived from the original on October 25, 2012. Retrieved November 16, 2012.
- John Pike. "Navassa Island Incident 1889-1891". GlobalSecurity.org. Archived from the original on November 2, 2012. Retrieved November 16, 2012.
- "The History Of American Imperialism, From Bloody Conquest To Bird Poop". NPR.org. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- Russ Rowlett (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). "'Navassa Island Lighthouse'". The Lighthouse Directory. Archived from the original on November 20, 2012. Retrieved November 17, 2012.
- Joe Phillips (November 2, 2005). "'Ohio DXers Denied Descheo Island (KP5) Landing Permit'". The ARRL Letter Vol 24 No 06. Archived from the original on January 5, 2013. Retrieved November 17, 2012.
- "Navassa Island". Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior. Archived from the original on August 15, 2016. Retrieved March 3, 2018.
- "Warren v. United States". Archived from the original on May 17, 2010.
- "Scientists Give Glowing Report of Untouched Island". Archived from the original on January 4, 2010.
- US Geological Survey(August 2000). "Navassa Island: A Photographic Tour (1998–1999)". US Geological Survey. Archived from the original on November 19, 2012. Retrieved November 18, 2012.
- "KP1-5 Project Gets Permission to Activate Navassa Island (KP1) in January 2015". ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio. October 22, 2014. Archived from the original on October 19, 2015. Retrieved March 31, 2016.
- "K1N Navassa Island DXpedition is Ham Radio History". www.arrl.org. Archived from the original on November 15, 2017.
- The Navassa Island Riot. Illustrated. Published by the National Grand Tabernacle, Order of Galillean Fishermen, Baltimore, Md.
- Fabio Spadi (2001). "Navassa: Legal Nightmares in a Biological Heaven?". IBRU Boundary & Security Bulletin. | <urn:uuid:2ad0e879-9127-4706-adee-5783ad63bb86> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.wikiyy.com/en/Navassa_Island | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370519111.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20200404011558-20200404041558-00194.warc.gz | en | 0.919272 | 3,522 | 3.421875 | 3 |
Arbitration mainly deals with labour and contractual disputes. Even so, in today’s day and age, numerous grievances, especially in the work place involve settlement of disputes through mediation. One of the earliest and most widely known example of grievance mediation would be the United Mine Workers of America in the bituminous coal industry, which laid down the steps of procedure to resolve work related grievances between employer and employees using mediation. In this model the mediator facilitated the discussion among parties as an advisory opinion. If the dispute could still not be settled, the matter was then referred to arbitration. Later, matters involving discipline, discharge, and discrimination were resolved using grievance mediation by The Washington Education Association in cooperation with the Washington State School Directors’ Association through the methods of grievance mediation. As the other grievance mediation programs described, the mediator would challenge both parties, plant some doubts and encourage each side to modify their respective positions to what is most suitable by their opponents. Finally, mediation was used in California Public School Systems and their unions wherein California State Mediation and Conciliation service, a state agency would be responsible for mediation of work contracts.
In the state of Ohio, collective bargaining contracts protect workers from sexual harassment through anti-discrimination clauses. In addition to these clauses, employers implement policies which prohibit sexual harassment and enforce rules and policies which cause grievances at work place. In the case of a union, most sexual harassment grievances arise as a result of discipline or discharge of the harasser, rather than that of a grievance filed by the victim itself. Generally, the purpose of this collective bargaining agreement is to provide every employee with a “just cause”. The just cause rule further creates a final binding grievance arbitration award if the worker disagrees with the discipline imposed for his actions.
According to Fordham Law Review, mediation works especially well because of its flexibility and it allows the parties to look into issues sensitively. Since the mediation process is ultimately guided by the factual concerns of the parties, it is seen as a responsive and appropriate method for resolving disputes involving either quid pro quo or hostile environment as is in cases of sexual harassment.
The choice of forum for the sexual harassment case is critical to its outcome. In arbitration, the employer usually has an edge over the victim whereas, the victim tends to be more successful in a trial where she presents her case to a jury. In contrast, mediation is a forum without a predisposition to either party. In a recent study, 77% of the claimants who mediated their disputes were satisfied with the process, compared with only 45% of those whose disputes went into arbitration. This model works extremely well incase of sexual harassment disputes in work environment. This is so in cases that arise from a misunderstanding or where the unwelcome behavior results more from the habits and outlook of the harasser than from selfish or malicious motives. For example, for when a male supervisor who constantly tells women that they are “too beautiful to work so hard” may actually believe that these remarks are complementary. He would perhaps stop if told how derogatory such remarks really are as he would not want his reputation to be tarnished at work. In such situation, a four phase model is suggested by the mediator which allows parties to meet and discuss their own feelings and views in order to educated the parties and restore their professional working relationship. This mechanism also helps the victim to achieve the “I want it to stop” goal. In the four phase model, the community boards train volunteer mediators to specifically learn to resolve community disputes with the purpose of maintaining mediating relationships at the end of the mediation process. In the first two phases the mediators may decide to caucus separately with the respective parties by 1) Asking one party to tell their perspective and 2) Prompting the appropriate response from the other. Once the mediators see that some consensus has been arrived at by the parties, they help the parties acknowledge their new understandings during the third phase of the process that acts like a transition to the last phase where the parties will work out the solution of their issues by reaching a reasonable resolution for the same. It is important to note that a mediator only plays a role of helping the parties to stay focused on their issues so that they can eliminate any possible power plays among parties.
Another model for mediating sexual harassment disputes is the ‘settlement conference model’ that works best if the problem is not reversible but can be contained. This happens in situations where party positions are polarized and a face to face resolution is not possible. This model is also shown to be helpful when investigation reveals harassment has occurred but the harasser still denies the wrongful conduct and threatens a counter charge. At this juncture, an effective mediator using subtle diplomacy may be able to provide a reality check for the parties and bring them to a resolution short of counter law suits. Even in cases of severe sexual harassment, the settlement conference model may still constitute a viable alternative for employers. Transfers or terminations reached via mediation are likely to be more acceptable to the harasser. Further, agreements arrived at through the mediation process can become contractual in nature and therefore binding on the parties (even though they were entered into voluntarily), thus preventing the harasser from bringing a counter suit against the employer for wrongful termination.
Additionally, mediation has several benefits over the litigation process. Litigation does not fulfill the complainants desire to avoid further trauma. It does not allow him or her to continue their job as suing one’s employer makes it difficult to continue working in the same place. Confidentiality cannot be accepted out of a court trial and thus an accuser wishes may be made into a public record that will likely cost the reputation of the employers as well as the company. Moreover, litigation fails to meet the needs of the employer whose first consideration is cost. Litigation procedure makes it an expensive affair compared to the process of Mediation. Once the parties have faced each other in court, the professional working relationship may get destroyed, and the employer is likely to lose one or both employees. In addition, those left in workplace will likely take sides, thus causing productivity and atmosphere problems for the remaining work force. The Mediation process allows the victim to air frustrations and develop a remedy that will allow him or her to feel comfortable at work again, if they wish to continue. Such remedies may not be available in litigation. The employer can further provide financial benefits to the victim in addition to the compensation. For example, the employer can agree to reinstate the complainant or give guarantee and recommendation in attaining a better job after resignation from the accused company. Furthermore, mediation can also meet the accused’s objective. The accused will get an opportunity to clarify his or her side of the story in case of a false accusation. The confidentiality of the proceedings will allow him or her to reach consensus without public disparagement, so that exoneration without public disclosure of the charges becomes possible.
In India, sexual harassment is recognized as a form of gender discrimination which violates the women’s fundamental rights under article 14,15 and 21 of the constitution. The POSH Act (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal), was enacted by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in 2013 to address the issue of workplace sexual harassment. That year also witnessed the promulgation of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 which has criminalized offences such as sexual harassment, stalking and voyeurism. It is imperative to note that under the penal code in India, sexual harassment is seen as a women centric complaint in contrast to how sexual harassment is seen in other countries in the west.
Furthermore, most government companies are expected to follow the rules laid down by the Vishakha Guidelines against sexual harassment at work place. Under the POSH Act, an employer is legally required to comply with certain statutory requirements, one such requirement being setting up of an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) to receive complaints on sexual harassment at the workplace from an aggrieved woman, as well as to enquire into making of recommendations to the employer regarding action to be taken. This ad hoc body is the body that pre-looks the harassment case before sending it further for criminal proceedings. Before initiating action on a complaint, the IC on the request of the aggrieved woman can make recommendations to settle the matter through conciliation by bringing about amicable settlement. Conciliation is suggested as it is an informal method of resolving complaints before it escalates into a formal enquiry. Thus, once a complaint of sexual harassment has been lodged, the aggrieved woman can request the IC to resolve the matter through conciliation between the concerned party before commencement of the enquiry proceedings take place. Post settlement, the IC or the LCC (Local Complaints Committee) shall record the settlement arrived at and thereafter provide copies of the consensus to the aggrieved woman as well as the respondent. Once a settlement has been arrived at, the IC/LCC shall proceed with an enquiry. The POSH act also provides with interim relief. In case the complainant wants the harasser to be punished and wants compensation, the complainant can request the conciliator to suggest them to an appeal court or a tribunal court. The only way this is possible in India is because there are provisions through conciliation which requires a legal statute in contrast to a mediation which is entirely dependent on the parties as well as the mediator’s discretion. The mediation also gives the accused a fair trial, that could be biased towards the complainant which is detrimental in a country like India where women are already facing a plethora of issues when it comes to sexual offences.
Mori Ervin, Mediation: Is It Appropriate For Sexual Harassment Grievances? (OHIO STATE JOURNAL ON DISPUTE RESOLUTION 1993) <https://kb.osu.edu/bitstream/handle/1811/79867/1/OSJDR_V9N1_027.pdf> accessed 17 August 2019.
Carrie A. Bond, Shattering The Myth: Mediating Sexual Harassment Disputes In The Workplace (6th edn, Fortham Law Review 1997) <https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3375&context=flr> accessed 19 August 2019.
Eizabeth Wittenburry, ‘Sexual Harassment Claims: When Can Mediation Work?’ (mediate.com, 2019) <https://www.mediate.com/articles/whittenburyE> accessed 19 August 2019.
‘India’S Law On Prevention Of Sexual Harassment At The Workplace’ (Nishit Desai.com, 2018) <http://www.nishithdesai.com/fileadmin/user_upload/pdfs/Research%20Papers/Prevention_of_Sexual_Harassment_at_Workplace.pdf> accessed 20 August 2019.
Ashni Roy and Davis kanjawala, ‘India: Constitution Of ICC Under The POSH Act’ (Mondaq.com, 2019) <http://www.mondaq.com/india/x/776002/Discrimination+Disability+Sexual+Harassment/Constitution+Of+ICC+Under+The+POSH+Act> accessed 20 August 2019. | <urn:uuid:9fc59de7-a7b6-473b-b6b5-ebff6ad046b1> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | http://mappingadr.in/mediation-for-settlement-of-sexual-harrassment-disputes-by-adrija-bhowal/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370506673.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20200402045741-20200402075741-00035.warc.gz | en | 0.948903 | 2,318 | 3.34375 | 3 |
By Mike Aucott
The idea of putting a broadly-applied price on carbon dioxide emissions from combustion of fossil fuels from all major sectors of the U.S. economy is gaining traction. Several national organizations are actively supporting a carbon tax, including Citizens’ Climate Lobby, the Climate Leadership Council, the Carbon Tax Center, and PUTAPRICEONIT.
A number of nations and other jurisdictions already have some form of carbon pricing. A group of Princeton University students, the Princeton Student Climate Initiative, is exploring ways to strengthen New Jersey’s effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions, including development of a state-level carbon tax.
While state-level programs to price carbon could be effective, carbon pricing approaches will be more effective if they are national and, ideally, international in scope.
Very recently, a bipartisan group of Representatives and Senators in the U.S. Congress introduced H.R. 7173 (and a companion Senate bill), the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (2018) in the last Congress. This bill put a price on fossil fuels based on the carbon dioxide their combustion would emit at the point where these fossil fuels enter the economy, starting at $15 per ton and increasing by $10 per year. The fee was linked to scheduled reductions expressed in the bill. These reductions reach 85% below the 2015 level by 2050. Clearly, the fee on carbon has to rise to the level where it begins to bite into carbon emissions. The idea is to start at a low level and increase it every year. There is little or no certainty on the trajectory of the interplay between a carbon fee and a given level of emissions reduction. For this reason, the proposed bill includes yearly monitoring of actual reductions vs. goals. If the goals aren’t being met, the fee goes up by $15 per ton in the next year.
The fees collected are returned to households, making the bill essentially revenue-neutral. Several studies have shown that the bottom two-thirds of the income distribution, on average, actually benefit from such a revenue-neutral approach that returns the collected fees (less administrative costs) to households. Low- and moderate-income people are likely to get more back in dividends than they spend on increased costs of carbon-containing fuels (Horowitz 2017; Nystrom 2014; Ummel 2016).
The bill’s sponsors plan to reintroduce it in 2019. Regardless of the bill’s ultimate success, clearly the concept of pricing carbon has transcended the hypothetical and is now part of the national discussion.
Why support a price on carbon? There are two obvious major reasons:
First, none of the efforts so far to limit the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have worked. There have been gradual improvements in energy efficiency and carbon intensity of industry and U.S. carbon dioxide emissions are lower today than they were in 2006. Unfortunately, these emissions rose again in 2018 (Plumer 2019). Humanity continues to dump carbon dioxide freely into the atmosphere, and the levels are building. We are unlikely to solve the immensely difficult problem without some form of carbon pricing, so let’s get on with it!
Second, of the various methods under consideration to cut back these emissions, a carbon tax is the simplest, fairest and most direct in that it would apply to all sources of carbon emissions.
Some of the reasons why this is so are listed below: (Much of this material has been adapted from essays available from the Carbon Tax Center and from the book, The Case for a Carbon Tax, by Shi-Ling Hsu, 2011.)
Some reasons why a carbon tax is the best approach
1) A carbon tax is more economically efficient than other approaches.
Other approaches include cap-and-trade (establishing an overall carbon emissions cap and emissions allowances, portions of the total allowed emission, that can be traded), and command-and-control (limiting carbon emissions from specific emission sources). Each of these two would target and control emissions from a subset of all emitting sources. A third approach, subsidies, would target for encouragement specific technologies or industries. Proponents of these other approaches often seem to believe that these approaches would not impose costs on anyone but the entities directly regulated. But in the long run, it is inevitable that virtually all of the costs of other approaches to cut carbon emissions will be passed on to consumers. However, because the imposition of costs would be selective, the course of the passing on of the costs could be torturous and rife with possibilities for poor investments and corruption.
But a carbon tax, levied on all fuels based on their carbon content, and ideally, including methane as well, would affect all processes and products that are made with the combustion of fossil fuels. It would send a clear and uniform price signal to a vast variety of carbon dioxide-emitting sources.
An important aspect of economic efficiency is the avoidance of excessive formation of capital that can become “stranded.” Because the price signal from a steadily increasing tax would start small, and build over time, it should offer a clear picture to would-be investors of whether an approach would pay off. Excessive capital asset formation is a risk when the government picks winners by subsidizing certain industries. For example, recently, before the poor net energy of ethanol produced from corn was widely understood, ethanol production enjoyed large subsidies. A number of ethanol production plants were built that today appear likely to have a poor economic future. If these plants become of little value, they will be stranded assets; capital that is lost to the economic system.
Because it would send a direct and immediate price signal to all users of fossil fuels, a carbon tax is less likely than other approaches to lead to stranded assets.
2) A carbon tax would not interfere with other regulatory instruments or jurisdictions.
Besides the other major types of carbon control that have been tried, as discussed above, additional methods of cutting carbon emissions and developing renewable sources of energy are likely to be developed.
A carbon tax could co-exist with these other approaches without causing conflicts or confusions.
3) A carbon tax would be relatively easy to administer.
Levying a tax is something that governments have traditionally done. Administrative agencies are already in place that collect taxes. Taxation processes could be adapted to include a tax on the carbon content of fuels, and should include a tax, weighted by global warming potential, on direct releases of unburned fuel (e.g. methane leaks, oil spills) to the environment. Implementing a carbon tax would essentially require only the setting of tax levels and establishment of a phase-in schedule.
4) A carbon tax will encourage innovation across all sectors of the economy.
As discussed above, a carbon tax will send a steady and predictable price signal to all users of fossil fuels. Every user will have an incentive to cut carbon emissions by becoming more efficient in use of these fuels.
The power of the market to stimulate innovation will apply not just to a few large regulated entities, such as would be the case with a cap-and-trade program and with a command-and-control system, but to all users of fossil fuels.
5) A carbon tax appears more amenable to international coordination than other pricing mechanisms.
. So far, efforts at such coordination have been stymied by opposing positions of important nations. For example, China and India have balked at the idea of establishing a cap on carbon emissions that would apply to them. But, there seems no reason why they might not impose carbon taxes of their own. Another aspect of international coordination that could be problematic is the incentive to nations without carbon pricing to become “free riders.” If, for example, goods manufactured in the U.S. rise in cost because fuel costs increase due to a carbon tax (or other carbon pricing mechanism), goods produced in countries that do not have such a tax could enjoy a competitive advantage. However, such inequalities could be adjusted with border tax adjustments. Although legal thinking is still evolving on the issue, it appears that such adjustments, e.g., fees levied on imports from nations without a carbon tax, would be legal under the rules of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs. Also, adjustments based on a carbon tax appear much more likely to be acceptable under World Trade Organization than adjustments based on a cap-and-trade program (Hsu 2011).
6) A carbon tax will raise revenue.
(This is also true with a cap-and-trade program that auctions its allowances, with the important difference that fluctuations in the prices of cap-and-trade allowances make it impossible to predict, and count on, those revenues.)
This revenue could be used to offset other taxes, such as payroll taxes, or could be refunded directly in some manner, and thus could make a carbon tax system revenue-neutral. Much of the recent support of a carbon tax has focused on a revenue-neutral approach. And with a fully refunded fee, the revenue-raising aspect is irrelevant. The recently introduced Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (see above) would set up a revenue-neutral program by returning fees collected directly to households.
Given the palpable need for reform of the current tax code, a carbon tax could be the centerpiece of a new approach to taxation that would have many advantages over the current system. If revenue neutrality was not insisted upon, some of the revenues of a carbon tax could be used for other purposes, such as reducing budget deficits, subsidizing research and development of low-carbon and renewable energy sources, and developing capabilities to adapt to climate change.
What about the cost of a carbon tax?
Despite the arguments of proponents of cap-and-trade, command-and control, and subsidy programs that these approaches would affect only the regulated, or supported, entities, it is certain that virtually all of the costs would eventually be passed on to consumers in some form, such as in higher electricity rates. Subsidy programs are not immune; the money spent has to come from somewhere. But, especially at the outset, costs of these other approaches are not as apparent, and can be hidden or disguised enough to make them seem innocuous.
A carbon tax, however, is up front and unmistakable. Yes, it is a cost. Yes, it will raise the price of gas, of heating oil, of food, of products and processes that are made with or otherwise involved with the combustion of fossil fuels, which includes just about everything in the 21stcentury industrialized world.
Yet this apparent weakness of a carbon tax is its fundamental strength.
A carbon tax will put a price on carbon that is readily apparent and will propagate to every corner of the fossil fuel-using system. Unfortunately, the directness of a carbon tax plays into the naiveté and reactive aspects of human nature, and often stimulates knee-jerk negative reactions.
For example, carbon taxes are typically and summarily branded as “regressive.” In fact any tax on consumption of essentials is capable of being regressive, because people with lesser incomes usually spend comparatively more of their money on essentials than the wealthy. Payroll taxes, for example, are regressive. Property taxes and sales taxes are regressive. The regressive aspect of sales taxes is ameliorated to a degree by the exemptions of food and clothing. It is by no means clear that a carbon tax would be more regressive than other ways of controlling carbon emissions. And, there are many ways of minimizing the effects of a carbon tax on those least able to pay for it, for example, by a flat distribution of pro-rata shares of the revenue to households, as proposed in the above-mentioned Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act.
It must be stressed that the cost of a carbon tax is a cost on a pollutant that is already on its way to imposing a huge cost on all of humanity: the cost of potentially catastrophic climate change that cannot be remediated.
The costs of a carbon tax can be avoided by conserving fuel use and by developing ways to produce energy without using fossil fuels.
A carbon tax, more so than other approaches of controlling carbon emissions because of its directness and broadness, can unleash the innovative forces of the market. And, to the extent that the costs of a carbon tax are avoided through greater energy efficiency and through the development of low- and zero-carbon energy sources, the threat of irreversible climate change will be lessened.
Recommendation 27: New Jersey residents, like those in other states, should primarily focus on building political will for a steadily-increasing, revenue-neutral carbon fee and dividend program. Focusing only on state-level actions is too narrow.
While residents of New Jersey can be proud of what the State has done so far to boost the development of renewable power sources, to conserve energy, and to limit carbon dioxide emissions through programs such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, it is clear that national and international efforts are necessary.
A push by State residents and the New Jersey Congressional delegation could help enact strong national legislation that would implement a price on carbon. People could start this push by carefully reviewing the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act so that they are in a position to provide useful input, perhaps including strong support, when this bill is reintroduced in 2019.
Editor’s note: We’re so happy to welcome Mike to this Series. As mentioned in an End Note in Part 1, he was one of the earliest to urge action on climate change in New Jersey, going back a long time. We remind readers, as also mentioned in Part 1, not all contributors necessarily agree with each other on everything. But all ideas need to be credible and meet the test of the Series: “What We’re Not Hearing at New Jersey Climate Change Forums.” (Matt Polsky)
Citizens’ Climate Lobby, https://citizensclimatelobby.org accessed 12/23/18
Climate Leadership Council, https://www.clcouncil.org accessed 12/23/18
Carbon Tax Center, https://www.carbontax.org accessed 12/23/18
#PUTAPRICEONIT, https://theclimatesolution.com accessed 12/23/18
Princeton Student Climate Initiative, https://psci.princeton.edu/ accessed 12/23/18
A significant portion of emissions reductions are due to the shifting of many power plants’ fuel from coal to natural gas, which releases less carbon to produce a given amount of energy. Of course, natural gas is a fossil fuel, and building in infrastructure such as more pipeline capacity that will encourage its use far into the future could seriously hamper or nullify efforts to move to low- and zero-carbon sources.
Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. (2018) https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/7173 accessed 12/23/18
Horowitz, John, Julie-Anne Cronin, Hannah Hawkins, Laura Konda, and Alex Yuskavage. (2017) Methodology for Analyzing a Carbon Tax. Office of Tax Analysis Working Paper 115. U.S. Department of the Treasury. Washington, DC. https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/tax-analysis/Documents/WP-115.pdf accessed 1/5/2019
Hsu, Shi-Ling. (2011) The Case for a Carbon Tax. Island Press. Washington, D.C.
Nystrom, Scott and Patrick Luckow. (2014) The Economic, Climate, Fiscal, Power, and Demographic Impact of a National Fee-and-Dividend Carbon Tax. Regional Economic Models, Inc., Washington, DC and Synapse Energy Economics, Inc., Cambridge, MA, https://citizensclimatelobby.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/REMI-carbon-tax-report-62141.pdf accessed 1/5/2019
Plumer, Brad (2019 January 8) U.S. Carbon Emissions Surged in 2018 Even as Coal Plants Closed. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/climate/greenhouse-gas-emissions-increase.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Climate%20and%20Environment accessed 1/16/19
Ummel, Kevin. (2016) Impact of CCL’s Proposed Carbon Fee and Dividend Policy: A High-resolution Analysis of the Financial Effect on U.S. Households. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). https://11bup83sxdss1xze1i3lpol4-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Household-Impact-Study-Ummel.pdf accessed 1/5/2019 | <urn:uuid:24eeb54e-b725-4f64-a32d-6139edea225b> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://greeneconomynj.org/2019/01/20/new-jersey-now-gets-climate-change-what-we-are-still-missing-focus-state-support-for-a-carbon-tax-at-the-federal-level-part-5/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371618784.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20200406035448-20200406065948-00235.warc.gz | en | 0.94472 | 3,499 | 3.015625 | 3 |
5 Top Tips for Helping Your Child Learn to Read
by Lydia Cockburn | 8 March 2019
Why is it that learning to read is a walk in the park for some children, but a nightmare for others?
You might do everything the teacher tells you, getting your daily reading practice in without fail, but find you are seeing less and less progress. Meanwhile your friend’s child of the same age, at the same school, doing the same things is clearly surging ahead.
This is not about being a competitive parent! It’s about being sure your child is going to be okay.
Evidently, different strategies are required for different learners, leading to a lot of conflicting advice being put out there for parents. There are, however, some universal truths about what will accelerate the process of helping your child to read, regardless of circumstance.
For that reason, my 5 Top Tips presented below are quite general, but they are crucial. If one of them is neglected, you could find yourself heading down a difficult path. Follow them, and you will find the process becoming a whole lot easier.
1. Teach them to decode words, instead of using sight-recognition
Let’s make this one clear from the start. Although different children benefit from different strategies for learning to read, the goal is the same: being able to decode words automatically. That is what reading is.
Some people will dispute that, but then we work with thousands of struggling readers each year with our Easyread System and they are almost all trying to read by recognising whole words. When we switch them to decoding with our trainertext approach, they become good readers every time. We even guarantee it!
Some adults teach children to learn words off by heart and recognise them by sight, because they believe that this is what we are doing when we read fluently. This misconception is understandable, because a proficient reader knows a word so instantly that it feels like he/she is simply recognising it.
But then how do you explain the fact that you can read this:
A flib of squines zoodled their way to the wricker, crundling around the plirt.
If we read by simply recognising words, how can we explain our ability to interpret completely new ones? In an instant, most literate people can read these nonsense words that they have never encountered before, because their brain is doing an automatic decode of letter patterns to work out the sounds that they are most likely to make in that position in the word.
The same thing is happening when we read normal text.
Fluent decoding is akin to a kind of automatic brain calculation which works out what the most likely sounds are in relation to the letter patterns. Granted, a small element of this calculation could be the context of the word, and the overall look of it (especially when we’re speed-reading), but the primary part of the calculation is the letter patterns and the sounds they can correspond to.
It only becomes subconscious and automatic after quite a bit of practice. In other words, reading is a skill; you start off by doing it consciously (performing the different parts of the action with careful thought), and after more practice, you find you can do it subconsciously. Compare this: anyone who can drive a car begins by learning all the different mechanisms and movements involved. After fumbling around with them for a while, making plenty of mistakes, they eventually find that their brain is doing all the hard work for them. Now they can drive a car while barely thinking about it, even holding a conversation at the same time.
Anyone who can decode subconsciously (i.e. read fluently) began to learn to read by decoding consciously as a child. In real terms, this means sounding out (“d… o… g…”) and blending (“…dog!”).
So whichever of the multiple phonics methods you choose to use, make sure it is a type of phonics; the practice must involve the child correlating the sounds to the letters. After a while spent sounding out and blending, the child can start to break down the words in their head, at which stage it might seem like they are just recognising the word. What has really happened is that the brain has calculated the likelihood of certain letter-sound patterns, and so the decoding has started to happen subconsciously.
Most children do fine with the phonics strategy used at school (usually synthetic phonics.) A significant minority, for a variety of reasons, find this extremely challenging. So the next task is to find an alternative way to teach them decoding, if that is the case.
2. Identify their strengths and weaknesses
When things aren’t working out for a child trying to learn to read, their teacher often tells the parents to just keep practising. In reality, the parent and child are often doing just as much reading practice as everyone else, but to no avail. This makes it a very annoying piece of advice to receive!
If this is your situation, alarm bells should be ringing, telling you that the method the school is using is not playing to the strengths of your child. If conventional phonics is clearly very hard for them, and has been for some time, then it is not going to magically start working with more practice.
You need to work out what is easy for them, and capitalize on that.
If it is easy for your child to learn phonics rules – great! Keep doing that.
If it is easy for your child to concentrate for 5-minute periods, but not longer, organise your reading routine around that.
If it is easy for your child to sight-recognise words… well, this is of course an exception to the rule! It may be easy, but it is not working towards the right goal. It is going down a completely different path, to a different end point which does not represent fluent reading. Head down that path, and you will have to come back to the start point to get onto the right one.
However, if sight-recognising words is easy, that usually indicates a strong visual memory: a strength which can be utilized to make decoding feel easy.
What you need is a way to get the child decoding words via visual cues (as opposed to auditory cues like phonics rules). A highly effective method is the trainertext visual phonics that we suggest on this site. Distinctive characters representing the sounds are placed above the letters, guiding the child to sound out the word.
So playing to their strengths is important, and equally so is addressing their weaknesses and accepting that difficulty is not normally due to lack of effort. You can check out the 9 Main Causes of Reading Difficulty that we track in the Easyread System.
For instance, imagine Rebecca can say the sounds that she thinks the letters correspond to, but she then struggles to blend them together to get the word. Her parents have a think and decide to help her work on this by playing a simple game: Rebecca has to think of a word, break it apart into the sounds, and then blend them back together to make the word. She does this a few times a day for about a week, and then she begins to find it much easier to blend sounds in her reading. High fives all round!
So simple! Indeed, often the solutions are obvious once you know what the problem is. So take some time to recognise and sympathise with your child’s difficulty. Think critically about what could be causing it, and come up with some fun ways to work on those areas of weakness.
3. Be positive
This may sound like a condescending piece of advice, as parents are constantly being told to be positive around their children. It is, however, surprisingly hard to maintain in reading practice, especially when you are putting in a lot of effort and getting little progress in return. It has made the list because positivity is extremely powerful for accelerating progress.
We’ve already discussed taking a positive frame of mind when identifying your child’s weaknesses. This is crucial for responding to those weaknesses in a helpful way.
During the reading practice itself, be sure to focus on the successes, no matter how small, rather than the shortcomings. In the early stages, you can even follow each correctly sounded out letter with a little “yes…” or “good…”, such that your voice is always in the background, providing encouragement every few seconds.
The power of this routine lies in the positive association that your child will come to have with your voice, as they hear it supporting them throughout reading time. That then allows you to help when something is difficult and they have made a mistake. If your voice only interjects when they make a mistake, it can trigger a stress reaction, because they automatically start to have a Pavlovian link: “I’m hearing mum/dad’s voice, so I must have done something wrong”. It sends a message to the learner that they are not doing well, and they might start to think about giving up entirely.
When you do need to help, avoid the word “no” like the plague! Instead, try to say something like “Almost!” or “Let’s take another look at that word” or “That is a tricky one, let’s do it together”. Children tend to show much less resistance to this kind of language, especially coming from somebody they trust.
This routine of carefully worded support will also help you to remain engaged and observant during the reading practice, so that you can identify your child’s strengths and weaknesses more easily.
Children need to be willing to do their reading practice, and this is an easy way to make sure that is as simple as possible. If they are scared that they are going to be made to feel like a failure, of course, they won’t want to engage.
4. Keep it short and fun
While we’re on motivation, the other important factor is making the sessions themselves fun. In the Easyread System we maximize our use of games as much as possible. We aim to get the children asking to do their reading practice each day.
Try to find enjoyable, varied and consistently new reading material which your child is interested in. Although it’s fun to return to old classics, it’s better to keep reading new things. That way children can’t just rely on their memory to read the book, but really have to work it out, i.e. decode!
Think up some games you can play to get them decoding words, perhaps using trainertext visual phonics characters to make it easier for them.
Use apps or computer games which get children decoding. With some of these it will be tempting to let your tablet be the teacher, so be careful to remain engaged; try to keep up your support routine.
Set a short time limit on the reading session, and stick to it. This is especially useful for strugglers, who feel much less stressed about their reading practice in knowledge that it will be over after 15 minutes, whatever happens.
We are often drilled with this idea that more practice equals more progress. But in reality, short, fun, focused, regular sessions are the key.
You’re going to have to do a lot of reading practice to achieve progress, because it takes time for the brain to map all of those letter-sound patterns English has to offer. So don’t underestimate the importance of keeping your little learner engaged. Short, fun sessions are the way to go!
5. Reread phrases for fluency
We talked earlier about decoding eventually becoming automatic for children, at which stage they can start building fluency. But sometimes it seems that they are stuck sounding words out for ages. There is a very simple way to accelerate this transition from decoding consciously to decoding subconsciously: rereading phrases.
Children learning to read put a lot of effort into decoding words, especially in the early stages. Every child needs to move from this very conscious “work it out” mode to fluent, automatic reading.
To accelerate the transition, have them reread each phrase of 3-5 words once they have decoded the words on the first read-through. They should do this reread before moving on to the next phrase.
Most times they will be able to do this quite fluently on the first reread. If it still requires a bit of letter-by-letter decoding, it’s worth doing it once more, so that it sounds as fluent as possible. Then move on to the next phrase.
We’ve seen this routine make a fantastic difference to the rate of reading advancement experienced by users, so much so that we make it one of our 7 “Golden Rules” for achieving a good outcome with the Easyread System.
Why does it make such a difference? Rereading the phrase allows the brain to practise performing the automatic decoding process, aided by the fact that those particular letter-sound relationships are sitting conveniently in the short term memory. In the process of the reread, those correspondences come to be transferred to the long term, procedural memory systems (i.e. the subconscious), where fluent reading takes place.
This development of the procedural memory system will be much enhanced if you deliver a big “YES!!” as the child completes the reread, because it will deliver a mini dopamine spike, which enhances memory creation.
It’s easy to see how if you skip this step in your reading practice, the transfer of decoding to the procedural memory would take a lot longer. So try bringing this into your child’s reading routine. If you find that you’re getting through less material in each session, don’t worry. It’s a classic case of quality over quantity; the payoff will be immense, and you’ll see decoding becoming automatic at a much more impressive rate than before.
So, now you have five ways to facilitate the daunting task of helping a child learn to read. Here’s a recap:
- Teach them to decode words
- Tailor practice to their strengths and weaknesses
- Be positive
- Keep it fun and brief
- Reread phrases for fluency
I recommend keeping these five points as a list (you could copy and paste them into a note on your phone right now!) and checking in on them every week. Treat them like a set of traffic lights, where each one needs to have a green light for you to proceed. Any red or amber lights will need a bit of attention.
Lydia Cockburn is an Easyread System Manager and frequent contributor at Helping Children to Read. When not coaching students and families in overcoming barriers to reading, she can often be found playing music or football. | <urn:uuid:834ae2b3-4ee1-4c1d-8425-2955594707dc> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.helpingchildrentoread.com/articles/5-top-tips-for-helping-your-child-read/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370511408.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20200410173109-20200410203609-00435.warc.gz | en | 0.960748 | 3,084 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Our body is filled with trillions of such cells. We cannot see these cells with our naked eye. We need a microscope to see them. Do you wonder what such a small cell can do? All the chemical changes that take place in our body are accomplished in the cell only. The food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe – everything finally goes into the cells. In fact, we are eating, drinking and breathing for their sake. The air we breathe in goes into the lungs, joins the blood from there and through the blood reaches the cells. That air helps in the production of energy in the cells.
In the same way the water we drink ultimately reaches these cells through the stomach and blood and fulfills the needs there.
The food we eat, after it is digested in the intestines, goes into the blood and from there is carried into these cells. These food items combust in the presence of air and water and produce energy. The energy and heat produced there is the reason for the heat of our body and its limbs. The cell is like a stove, like a piston in a motorcycle. The energy produced in the cells spreads all over the body continuously meeting the needs of the body. We feel very weak if we delay our food by four, five hours. This means the energy produced in the cells is almost exhausted and the body warns us in the form of weakness to eat food. It sends such natural signals!
If we eat food regularly, the cells work continuously and once their life is over, they give rise to new cells in their place. Once the engine of a car consumes the fuel, carbon monoxide smoke is released. In the stove, after the wood is burnt, the smoke and charcoal remain as waste material. In the same way, in our cells from the food we eat, the air we breathe, and the water we drink, after they have provided their energy, release waste material in three forms – in either solid, liquid, gaseous states. These three forms, after exiting the cells, join the blood in outward circulation, and reach the excretory organs. The gaseous state of waste material that joins blood goes to lungs and is let out in the lungs, exhaled in the form of carbondioxide. The liquid state of waste material goes through the blood to the kidneys and skin and is left there. From the kidney it is excreted as urine. Finally, in the same manner, solid waste exits the intestines as stool. This is a constant, everyday chemical reaction in the body.
The waste material produced in the cell through food, air and water should be proportionate to the waste material sent out (1: 1) from the cells. Then only we can claim to be perfectly healthy people. Whoever has such a perfect proportion in the cells that person will have a healthy atmosphere there also. Just as you thoroughly clean the stove every day and remove the charcoal or ashes, so should the waste material in the cells be completely removed, and then the water flowing in the cell will be pure and clean. That water doesn’t give out a stinking smell. It isn’t sticky.
The infant who depends only on breastfeeding has this 1:1 proportion for the simple reason that he drinks only when he is hungry and stops when the cells ask him to stop. Also, he urinates and defecates whenever he feels the need. So that purity is there in his cells. The 8.4 millions of creatures in God’s creation follow the same formula. Once the body is given solid food, this dharma of the body changes. The waste material produced in our body is based on the food we eat. The creator of our body, the Almighty, decides our food based on the size of the excretory organs in our body. After all He has every right over our body. The body is made in such a way that if the quantity of waste material to be released is greater, more exercise is also provided to that creature. For instance a tiger eats only flesh. Automatically the waste material created is more and it has to come out of the excretory organs totally. So God has created its body in such a way that it can run hundreds of miles a day. That exercise is required for the food it eats. Since the waste material that comes out is great, it doesn’t touch food again until the waste is released.
That’s why tigers eat once in 40 hours and sleep for 20 hours. That is the secret of God’s creation. On the contrary, the elephant, which has a relatively big body, eats only vegetarian food. So its released waste is less relatively. For this reason, God made it walk slowly. That amount of exercise is enough for it. The fecal matter is excreted every day. So the elephant keeps on eating from morning to evening. Ten to twelve hours of sleep a night is sufficient for its excretory action.
Who advised the tiger to take rest for so many hours? No one!
The meat it eats suggests it to do so. By now you must have understood the fact that waste material is based on the food one eats, body’s exercise and even the rest taken. If you understand this formula, you will automatically understand why we are prone to so many diseases. Our health or even ill health is based on this.
The three things that we human beings do not know:
1) What food we should eat,
2) How much exercise we need to do (to properly release our waste material) and,
3) How many hours we should rest before we eat again.
There is no creature that does not know these things. Only we, human beings, are so ignorant. So we eat whatever we want, as much as we want, whenever we want totally ignoring the laws laid down by God and harming the nature around us, harming ourselves and leading lives of ignoble men. God has gifted us with fruits, raw vegetables and seeds. If we can consume them as they are, our excretory organs can release their waste materials every day. They are given that much energy. Additionally, if we eat this natural food before sunset, the time for excretion will be quite sufficient. Then the proportion will be 1:1. However, if we continue to eat till mid night there is not enough time for excretory action and so 10% of fecal matter will stagnate in the body.
The food we eat can be divided into four types.
First type of food
If you eat sprouts, fruits, raw vegetables, and grains only, the body will release the waste material daily and so the cells will be pure and healthy. The waste material produced by this food is very little. Body doesn’t need much time to complete its excretory process. Let us compare the natural food to jet fuel for the airplane. The pick up is greater and the smoke produced is less. Natural food contains more energy and less of waste material. Your body will be healthy, and automatically your mind will be sound. It keeps the ailments and stinking smell away from the body.
Second type of food
It contains 60% raw and 40% cooked food. Cooked food should not have salt, oil and spices. From this food 90% of waste material is excreted and 10% remains in the body, because of 40% cooked food! The waste material formed here is more than in the first type. This type of food is like the gasoline used for ordinary cars with a pickup of 80%. Of course there will not be major problems with this type of food, but it is not as pure as the first type. Occasionally you will be prone to small disturbances like cold or fever.
Third type of food
This is totally boiled food. You eat salt, oil, and spices but only vegetarian food. You eat spicy pickles also. Fifty percent of its waste material stagnates and only 50% is excreted. Compare this type of food to diesel fuel. It has 50% pick up and 50% smoke. Because of fifty percent of stagnated waste in the body, everything that is excreted as sweat, urine and feces, emit stinking smell. Mouth too. There is uncleanness in the cells, and that is spread all over, resulting in this putrefying smell. You will have some illnesses fairly frequently. You will feel very restless.
Fourth type of food
This food contains salt, oil, spices, preserved food, meat, pork, sodas, liquors, etc. Seventy percent of its waste material stagnates in the cells and only 30% is released. It is like kerosene with less pick up and more smoke. It gives you only smoke, and cannot power a vehicle. The urine and feces emit a very bad smell. The cells live in a polluted atmosphere. They die early. New cells are born in their place in a great number, but what is the use? Most of the energy produced from the food is spent towards birth and death of cells. People who eat this type of food get tired easily. They are likely to be affected by chronic diseases and are prone to irritation and anger. They can never be peaceful. There is no sign of good health in their body.
Do you now understand why food influences our physical health and even mental abilities? So those who consume food that provides more energy and less waste material have healthy bodies and sound minds. The smell that comes out of the cell is based on the accumulated waste material in the cell. So you can decide for yourself whether you are healthy or not, depending on the smell that emits from your body. Generally, we feel we are healthy if our blood tests, X-rays and scans are normal. On the other hand, if there is a trace of sugar in your blood test, you fear you’ve become diabetic. But neither of these is true. You don’t develop diabetes on the day you had your test done or three four days prior to that! It is a result of the decay of your cells for ages. Can we foresee cancer in the blood tests? No! We get ourselves tested two or three times a year and boast of ourselves that we are healthy.
In a way cheating ourselves Now let’s learn whether you are a perfectly healthy person or not. If your cells are pure and clean you are really a healthy person. How do you know that? – You shouldn’t have bad breath even if you don’t brush your teeth for a few days. Your saliva also does not smell bad. Then you are very healthy. – You should be able to bathe without body soap. Your body should not give off a smell even if you have not bathed for two or three days. – Your sweat should not stink. The clothes you wear, even if you wear them continuously for a few days, should not have a bad odor. That’s a healthy sign. – You urinate and the bathroom shouldn’t smell. The urine shouldn’t have a foul smell or a bad odor. Then you are totally healthy. – Your motion should not give off a bad odor. It should instead smell like the food you ate. If that is the case, you are healthy. Those who win on the above five tests don’t require any further testing. There is no doubt about it. You will have that kind of perfect health within six months if you follow the first or second type of food mentioned above strictly. The waste material produced in the cells traverse from the cells to the excretory organs and from there back to cells. Since they cycle this way, they pollute the body and the cells.
The water in the cells receives the stinking smell from the cells and flows all over the body. This is the smell we sense when waste materials leave the body. Flowers can’t give a stinking smell and dirt cannot send forth a fragrance by pouring perfume over it. The same way the smell in us cannot be concealed by any number of toothpastes, soaps, powders, perfumes, scents, or sprays over the body or in the bathroom. We are not cleaning our inner bodies. If we don’t do that, however much we clean the body externally it is not helpful. What’s the use of washing our hands if our feet are dirty? But that is what we are doing! The cells should be cleaned. They should be cleaned through fasting. If we fast and take in only honey, energy goes into and the waste material will be driven out of the cells, thereby cleaning them. That’s why fasting is compared to penance. Fasting makes the body holy. For those who fast, the stinking smell disappears, and new cells are formed fast. If you follow the food regimen that we have discussed so far for five, six months, then the cells will become purified. You don’t have to fast in such a case. But of course you should eat before sunset and put a full stop to food after that! Only then it is possible. Don’t you want to live life long without any disease? Then, eat only natural food. Enjoy the tastes of nature as they are! In return, you will have perfect health as long as you live. Realize that Health is Happiness and Wealth too! You can prove to one and all that good health is not beyond the reach of man! Nothing is impossible in the lexicon of man. | <urn:uuid:81e2ec5e-5053-490c-a8bb-ed1a919df661> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | http://www.oilpulling.com/you-are-what-you-eat-thy-food-thy-medicine/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370494064.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20200329074745-20200329104745-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.96296 | 2,790 | 3.125 | 3 |
In part 1 of this series, I gave you an overview of the different insulation materials and the various forms they come in. This article covers where insulation goes and why. Knowing this helps you understand why you’d want to use a particular type of insulation for specific applications in your home.
Where do you use insulation?
- On the attic floor
- In attic cavities
- On an attic knee wall
- On the attic ceiling
- In the walls
- Around the windows and doors
- Around pipes and other holes in the wall
- In the basement and crawlspace ceilings
- On the basement and crawlspace walls
- Under the slab
- Outside the foundations
Each of these areas really deserves an article of its own. In fact, if you look on the Building Science website, you’ll find highly detailed articles doing exactly that. If you want to go straight to the source, consult these references.
Let’s look at some photos to get an idea of several of these cases…
The attic floor, which is the ceiling of the room below, is perhaps the best known location for insulation – almost everybody starts by rolling our some fiberglass in their attic, hoping to reap the results of added insulation.
Indeed, it’s a great place to start because attics get very hot during the summer and are relatively cold in the winter. At the very least, you should take a look in your attic to see what state the insulation is in.
But before you dive into it and add lots of insulation, you’ll want to study up on air infiltration and sealing. You’ll find out that air sealing is crucial before you insulate or you might even cause problems by adding insulation. On the other hand, if you go into your attic and you see big areas missing insulation like shown in this picture, you should immediately fix it. Usually, you’ll find the missing insulation sitting in a pile next to the bare spot, right where the electrician or carpenter left it after doing work in the attic. Just replace it, making sure that the insulation rests firmly against the ceiling below. Any air gaps will seriously compromise the ability of the insulation to do its work.
Attic Cavities are also illustrated in the photo. These are just as important to insulate as is the attic floor. In fact, they can be more important because they often lead to areas with plumbing. If you’ve ever had frozen pipes, it’s very likely due to something like this. Here’s a great article on frozen pipes and how to deal with them.
Knee walls are among the most forgotten important places to insulate. Depending upon the design of your home, you may or may not have one of these places. Cape style houses are almost guaranteed to have these, usually with an access door or hatch so you can enter and store stuff in there. Unfortunately, the door is often uninsulated, leading to a big energy-hole in the wall.
For some reason, building codes consider these spaces to be just “little walls” and only require modest insulation on them. But knee-walls divide the living space from a hot attic space (often 130°F to 150°F, so these walls should be insulated to the same level as the attic floor – around R40.
Quite often, when people complain of hot rooms during the summer, the cause it an improperly insulated knee-wall. All that heat coming from the roof turns the space into an oven, so those wall get very hot if not properly insulated. And in the winter, they’ll freeze you.
There are also other problems with these little attic spaces. I’ll cover these in detail in other articles. They can be quite tricky due to hidden air passages and moisture problems. So even a high quality insulation job on the back of a knee wall can leave the room uncomfortably hot or cold.
To get you started, try this link. There are numerous great resources talking about this problem.
Attic ceiling insulation was popular years ago and is regaining popularity today with the advent of spray foam insulation and its great insulation properties.
Why would you want to insulate right below the roof instead of on the attic floor?
Remember that I keep harping on providing a good air seal. If air from outside, (or from the attic or other spaces that should be outside the living space) isn’t perfectly sealed from the house, it will bypass the insulation, rendering the insulation useless.
With normal insulation techniques, you have to be very careful about air sealing. Even the little gaps between the walls and the wall framing allow attic air to circulate down through your walls. And big holes, like for plumbing, electrical wires and recessed lights really destroy the air seal. Add in attic pull down ladders and doors, light fixtures, and anything else that leaves an opening to the attic, and you’ll quickly see that you could spend forever trying to air seal all the holes.
Instead, it’s much simpler and more effective to do what was done in this photo – spray foaming the underside of the roof deck and rafters using “closed cell” foam. It’s actually amazing how many problems this type of construction alleviates when done properly! If I were building a new home or doing substantial renovations, I wouldn’t think twice – this would be the solution I would choose. While some use open cell foam, it is highly moisture permeable and some say this can lead to serious problems.
Read this research report if you want to learn more about “unvented roof systems”
This discussion asks the question: “Can Spray Foam Rot Your Roof?”
This is a hot topic that I may address in a future post. For now, read the links mentioned if you want to learn from the pros.
Insulation in the walls is just assumed…or is it?
Just like other insulations, a continuous, uniform coating of insulation is important for a home to perform well. Unfortunately, since it’s hidden inside walls, this is an area that is often done improperly.
Have you ever felt a draft coming through your electrical outlet even though you know your walls are well insulated? Well, that illustrates the problem. Without air sealing, the pressure differences in and around a house will drive air right through the insulation, unless the insulation provides an air seal. Loose fill fiberglass or loose cellulose do NOT work.
There are some insulations that provide effective insulation and air sealing. Densely sprayed cellulose, like shown in this photo, have been proven to greatly reduce drafts. There’s also a single fiberglass product (Spider) that claims to do this. Spray foam, both open cell and closed cell, will also do the trick.
For retrofit applications, it can be hard to find a qualified contractor. With retrofits, you drill a hole in the wall and inject insulation at a high pressure. Unlike in this picture, you can’t see if it’s going in properly, which makes inspection nearly impossible (though you can do it with thermal imaging equipment). Because of this, I’ve seen many improperly done jobs, including, unfortunately, in my own home! The contractors will claim to be doing it properly, but most do it wrong.
Injected insulation requires the use of a small diameter tube inserted into the wall cavity and careful monitoring of pressures. This is called “dense packed” installation. The tube is inserted all the way into the wall cavity and the insulation is blown in starting at the bottom as the tube is slowly removed. If the installer isn’t using this tube-fill method, they’re doing it wrong and your insulation will not do it’s job.
To give you an idea of how hard it is to find good contractors, I have found only one installer in my area, which ranges from Philadelphia up to Princeton and west about 50 miles. Every other contractor uses a large hose that they just put up to a hole in the wall and spray. This is guaranteed not to work properly. Trust me. Google dense packed cellulose for many articles on the subject.
That one installer? Brian Snedeker of SPS insulation. The man is an artist with cellulose!
Here’s at thermal image of an overhand section of my living room floor. The dark patches are colder, much colder, than the rest of the floor. The insulation contractor blew insulation into the cavity improperly so barely any insulation went in, leaving big gaps between the floor and the insulation. Unfortunately, I didn’t discover this until I bought my thermal camera and had finished residing my house, so there is no simple fix. Argh!!!
Around windows and doors, insulation is often forgotten.
When you look at a house before the sheet rock goes up or if you pull the trim off your windows or doors, you’ll see something like shown here. The window “box” will be about 1″-2″ smaller than the framed out opening. There will be some shims installed to make sure it’s level and square, and then it will be nailed or screwed to the house framing.
Where insulation comes in is in the opening between the wall and the window box. This gap is open to the outside. Sometimes, there will be a “nailing flange” on the outside that is attached to the outer sheathing of the house. This is there to act as flashing and to provide structural support. But it does not air seal the window.
The result is often a big air leak around the windows. This will frequently be confused with a leaky window because you’ll feel air coming in around the window. But the window itself may be air tight.
The most commonly used insulation around windows and doors is fiberglass. Unfortunately, you’ll recall that fiberglass does not stop air or moisture. So the water and air can move right through it and into your house. This is the cause of many rotten windows, since the fiberglass acts like a sponge, holding the moisture against the unprotected wood of the window or your house.
A much better solution is to use low-expansion spray foam to fill in this gap. The spray foam is mostly moisture impermeable and forms a complete air seal. I talk about this in detail in this article. It comes down to this – if you use fiberglass to seal around your windows and doors, you’re going to have drafts. If you use foam, you’re much less likely to have drafts or moisture problems. Just follow the directions and go to town.
Insulation around pipes and holes in the wall is essential for several reasons. First, and most importantly, you want to stop drafts. Since the pipes go right through the wall, they’re a clear path for air and moisture to enter from the outside. Seal them air and water tight, with foam, and you’ll eliminate these drafts.
You’ll also eliminate the openings for rodents and bugs. Look around your basement and find these types of holes and most of the time you’ll find traces of these pests that sneak in through holes around pipes and wires.
Remember – no fiberglass! You want to be use foam because it will fill in all the nooks and crannies. Just be careful to follow the directions. I won’t be responsible if you over-do it or get the sticky, gooey substance on your new hardwood floors!
Fiberglass is often improperly used in basement and crawlspace ceilings.
If you’ve got fiberglass in the ceilings of your crawlspaces, there’s a very good chance it’s moldy and falling apart. Fiberglass simply isn’t the right material for this job.
I’m going to start you with a Building Science reference on insulating crawlspaces so you can go right to detailed information on the topic. Much better than a few paragraphs here!
There are a number of reasons by this type of insulation is no good in crawlspaces, but most of them come back to moisture. Crawlspaces are notorious for being humid. And humidity and paper faced fiberglass do not mix. Every single installation I’ve seen of this sort is worse than useless and many of them result in rotten wood and potential structural damage. Don’t do it!
Much better is to insulate the walls and treat it just like the rest of your house. Why would you want to let the weather into one part of the house and use an inferior material to try to keep it out? The reason people keep doing it is because it’s cheap. That’s it.
Instead, do it once and do it right. If you’re adding insulation to an existing crawlspace, forget everything you know about venting crawlspaces and read the paper referenced above. Instead, spray the walls with ~2″ of closed cell polyurethane spray foam, right up and over the band joists (the wood that sits on the foundation walls). The foam will block almost all the moisture that would otherwise come in through the walls and insulate the space, helping to keep the living space above much warmer. If you’ve got insulation like shown in the first picture, remove it and throw it out.
This is an over-simplification since you really have to adapt insulation techniques to your specific home. However most homes of semi-modern construction (i.e. 1950’s till now) that don’t have dirt floors, really should have their crawlspaces treated as short basement. That means seal it up and insulate the walls.
Slab insulation is one of the oft-neglected areas of the home due to some unfortunate myths and misconceptions.
Myth one: heat travels up. WRONG! Hot air rises, true. But heat goes any direction. If you have a cold slab, it’s going to suck the heat out of the living space. This is basic physics. So that argument against slab insulation is out the window.
Myth two: the slab will reach equilibrium once it warms up the ground below the house so no more heat will be lose. WRONG! WRONG! When I hear builders say this, it makes my head explode. It’s absolutely no different than opening the window. You turn up the heat in the house so it is more comfortable, but the heat keeps going out the window as long as it is open. DUH! Why would anybody think that the earth below the house will stop sucking heat from the house?
Myth three: related to myth two is the blief that if you do need insulation, you only insulation under the first couple feet of the slab. While it is true that you lose the most energy from the edge of the slab, it is not true that you don’t lose energy from other areas of the slab. Think about it. A geothermal system works because the ground temperature is relatively stable. About 50°F in much of the central to northern United States. That may not sound like much, but most homes have a slab that is 1000-2000 square feet. That’s a lot of square footage trying to be at 50°F when your house is 70°F. This is why basements are so comfortable during the summer – they’re naturally air conditioned!
Outside the foundation is a great place for the right type of insulation. What’s the right type? It’s durable, waterproof, and of course, insulating. Why is it such a good place for insulation? First, it keeps the moisture out of the basement or crawl space and out of the foundation. People don’t realize it but cinder blocks are like sponges. Moisture passes through very easily. So coating the outside of the foundation with a water barrier does a huge amount to reduce potentially damaging interior moisture.
Second, moisture is a very good carrier of heat, so damp foundation walls conduct heat out of your basement and into the ground much more readily than dry ones. Insulating and keeping the foundation dry goes a long way to keeping the underground parts of your home comfortable and dry.
That does it. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some important places, so feel free to drop me a note if I’ve forgotten your favorite places to insulate.
Till next time….. | <urn:uuid:440e22d0-1efa-4bfc-85ee-2fbb41fd4a83> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://tedsenergytips.com/2011/03/07/insulationp2/?replytocom=32939 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370503664.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20200331181930-20200331211930-00194.warc.gz | en | 0.943491 | 3,445 | 2.65625 | 3 |
There's been an earthquake or tsunami
This page provides practical advice on what to do if there's been an earthquake or tsunami. It's for Australians already overseas that may need help.
This page provides information on:
- what to do immediately after an earthquake
- tsunami risks near the beach
- what to do in the hours that follow
- where to get help
This page is for Australians overseas who've just experienced a large earthquake or tsunami. If you're still planning your trip, see our general advice and information about earthquakes before you go.
What to do immediately after an earthquake
Check for immediate hazards. Some you'll need to avoid. Others you'll need to deal with quickly to prevent more danger.
- Treat injuries. Check yourself for injuries. Seek first aid, if necessary, before helping other injured or trapped people. If it's serious, you may need medical assistance.
- Maintain supplies. Especially clean water. Water, food and medication may be hard to find after an earthquake.
- Conserve battery power. Keep your mobile charged as much as possible. Send text messages where possible, and turn off other services like syncing when not required.
If you're indoors
- Watch for fire. Fire is the most common hazard after an earthquake. Even if there's a small fire, put it out quickly. It can spread quickly. Especially if a gas pipe breaks.
- Shut off the gas. If you're indoors and smell gas, turn off the gas valve. If you can't find the valve, get away before it ignites.
- Avoid broken glass. Wear sturdy shoes that glass shards won't penetrate.
- Be aware of damaged wires. The tremor may have broken or exposed electrical wiring.
- Identify and avoid displaced items. Even if something hasn't fallen yet, sudden aftershocks dislodge it.
If you're outside
- Keep away from buildings. Especially multi-level and high rise structures. Even if it looks intact, the tremor could have weakened it. It could collapse during aftershocks.
- Don't enter any building. Only enter once authorities have confirmed it's safe.
- Stay clear of power lines. Especially if down or damaged. The ground may be electrified, even more than 20 metres away.
- Watch for falling rocks and trees. Especially in the mountains.
- Be aware of landslides and mudslides. Earthquakes can trigger them. Especially if you're in a mountainous area near unstable slopes or cliffs.
If you're trapped under debris
- Cover your mouth. Protect your lungs from dust.
- Minimise movement. You could dislodge something and make your situation worse. You could also kick up dust and cause breathing problems.
- Use your mobile. Call for help and send text messages. Include details of your last location and your situation. This can help first responders work out where you are.
- Tap on a pipe or hard object to make a noise. This can help rescuers find you. Only shout as a last resort. Don't wear out your voice. You may be trapped for a while.
- Don't use a match for light. If a gas line has burst nearby, you could ignite it.
Tsunami risks if you're on or near the beach
Undersea earthquakes can cause a tsunami. If you're on the coast, or on the water, you're at risk. Follow our advice from above on what do, as well as the following.
- Listen for tsunami warning alerts and sirens. If one sounds, get to a safe place on higher ground immediately. Follow instructions from your tour guide, hotel manager or local emergency services.
- Watch for the warning signs of a tsunami. This includes water receding back from the tide line unexpectedly. Get to safety.
Learn more about tsunamis (Geoscience Australia). Read about the Indian Ocean Tsunami and Warning Mitigation System and the Pacific Tsunami Warning System (Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission).
What to do next
Prepare for aftershocks
Expect aftershocks. The initial shaking may only be 45 to 90 seconds. In a major earthquake, that's rarely the end of it.
There'll probably be a series of aftershocks. Some may be more violent than the original tremor. Be prepared.
- Extinguish all flames. Including candles and cigarettes. If the next aftershock breaks a gas line, it could ignite.
- Don't use the stove. Remove all pots and pans from it. The next aftershock may knock them off and cause serious burns.
- Clean up spills. Especially for corrosive or flammable liquids.
- Stay away from windows. You could be injured by flying glass.
- Look for potential hazards. Look for objects that may fall during the next tremor. Move them to the ground.
Work out where's the safest place to be before the next tremor hits.
Often, it's crouching in an internal doorway, away from windows. It may be crouching under heavy furniture, such as a desk or table.
Follow the news
Follow local news. Listen for updates about the situation. Especially warnings about the likelihood of aftershocks, tsunamis or civil unrest.
- Update your Smartraveller subscription. Make sure you've subscribed to updates for your destination. If you've switched to a local SIM, make sure you update your number so you can receive critical alerts by SMS.
- Listen to radio or watch TV. If the power's out, try to find someone with a battery operated device.
- Find someone to translate. If the local news isn't in English, ask someone to help translate key information. This could be your hotel manager, tour guide, travel companion or a local.
- Follow news online. Visit trusted local and international news websites.
- Check social media. Like or follow relevant news services for your destination. Follow hashtags about the earthquake or tsunami.
Be aware that you may only have access to the internet for a short time. Communication infrastructure may fail. Gather as much information as you can about the situation, while you can.
Decide if you'll stay or leave
It's up to you whether you stay and shelter in place, or leave.
Most deaths or injuries in an earthquake occur when people try to move prematurely and get struck by debris. Only move when you're confident it's safe to do so.
Option 1: Shelter in place
It's critical to take appropriate shelter during a disaster.
It may be safer to shelter inside rather than evacuating a building. Especially if the building is built to withstand earthquakes.
- Prepare your supplies. You may be stuck in your shelter for some time. Refill your water bottles and gather your supplies. You may need to ration them. It may be hours or days before local authorities can help you.
- Follow instructions from local authorities. If instructions aren't available, use your judgment based on observations and information at hand.
- Be wary of food hygiene. When the power is out, fresh food and meat spoils quickly. Especially in warm climates. Only eat food that you are confident is still fresh.
- Watch out for infectious diseases. Without running water, sanitation is an issue. Waterborne infectious diseases such as cholera are especially common. Only drink purified water.
Option 2: Evacuate
If you don't think it's safe to stay where you are, get out as soon as it is safe to do so.
- Decide where you're going. If possible, have a plan before you venture out. Find out if there's a safe place local authorities are sending people to. This may be a shelter.
- Use the stairs. Never use an elevator. If there are aftershocks, power outages or other damage you could be trapped.
- Take supplies. It may be hard to find food, water and other essentials during a crisis. Take what you can carry comfortably.
- Book tickets quickly. With low supply and high demand, options to leave can fill quickly. They can also be expensive.
- Drive cautiously. If driving, avoid bridges and ramps that may have been damaged. Drive slowly in case the road is cracked, or there are new potholes.
Contact people as soon as possible
Contact your friends, family, airline and insurer as soon as you can.
- Contact your loved ones. They may fear for your safety. Especially if they've heard about the earthquake or tsunami though the news or social media. The longer you leave it, the more distressed your loved ones will be.
- Contact your airline. If you want to fly out, you'll want to get a seat quickly. Airlines may cancel flights. Prices may go up.
- Contact your travel insurer. If you're covered, they may be able to help with emergency logistics and costs. If not covered, you'll have to cover all your costs and make arrangements yourself.
The next round aftershocks may damage communication infrastructure. If you don't contact people quickly, you may miss your chance. In an earthquake or tsunami, it could be days or weeks until you can get in touch.
Where to get help after an earthquake
- Local emergency services. We publish local contact numbers in the travel advisory for each destination.
- Hotel manager or tour guide. They may know what to do, where to go and where you can get help locally.
- Travel companions. Look after each other. Help them if they're in need.
- Friends and family back home. They may not be able to help you on the ground, however may help in other ways. They could help change your travel plans, talk to your insurer or send you money.
- Travel insurance. Most insurers have 24-hour emergency hotlines you can call from overseas. If you're covered, they may provide logistical support, as well as financial.
Australian Government assistance after an earthquake
In some circumstances, the Australian Government may help. In most cases, you must exhaust all other avenues before seeking emergency consular assistance.
For emergency consular assistance, contact the relevant Australian embassy or consulate. Or, contact the 24-hour Consular Emergency Centre in Canberra:
- by phone on +61 2 6261 3305
- or online if we have activated our crisis page on Smartraveller
It's important to understand how and when we may help. Read the Consular Services Charter.
What we can do
- We can provide emergency consular support if you need urgent help. Only after you've exhausted all other avenues.
- We can give you a list of local hospitals with doctors who speak English if you need medical assistance.
- We can help you contact your family or friends, with your consent
- We can choose to initiate a crisis response to the earthquake and we know Australians are, or could be, affected.
- We can activate a crisis page on Smartraveller with an emergency contact form.
- We can help keep you informed by email and SMS. Only if you've subscribed for updates about your destination.
What we can't do
- We can't guarantee your safety in or after an earthquake.
- We can't give you legal or medical advice.
- We can't give you medical assistance.
- We can't pay your medical bills, or loan you money to pay them. Even if it's urgent. Talk to your travel insurer.
- We can't make decisions for you, or make you leave a country. You must decide for yourself.
- We can't make your travel arrangements.
- We can't force local authorities to act, or give you special help because you're Australian.
- We can't give your family, friends or the media information about you, without your consent. See the Consular Privacy Collection Statement.
- When we initiate a crisis response you can contact us online using the crisis contact form and we will publicise our Consular Emergency Centre number.
- Stay informed when we update the travel advisory for your destination. Subscribe for updates.
- Injuries are common after an earthquake. So are water borne infectious diseases. If you need help, get medical assistance promptly.
- Understand how and when we may help. Read the Consular Services Charter.
- Learn more about earthquakes, volcanic activity and tsunamis (Geoscience Australia).
- See worldwide earthquake monitoring in real-time (US Geological Survey).
- See travel insurer contact details on Find an Insurer (Insurance Council of Australia).
- Read about the Indian Ocean Tsunami and Warning Mitigation System and the Pacific Tsunami Warning System (Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission).
In the event of a natural disaster or other crisis in or near your location, you may require assistance. Read this page to see where to get help.
Find out what to do if you're travelling overseas there's been a terrorist attack in or near your location. Learn how to stay safe, avoid danger, and get help. | <urn:uuid:429f2c25-d535-4909-ad97-7845b6bd3835> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/while-youre-away/crisis-or-emergency/earthquake | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370506477.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20200401223807-20200402013807-00155.warc.gz | en | 0.925986 | 2,700 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Education in NigeriaPost Comment Education in Nigeria Nigeria
Historical Perspective: There were three fundamentally distinct education systems in Nigeria in 1990: the indigenous system, Quranic schools, and formal European-style education institutions. In the rural areas where the majority lived, children learned the skills of farming and other work, as well as the duties of adulthood, from participation in the community. This process was often supplemented by age-based schools in which groups of young boys were instructed in community responsibilities by mature men.
Islamic education was part of religious duty. Children learned up to one or two chapters of the Quran by rote from a local mallam, or religious teacher, before they were five or six years old. Religious learning included the Arabic alphabet and the ability to read and copy texts in the language, along with those texts required for daily prayers. Any Islamic community provided such instruction in a mallam's house, under a tree on a thoroughfare, or in a local mosque. This primary level was the most widespread. A smaller number of those young Muslims who wished, or who came from wealthier or more educated homes, went on to examine the meanings of the Arabic texts. Later, grammar, syntax, arithmetic, algebra, logic, rhetoric, jurisprudence, and theology were added; these subjects required specialist teachers at the advanced level. After this level, students traditionally went on to one of the famous Islamic centers of learning.
For the vast majority, Muslim education was delivered informally under the tutelage of mallams or ulama, scholars who specialized in religious learning and teaching. Throughout the colonial period, a series of formal Muslim schools were set up and run on European lines. These schools were established in almost all major Nigerian cities but were notable in Kano, where Islamic brotherhoods developed an impressive number of schools. They catered to the children of the devout and the well-to-do who wished to have their children educated in the new and necessary European learning, but within a firmly religious context. Such schools were influential as a form of local private school that retained the predominance of religious values within a modernized school system. Because the government took over all private and parochial schools in the mid-1970s and only allowed such schools to exist again independently in 1990, data are lacking concerning numbers of students enrolled.
Western-style education came to Nigeria with the
missionaries in the mid-nineteenth century. Although the first mission school was founded in 1843 by Methodists, it was the Anglican Church Missionary Society that pushed forward in the early 1850s to found a chain of missions and schools, followed quickly in the late 1850s by the Roman Catholics. In 1887 in what is now southern Nigeria, an education department was founded that began setting curricula requirements and administered grants to the mission societies. By 1914, when north and south were united into one colony, there were fifty-nine government and ninety-one mission primary schools in the south; all eleven secondary schools, except for King's College in Lagos, were run by the missions. The missions got a foothold in the middle belt; a mission school for the sons of chiefs was opened in Zaria in 1907 but lasted only two years. In 1909 Hans Vischer, an ex-Anglican missionary, was asked to organize the education system of the Protectorate Northern Nigeria. Schools were set up and grants given to missions in the middle belt. In 1914 there were 1,100 primary school pupils in the north, compared with 35,700 in the south; the north had no secondary schools, compared with eleven in the south. By the 1920s, the pressure for school places in the south led to increased numbers of independent schools financed by local efforts and to the sending of favorite sons overseas for more advanced training.
The education system focused strongly on examinations. In 1916 Frederick Lugard, first governor of the unified colony, set up a school inspectorate. Discipline, buildings, and adequacy of teaching staff were to be inspected, but the most points given to a school's performance went to the numbers and rankings of its examination results. This stress on examinations was still used in 1990 to judge educational results and to obtain qualifications for jobs in government and the private sector.
Progress in education was slow but steady throughout the colonial era until the end of World War II. By 1950 the country had developed a three-tiered system of primary, secondary, and higher education based on the British model of wide participation at the bottom, sorting into academic and vocational training at the secondary level, and higher education for a small elite destined for leadership. On the eve of independence in the late 1950s, Nigeria had gone through a decade of exceptional educational growth leading to a movement for universal primary education in the Western Region. In the north, primary school enrollments went from 66,000 in 1947 to 206,000 in 1957, in the west (mostly Yoruba areas) from 240,000 to 983,000 in the same period, and in the east from 320,000 to 1,209,000. Secondary level enrollments went from 10,000 for the country as a whole in 1947 to 36,000 in 1957; 90 percent of these, however, were in the south.
Given the central importance of formal education, it soon became "the largest social programme of all governments of the federation," absorbing as much as 40 percent of the budgets of some state governments. Thus, by 1984-85 more than 13 million pupils attended almost 35,000 public primary schools. At the secondary level, approximately 3.7 million students were attending 6,500 schools (these numbers probably included enrollment in private schools), and about 125,000 postsecondary level students were attending 35 colleges and universities. The pressure on the system remained intense in 1990, so much so that one education researcher predicted 800,000 higher level students by the end of the 1990s, with a correlated growth in numbers and size of all education institutions to match this estimate.
Universal primary education became official policy for the federation in the 1970s. The goal has not been reached despite pressure throughout the 1980s to do so. In percentage terms, accomplishments have been impressive. Given an approximate population of 49.3 million in 1957 with 23 percent in the primary school age-group (ages five to fourteen), the country had 21 percent of its school-age population attending in the period just prior to independence, after what was probably a tripling of the age-group in the preceding decade. By 1985 with an estimated population of 23 million between ages five and fourteen, approximately 47 percent of the age-group attended school. Although growth slowed and actually decreased in some rural areas in the late 1980s, it was projected that by the early part of the next century universal primary education would be achieved.
Secondary and postsecondary level growth was much more dramatic. The secondary level age-group (ages fifteen to twenty- four) represented approximately 16 percent of the entire population in 1985. Secondary level education was available for approximately 0.5 percent of the age-group in 1957, and for 22 percent of the age-group in 1985. In the early 1960s, there were approximately 4,000 students at six institutions (Ibadan, Ife, Lagos, Ahmadu Bello University, the University of Nigeria at Nsukka, and the Institute of Technology at Benin), rising to 19,000 by 1971 and to 30,000 by 1975. In 1990 there were thirty-five polytechnic institutes, military colleges, and state and federal universities, plus colleges of education and of agriculture; they had an estimated enrollment of 150,000 to 200,000, representing less than 1 percent of the twenty-one to twenty-nine-year-old age-group.
Such growth was impossible without incurring a host of problems, several of which were so severe as to endanger the entire system of education. As long as the country was growing apace in terms of jobs for the educated minority through investment in expanded government agencies and services and the private sector, the growing numbers of graduates could be absorbed. But the criterion of examination results as the primary sorting device for access to schools and universities led to widespread corruption and cheating among faculty and students at all levels, but especially secondary and postsecondary. Most Nigerian universities had followed the British higher education system of "final examinations" as the basis for granting degrees, but by 1990 many were shifting to the United States system of course credits. Economic hardship among teaching staffs produced increased engagement in nonacademic moonlighting activities. Added to these difficulties were such factors as the lack of books and materials, no incentive for research and writing, the use of outdated notes and materials, and the deficiency of replacement laboratory equipment. One researcher noted that in the 1980s Nigeria had the lowest number of indigenous engineers per capita of any Third World country. Unfortunately, nothing was done to rectify the situation. The teaching of English, which was the language of instruction beyond primary school, had reached such poor levels that university faculty complained they could not understand the written work of their students. By 1990 the crisis in education was such that it was predicted that by the end of the decade, there would be insufficient personnel to run essential services of the country. It was hoped that the publication of critical works and international attention to this crisis might reverse the situation before Nigeria lost an entire generation or more of its skilled labor force.
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Electric Bikes, Vehicles, & Infrastructure
- Electric Vehicles (EVs)
- Electric Bikes
- Local Charging Stations
- Local, State, & Federal Incentives
Types of Electric Vehicles
An electric vehicle (EV) is a car that is propelled by one or more electric motors, using energy typically stored in rechargeable batteries. Almost every car manufacturer on the market now sells electric vehicles. While the City of Arcata does not recommend one manufacturer over the other, we encourage potential consumers to do their research on individual makes and models.
Currently, there are four main types of EVs on the market.
|Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV)||A battery electric vehicle operates entirely on electricity and needs to be plugged in to be recharged. They derive all power from battery packs and have no internal combustion engine or fuel tank.|
|Standard Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV)||Hybrid vehicles are powered by both a gasoline engine and one or more electric motors. The electric motor is charged as the vehicle drives, so the vehicle is powered ultimately by gasoline and cannot be plugged in.|
|Plug-in Electric Hybrid Vehicle (PHEV)||A plug-in hybrid is powered by an electric motor that has enough range for a daily commute. It also has a conventional gasoline engine to extend the vehicle range. PHEVs can be plugged in to be recharged.|
|Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle (FCEV)||A hydrogen fuel cell vehicle runs on an electric motor that is powered through a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen. FCEVs must be refueled with liquid hydrogen.|
Electric bicycles, also known as e-bikes, are bicycles with an integrated motor and battery that provide extra propulsion. This added motorized power enables riders to ride longer and more frequently. E-bikes also benefit riders who may be discouraged from traditional bicycles due to convenience, age, limited physical fitness, disability, or injury.
In 2015, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill, AB 1096, into law that clarifies how e-bikes are to be regulated in California. The bill:
- Provides clear rules on how e-bikes must be equipped and operated.
- Regulates e-bikes like traditional bicycles and not like mopeds.
- Ensures e-bikes are not subject to the registration, licensing, or insurance requirements that apply to motor vehicles.
- Designates three types of e-bikes.
Types of E-Bikes
|Type 1||E-bikes with a top assisted speed of 20mph that must be pedaled to operate.|
|Type 2||E-bikes with a top assisted speed of 20mph that can be operated without pedaling by using a handlebar-mounted throttle.|
|Type 3||E-bikes with a top assisted speed of 28mph that must be pedaled to operate.|
E-Bikes in the City of Arcata
California local governments, such as the City of Arcata, have some leeway in developing regulations and ordinances regarding e-bikes. Currently, the City of Arcata has 10 committees that provide advice and/or recommendations to the City Council. These committees may soon discuss possible regulations to implement. View our Meeting Portal for updates on upcoming public city council/committee meetings regarding e-bikes.
City of Arcata Charging Stations
Currently, there are 4 public electric vehicle charging stations in the City of Arcata.
Arcata Technology Center - 1459 8th St., Arcata, CA 95521
- Ports: 2 EV Plugs (J-1772)
- Cost: $0.48 initial fee, plus $0.18 kWh
- Hours: Open 24/7
- Phone: 1-855-900-7584
- Description: There are two Level 2 chargers at this location on Greenlots Network. Visit charge.greenlots.com to set up an account or simply pay onsite with a credit/debit card. Greenlots has also developed a free mobile app that allows you to locate chargers, check your charging status, and make payments. If you have any issues with this station, call the 24/7 driver hotline listed above.
F Street Parking Lot - 685 F St. Arcata, CA 95521
- Ports: 1 EV Plug (J-1772)
- Cost: $0.48 initial fee, plus $0.18/kWh
- Hours: Open 24/7
- Phone: 707-269-1700
- Description: The charging station is on the ChargePoint network and is located in the parking lot behind the fire station. There are two EV parking spots. Visits ChargePoint to set up an account or simply pay onsite with a credit/debit card. You can also download the ChargePoint app to locate other charging stations and make payments. Call the Redwood Coast Energy Authority (the number listed above) for any maintenance issues or if you are interested in receiving a ChargePoint membership card.
Days Inn & Suites - 4701 Valley West Blvd Arcata CA 95521
- Ports: 2 EV Plugs (J-1772)
- Cost: $2 per hour
- Hours: Open 24/7
- Phone: 707-826-2827
- Description: The charging station is on the EVconnect network and is located in the hotel parking lot. Payments must be made through the EVconnect app. The app will let drivers monitor their current charge sessions in real time and will send phone notifications as soon as their cars have finished charging.
HSU Schatz Energy Research Center - 1 Harpst St. Arcata, CA 95521
- Ports: 2 EV Plugs (J-1772)
- Cost: Free
- Hours: Open 24/7 (Parking permit required during enforcement days/hours)
- Phone: 707-826-3773
- Description: The Schatz Energy Research Center is located on the south side of campus, across from the Behavioral & Social Sciences building. To access the charging station, take the driveway between the G14 and G15 parking lots and park on the south side of the Schatz Center. One parking space is EV-only; parking here is limited to four hours, and the vehicle must be charging while parked. The second parking space is ADA parking (EV not required). HSU parking permits are required for both spaces and can be purchased from the kiosk in the G15 parking lot or at the Student & Business Services building.
Other Charging Stations in Humboldt County
Electric vehicle infrastructure is currently expanding in Humboldt County. Many cities and towns in the area have charging stations, and there are even plans to bring DC fast charging stations along HWY 101 in the near future. For a complete map showing charging stations in Humboldt County, as well as stations throughout the rest of the state and country, visit PlugShare or the U.S Department of Energy Alternative Fuels Data Center.
City of Arcata EV Parking Exemption
In order to encourage the reduction of air pollution and locally generated greenhouse gas emissions, as well as to promote the usage of zero-emission vehicles, the City Council of the City of Arcata approved Resolution No. 023-48 on March 19, 2003. This resolution grants zero-emission vehicles, specifically battery-powered vehicles and hydrogen-powered vehicles, free use of all parking meters operated by the City of Arcata.
How It Works
Simply bring your car registration and license to the Arcata Police Department where they will create an annual parking permit. The permit allows the vehicle to park at any metered space in city limits free of charge. Parking time limits still apply.
Tax Credits & Other Incentives
The cost of purchasing an electric vehicle has decreased over the past few years and will most likely continue to decrease within the next decade. However, for many consumers, the upfront cost of purchasing an electric vehicle is a major financial roadblock that keeps them out of reach. Fortunately, there are several Federal, State, and private incentives that can make the switch to electric much more affordable and appealing.
|Federal Tax Credit||The Federal Government offers a tax credit of up to $7,500 for the purchase of a new electric vehicle. Visit irs.gov for more information.|
|Clean Vehicle Assistance Program ||The Clean Vehicle Assistance Program provides grants and affordable financing to help low-income Californians purchase a new or used hybrid or electric vehicle. You can get a $2,500 grant for a hybrid vehicle or a $5,000 grant for a plug-in hybrid or electric vehicle. Grants do not need to be repaid. Visit cleanvehiclegrants.org for more information.|
|California Clean Vehicle Rebate Program (CVRP)||The CVRP promotes clean vehicle adoption in California by offering a rebate of $2,500 for the purchase or lease of new, eligible zero-emission vehicles, including electric, plug-in hybrid electric and fuel cell vehicles. Residents making under $35k are eligible for an additional $1,500. Simply fill out an online form and receive a check in the mail. Head to cleanvehiclerebate.org for more details and to compare qualifying vehicles|
|HOV Lane Access||California law allows single-occupant use of High Occupancy Vehicle (HOVs) lanes by certain qualifying clean alternative fuel vehicles. The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) is responsible for accepting applications and issuing decals to qualified vehicles.|
|Insurance Discounts||Some auto insurance companies offer up to a 10% discount for those who drive alternative fuel vehicles. Contact your auto insurance company to see they offer any discounts.|
|PG&E Clean Vehicle Rebate||PG&E customers with EVs are eligible to receive a $500 rebate for their use of electricity as a clean transportation fuel. Apply online by visiting pge.com.|
EV Frequently Asked Questions
Are electric vehicles dependable?
Electric vehicles are some of the most dependable vehicles on the market. They will last as long or longer than gasoline automobiles, with less regular maintenance required. In fact, battery electric vehicles require no oil changes, tune-ups, or new spark plugs. Electric motors will also outlast the body of the vehicle. Many automakers also offer warranties on the batteries as well as safe disposal of worn-out batteries.
How far will an electric vehicle go on a single charge?
That depends on the exact make and model. A battery electric vehicle (BEV) can generally travel 80-240 miles on a single charge. A plug-in electric hybrid vehicle can generally travel 20-50 miles on a single charge but has a total extended range of 460-590 miles with its gasoline engine.
What if I need to travel farther?
Most electric cars have enough range for the daily commute. Very few drivers travel farther than 80 miles on a daily basis. For the infrequent occasions when a long-distance drive is needed, the drive can be done with a plug-in hybrid (PHEV), by access to public transportation or vehicles in car-share services, or by renting or borrowing another vehicle.
How much does it cost to charge an electric vehicle?
Much less than it costs to buy gasoline! In Humboldt County, the Redwood Coast Energy Authority's network of charging stations cost $0.48 per charging session + $0.18 per kWh. Depending on the electric vehicle, you can expect to pay anywhere from $2 - $13.
How long does it take to fully charge an electric vehicle?
The actual charging time depends on the size of your battery, how far you have driven, and the charging station you use. A Level 1 station can recharge an EV in 10+ hours, a Level 2 station can recharge an EV in 4-8 hours, and a Level 3 station can recharge an EV in as little as 20-60 minutes.
Most people charge their cars at home, work, or park at a charging station when out running errands. Plug it in when you arrive and it will be ready for you in the morning, the end of the workday, or by the time you leave.
How do you find charging stations?
There are several free public charging apps and online databases that could help you locate charging stations.
- U.S. Department of Energy Alternative Fuels Data Center (online database)
- PlugShare (online database)
- ChargePoint (free app)
- Greenlots (free app)
How much does it cost to install a home charger?
If you want to charge an EV at home, you can actually do it without installing a home charger. Most EV’s come with an adapter that allows you to plug into any 110V outlet. If you want to charge at home at a faster rate by installing a Level 2 charger, contact a professional electrician for more information.
What happens when an electric vehicle runs out of "juice"?
The same thing when a gasoline-powered vehicle runs out of gas, you'll need a tow or a push. In some areas, roadside mobile charging assistance is available.
Are electric vehicles actually environmentally friendly?
Yes! Electric vehicles emit little to no greenhouse gasses. They do however need to be recharged and thus must draw electricity from somewhere else. If that electricity comes from renewable energy than the vehicle is no longer a part of the pollution cycle. | <urn:uuid:5e4a6612-0ea9-4af3-b762-e859b9ce71c4> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://cityofarcata.org/813/Electric-Vehicles-Infrastructure | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371618784.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20200406035448-20200406065948-00233.warc.gz | en | 0.935344 | 2,812 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Imagine you’re an online instructor in the middle of a semester. Every week at the 11:59 pm deadline, students submit assignments that barely meet the rubric minimums. The discussion boards and virtual office hours are ghost towns, and you’re not convinced anyone is reading your feedback. What can you do to motivate your online students to engage with the content and go the extra mile with their assignments and studies? Turner and Paris (1995) identified 6 factors to consider in your own course design to improve student motivation: Choice, Constructing Meaning, Control, Challenge, Consequence, and Collaboration.
When students are curious about a topic, they make a greater effort to learn and understand the material (Schiefele, 1991). This is easily incorporated into assignments by giving students a range of options to choose from when completing a paper or project. Consider the following examples:
Example 1 (for a management course):
In the Week 1 Discussion Board, describe your main takeaways from Tom Wujec’s TED Talk – “Build A Tower Build A Team.”
In the Week 1 Discussion Board, describe your main takeaways from a TED Talk related to Business Management. Here’s a list of 10 options (https://www.topmanagementdegrees.com/top-ted-talks-on-management/), or you may choose a different one.
The second option will give students an opportunity to explore the wealth of TED Talks available and choose one of interest to them. They may even watch several to see which one they’d like to write about. They’ll also benefit from reading about the videos their peers reviewed.
Example 2 (for a gender studies or media course):
Apply the Bechdel test to the film “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and write a 250+ word post in the discussion board on why it passes or fails.
Apply the Bechdel test to one of the following movies: “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Run Lola Run,” “The Blind Side,” or “Avatar.” Write a 250+ word post in the discussion board on why it passes or fails.
The second version provides students with a greater level of choice than the first version, but they’re still presented with options that will more likely yield interesting discussions or insights. Alternatively, you can let students choose any film, but this may make grading difficult and could perhaps compromise the effectiveness of the assignment. The level of your course (lower-division, upper-division, graduate) should be an important factor in the amount of flexibility you give to your students.
Students’ motivation to learn increases when they consider the knowledge to be valuable (Wang & Han, 2001). Faculty may assume that students realize how the course materials and objectives apply to real-life skills and situations, but students’ understanding of their field can often be very limited, or they may harbor misconceptions. The Quality Matters Certification Rubric, which is used to evaluate the effectiveness of online courses, includes the essential criterion, “Both the purpose of instructional materials and how the materials are to be used for learning activities are clearly explained” (QM Standard 4.2). Consider listing the related learning objectives of each item and emphasizing the benefits or reasoning behind all of your major assignments and instructional materials, even if they may seem obvious. Anecdotes can be particularly powerful here; try beginning with a personal story or fictional-but-common scenario depicting when you or someone else had to complete a similar project in your profession. While text is an easy delivery option, consider including these anecdotes in a video overview or description so students can see your passion and expressions.
You may also consider a hypothetical scenario leading into a weekly unit or assignment. Instead of using a simple to-do list, consider starting with a brief narrative. Compare these prompts for students:
Example 3 (for a weekly overview or reading list):
This week, please read: Chapters 7 and 8 of Principles of Supply Chain Management.
Imagine it’s your first day on the job as a supply chain manager and a member of your team has a problem shipping parts through an area devastated by a forest fire. What factors do you need to consider when rerouting the parts, and how would you respond? This week, read chapters 7 and 8 of Principles of Supply Chain Management to be prepared for this common scenario. This reading will help you complete this week’s writing assignment and meet learning objective 4.1.
Example 4 (for an assignment):
Unit 3 assignment: Describe the life cycle of a plastic water bottle in a 2 page paper. Cite your sources.
Unit 3 assignment: Imagine there’s a new local ballot initiative in your town to ban plastic water bottles. In your future career as an environmental expert, the Channel 3 Action News team reaches out and wants to know how plastic water bottles are produced and where they typically end up. Write up a 2 page script of what you might say to them, and be sure to cite your sources in case anyone questions your facts.
This is a simple, short, and non-technical way to construct meaning for students. Depending on your prompt, you may get some more creative responses to your assignments. Additionally, requiring the students to write in a more conversational tone will likely make it more difficult to directly copy an answer from a formal source like a textbook or reputable website without paraphrasing.
Giving students control of their own learning promotes responsibility, independence, and self-regulation, but can also increase anxiety and confusion. In a typical online course, control can apply to: when to do course work, how to do coursework, or whether to collaborate with peers. It’s possible that, depending on when course units open and close, students may not have or allot enough time to properly complete assignments regardless of their excitement or interest. Consider the following questions regarding control, keeping in mind that there’s no ideal answer for all courses:
- Do you open multiple or all learning modules/units up for students to access early, or do you limit their access to the current week?
- Do you provide paced due dates, or perhaps cumulative installments in a major project, or do you simply require students to complete all assignments by the end of a unit or course?
- Do you give students the option of working collaboratively or solo on course projects? For instance, you may give students the option of working solo on an 8 page paper or in pairs on a 12 page paper.
An appropriate level of cognitive challenge is key to keeping students engaged with course material. If the cognitive challenge level is too high, students can be frustrated or overwhelmed, and if it’s too low, students may become bored and disengaged. Bloom’s Taxonomy is a great resource to help frame the spectrum of low to high cognitive challenge in educational settings. In this category, it’s important to distinguish cognitive challenge from time required since many instructors and students will consider a difficult assignment to be one that involves a lot of time and effort. Activities that require high cognitive challenge (ones that require analysis, evaluation, or creation as opposed to simply remembering or applying facts) don’t inherently require more time, and conversely, major projects can sometimes require a lot of time and minimal cognitive challenge. In the latter scenario, unless there’s a direct application to the students’ field, this will likely be seen as busy work and won’t inspire engagement. Here are three versions of an assessment that progressively challenge students at higher cognitive levels:
Example 5 (for a music course on the Beatles):
Describe the musical characteristics of “Abbey Road” and “The White Album”
Identify a song written by each of the Beatles on “Abbey Road” or “The White Album” and analyze how each member’s writing style is reflected in that song
Create a music review for a fictional final album by the Beatles that would have followed “Abbey Road” by drawing from developmental trends in their previous few albums.
The first version would be more appropriate for lower-level music students or non-music-majors, while the third version would be a more engaging challenge for those with a much deeper familiarity with music. Depending on the assignment details, all three examples could require a similar time commitment.
Another consideration in this category is whether or not students should have an opportunity to re-submit an assignment, quiz, or draft after feedback is given. If this scenario would be appropriate in your class, this may allow for higher cognitive challenge without some of the added frustration since students can have their mistakes or misunderstandings corrected prior to the final submission.
Consequence refers to students’ recognition that there will be positive or negative repercussions associated with their efforts in the class. At ASU Online, we typically recommend a mix of low- and high-stakes assessments, including formative assessments (low-stakes or ungraded quizzes and assignments that help students check their understanding) and summative assessments (higher-stakes tests and assignments at the end of a unit or course to measure if students have met the learning objectives). If you find that students are skimming or ignoring some of your lectures or readings, consider making a low-stakes assignment or quiz directly relating to these materials, or, for your summative assessments, consider requiring that students quote and cite the course learning materials in their discussion posts, projects, or assignments. For the latter option, be sure to make this requirement clear in the assignment description and/or the rubric.
Additionally, consider having students post their work publicly. Students tend to exert more effort when it will be appreciated and recognized by others (Malone & Lepper, 1983). For a final presentation or paper, consider having students post their work to a discussion board with peer review and responses. Recognizing exemplary work by students in weekly announcements can be rewarding for those with the top submissions and may inspire a sense of competition for future assignments.
When students work together, they have opportunities to learn from each other or hold each other accountable to stay on task and meet deadlines (Wang & Han, 2001). Group work can be challenging in online courses due to technology requirements, asynchronous communications, time zone differences, and other reasons, but the benefits can and often do outweigh the added effort compared to solo work. Students may benefit from seeing others’ work and sharing perspectives, which allows them to compare their own understanding and experiences with their peers. This process can fill in gaps where the instructor’s materials weren’t as effective or extend their knowledge to new domains or applications. This comparison can also inspire lagging students to invest more time in the assignment in order to match their peers’ efforts. Consider opportunities in your own course where you can implement peer review or group work, and consult with your instructional designer if you have any questions or concerns on the best way to structure these interactions.
In any collaboration setting, keep in mind the importance of clarifying to students what is cheating and where it’s appropriate to collaborate to prevent any misunderstandings of academic integrity.
What are some strategies that you use to motivate students in your online courses? Are there any other motivational factors instructors and instructional designers should consider when designing their courses?
Special thanks to: Marc van Horne, DeAnna Soth, Athena Kennedy, Philippos Savvides, Geoffrey Gunter, and Lindz Lewandowski for their suggestions and comments on this article.
Malone, M. R. & Lepper, M. R. (1983). Making learning fun. In R. E. Snow & J. F. Marshall (Eds.), Aptitude, learning, and instruction: Cognitive and affective process analyses (Vol. 3, pp. 223-253). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Schiefele, U. (1991). Interest, learning, and motivation. Educational Psychologist, 26(3/4), 299-323.
Turner, J., & Paris, S. G. (1995). How literacy tasks influence children’s motivation for literacy. The Reading Teacher, 48(8), 662-673.
Wang, S. & Han, S. (2001). Six C’s of Motivation. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved 20 October, 2017, from http://epltt.coe.uga.edu | <urn:uuid:94fe7edb-599c-4b22-90ca-2b3a6b010f6d> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://teachonline.asu.edu/2017/11/engage-students-6-cs-motivation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370496330.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20200329232328-20200330022328-00474.warc.gz | en | 0.926645 | 2,606 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Can an Underwater Desert Restore Jamaica’s Ailing Coral?
Swiss artist Claudia Comte is betting on it.
Claudia Comte, Cacti Park Photo Fstopmovies
Dating back nearly seven hundred million years, the wildly varied and beautiful sea dweller known as coral has entranced—and confused—humankind. Ancient naturalist Pliny the Elder classed red coral as a plant. Some of his contemporaries tagged it as a mineral. Aristotle called it “neither quite one thing or another,” between plant and animal. (It is, in fact, an animal.) Red coral earned a spot in the mythology of Ovid, who wrote that the blood of the Medusa, whose head Perseus set down on a beach, had stiffened the coral just as it turned men to stone. The Hindus called the crimson creature the blood of the demon King Bali.
But it may have been the Polynesians who were closest to the truth. Among the world’s oldest species, coral are described in their lore as the first animal to arise from the primordial soup, giving rise even to the gods and to humankind. Indeed, it would be hard to overstate the importance of coral to the global ecosystem—or to exaggerate the threat it is under. As much as forty percent of the world’s reefs may have died, including huge sections of the Great Barrier Reef. If the coral dies, so die the fish that live among it and provide the primary source of protein for hundreds of millions of people, possibly resulting in humanitarian crisis. The forecast isn’t bright. UNESCO estimates that coral reefs may disappear by 2100 without drastic reductions in CO 2 emissions.
I recently strapped on scuba gear and visited one of the places where scientists are working to rejuvenate coral reefs, a fish sanctuary in Portland, on the northeast coast of Jamaica, established by the Alligator Head Foundation. There, the foundation TBA21-Academy has brought artists and scientists together in a residency at the conservancy, which it established in 2016 in conjunction with the University of the West Indies. I was there to visit three sculptures placed thirty-five feet under the sea by Swiss artist Claudia Comte, a TBA21-Academy artist in residency. Created in collaboration with the foundation’s first-ever technology resident, Nathaniel Petre, the three-hundred-pound concrete sculptures take the shape of one of Comte’s recurring motifs: the cactus.
Aquatic Cacti, a Habitat
“Obviously there is some irony in seeing a cactus on the sea floor,” Comte told me. She pointed out that, inspired by a vision of widespread desertification, the irony isn’t just humorous: “For me, they symbolize a future in which, rather than trees, the Earth is covered with cacti.” Comte’s cacti, though, will actually be host to a restorative project: coral cultivated at Alligator Head will be placed on these sculptures, whose concrete surface provides a hospitable and secure bed for the animal. Over the next two years, six more will be planted to form a sculpture park, complete with didactic panel.
The artist has been concerned with ecological issues ever since growing up in a chalet near the forest in Switzerland and observing its ecosystem at first hand, and has worked in naturally occurring materials like wood and marble as a result. “That’s why I polish my wooden sculptures like a maniac!” she said. “That way, you can reveal the life inside the wood.”
Since studying art in Switzerland, Comte has notched solo exhibitions at institutions including the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, and the Kunstmuseum Luzern, among others; her work has been featured in group shows at venues from Kunsthalle Basel to New York’s Swiss Institute. Residencies have taken her to places like New Zealand, Yekaterinburg, Rome, and Johannesburg, and her work has earned a berth in museums like the Museum of Modern Art.
Despite her interest in natural materials and ecology, this is her first project that’s quite so focused on ecological issues. “It’s tricky,” says the artist, who works in formats ranging from installation to wall painting and video. “I have had those concerns since I was a kid, but obviously it’s not so easy to merge environmental concerns and producing artworks.”
But her visits to Alligator Head showed her a way. “I was so impressed by learning about the incredible coral conservation the Alligator Head Foundation is doing. I first went there two years ago and I find it remarkable to see how much the ocean has changed.” Indeed, the foundation boasts a four hundred percent increase in biomass and sixteen percent increase in species diversity.
“I didn’t even know they were animals! I’m fascinated that though they’re animals, they support all this biodiversity, like a tropical forest would do on land.”
Near her sculptures is a nursery for coral, which Comte also loved. “It looks like clotheslines where the baby corals are able to grow. I like this idea that, for visitors, you don’t dive just to enjoy yourself but also to learn something about the ocean.” The dozens of local coral varieties caught the artist’s eye. “It’s the shapes that attracted me,” she said, confessing that at first she was just as confused as Pliny the Elder. “I didn’t even know they were animals! I’m fascinated that though they’re animals, they support all this biodiversity, like a tropical forest would do on land.”
Curator Neville Wakefield, who has included Comte in some of his exhibitions, happened to be in Jamaica at the same time as I was there. The sculptures are funny, he pointed out as we sat at the Blue Lagoon, a few minutes east of Alligator Head Foundation. Indeed, Comte’s cacti are often undeniably jaunty, some with their limbs staggered, lending them a kind of contrapposto. Wakefield pointed out that the sculptures relate to forebears like sculptor Ken Price, who, like Comte, worked with funky shapes and was willing to go into territory often dismissed as craft—him with ceramics, her with carved wood. “It’s almost like she’s not afraid of the souvenir shop,” Wakefield said.
A Family History of Art Patronage
The Thyssen-Bornemisza family’s connection with art dates back more than a century, to when August Thyssen commissioned sculptures from Auguste Rodin after being taken by his works at the 1900 Exposition Universelle. Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza built a collection of contemporary art and started the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Foundation in Vienna in 2002, and, in 2011, with Markus Reymann, established TBA21-Academy, which invites artists, scientists, policy-makers and other experts to conduct research during three-year fellowships organized by curators and artists that involve outings on the research vessel Dardanella. Heading up the current class of participants are curator Chus Martínez and artist collective SUPERFLEX. (Martínez is curating a show of sculptures Comte created onsite in Jamaica, at Madrid’s Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum.) The organization has commissioned some of today’s most prominent artists and architects, including David Adjaye, Olafur Eliasson and Joan Jonas, and has also assisted the Hawaii Senate in devising a strategy to implement the Paris Climate Accord after the US’ withdrawal from the pact.
Several years back, the foundation invited Ruben Torres, a scientist who has led reef conservation projects and coral nurseries in the Dominican Republic, to see if Portland could support similar projects; he found that the conditions were perfect, and the Foundation set to work establishing the six-acre fish sanctuary where Comte’s sculptures reside.
The foundation has worked with many artists who were accustomed to working in the field, and has invited a number of scientists who were previously largely “lab dwellers” to travel the world on the Dardanella, as Reymann, told me. “Let’s get people outside of their comfort zones and see if we can start feeling together,” he said over dinner the night I arrived. When Reymann was brought on, he proposed that the foundation carve out a niche as an institution that would research the ocean, which covers two-thirds of the world and of which only five percent has been explored.
Think Global, Act Local
Climate change is very real for Jamaica, and the island nation has started to develop a policy framework including climate-smart agriculture, clean energy, and land management, with USAID already involved. Local MP Anne-Marie Vaz told me that she’s working to reduce the flow of pollutants into the sea, clean up beaches, and prioritize low-impact industries such as cultural and environmental tourism, while also limiting development to protect the Blue and John Crow Mountains, designated as a World Heritage Site.
The changes instituted by the foundation have required area farmers and fishermen to substantially change their lives, which hasn’t been easy. “There was ninety percent resistance,” said fisherman Andrew Lewis, who now works with the foundation as a warden, ensuring the safety of local plants and animals, and as a diver. “But once the fishermen learn that it can preserve the environment and provide new jobs, they get used to it. You can snorkel and see bigger fish now than before. The fish were getting low. I have seen the change firsthand.”
The foundation’s COO, Machel Donegan, an area native, made the case for the fish sanctuary among local fishermen by taking them to places where their peers have changed their practices successfully, such as Cabo Pulmo, in Mexico. “That trip was awesome,” said fisherman Damion McIntosh, who now also works with the foundation. “I didn’t know you could see so much fish in one area, and so large. We came back home with their advice and we’re getting the result now.”
McIntosh, too, acknowledged resistance from area fishermen. “They don’t have a lot of areas to fish, and if the foundation takes six kilometers away from them, where are they going to fish? They don’t have the equipment to go farther out. We still see some fishermen in the sanctuary but more of them are on board now.”
“We acknowledge it’s a sacrifice,” Donegan told me, but if you can train fishermen as scuba divers, so they can accompany tourists on their dives, or as lifeguards for pleasure swimmers and boaters, they see that there can be new ways of living—if the area can draw travelers away from the large, all-inclusive resorts that are tourist magnets, that is.
There has been a distinct increase in tourism to the area, and Portland’s relative remoteness is a blessing and a curse. The country is eye-poppingly gorgeous. It offers a pristine, undeveloped atmosphere, and it boasts a colorful history; Ian Fleming wrote his James Bond novels here, and movies including Dr. No and Live and Let Die were shot here, as were some scenes in the upcoming Bond flick, No Time to Die. Port Antonio’s marina is named for Errol Flynn, a frequent visitor in his day.
When we swam a few feet over a coral head that stands atop a cliff scores of feet in height and I suddenly saw the drop-off, I felt as if I were flying. I even couldn’t escape the sensation that I might drop into the yawning space beneath me.
On the curse side of the ledger, it’s two and a half hours’ drive from the airport in Kingston, and that’s if you drive like the locals, who take narrow, winding roads leading through the mountains, with no lane markings and no shoulders, at knuckle-whitening speeds.
I went on four dives with foundation staff, facilitated by Lee-Ann Rando, of local scuba company Lady G’Diver (groan, smile, shake head with appreciation). Accompanying us were Reymann; Denise Henry, a marine ecologist who is the Alligator Head Foundation’s research program manager; and, shooting video, David Lee, a five-time record-setting diver who, in 2004, with no fins and no air tank, descended to two hundred and thirteen feet (at the Blue Lagoon, where I met with Wakefield). One of our dives was to spend time with Comte’s sculptures; the other three were for viewing the coral and the fish populations.
This was just my third expedition. I mentioned that it would be my first time flopping backward over the side of the boat, rather than stepping forward into the drink; just before I fell back, the boat’s captain, Trevor Douglas, joked that I was going in like a Navy Seal.
During the dives, we saw wrasse fish by the dozens, along with lobsters, crabs, a veritable rainbow of parrot fish, snapper, moray eels, a sea cucumber, and barracuda. Reymann shot and brought home several lionfish, an invasive species from the Pacific that has no natural predator in the Caribbean. They were enthusiastic about the number of fish they saw, and how few lionfish remain after concerted efforts. Though we didn’t see them, there have been increased sightings of Loggerhead Turtles, Hawksbill Turtles, West Indian Manatees, and Longsnout Seahorses.
The topography of the ocean floor provides for riveting dives. When we swam a few feet over a coral head that stands atop a cliff scores of feet in height and I suddenly saw the drop-off, I felt as if I were flying. I even couldn’t escape the sensation that I might drop into the yawning space beneath me.
After we surfaced, Denise Henry filled me in on coral during a visit to the foundation’s marine lab. She explained that the animal, which exists in forty-two species in the Caribbean, hosts a single-celled algae that aids in digesting nutrients from the water, giving it eighty percent of its food. When the coral is stressed by factors like warming water, it expels the plant like you shed a coat if you get too warm; but if the coral doesn’t reabsorb the algae, it will die. The algae gives the various species of coral their distinctive colors, so when it disappears, the coral bleaches; some of these plants she brings back to the marine lab. To account for warming oceans, she can acclimate the coral to warmer water in the lab’s tanks, where she showed me several pieces that are growing quickly on small pieces of ceramic tile.
Comte’s sculptures, standing about six feet high, already seem at home on the ocean floor; two of them reside in a sandy alleyway between two coral heads, just wide enough for a diver to swim a circuit and view them in the round. They’re slippery to the touch. They will offer a home to coral come November, when, after the summer’s heat, the waters begin to cool. | <urn:uuid:ae87b37a-a914-44be-aa4a-27bacc67e523> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://garage.vice.com/en_us/article/d3aydy/can-an-underwater-desert-restore-jamaicas-ailing-coral | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371858664.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20200409122719-20200409153219-00235.warc.gz | en | 0.967587 | 3,303 | 3.015625 | 3 |
This page gives the abstracts of eleven academic articles written by Tony Eaude or where he was lead author. The full text, which is not available here because of restricted copyright, can be made available for small numbers of copies as a pdf file by contacting email@example.com
- ‘The role of culture and traditions in how young children’s identities are constructed’
This article was published in the International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, volume 24 (1), pp 5-19. It summarises some key ideas discussed in more detail in the book ‘Identity, Culture and Belonging: Educating Young Children for a Changing World.’
This article explores how cultures and traditions influence the construction of young children’s identities. Identity is conceptualised as a constantly changing narrative based on how an individual sees him or herself and how s/he is perceived. We all have multiple, intersecting identities. Different meanings of culture are discussed, highlighting norms and values, ‘culture as-the-arts’, and space for growth. Primary and secondary socialisation is emphasised, recognising the influence factors such as gender, race, class and religion. The effect of the home and of the macro-culture and different micro-cultures and traditions is considered. In relation to children’s spirituality, trusting relationships and hospitable environments, and the need to counter messages given by an individualistic and consumerist macro-culture are highlighted. An apprenticeship approach is advocated, where adults encourage questioning and strive to maintain children’s sense of agency, with a gradual transfer of power as children become older and/or more confident. It is suggested that researchers and practitioners should take more account of external factors such as gender, race and class in relation to children’s spirituality.
- ‘Fundamental British values? possible implications for children’s spirituality’
This article was published in the International Journal of Children’s Spirituality 2018 volume 23 (1).
This article argues that the statement of fundamental British values, as introduced in England’s education system in the period 2012 to 2014, is problematic, not least in relation to children’s spirituality. The context of the introduction of fundamental British values is outlined. The values chosen are more contested than they may seem, being neither fundamental nor distinctively British. How the idea has been conceptualised and implemented has adverse consequences for children’s understanding of identity, especially for some already marginalised groups, and may encourage a limited, superficial view of spiritual, moral, social and cultural development (SMSC). This risks excluding some groups, especially Muslims, in the current political context, and discouraging open discussion in schools of controversial topics, when such discussion helps to reduce the danger of radicalisation. Consideration of the impact of statements of values, however apparently uncontroversial, must take account of the power of those formulating them and the wider context.
- ‘Humanities in the primary school – philosophical considerations’
This article was published in Education 3-13, 2017, volume 45, 3 pp. 343-353
Drawing on a range of philosophical traditions, this article argues that the humanities are essential aspects of the development of the whole child. The humanities help children to understand themselves and other people in relation to place, time, belief, identity and culture and to become empathetic, thoughtful and critical citizens. Learning the content, language, concepts, skills and ways of working associated with separate disciplines is important, as is exploration of key ideas related to human experience and culture, including controversial ones. Defining the humanities in the primary years by the types of knowledge, qualities and values involved may be more appropriate than by subject. These can be learned, and reinforced, in all subject areas, with some offering particularly fertile opportunities, and through cross-curricular approaches. An emphasis on factual knowledge is too limiting, with active, first-hand experience helping to engage and include children. To teach and demonstrate appropriate ways of working and thinking, teachers require pedagogical content knowledge and enthusiasm as well as subject knowledge.
- The future of the humanities in primary schools – reflections in troubled times
This article, co-authored with Graham Butt, Simon Catling and Peter Vass, was published in Education 3-13, 2017, volume 45, number 3, pp 383-395.
This article reflects on the implications for practitioners, researchers and policy-makers of the future of the humanities in primary schools in the light of the challenges facing future generations. There is wide divergence in the four jurisdictions of the UK. The humanities are perceived as important, in principle, though curriculum frameworks differ. However, the status of the humanities is often uncertain, in practice, given the current emphasis on outcomes in literacy and numeracy. There is a lack of robust research on how, and by whom, the humanities are taught. The more theoretical articles suggest that the humanities, broadly conceived, are an essential aspect of young children’s education – to enable a deeper understanding of human culture and identity, and to develop the qualities and values needed in a diverse world. Additionally, curricular breadth is required alongside a realisation that narrowly focusing on propositional knowledge is limiting. While this has implications for the whole curriculum, History, Geography and Religious Education have key roles in meeting these aims and in engaging and motivating young children. A stronger policy steer is called for, to ensure that schools give more priority to humanities education, with greater investment in professional development in Initial Teacher Education and beyond.
- ‘Creating hospitable space to nurture children’s spirituality -possibilities and dilemmas associated with power’
This article was published in the International Journal of Children’s Spirituality in August- November 2014, volume 19, number 3-4, pp 236-248,
This article considers the idea of hospitable space and raises questions about what this entails in nurturing children’s spirituality in both religious and non-religious contexts. In particular, dilemmas associated with the use and abuse of adult power and authority and systemic forms of power are explored. It is argued that hospitable space is open, inclusive and reciprocal, with mutual learning. Adults must help to set the boundaries within which open exploration can take place, empowering children without overcontrolling activities or outcomes or co-ercing children into particular responses. The difficulty of creating hospitable space and the dangers related to power and control, even in activities intended and widely perceived as benign, are illustrated in relation to play and school classrooms. Structural issues such as a demand for conformity and a culture of competition and pace militate against creating and sustaining hospitable space to nurture children’s spirituality. High-stakes assessment and accountability mechanisms makes this especially difficult in formal school settings.
Key words: hospitable space, children, spirituality, power, classrooms
- ‘What makes primary classteachers special? Exploring the features of expertise in the primary classroom’
This article was published in the journal Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice in February 2014, volume 20, number 1, pp 4-18.
This article explores the nature of teacher expertise in the primary school classroom, drawing on theoretical models of expertise and of teaching expertise. It challenges simplistic models of an ‘outstanding’ or ‘master’ teacher to argue that since teacher expertise is both situated and prototypical, it is manifested in different ways according to context and the individual. The complexity and contingency of the primary school classroom means that the classteacher’s expertise must be multi-faceted to enable appropriate responses to events and match between learners’ needs and teachers’ knowledge. Such expertise is conceptualised in terms of domain, craft and personal/interpersonal knowledge, with the last of these especially important in the primary classroom, and domain not equated with subject knowledge. This leads to a preliminary typology of what distinguishes the primary school classteacher with a high level of expertise. The conclusion considers possible implications for research, emphasising the need for detailed, collaborative empirical work and academic and professional discourse, considering in greater depth the nature of expertise of teachers working with young children, especially in the classroom.
Keywords: expertise; primary education; classteacher; pedagogical knowledge
- Starting from how young children learn – a rationale from psychology for religious educators in the early years
This article was published in the Journal of Religious Education in 2011, volume 59, number 3, pp. 61-71.
This article seeks to provide a rationale, drawing mainly on theory from psychology about how young children learn, for how religious educators should work in the early years, recognising key challenges, especially those related to the varying purposes of religious education in different contexts and the influence which adults can exert. The importance of children’s agency and engagement and of both conscious and unconscious processes is emphasised. To sustain and develop the necessary attributes and dispositions for learning, young children need a predominantly experiential approach, with opportunities to represent activities and experiences in different and developmentally-appropriate ways. This involves encouraging the search for meaning and connectedness, in an environment which offers ‘hospitable space’, where adults invite and guide rather than prescribe. This is exemplified by considering the role of play and story. Possible implications both in schools and elsewhere and for faith-based contexts are discussed.
- Happiness, Emotional Well-being and Mental Health – what has children’s spirituality to offer?
This article was published in the International Journal of Children’s Spirituality in August 2009, volume 14, number 3, pp. 185-196.
This article discusses the concepts of happiness, emotional well-being and mental health in the light of recent work on children’s spirituality to argue that such a consideration can help to avoid simplistic and individualistic views of each. Distinguishing between happiness as short-term gratification and as longer-term flourishing, the latter is presented as involving the search for meaning. Critiques of programmes designed to develop emotional well-being are discussed. The reasons for patterns of emotional response are explored, including models of attachment and prior and present experience. The importance of adults being emotionally attuned to children to help build up the attributes associated with good mental health is emphasised. For happiness and emotional well-being to be explicit ends in themselves tends to promote introspection and a sense of vulnerability. They should be seen as by-products of children flourishing as a result of sensitive relationships and the types of activities through which children’s resilience and sense of agency are re-inforced.
- ‘Should religious educators be wary of Values Education?’
This article was published in the Journal of Religious Education vol 56 (3) pp. 57-65 in 2008. It considers the features of Values Education, as a whole-school approach to moral development, notably the emphasis on example and habituation, supported by discussion and reflection, based on universal values.
This paper considers the features of Values Education, as a whole-school approach to moral development, notably the emphasis on example and habituation, supported by discussion and reflection, based on universal values. Four main questions are addressed, the breadth and precision of the values identified, the emphasis on universal values, how Values Education relates to the wider educational process and its link with spiritual development. Using the term virtues for intra- and inter-personal values is suggested and the idea of primary and secondary values raised. It is argued that Values Education has many of the features of a tradition, but that two main hazards must be avoided, too general and unspecific a view of values within a culturally diverse society and too narrow and individualistic an approach to spiritual development. The relationship with Religious Education and potential for RE to enrich Values Education are considered.
- Strangely Familiar? Teachers Making Sense of Young Children’s Spiritual Development
This article was published in the journal Early Years – an international journal of research and development in November 2005. Drawing on Tony Eaude’s doctoral thesis ‘Beyond Awe and Wonder: how teachers of young children understand spiritual development’, this article discusses the policy, professional development and practical implications in relation to young children.
I discuss philosophical and methodological difficulties in researching young children’s spiritual development. I describe my research involving detailed discussions with, and observations of, fourteen teachers of four- and five-year olds. I highlight key issues, including what distinguishes spiritual from other sorts of development, the nature of children’s spiritual experience and to what extent young children can and do engage in spiritual experience. Drawing on a critical evaluation of common features of the teachers’ understanding, I sketch out features of a new and inclusive understanding of spiritual experience as that which relates to identity, place and purpose. I consider possible implications, in terms of policy, professional development and practice, based on the conclusion that environments and relationships are more important than specific experiences, techniques and skills.
- Do young boys and girls have distinct and different approaches and needs in relation to spiritual development?
This article was published in the International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, volume 9, number 1, 2004. It is an academic article but written in accessible language, seeking to open up a way of exploring the relationship between gender and spiritual development. It is argued that a consideration of this issue can deepen one’s understanding of spiritual development – whatever one’s definition – and of gender. Empirical evidence related to mental health, crime and educational attainment is presented, as well as research evidence related to gender in areas commonly associated with spiritual development.
Difficulties are outlined in how to consider whether boys and girls have distinctive approaches and needs in relation to spiritual development, especially the lack of any agreed definition of spiritual development and the nature of the research literature relating to gender. I explore this without presupposing, or excluding, any particular definition, arguing that, whatever one’s assumptions and beliefs about spirituality, these influence, and are influenced by, assumptions and beliefs about gender, and vice versa. I present empirical evidence on aspects associated with personal wellbeing indicating outcomes strongly differentiated by gender. I examine research evidence in relation to gender within a range of areas commonly associated with spirituality and highlight some gaps. I argue that considering spiritual development through the lens of gender and gender through that of spiritual development can illuminate one’s understanding of both concepts. I suggest some possible implications for future research and for teachers of young children.
- Shining Lights in Unexpected Corners: new angles on young children’s spiritual development
This article was published in the International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, volume 8, number 2, 2003. It is an academic article but written in accessible language, summarising the main lessons of Tony Eaude’s doctoral thesis ‘Beyond Awe and Wonder: how teachers of young children understand spiritual development.’
I consider how an inclusive understanding of young children’s spiritual development can be enriched by research within the psychoanalytic tradition and cognitive psychology. I discuss difficulties of language and definition and suggest that thinking of spiritual experience as a type of experience rather than of spirituality or spiritual development may be helpful. Rather than working from a pre-determined definition, I argue that the meaning of spiritual experience is illuminated by considering a wide range of children’s maturational and developmental needs and considering the boundaries of what may coherently be included as spiritual experience. In exploring research within these two traditions I suggest the integration of the personality as an end-point of spiritual experience which avoids a linear, upward idea of spiritual development. Finally, I consider the implications for research, about spiritual experience itself and for children and their teachers. | <urn:uuid:f77029fd-3f40-44c8-9edd-21302954f1d5> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://edperspectives.org.uk/academic-articles/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371830894.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20200409055849-20200409090349-00355.warc.gz | en | 0.939275 | 3,241 | 3.140625 | 3 |
We are currently assessing silver eel turbine passage mortality at Ardnacrusha hydroelectric station on the Lower River Shannon. Silver eels are adult maturing eels on their spawning migration to the Sargasso Sea after spending up to 20 years (or more) in freshwater. The European Eel Anguilla anguilla is currently listed by the IUCN as a critically endangered species. Current advice from ICES for 2016 is that “the status of eel remains critical and that all anthropogenic mortality affecting production and escapement of silver eels should be reduced to – or kept as close to – zero as possible.” The work that we are undertaking on the Lower River Shannon on silver eel turbine passage mortality is part of a European-wide effort to assess the main anthropogenic impacts on the European eel. It is becoming increasingly clear that hydroelectric schemes are now the largest cause of mortality for this critically endangered species.
In 2014 the ESB admitted to killing almost 8 tonnes of silver eels at Ardnacrusha hydroelectric station alone, which probably amounts to something like 20,000 silver eels. On the River Erne they estimated that a total of 6 tonnes died at their two hydroelectric stations – which may represent 15,000 silver eels. But these figures are likely to be significant underestimates – a dead or injured eel is swept down the tailrace as rapidly as a live one and are not easily discerned using any currently available tagging or sonar technologies. More worryingly there is increasing evidence to suggest that the impact of ESB hydro-power impacts on eels is not being accounted for accurately. But even the ESB’s own estimates (c.35,000 silver eel mortalities per year on the Shannon and Erne) do not consider the fact that many more eels die long after passage through turbines as a result of sub-lethal injuries. It’s a long way across the Atlantic ocean to the Sargasso Sea, and a fish has to be very fit and healthy to complete this journey and spawn successfully.
Passing through a hydroelectric station affects eels (and other fish) in all types of ways; both physically and as a result of stress. Silver eels migrating down a river like the Shannon (or Erne) have to cope with the often start-stop cycle of hydroelectric generation. Silver eels want to migrate when there is a flood in the river, but on rivers regulated for hydroelectricity production peak flows usually occur at peak times of electricity demand – even when there is a flood on the river. Flows on the Lower River Shannon can vary from 400+ cubic meters per second (cumecs) to one twentieth of this in around an hour. When there is very high rainfall in the Shannon catchment, the ESB keep Ardnacrusha hydroelectric station operating to pass water downstream and silver eels arriving into the Lower River Shannon keep going. They travel down the headrace and meet Ardnacrusha hydroelectric station, some try to avoid it – temporarily, some make the run but end up on the trash screens, the rest descend down a c.30m hydrological cliff before colliding with runner blades spinning at 150+ rpms. Many are chopped in half, more are bashed against shear edges, all are subjected to rapid pressure shocks and spins, before boiling into the tailrace and the awaiting predators. Eels approaching a turbine intake know there is something wrong and are reluctant to enter. On the River Shannon eels cannot avoid the turbines and have to go through. On the Erne silver eels are faced with two hydroelectric stations.
More photos from our November survey of silver eel turbine passage mortalities on the Lower River Shannon below Ardnacrusha hydroelectric station are provided here. Tens of thousand’s of silver eels are being killed at this and other Irish hydroelectric stations each year.
When asked to comment on some of the the photos of turbine killed silver eels we collected during November 2015, Andrew Kerr of the Sustainable Eel Group said “this is a ghastly and up until now hidden tragedy. There are 25,000 hydro power stations across Europe killing the brood stock as they seek to make their autumn migration to the sea. A typical female is carrying over one million eggs so every time you see a dead one think of the million it represents”.
Many of the eels that we found during our November 2015 survey had been severed into parts after passing though the turbines. Others had no visible external damage, but had broken spines and other internal damage. Some were still alive but dying from injuries. This is clearly no way to treat a ‘critically endangered’ species. But the majority of eels killed by turbine passage at Ardnacrusha are never seen due to the large size of the River Shannon, and the fact that the eels run at night and when the river is in flood. Large numbers of cormorants congregate in the tailrace of the power station (120+) and feed on the dead and dying eels. The silver eels are also eaten by other predators such as herons, gulls, otters, mink and pike. Many of the eels keep swimming but die at sea – and out of sight – a few days later as a result of their injuries. After turbine passage these eels may also be more susceptible to marine predators in the Shannon estuary.
The ESB operates a ‘trap and transport’ programme to move eels (silver eels and juveniles) around their dams, but this is neither a sustainable or effective solution. Juvenile eel (elver) traps on the River Shannon have not been operated during the peak elver migration period. Even when operational these traps are very inefficient with many of the elvers migrating upstream never finding the traps and dying from starvation or predation below the dam. It is also noted that over 300,000 juvenile eels died at the ESB elver traps at Cathaleen’s Fall dam on the River Erne in Ballyshannon in 2014. The elver run in 2014 was widely considered to be the best since the 1980s and an opportunity to restock the catchments above ESB hydroelectric stations with juvenile eels was sadly missed. Although monitoring eel recruitment has been identified as a critical part of Ireland’s eel management plan, there is no effective juvenile eel monitoring programme operated in Ireland. Incredibly when it was exposed in 2014 (with photographs, independent witnesses) that the ESB were not operating elver traps on the River Shannon by early May (the main elver run occurred in April), this was not acknowledged in the 2015 ‘Report of the standing scientific committee for eel‘ which risibly claimed that the traps were just down for maintenance for 2 hours! Unfortunately this undermines the credibility of all figures put forward by the ESB/IFI in relation to eel management and highlights the need for a truly independent and scientific committee for eels in Ireland. The data from Ireland’s eel recruitment sites is included in ICES datasets so this also undermines international recruitment indices.
The ESB attempts to catch downstream migrating silver eels in nets and transport them around Ardnacrusha hydroelectric station. However, these eels are handled many times and a significant number are likely to die later due to physical impacts and stress. When they enter the nets they are held against the full flow of the river and then handled several times using nets and bins, stored in holding tanks, before being trucked and released. This handling almost certainly causes damage to the eels but this has not been investigated. The ESB claim that these are hardy fish adapted to migrating in rivers in flood; but there is no evidence to show that they can tolerate being handled seven times or more and held for extended periods as occurs during trap and transport. Eels are sensitive creatures and will suffer from stress, skin damage, and demucinisation during handling at very least. A significant proportion of the silver eels handled in this way will be stressed and injured, and may never spawn. Moreover, only a small proportion of these eels are actually moved downstream in this way, with the vast majority of eels (70%+) still having to pass though the turbines. We believe that the percentage of silver eels which are moved in this way has been overestimated, and that turbine passage mortality has been underestimated. It is clear that the reporting of eel management in Ireland is not accurate. The large numbers of dead and dying silver eels we found during November 2015 in the Lower Shannon furthermore shows that silver eel turbine passage mortality at Ardnacrusha hydroelectric station is a major problem which has yet to be addressed.
What is immediately required here is the introduction of sustainable water management practices on the River Shannon, to include greater use of spillways and cessation of hydroelectric generation when eels are running. The peak silver migration takes place over only around 20 nights and there should be no hydroelectric generation during this period. Spilling water in the old river channel would also bring significant hydro-ecological benefits. When speaking to ‘The Times’ newspaper, Andrew Kerr of the Sustainable Eel Group agreed that “trap and transport” methods had proved largely ineffective. “The turning off of turbines during peak eel movement is clearly the solution. What we know is that their biggest movement is in a really short autumnal burst of rain and it is at night. During that time you could make a huge difference.” See this article here in an article entitled ‘Power plant ‘should be turned off’ to save eels‘. However, it is also clear that new eel passes and bypasses are needed. The latest European Commission report on the outcome of the eel management plans has specifically stated that more attention should be given to management measures related to non-fishing anthropogenic mortality factors, such as hydropower. To date there has been no change whatsoever in hydropower operation protocols in Ireland to facilitate the sustainable management of the European eel.
Ireland banned traditional eel fishing, which can be sustainable and of significant benefit to rural communities, but has done little else to help the eel. There is no accurate monitoring of eel recruitment, which was identified as being a critical component of the national eel management plan. No opening up of migration pathways. No restrictions have been placed on hydroelectric generation. If we maximised eel recruitment and minimised turbine passage mortality on the River Shannon it would be possible to resume traditional sustainable eel fishing in the future. In the UK the Environmental Agency see addressing non-fishery sources of mortality such as hydropower as being their highest priority, while seeking to maintain a sustainable and economically viable eel fishery. In Ireland this seems to be the lowest priority – we put no restrictions on hydroelectric generation, closed all the traditional eel fisheries and only provided these ‘trap and transport’ schemes which are in no way a sustainable solution. Eel fishing has the potential to employ perhaps 200-300 traditional fishermen in the Shannon catchment. This would be of significant economic benefit to rural communities, unlike the appalling waste that the thousands of dead eels floating down the River Shannon at the moment represents.
We need to introduce increased and varied flows to the old River Shannon (the original course of the river). The compensation flow for this waterbody was set in the 1920’s and urgently needs to be reviewed. The compensation flow provided is just 10 m3 sec-1 when the natural 95%ile flow would have been approximately twice this volume. During the winter months the volume of water spilled though Parteen Regulating Weir needs to be significantly increased and varied to simulate natural flood events. Greater numbers of downstream migrating silver eels will follow this water and descend through the spillway. Passage through spillways is almost certainly less harmful to eels than passage through hydroelectric turbines. But there should be no night-time generation at the peak times when silver eels are running (e.g. the days around the new moon periods in November, December). During flood events the spillway at Adnacrusha Hydroelectric Station could be used at night-time in preference to the turbines. Water could also be spilled though the shipping lock.
Maximising the use of spillways is something that could be done immediately. However, a fish bypass system will also need to be installed. This would be used to allow all downstream migrants (e.g. silver eels, smolts, kelts) on the River Shannon to bypass the turbines. The main bypass will probably be located at Parteen Regulating Weir and could be associated with a new upstream fish pass for this location. Research completed by the University College Galway has estimated that the trap and transport programme for silver eels on the River Shannon “may presently be of the order of € 500,000 per year”. As with other data coming from the River Shannon this is also almost certainty inaccurate. However, it is clear that the costs involved with trap and transport are significant and this money would be better spent on new fish passes and bypasses. New elver traps and passes also need to be built and operated effectively.
The alternative to the above will be increasing pressure to decommission this scheme altogether. What do we want here? A River Shannon with eel fisheries employing 200+ traditional eel fishermen (along with 50,000+ salmon* running upstream supporting an internationally significant recreational fishery) – or an archaic hydroelectric scheme providing <1% of national electricity output and supporting a few privileged jobs. There is a middle ground here. Removal of ecologically destructive dams like this is well under way in the USA, and – as extreme as this may sound now – serious pressure like this will eventually come in Ireland also if we don’t start reducing the serious ecological impacts of Irish hydropower schemes. There is a role for Irish hydroelectric schemes like Ardnacrusha in moving towards a future of reduced greenhouse gas emissions; but we need migratory fish and ecologically healthy rivers also.
*This is the conservation escapement target for the River Shannon above Parteen, the minimum number of salmon which should be ascending past these dams. In reality the average run of ‘wild’ salmon is less than 1,000 per year.
- Power plant ‘should be turned off’ to save eels
- ‘Against the current’ at Ormston House
- River Runner documentary
- Are Ireland’s large hydroelectric schemes sustainable?
- Management plan for the Lower River Shannon
- Aerial Surveys of the Lower River Shannon
- A sustainable compensation flow is needed for the Old River Shannon
- Ireland’s rivers require greater protection
- Review of ESB’s trap and transport programme for eels
If you have any queries in relation to eels or eel management please do not hesitate to contact us. | <urn:uuid:9b64b951-0909-4908-ae72-9600091df681> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://europeaneel.com/2016/02/23/monitoring-silver-eel-turbine-passage-mortalities-on-the-lower-shannon/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370519111.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20200404011558-20200404041558-00195.warc.gz | en | 0.959378 | 3,110 | 3.375 | 3 |
One NO-DES unit (truck or trailer) can flush on average one mile of mains per day!
One NO-DES flushing unit (truck or trailer) can efficiently 100% flush the average city with a population of approx 40,000 to 60,000. Understand that most water departments would not conventionally hydrant flush (to waste) their entire distribution system in one year; they would divide it up into third’s, forth’s or fifth’s (taking 3, 4 or 5 years to complete 100% of their water distribution system). With the NO-DES flushing technology they could flush their entire proposed system (based on a population of 50,000) each year; that’s 100% of their distribution system each year using the NO-DES flushing technology!
There are approx 1,250 fire hydrants per every 50,000 in population (a conservative estimate). For our case study we use a city population size of 50,000 with approx 1,250 fire hydrants. The conventional hydrant flushing crew would consist of two or three persons (having to comply with NPDES regulations, etc) – The NO-DES flushing crew would also consist of the same two or three persons! So labor is the same!
Each hydrant can flow between 500 and 1,500 gpm from the hydrant steamer ports (4” or 4-1/2” Port) all depending on main sizing and system pressures. So for a conservative estimate we will use 1,000 gallons per minute for the flow rate. The average time flushing at each hydrant is 15 minutes. 1,000 gpm times 15 minutes equals 15,000 gallons lost from each hydrant flushed, on average.
Using the NO-DES flushing technology scenario they could flush the entire distribution system (with a population of 50,000) which would equal 1250 hydrants that would have been flushed to waste using the conventional hydrant flushing method (but was now conserved using the NO-DES technology) – So to calculate the water saved (after NO-DES flushing for one year) you would take 1,250 hydrants x 15 min’s x 1,000 gpm = 18,750,000 gallons of precious water saved (that’s 18.75 Million Gallons saved) in just one year. The average cost of the water lost is $3,000 per million gallons – so $3,000 x 18.75 mg = $56,250 saved each year. At this rate the NO-DES equipment would pay for itself in approx 5 years.
If your population is 100,000 and you had one NO-DES unit, you would flush 50% of your distribution system each year (for two years) and it would still pay for itself in approx 5 years.
After reading the above case study how could any water manager opt to use wasteful conventional hydrant flushing methods ever again? Just ask yourself; how much water and monies did you save using your wasteful conventional hydrant flushing methods last year! Yes, it’s that easy! The crew trucks, the back-hoes and the vac trucks that you purchased are more expensive than our NO-DES units, and they will never give you a return on the investment!
Remember NO-DES flushing technology helps save our environment from chemicals, and:
•It saves approx 6% (or more) of all water supplies annually!
•It saves the energy required to produce, treat, pressurize and deliver the water.
•It improves the water quality to a higher standard than it was before delivered.
•It cleans and scours the insides of the mains more effectively than conventional flushing techniques!
•It eliminates NPDES issues and fines!
•It increases the safety of the water by increasing the disinfection “in the distribution system”.
•It solves issues with chloramines, removes bio-films, reduces HPC levels and eliminates nitrification issues.
•It refreshes the water – eliminating water age at dead ends!
•It helps to reduce DBP’s.
•It reduces water quality complaints from the CUSTOMER!
•It eliminates pressure loss and surging (water hammer), reducing main breaks and main damages.
•It eliminates property damage.
•It improves PR with customers! Cities can lead by example in water conservation!
•NO-DES flushing technology saves money – It pays for itself!
Any argument against saving water, saving money or improving water quality is only hurting your customers!
This is so simple:
Conventional Flushing Wastes the Water – The water and monies are lost forever!
NO-DES Flushing Saves the Water – So it pays for itself; you own it and control it!
Below is an example of how NO-DES can flush large additional loops from one set-up location:
First flush (bright yellow) – Set up between H1 & H2 on Donald, approx 800’ directly between hydrants.
Second flush (purple) – Same set up location between H1 & H2 on Donald – but flushing approx 2,400’ on Calle Del Prado & Via Verde & Donald – Close valves #1, #2, #4, #19 & #17
Third flush (red) – Same set up location between H1 & H2 on Donald – but flushing approx 2,800’ on Calle Del Prado & Via Verde & Donald – Open valves #19 – Close valves #17 & #18 – Leave valves #1, #2, #4 & #17 Closed. Note: Only the red section of this flush is counted as newly flushed main!
Forth flush (Green) – Same set up location between H1 & H2 on Donald – but flushing approx 2,600’ on Martin & Via Verde & Donald – Open valves #2 & #17 – Close valves #3, #8, #15 & #20 – Leave valves #1, #4 & #18 Closed. Note: Only the green section of this flush is counted as newly flushed main!
Forth flush (dark yellow) – Same set up location between H1 & H2 on Donald – but flushing approx 1,600’ on Camino Del Valle & Martin – Open valves #3 & #8 – Close valves #7, #11, #16 & #17 – Leave valves #1, #4, #15, #18 & #20 Closed. Only the dark yellow section of this flush is counted as newly flushed main!
Fifth flush (blue) – Same set up location between H1 & H2 on Donald – but flushing approx 1,600’ on Las Vegas Dr & Ashley & Calle Corta – Open Valve #11 & #16 – Close valves #25 – Leave valves #1, #4, #7, #15, #17, #18 & #20 Closed. Only the blue section of this flush is counted as newly flushed main!
Sixth flush (Orange) – Same set up location between H1 & H2 on Donald – but flushing approx 1,000’ on Ashley & Via Corta – Open Valve #7 & #11 – Close valves #10 & #16 – Leave valves #1, #4, #15, #17, #18, #20 & #25 Closed. Only the orange section of this flush is counted as newly flushed main!
Seventh flush (pink) – Same set up location between H1 & H2 on Donald – but flushing approx 2,300’ on Van Ct & Las Vegas – Open Valve #10, & #15 – Close valves #7 & #12 – Leave valves #1, #4, #16, #17, #18, #20 & #25 Closed. Only the pink section of this flush is counted as newly flushed main!
Eighth flush (light blue) – Same set up location between H1 & H2 on Donald – but flushing approx 300’ on Via Corta – Open Valve #12 – Close valves #10 – Leave valves #1, #4, #7, #16, #17, #18, #20 & #25 Closed. Only the light blue section of this flush is counted as newly flushed main!
Ninth flush (light blue) up on Clinton – Same set up location between H1 & H2 on Donald – but flushing approx 3,200’ on Clinton & Alameda & Camino Del Valle – Open Valves #4, #7, #10, #16, & #25 – Close valves #2, #13 & #21 – Leave valves #1, #17, #18 & #20 Closed. Only the light blue section of this flush is counted as newly flushed main!
Tenth flush (dark blue) up on Rufffin Av – Same set up location between H1 & H2 on Donald – but flushing approx 3,200’ on Ruffin & Alameda & Camino Del Valle – Open Valves #21 – Close valves #24 – Leave valves #1, #2, #13, #17, #18 & #20 Closed. Only the dark blue section of this flush is counted as newly flushed main!
Total of 21,800 feet of main NO-DES flushed from one location (set up)! = 4.13 miles of main NO-DES Flushed (one set up, one day)
In the bay area we have found that the NO-DES flushing system cost approx 50% less than uni-directional flushing. The NO-DES system will pay for itself over time – Uni-directional flushing will always waste water and money (it will never pay for itself)!
The water saved can be construed as a new water source for planning purposes!
Size of mains to be flushed –
Most mains above 12” are considered transmission mains and normally maintain a flow significant enough to prevent particulates from settling.
Both uni-directional flushing and NO-DES flushing utilize hydrant ports (4” or 4-1/2” steamers, or 2-1/2”) to flush. When uni-directional flushing you are dependent on the distribution pressure to force the water out of the hydrant; if you have an average pressure of 70 psi and are using the 4-1/2” port, you can only achieve approx 1,500 gpm (plus or minus 300 gpm) of flow. To achieve a 5 ft/sec velocity inside the target main, the 1,500 gpm limits you to a maximum of a 10” main (or a 12” main at 3 ft/sec)!
If someone is conventionally flushing a 20” main from a hydrant port, they can’t even achieve one ft/sec flow velocity inside the pipe. In reality they would only be dumping the water, not flushing/scouring the main. And if they needed to just dump the water, they could now use the NO-DES system to clean the water (filter and clean it), for any size main!
Because the NO-DES system utilizes a pump to circulate the water, we can achieve the flows required to flush a 12” main with our demo unit – and up to an 18” main with our new single vessel models.
Cleaning the inside of the main –
Most city crews don’t measure the flows from the hydrants when conducting Uni-direction flushing; it’s just a guess that the flow is significant enough to clean the inside walls of the main.
NO-DES has a flow meter in the control panel that allows the operator to achieve the exact flow required to accomplish the flush at the desired velocity (inside the main). We also use the patented “Reverse Flow Process” that directs the flush in the opposite direction of the normal distribution flow; creating better scouring/scrubbing of the inside walls of the main.
Turbidity and Water Quality –
Most city crews use a glass jar to visually inspect the flushed water, to determine the water quality and if enough flushing was performed. Because the water is being pulled from other areas of the distribution system, there are always some remaining particulates in the water (always)…
NO-DES utilizes two turbidity meters to analyze the water to exact standards, which determines when the flushing process is complete! Because the NO-DES process only flushes the section of main that’s located between the connected hydrants; the finished water quality is always perfect (below 1 NTU), and no other parts of the distribution system are effected in any way! This equates to “NO COMPLAINTS”…
Water Loss – Water Saved –
There’s no comparison with NO-DES when it comes to saving water! Conventional flushing wastes untold millions upon millions of gallons of water each year – NO-DES only spills the amounts left in the hose after shutdown (a couple hundred gallons)!
When conventional flushing to waste, city crews have to comply with NPDES regulations (de-chlorinating, sand bags, storm drain filters, etc). And for some reason the ammonia remaining in the water is allowed to pollute our rivers and lakes!
Because NO-DES spills less than 1,000 gallons each flush; no NPDES issues are required.
Water Hammer and other Hydraulic damages –
During conventional flushing, the opening and closing of the hydrants cause lots of damage to the distribution system from water hammer. Another aspect of hydraulic damage is created when the crews open the hydrant full open when flushing smaller mains.
When operating dry barrel hydrants, if the hydrant is not opened to the full open position, the drain hole at the bottom of the bury will allow high pressure water to discharge and will cause damage to the environment around the hydrant installation.
If the main to be flushed has a cement lining and the velocity exceeds 5 ft/sec, the lining could be damaged.
Because NO-DES utilizes hydrant control valves, there is never a serge or hammer to the distribution system. The NO-DES variable speed pump does not cause any pressures surges to the distribution system (any time). And again the flow meter allows the operator to flush at exactly 3 or 5 ft/sec as desired.
Production per day –
The amount of main flushed per day can vary for both types of flushing methods. We have experienced the same results/amounts on most occasions, so it would be fair to call them equal for current measurement purposes.
Sensitive Areas (Damages) –
Conventional flushing can damage property. NO-DES does not.
Low Pressure Issues –
Conventional flushing cause’s low pressure issues when the hydrant is opened. NO-DES has no effect on the distribution pressures or flows.
Conventional/uni-directional flushing requires lots of valving (lots of broken valves), and the possibility of leaving valves closed.
NO-DES flushing requires almost no valving at all – Sometimes to create a larger loop to flush, it becomes necessary to close one; but they are not required to close them off completely (or tightly), the valves only need to be taken down to the bottom to where it just touches.
Disinfection Issues –
NO-DES has the capability to inject disinfectant (very small quantities) – Uni-directional flushing methods cannot!
As you know, our NO-DES flushing technology has the ability to filter a small section of the distribution system water (down to 1 micron absolute) and then apply small concentrations of chlorine to boost the residuals. This works very well with our equipment because we are circulating the water thru our (equipment) which becomes an above ground loop of the distribution system itself! We are able to safely achieve mixing and contact time within the distribution system without affecting the customers (I don’t believe anyone has been able to achieve this within distribution systems before). One of our customers was flushing (to waste) large volumes of water because the chlorine component of their chloramine disinfectant would dissipate, leaving free ammonia, which in turn would speed up the nitrification process.
We discovered that we could measure the amounts of existing free ammonia in the area to be flushed (with our NO-DES flushing system) then add just enough chlorine to re-combine with the ammonia to re-form more chloramines – This allowed them to save the water, improve the water quality and re-institute their chloramine residues! Because we also filter the water (again down to 1 micron absolute) thus removing the bio-films that were creating the problems; wham, the wasted water issue, the water quality issue, the residual issue, the nitrification issue and the customer complaint issues are all solved (and all at a lower cost).
Customer Complaints –
Most city’s have a section of their web site dedicated to explaining dirty water complaints for when crews are (conventionally) flushing. When using conventional flushing methods in the past, Hillsborough CA would see 10 to 15 customer complaints per flush – Since implementing their NO-DES flushing system they haven’t received one customer complaint!
P R –
When comparing NO-DES flushing to uni-direction flushing, we believe 100% of your customers will side with conserving water and improving the water quality; this is a no brainer! | <urn:uuid:4bd47d68-a7d9-4a3a-bc9a-235516d0966a> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.no-des.com/case-study | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370529375.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20200405053120-20200405083120-00155.warc.gz | en | 0.909769 | 3,686 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Recently, researchers handed us a surprise that few people expected…
We learned that our genes are only responsible for about 10 percent of our health, a complete turnaround of what many health professionals believe. So what about the other 90 percent?
Instead of faulty genes, researchers believe one area that matters most is your microbiome – or the microbial makeup or flora of your gut.
If your gut is not healthy, you will not be healthy.
With this new knowledge, I believe we have an extraordinary opportunity to take control of our health like never before.
Before I share with you a promising tool to maintain optimal gut health, it’s important you understand a little more about why your microbiome matters so much…
The Role That Microbes Play in Your Body…
If you were fortunate and had a vaginal delivery at birth, you started life with a hefty dose of microbes from your mother as you traveled through the birth canal. And you received even more if you were fed baby’s perfect food – breast milk.
This “collection” of microbes became your first line of defense against invading germs, and over the years has become something like your own personal fingerprint.
The microbes in your body differ depending upon where they live. You have certain species of bacteria living, for example, in your mouth, skin, nose, and gut.
Of all the parts of your body, the most important and the most complex “habitat” for your microbes is your gut…
7 Ways Your Gut Bacteria Influence Your Health
Living in your digestive tract are more than 1,000 different species of bacteria. And they’re very busy at work:
- Directing the activity of hundreds of genes.*
By turning on or off genes, they change the instructions going to your cells for supporting health.*
- Helping to calibrate your immune system.*
Experts believe about 80 percent of your immune function is located in your digestive tract.
- Helping to promote a normal allergic response.*
By helping to protect the membrane lining of your intestinal wall, they help stop undigested food, bacteria and metabolic wastes from escaping into your bloodstream.*
- Helping to digest your food and produce nutrients.*
They’re essential for optimal digestion of food and absorption of nutrients, and they help your body produce vitamins, absorb minerals and aid in the elimination of toxins.*
- Making you feel happy or blue.
Your gut bacteria have a significant impact on your brain function and mental state.*
- Helping to support your urinary tract health.*
Evidence suggests that regular use of probiotics may help support urinary tract health by maintaining a population of healthy bacteria in selected areas of your urinary tract.*
- Helping to support vaginal health in women.*
Similar to your digestive tract, a woman’s vaginal health depends on the right balance of bacteria.*
And this is just the beginning, assuming you have a healthy diversity of the right kinds of bacteria in your gut. But that’s not always the case.
Scientists are increasingly concerned that our gut bacteria – or microbiome – are changing in the modern world. And that’s altering the signals going to your DNA, which isn’t a good thing…
The Hidden Effects of Gut Bacteria That Can Make You Feel
Sleep-Deprived and Blue
There is a vast network of neurons or brain cells nestled within your gut tissue. This is your enteric nervous system (ENS).
Your ENS is often referred to as your “second” brain. It controls both digestion and your mental well-being, often separate from the brain in your head…
In fact, there’s 400 times more melatonin in a healthy gut than in the brain’s pineal gland, where many people believe it originates!
If you have changes to your gut bacteria, you’re likely to feel the effects in your mood and sleep patterns, too.
9 Things That Can Make Your Microbiome Go Out of Whack
How do your gut microbes become unbalanced or lose their diversity, assuming they were healthy at one time?
There are 9 major reasons, and these factors are likely responsible for the microbiome changes scientists are so concerned about:
Most antibiotics indiscriminately destroy large numbers of both beneficial and disease-causing bacteria in your gut. Whether you just finished a course last week or took them years ago, your balance may be altered. This includes hidden antibiotics in food, especially factory-farmed meats and conventional dairy products.
- Heartburn pills
A British study on twins suggests that proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) taken for heartburn can alter your gut flora.
- Fluoridated and chlorinated water
The chlorine in chlorinated tap water can potentially destroy both the bad bacteria and the good, friendly bacteria in your gut. The same is true for fluoride.
- Sugar and fructose
One of the fastest ways to create an imbalance – and feed the bad guys – is to eat too much sugar and processed foods.
- Processed, refined foods
Processed foods, including pasteurized milk, can harm your good bacteria. Eating a typical Western diet high in carbs and refined sugar produces a profoundly different microbiome than one high in vegetables and fiber.
- Bioengineered foods, pesticides and other agricultural chemicals
Certain genetically engineered foods and even some non-GMO foods that are not organic, like wheat, can contain glyphosate, an agricultural herbicide that’s been shown to target and destroy good gut bacteria. Conventionally raised animals are typically fed bioengineered grains, such as GE corn.
- NSAIDs (Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs)
Certain popular over-the-counter painkillers can damage cell membranes and harm healthy gut flora.
Stress affects your gut in a number of ways including hindering the production of enzymes and absorption of nutrients, and reducing oxygen levels and blood flow. Plus, it alters your brain-gut connection (via the vagus nerve), and can impact the functioning of your entire GI tract, including your gut flora.
Airborne particulate matter from car exhaust, home furnaces, and industry, as well as livestock emissions travel from your lungs to your intestines, and can alter your gut bacteria and your intestinal barrier. It can contaminate the food and water supply, leading to further injury of your gut bacteria.
Now that you know what can destroy or upset the balance of your microbiome, let’s look at what you can do to help restore it so it can support your health and well-being.
Don’t Be Fooled by Commercial Yogurt Claims…
You’ve seen the commercials and ads…
- “Eat this probiotic yogurt daily and see a difference in your digestion… your regularity… your belly… or abdominal comfort (insert your own symptom!) in as little as two weeks.”
Clearly targeting women, probiotic yogurt has become big business. I recommend you don’t get sucked in, for several reasons.
Commercially bought yogurts are typically:
- Pasteurized, a high heat treatment that kills organisms, including probiotics, unless they are added afterwards
- Sweetened with sugar or artificial sweeteners, neither of which I recommend for your health
- Made from factory-farmed dairy and may contain growth hormones and antibiotics
- Not backed by reliable science that the claims are true
When you eat sugar – often found in commercial yogurt products – you feed the bad bacteria in your gut. You want to do the opposite… you want to nourish the beneficial bacteria.
Even if the yogurt contains the probiotics you need, the numbers of certain bacteria strains can be severely reduced by harsh stomach acids before they reach your small intestine, where they do their most good.
How to Get the Beneficial Bacteria Your Body Needs
If you can’t rely on commercial yogurt, how do you get the beneficial bacteria your body needs?
My top food source for probiotics is fermented vegetables, especially if you prepare them yourself using a high-quality starter culture.
Other good sources for probiotics include unpasteurized, fermented milk products like unsweetened yogurt and kefir, as well as sauerkraut, kimchi, miso and natto (made with organic soybeans or chickpeas).
Please note that commercially prepared or canned products that have been heat-treated won’t supply any beneficial bacteria!
However, as great a source fermented vegetables may be for probiotics (one or more servings a day can provide you with very high numbers), you may not necessarily get all the strains you need.
I realize fermented vegetables don’t appeal to everyone, and not everyone has access to high-quality fermented products. And even if you are including fermented vegetables in your daily diet, I recommend you consider some extra gut health support…
Even MORE Important Than a Multivitamin Supplement
Environmental factors like the ones described above are taking their toll on Western health and well-being.
For that reason, I recommend if you are not regularly consuming fermented foods (remember nearly all yogurts don’t count) there is great value in adding a high-quality probiotic supplement to your daily regimen. I believe it’s become even more important than taking a multivitamin…
Two things are crucial when selecting a probiotic: Look for one that contains a wide array of strains that are proven valuable for health. And make sure they’re in large enough numbers, or CFUs.
CFUs, or “colony-forming units,” are a measurement of the living organisms in the product. Only living, or viable, bacteria can benefit your body.
Here are some other important factors to look for when shopping for a probiotic supplement:
- Independently tested to validate high potency
- Acid- and bile-resistant to survive the transit through your stomach to your intestines
- Contains a source of prebiotics for improved probiotic performance*
- Includes proven strains for microbiome, immune, and digestive support, specifically the super-strain Lactobacillus acidophilus DDS-1*
- Packed in a hard capsule to protect fragile ingredients
- Doesn’t contain any bioengineered ingredients
The Newest Addition to the Complete Probiotics Family: My Strongest Microbiome Support Yet
If you are familiar with my Complete Probiotics, you know we already have a top-notch product. There’s nothing in its class on the market that compares.
But I wanted to provide an even higher potency probiotic choice for those who want greater microbiome support. Perhaps you’ve recently taken an antibiotic… you drink fluoridated water… or you simply wish your immune function was stronger.*
You may need more support.
My Complete Probiotics (100 Billion CFU) product is ideal not just for special occasions, but for everyday use. In my opinion, you can’t have too many beneficial bacteria in your gut.
I’ve selected 10 outstanding strains, the same as what you find in my Complete Probiotics (70 Billion CFU), only in greater numbers:
- Lactobacillus acidophilus DDS-1
- Lactobacillus casei
- Lactobacillus plantarum
- Lactobacillus salivarius
- Lactobacillus rhamnosus
- Lactobacillus brevis
- Bifidobacterium lactis
- Bifidobacterium longum
- Bifidobacterium bifidum
- Streptococcus thermophilus
Just like my Complete Probiotics (70 Billion CFU), my Complete Probiotics (100 Billion CFU) contains Fructooligosaccharide (FOS), which serves as a prebiotic.*
Prebiotics are plant-based, digestive-resistant fiber carbohydrates that help the probiotic bacteria grow and flourish.
These fibers are not fully digested by your body, so they stay behind in your GI tract, and make a perfect “food” for your gut bacteria. Many of them are converted to short-chain fatty acids that also nourish your gut cells.
13 Reasons This Unique Probiotic Strain Is So Sought-After
Of all the probiotic bacteria strains, there’s one that stands out…
Lactobacillus acidophilus DDS-1.
Discovered and researched for over 40 years at a leading U.S. university, this super-strain stands shoulders above the rest.
With regular use, this unique strain may:
- Colonize the intestinal tract in high numbers*
- Provide long-lasting colonization*
- Help support your digestive health*
- Survive the harsh acidic environment of the stomach
- Survive the high alkalinity and presence of bile acids of the small intestine
- Produce a substance that helps balance gut bacteria*
- Help protect against disease-causing bacteria by forming a shield within the intestinal lining*
- Support cellular health by stimulating the production of immune messengers*
- Support cholesterol levels already within a healthy, normal range*
- Produce lactase to potentially help those unable to tolerate lactose*
- Produce vitamins B12, folic acid, and vitamin B6*
- Support colon health through its control over bile acids*
- Support gut health and help promote normal stools*
While Lactobacillus acidophilus is commonly found in probiotic supplements, this specialized strain, Lactobacillus acidophilus DDS-1, is not. In fact, it’s quite rare in supplements, but highly sought after because of its many potential benefits.
And because it is of human origin, it’s proven to work exceptionally well in your GI tract.*
Most Lactobacillus bacteria die off quickly, sometimes within hours in your gut, whereas DDS-1 was shown to survive as long as 8 days, a huge plus for a dependable probiotic.*
In my opinion, any probiotic supplement that’s worth investing in must contain Lactobacillus acidophilus DDS-1!
Revolutionary Hard Capsule Protects Fragile
‘Good’ Bacteria From Harsh Stomach Acid
You may have noticed that many probiotics come packed in standard vegetarian capsules.
These capsules can’t always protect probiotic strains from harsh acids and bile. If the strains aren’t acid and bile resistant, you may end up paying a lot of money for benefits you never receive!
With my Complete Probiotics (100 Billion CFU), we do things differently.
It’s no secret that probiotics do their best work in your intestines not in your stomach. Yet to make it through your stomach’s harsh acidic environment unscathed, the probiotic strains need protection.
Not only did we specifically select probiotic strains that are naturally resistant to stomach acid and bile, we took things one step further. Our manufacturer used patented delayed release capsules called DRcaps™ to provide additional protection from stomach acid. The first of their kind, these acid-resistant hard capsules are made of a vegetable substance that slows down capsule opening after swallowing.
They even tested them on human subjects using an Independent lab…
The capsule manufacturers wanted to measure how long it took the hard capsules to reach the intestines and release their contents, so they would be confident that the probiotics wouldn’t be harmed.
Here’s what they discovered:
- DRcaps capsules displayed delayed release properties as designed
- Disintegration started 45 minutes after ingestion versus 5 minutes for a typical immediate release capsule
- For the majority of subjects, complete release occurred in the intestine
- Release was complete with 20 minutes after onset
The DRcaps capsules’ delayed opening was sufficient to protect a probiotic’s fragile bacteria strains from the harsh acidic environment of the stomach!
The Ideal Choice for a Healthy Gut
Let’s just take a final quick look at why my Complete Probiotics (100 Billion CFU) product is your right choice:
- 10 different probiotic strains helps balance your microbiome*
- Contains long-lasting, super strain Lactobacillus acidophilus DDS-1
- Helps protect against “bad” gut bacteria to support your immune health*
- Demonstrates high potency through independent laboratory tests
- Helps support your digestive and colon health*
- Helps produce vitamins B12, folic acid, and vitamin B6*
- Contains valuable prebiotics for optimal probiotic performance
- Helps support cellular health*
- Is acid- and bile-resistant for maximum survival
- Supports cholesterol levels already in a healthy, normal range*
- Helps promote normal stools*
- Packed in acid-resistant, delayed release, patented hard capsules
- Adapts naturally to the human body
- Contains no bioengineered ingredients
With all these potential benefits awaiting you, I know you’ll agree that my Complete Probiotics (100 Billion CFU) product is a winner once you try it.
It’s Up to You to Support Your Microbiome… No One Else Will Do It for You
I firmly believe that supporting your gut flora or microbiome may be one of the most important steps you take this year for your health.
I’ve shown you what can happen when your microbiome goes out of balance or lacks important bacteria strains. Whether your goal is to tune up your immune system, help calm your gut, or just help safeguard your health, the timing is right to take action.
And you couldn’t find a more valuable tool than my Complete Probiotics (100 Billion CFU) to help you do it…
Think of it as your 100 billion-strong army-in-a-bottle. Order your supply today and unleash the good guys to go to work for you! | <urn:uuid:8730f713-0827-408d-95a9-900b5e8de925> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://probiotics.mercola.com/100-billion-probiotics.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370496669.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20200330054217-20200330084217-00354.warc.gz | en | 0.910056 | 3,749 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Cryptocurrencies, or virtual currencies, represent a fascinating new area of finance. But what are cryptocurrencies, and how do they work? If you’re considering a journey into the world of virtual currencies, you’ll need a professional, licensed cryptocurrency accountant to help plan an effective taxation and valuation strategy.
This article will provide an in-depth analysis of cryptocurrencies and IRS policies — no more rummaging around complicated tax publications!
What Are Cryptocurrencies?
Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies based on blockchain technology. In practical terms, cryptocurrencies are simply a decentralized medium of exchange. People can trade cryptocurrencies in lieu of traditional government-backed currency.
The following are the largest and most widely used cryptocurrencies on the market today:
How Do They Work?
Cryptocurrencies use blockchain technology — a public, open ledger of all transactions. This ledger updates every time a cryptocurrency transaction occurs. Given the transparent nature of the “chain,” it’s impossible to falsify data.
The IRS and Cryptocurrencies
The IRS has not provided any new major information on cryptocurrencies since 2014 — an eternity in this business!
Dealing with the specific nuances of cryptocurrency can be difficult; bringing in Founder’s CPA can be a real lifesaver.
Cryptocurrencies Are Not Currency
Per Notice 2014-21, the IRS maintains that all cryptocurrencies are “digital representations of value” used as a medium of exchange. Most importantly, no digital currency has “legal tender status” in any part of the United States.
How Are Virtual Currencies Viewed for Federal Taxation?
Virtual currencies are not considered to be currency by the IRS. Instead, tax law treats virtual currencies as property.
The same tax principles that apply to property apply to virtual currency. As such, you do not magically owe taxes on the virtual currencies you hold. To owe taxes, there must be a taxable event — you must sell, purchase, or trade your property. So long as you hold cryptocurrency as property, you won’t owe any taxes.
Fair Market Value
The IRS states that you must report all virtual currency transactions in U.S. dollars.
In practical terms, you determine the fair market value (FMV) at the moment you exchange the virtual currency for U.S. dollars. Of course, if a virtual currency is available for public exchange (say, on Coinbase), the fair market value is easy to determine. In the eyes of the IRS, fair market value is best determined by the market — if a currency has listed rates on an open exchange, there’s your FMV.
The IRS covers all its bases here — if you convert virtual currency into a non-U.S. dollar currency, the FMV is still based on the converted value in U.S. dollars.
As a rule, remember that the IRS determines the FMV at the time you acquire the virtual currency.
Taxable Events and Cryptocurrencies
A taxable event is any transaction or event that results in a tax consequence for the party or person performing the transaction. The following are all examples of taxable events:
- Realizing capital gains
- Exercising stock options
- Receiving interest or dividends
Anytime you exchange currency for goods or services, the IRS considers that to be a taxable event.
Imagine you buy a Bitcoin or two and sell it for a nice profit a few months later. Calculating the tax bill from that sale is not terribly complicated (see short-term capital gains below). However, things get really tricky when you start exchanging capital assets for other capital assets.
For example, instead of selling that single Bitcoin, you exchange it for Ethereum. In the eyes of the IRS, this is a taxable event — even though no U.S. dollars changed hands! Instead, you convert the value of the BTC to U.S. dollars. That new value determines the cost basis of the Ethereum acquisition.
Of course, cryptocurrency prices can fluctuate dramatically even within a single day. You need to use what the IRS calls a “consistent standard” for determining the exchange rate (usually the day’s closing value). It’s usually at this point where calling a professional cryptocurrency accountant like Founder’s CPA makes a lot of sense! Navigating the complexities of cryptocurrency tax compliance is not something you need to do alone, after all.
Gains and Losses
For investors, cryptocurrencies are generally treated as capital assets.
A taxpayer must create a taxable event (discussed above) in order to realize the gains or losses from cryptocurrency.
The IRS divides capital gains into two categories: short-term and long-term. Each category results in very different tax obligations.
For our purposes, note that the holding period (or the length of time you hold a cryptocurrency before selling it) is one year. The IRS considers an investment held shorter than one year as short-term; longer than one year, long-term.
The tax you pay on cryptocurrency changes depending on how long you held the investment.
Imagine the following:
- You purchase a single Bitcoin for $100.
- You sell that single Bitcoin for $200, six months after your initial purchase.
- That $100 profit is subject to short-term capital gains tax.
The IRS taxes short-term capital gains as ordinary income. The profit from the sale is the realized gain. Given that you held the investment for less than a year, you pay tax at your ordinary federal income tax bracket.
Likewise, take the following example:
- You purchase a single Bitcoin at $100.
- You sell that single Bitcoin for $50, six months after your initial purchase.
- You can deduct that $50 loss on your tax return, up to $3,000 annually.
The IRS treats long-term capital gains much differently than their short-term counterparts. For most investors, long-term capital gains result in a far lower tax bill.
Imagine the following:
- You purchase a single Bitcoin for $100.
- You sell that single Bitcoin for $200, a year and a day after your initial purchase.
- That $100 profit is subject to long-term capital gains tax.
Taxes for long-term capital gains are far less complicated. The IRS has only three tax brackets:
- 0%, for single earners with income between $0 and $39,375.
- 15%, for single earners with income between $39,376 and $434,550.
- 20%, for single earners with income over $434,551.
The IRS adjusts the brackets accordingly for married investors filing jointly (or those qualifying as a head of household).
Like short-term capital losses, you can deduct long-term capital losses on your tax return. The IRS matches short-term losses to short-term gains and likewise for long-term gains/losses. To illustrate this, take the following:
- You have $5,000 in short-term gain for BTC.
- You have $3,000 in short-term loss for ETH.
- You have $3,000 in short-term loss for LTC.
- The resulting $1,000 short-term loss is deductible.
The IRS allows you to deduct up to $3,000 worth of net capital loss (single filer). It is possible to carry over net capital loss to later tax years.
Importance of Tax Compliance
When cryptocurrencies burst onto the world’s financial scene in 2009, many people thought it would mark an end to traditional, government-backed currencies.
Clearly, that hasn’t happened! Instead, cryptocurrencies have become popular investment options. Anyone can set up a cryptocurrency wallet and investment profile and start trading.
Tax compliance for cryptocurrency investors has never been more important. As virtual currencies become more mainstream, the IRS continues to step up its efforts to ensure that all crypto traders pay their fair share.
The penalties for tax non-compliance are severe. Willful avoidance of tax obligations is punishable by law and heavy penalties — don’t risk it. If you’re involved in the world of virtual currency, you’re going to want expert help to ensure you are compliant with tax law. Founder’s CPA is an excellent resource for startups, small businesses, and cryptocurrency investors.
Schedule a free consultation with Founder’s CPA today!
Forms Used to Report Capital Gains and Losses
Unfortunately for active investors, you will need to list each virtual currency transaction on Form 8949. You’ll need:
- Date acquired
- Date sold or disposed
- Cost or other basis
- Total gain or loss
And you’ll need that for each transaction, trade, or sale.
Once that’s finished, fill out your Schedule D with the results you obtained from Form 8949.
That Sounds Terrible. What Else Can I Do?
You’re right. If you’re a high-volume investor, tabulating all your cryptocurrency transactions is a proverbial nightmare. Many popular virtual currency exchanges have limited tax support — meaning you’ll need to check all your transactions by hand. On top of that, calculating the cost basis for cryptocurrency exchanges (BTC to ETH, for example) can be a real nightmare.
Cryptocurrency Accountants: Making Sense of Virtual Currency
Bringing in professional cryptocurrency accountants like Founder’s CPA Group is an excellent alternative. Calculating your tax obligation on your cryptocurrency investments is not something you want to risk — mistakes are expensive! Founder’s CPA specializes in startups, small businesses, and investors who can’t afford to risk non-compliance with the IRS.
Give Founder’s CPA a call — our consultations are free and we’re happy to answer any questions you may have. | <urn:uuid:6ad6c2ed-a5eb-44ae-90c7-cef66847456d> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://founderscpa.com/all-you-need-to-know-about-cryptocurrency-and-accounting/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370493684.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20200329015008-20200329045008-00394.warc.gz | en | 0.911916 | 2,049 | 2.84375 | 3 |
30 Terawatts, 3250 Years, 13.7 Degrees Surface Temperature
- Mar 17, 2018 2:00 pm GMT
- 1099 views
The average surface temperature of the Earth is currently 15 C.
Since the temperature of the ocean at a depth of 1000 is universally 4 C, which is about the average of temperature of the ocean at all levels, and a surface temperature of at least 24 C is needed to derive a result from OTEC, the areas in orange to red (the OTEC zone) below are the only ones where the heat of global warming can be regulated.
The graphic is sectioned into squares of 572 kilometers a side and at a power density estimated at (1kW per km2) the OTEC zone has an initial global production potential of about 30 terawatts (TW). Roughly twice the amount of energy we are currently deriving from fossil fuels. It should be noted that the graphic is a representation of annual surface temperatures, so since seasons change, and as shown below the red blob representing a surface temperature of 28 C or above can shift with the winds and/or the seasons, so in a year like 2017 the Atlantic can have a red blob of its own that can produce as severe a hurricane season as the one just witnessed.
Another way of looking at the red blob is, a heat black hole. It is a consequence of trade winds driving heat to a depth of 250 meters where during the period of the warming hiatus, 1998 to 2013, a great deal of ocean heat was sequestered. The 64 trillion-dollar question then should be, why aren’t we capitalizing on a massive energy and environmental opportunity that sequesters ocean heat?
In part, it is because back in 1998 a team lead by Physicist Martin Hoffert of New York University concluded that the Earth’s atmospheric CO2 content cannot be stabilized without a tenfold increase in carbon-emission-free power generation over the next 50 years and since only 1.5 TW of carbon-emission-free power was being produced at the time, they concluded that non-fossil-fuel generation would have to account for at least 50 percent of the 30 TW required by 2050.
At the time, and to as late as 2007, the estimated annual available output for OTEC power was only 3 to 5 TW, and so since it takes plants of at least 100 MW capacity, costing about $USD 600 million, for OTEC to be economically viable, compared to 3 MW wind turbines costing $USD 5 million or 400-Watt Solar Panels at $1,200 a piece, at a formative stage of the carbon divestment and renewable investment era OTEC was handicapped by a lowballed potential and a false economy bias associated with small components.
Assuming intermittence of about 70% for wind and solar, at ((5*(100/3))/30) or $555 million per 100 MW then wind is only slightly less costly than OTEC, which is a bargain at (100,000,000 watts/600,000,000 dollars) or $.16 per watt, compared to Solar Panels at 3$ a watt (1200/400). But the real elephant in the room was revealed by the late David MacKay, former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change in his book Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air and in his TED talk A reality check on renewables, where he pointed out, a country like Great Britain, where the energy consumption rate is 125 kWh per day, would have to cover half its land mass by wind farms or between 20 to 25 percent of its area with solar panels to service its citizens.
MacKay used light bulbs to illustrate the UK’s energy consumption and noted that it was as if every person in the country had 125 light bulbs burning continuously 24/7/365. And this analogy has been borrowed for this post. In 2013, OTEC’s maximum annual net power production was reassessed at 30 TW with a rider that persistent cooling of the tropical oceanic mixed-layer would limit net production to about 7 TW.
But by the time of the reassessment, many pioneering OTEC researchers had moved on to other fields, others had retired or had passed away with their vision unfulfilled and the 7 TW limit pertains only to conventional OTEC. As the years after 2013 have demonstrated, the blob isn’t a very efficient heat black hole. In El Niño years the blob spreads across the Pacific as the thermocline rises in the east and descends in the west, as heat rises in the east and sloshes west, with some of the heat being lost from the ocean’s surface to the atmosphere.
To effectively sequester surface heat, it must be moved below the thermocline and retained there for as long possible and how this can be accomplished is the subject of this post. Although a 30 TW potential is ten times what was predicted in the 2007, the following figure from the 2013 study An Assessment of Global Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Resources With a High-Resolution Ocean General Circulation Model demonstrates this potential is rapidly degraded by upwelling to about 14 TW within about 100 years or about 2 life cycles of the equipment.
As the following gif shows this degradation is the consequence of an upwelling rate of 20 meters/year and the movement of surface heat to a depth of about 100 meters (the study models heat movement to a depth of only 55 meters).
The legend for the icons shown in the gif above as well as for the gif for Heat Pipe OTEC below are:
The OTEC gif opens on the OTEC producing area and zooms into the red blob and then tilts 90 degrees to show evaporators being serviced by burning light bulbs, heat engines and condensers at a level of 55 meters and cold-water pipes servicing the condensers. The interval between the frames of the gif is 1 second, which is 5 times faster than the interval of the gif for Heat Pipe OTEC, because, as Fig. 3 above shows the upwelling rate for conventional OTEC at a power level of 30 TW is 20 meters/year, compared to a diffusion rate of only 4 meters/year for Heat Pipe OTEC regardless of the power production.
The OTEC gif shows the surface bulbs being burned out at a rate of one every frame because heat moves from the surface to 55 meters and back again within 3 years and upwelling moves the light bulbs away from the evaporators at the same rate. The 2013 study of Rajagopalan and Nihous, per the following graphic, demonstrates that within 1000 years, conventional OTEC cools the surface near the equator by about 4 degrees while the higher latitudes are warmed by the same amount, which is problematic in terms of sea level rise and aquaculture that depends on upwelling adjacent America’s coastlines.
The takeaway from the gif, therefore, should be upwelling doesn’t sequester heat. It only moves it, rapidly, to higher latitudes and the further the heat, in the form of burning light bulbs, is removed from the evaporators the less effective the evaporators are at transferring the heat into the heat engines where the transformation from heat to work has to take place.
The following Heat Pipe OTEC gif shows how the surface heat (light bulbs) are moved to 1000 meters at a rate as high as 75 meters/sec as a consequence of the pressure difference between the evaporating and the condensing ends of the heat pipe. From 1000 meter, at a diffusion rate of 4 meters/year, it takes, 250 years, 10 25-year increments, for the light bulbs to get back to the surface so such systems are an effective way of sequestering heat. They are true, heat, black holes.
Furthermore, for at least the next 500 years, these black holes will draw heat from the entire surface to replenish the heat that is drawn into the evaporators. One thousand years from now, only 0.18 degrees worth of heat will, therefore, have been relocated to higher latitudes, (4C*(4 heat cycles /90 heat cycles)). At which time it becomes advantageous to slowly release heat from the oceans to the atmosphere because the atmosphere will be starting to cool in the absence of the influence of radiative forcing.
It should be noted, with heat pipe OTEC heat is converted to work at an efficiency of 7.6% (see also here). Per the following gif, therefore, only 1 of the original 15 light bulbs adjacent each evaporator is extinguished each 250-year cycle while the other 14 are moved incrementally back to the surface. Between the evaporator and the condenser, the heat is essentially in a state of thermodynamic limbo once it has passed through the heat engine until it again becomes available to the evaporator back at the surface.
As will be discussed below it will probably take about (((30/18)*2)*60) 200 years to build out the entire fleet of OTEC platforms capable of producing 30TW of power. By that time there will be at least as much added heat to the systems as will have been generated to this point, so by the time today’s heat resurfaces there will be another light bulb’s worth of heat that will have to be added to the topmost level of the following gif.
This additional heat is represented by the orange light bulbs. Burnt out light bulbs are waste heat, so long as they remain within the OTEC producing area they too can be reconverted, at least in part, to work once they are on the surface. They only become anergy outside the OTEC producing area at which point they either melt ice or are radiated to space, which won’t happen for at least 1000 years, until we have stopped adding to the atmospheric greenhouse gas load and have started drawing down that load.
The above gif covers a period of only 500 years during which only 2 light bulbs worth of heat will have been burned out and this heat will all remain within the red blob. In the alternative, with the upwelling of conventional OTEC, all 15 of light bulbs are burnt after 166 years and have migrated well beyond the blob. With Heat Pipe OTEC, after 1000 years the original heat will have been recycled only 4 times between the surface and 1000 meters as opposed to 90 times between the surface and 55 meters with conventional OTEC. And this has ramification for both the amount of energy that can be extracted from the oceans and the thermal efficiency of the systems.
In the article, “The Long Slow Rise of Solar and Wind” Vaclav Smil points out that every major energy source since coal, then oil, natural gas and now renewable energy that has ever dominated the world supply has taken 50 to 60 years to rise to the top spot. Since 30TW is 1.66 times more energy than is currently derived from all of the world’s energy sources, and no source has ever dominated more than a 50% share of this market, and never for more than 75 years then it will probably take close to 200 years to truly start getting a handle of climate change. In the interim, and out to 3,250 ((100/7.6) * 250) years we can obtain 30 TWs of energy with heat pipe OTEC.
Rajagopalan suggests conventional OTEC cannot sustain a power level of 30TW for more than a few decades without degrading the OTEC resource but in the same breath the paper says 7 TW is sustainable in perpetuity. The difference is the upwelling rate of 20 meters/year as opposed to the 4 meters/year with the heat pipe. Each power cycle leaks heat out of the OTEC producing area, so to get the maximum conversion of warming heat to work the least number of the cycles are required, which would be 13. At which time, an extrapolated version of the heat pipe OTEC gif would reveal 3 light bulbs worth of heat still capable of producing power.
Rajagopalan’s assessment is OTEC sources and sinks relax to pre-OTEC condition at a similar rate to which they are built up. At any time, therefore, before or after full OTEC capacity is attained, production can be throttled back should unanticipated problems arise but it is highly unlikely that you would ever want to shut off such an energy source. Particularly when it is cooling the surface and its curtailment would cause a rapid release of heat from the ocean into the atmosphere. It has to be noted here, an average temperature movement from the surface to a depth of 500 meters results in a significant lowering of the thermal expansion of the oceans and thus sea level rise, which too is a benefit that can be maintained for up to 3,250 years.
OTEC, therefore, represents the only approach, aside from atmospheric- or surface-ocean-based solar radiation management that has the potential to help directly mitigate anthropogenic warming of the surface ocean/atmosphere. One of the main problems confronting systems that experience harsh environments like the deep ocean is tropical cyclones. These don’t form however within 5 degrees latitude of the equator because of the Coriolis effect. In turn, this is the best place for OTEC systems to operate.
The petroleum industry has over 30 years’ experience in harsh environments like the deep ocean and now produce oil and gas from depths of about 2900 meters or about 3 times the depth of a deep-water condenser. The risers used to move gas and fluids between the deep and the surface are similar to the piping used in OTEC, which would use tensioning cables to secure the heat pipe and the deep-water condenser to the surface. The same way oil platforms are secured to the sea floor. Bottom line, what more do you want, beyond long-lived, abundant, power, that will cool the planet? | <urn:uuid:50db09df-fe71-4931-b48d-13bb1c17c290> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://energycentral.com/c/ec/30-terawatts-3250-years-137-degrees-surface-temperature | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371637684.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20200406133533-20200406164033-00554.warc.gz | en | 0.95073 | 2,870 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Ho ho ho! With the Christmas break just around the corner, we know you’ll be looking for ways to keep your class focused. Well, look no further! We have a whole host of fun crafts, snacks and activities to keep the festive cheer going as your class winds down for the magical Christmas break.
Magical Paper Snowflakes
Whether you’re looking to make a festive classroom display or encourage your students to make some Christmas crafts, creating paper snowflakes is always a winner, as they are super simple to make and can be decorated in so many ways. All you’ll need is paper (white or coloured), scissors and some decorations.
Once you’ve cut out and folded your paper into the shape you’d like, whether that’ll be a circle, square, etc., all you need to do is cut out random shapes around the edges and then, the fun part, decorate!
Students could colour their snowflakes in, add patterns or even add a bit of sparkle with some biodegradable glitter – the options are endless.
Joyful Foil Baubles
Do you have a Christmas tree up in the school or in your classroom? Why not encourage your students to create some fun festive baubles for the tree?
For this craft idea, all you’ll need is some tin foil, string or ribbon, PVA glue, tissue paper (white or coloured) and decorations.
Simply mould the tin foil into a circle and cover with the PVA glue and tissue paper. Punch a hole at the top (with a hole punch) and thread the string through. All students then have to do is decorate them! They could use buttons, glitter, pom-poms, sequins, etc.
Festive Snowmen Pictures
For the next craft idea, you’ll need card, pen (unless you already have a template) cotton wool/marshmallows, colouring pens, PVA glue, googly eyes, orange card for the nose and black card for the buttons and hat.
Simply cut out a snowman on the card, add cotton wool/marshmallows for the snow and use the card, googly eyes and the buttons for the rest of the features.
Students will have lots of fun. It’s easy to make and encourages students to be extra creative.
Pop-up Christmas Cards
If you’re looking for some fun, DIY pop-up Christmas cards, we have a few cards of our own. Simply download the handy resources:
With them, have your class create their own pop-up cards for mum, dad or maybe Santa!
Festive Pine Cones
Eek! We love this craft idea and feel like we might need to try this one ourselves!
To begin with, simply share out the pine cones between your students (or you could get your class out in the fresh air and head to the playground and collect some).
All you’ll need to do then is get your students to paint their pine cone green and let them dry. After this, you’ll need to stick each one on Blu Tack, so they’ll stick on the surface.
Once this is done, it’s time to decorate! Students can go crazy at this stage and use anything to decorate their festive pine cone, and we particularly like the idea of using a mixture of different, preferably biodegradable, glitters to make them super sparkly!
When all your students’ pine cones are decorated, leave them to dry again and you’re all done – easy-peasy!
Beaded Candy Canes
Here’s another simple craft idea to get your students in the festive spirit!
Start by placing some Blu Tack at one end of a green pipe cleaner (colour doesn’t really matter, but green is preferable), to prevent the beads from falling off. Then use some red and white beads (or other colours you have to hand!) and place them on the pipe cleaner one after the other, e.g., white, red, white, red, and so on, until no more beads will fit on.
Then secure the other end with Blu Tack and bend one end of the pipe cleaner, so it’s curved like a candy cane.
Perfect, now you’re all done! These are a perfect Christmas tree decoration!
The Grinch-Inspired Fruit Kebabs
Ooh, here’s a yummy idea that’s inspired by Dr Seuss’ movie, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. These fruity delights are one we’re sure your students will love!
Please note that adult supervision may be needed for this idea, as you’ll be using small cocktail sticks and a knife for cutting the fruit.
What you’ll need:
- Small cocktail sticks
- Small marshmallows
- To prepare your fruits, you’ll need to cut a banana into thin slices and cut the leaf bit off of all your strawberries (the banana slices and strawberries will be used for the Grinch’s hat). Once you’ve done this, it’s time to let the fun begin and assemble!
- All you’ll need to do is get your cocktail stick and slide a grape on first, as this will be the Grinch’s head.
- Once you’ve done this, add a banana slice and the strawberry (so the flat side is on top of the banana you’ve just added).
- To finish off, add a mini marshmallow as a pom pom to finish off the Grinch’s hat.
Christmas Pudding Biscuits
For a simple snack these biscuits are super simple to do with students.
Please note that this recipe is enough to make 16 biscuits.
What you’ll need:
- 175g soft unsalted butter
- 175g caster sugar
- 3 eggs
- 400g plain flour
- 75g cocoa powder
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. salt
- 200g white chocolate
- Green writing icing
- Glace cherries
- Preheat the oven to 180˚C/Gas Mark 4.
- Cream together the butter and the sugar, and beat in the eggs one at a time.
- With a sift, sift the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder into the bowl and mix together well to form a dough.
- With cling film, wrap the dough and pop it into the fridge for at least 1 hour.
- When you’ve left the dough for an hour, roll it out until it’s about ½ cm think and use a large circle cutter to cut 16 circles.
- Now place each biscuit on a greased baking tray and bake them for 12 minutes. The biscuits should brown slightly but still be spongy to the touch when you take them out. As they cool, they’ll firm up.
- As the biscuits are cooling, melt the white chocolate and coat half of each biscuit with this.
- With a knife (adult help may be needed here), trim the glacé cherries and with two pieces, put them on each biscuit to form the holly berries. Use the green writing icing to draw on holly leaves.
As we’re sure you’ll be looking forward to winding down for the last day of the year, we wanted to give you some quick ideas for classroom activities you can do with your students for the final school day of the term.
Perfect as a small activity or for your Christmas classroom party, all our ideas are easy to set up and also help communication, leadership and listening skills.
Grab some white bean bags or Styrofoam balls and ask your students to take it in turns trying to throw them through decorated rings or Christmas wreaths. It’s a super fun indoor snowball toss!
By making sure you keep score, you can see who successfully throws the snowballs through most and maybe offer a prize for the highest score.
Not only is this an absolute classic, but it’s also a super fun game too and really easy to do. Ask your students to think of a Christmas movie or book and then take turns to act out what it is without talking.
For Christmas book ideas we’ve got a great list of Christmas-themed reads, that are perfect for reading time at school and at home.
The Name Game
This game is all about guesswork. Sitting in a circle, give your students a sticky note each and then ask them to write the name of a famous person or character on them without anyone seeing what they write. Then ask them to stick the sticky note on the forehead of the person next to them.
Your students now need to take it in turns to ask one question about what is on their sticky note and when they’ve guessed the person or character, take it off and help everyone else work out theirs.
Okay, so who doesn’t love a word search? Create a Christmas-themed word search and add all the words you want your students to find to our Word Search Topic Tool (search for it on EducationCity – its content ID is #2114!). Once you’ve added in the words, you can print the word search out or do it as a class on the whiteboard – a perfect activity!
Free Christmas Classroom Resource Pack
We also have a Christmas-themed Topic Resource pack, which is free to download and includes the following:
- 4 ThinkIts
- 5 Fact Sheets
- 4 Lesson Plans:
- 3 Resource Sheets
- Father Christmas Word Search
- Activity Sheets and Answers
- Craft Idea
- Writing Paper
We hope you like this list of activities and snacks, and that you find something a little bit different to try. Pick and choose what works for you and tweak it to your own needs. Whatever you use, we wish you all a Merry Christmas and look forward to speaking with you in the New Year. | <urn:uuid:324d379f-011f-4d42-96c4-188e4aa312c2> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.educationcity.com/christmas-craft-ideas/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371826355.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20200408233313-20200409023813-00475.warc.gz | en | 0.915032 | 2,126 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Understanding Urinary Tract Infections in Men
A surprising number of people assume that only women can get urinary tract infections. While the chance of women getting a UTI is high—about 1 in 2 women will get a urinary tract infection at some point in their lives, men can still contract urinary tract infections. Urinary tract infections lead to an estimated 8.3 million doctor visits each year. About 20 percent of those cases are from men.
Urinary tract infections are rare in men younger than 50 years old, but the chance of contracting a UTI goes up as men get older. Let’s take a closer look at urinary tract infections in men, what causes them, symptoms, and how you can treat and prevent them.
What is a Urinary Tract Infection?
A urinary tract infection describes any bacterial infection in the tract that makes up your urinary system. This system comprises:
- The kidneys: These two organs sit on each side of your body, generally around the waist. They filter out excess water and waste from your blood to create urine.
- The ureters: These two thin tubes run between the kidney and bladder, transporting urine to the bladder.
- The bladder: This organ stores urine until it reaches a certain level, at which point you feel the need to pee. The body voluntarily contracts the muscles that line the bladder to urinate.
- The urethra: This thin tube connects the bladder to the outside of the body. When you pee, a muscle called the urinary sphincter relaxes as your bladder contracts to remove urine from your body.
What Causes a UTI?
A urinary tract infection is the result of bacteria attaching to the opening of the urethra and reproducing, thus entering your urinary system and traveling to the bladder.
Bladder and urethral infections are generally the most common types of UTIs. Urethral infections are known as urethritis, while bladder infections are called cystitis. Infections are most often caused by the bacteria E. coli, which you most probably know for causing food poisoning and other intestinal issues when ingested.
Normally, E. coli are found in the intestines and around the anuses of humans and animals. While harmless in their normal state, E. coli can cause infections when they enters the urinary tract, often via microscopic fecal matter.
Generally, the farther up the urinary system the infection is, the more severe the UTI. When a urinary tract infection spreads to the kidneys it is known as a kidney infection, or pyelonephritis.
Why Do Women Get UTIs More Often Than Men?
The main reason that urinary tract infections are more common in women is their anatomy. A woman’s urethra is much shorter than a man’s, making it much easier for E. coli and other bacteria to reach the bladder in women. In other words, bacteria don’t have to travel as far to reach in the bladder in women.
Furthermore, a woman’s urethra is much closer to the anus. This makes it much easier for bacteria to travel from the anus to the urethra from something like toilet splash back or wiping improperly.
Causes of UTI in Men
E. coli accounts for about 90 percent of all urinary tract infections, but men can also get UTIs from other bacteria, like chlamydia and mycoplasma. These bacteria are sexually transmitted, requiring treatment for both partners involved. These infections are limited to the urethra and reproductive system.
Urinary systems are designed to keep infections at bay. The bladder and ureters prevent urine from backing up, while the simple act of urinating is supposed to flush bacteria out of your system. In men particularly, prostate glands are supposed to secrete fluids that slow down bacterial growth.
For these reasons, urinary tract infections often point to more serious causes. Benign prostate hyperplasia can obstruct the bladder, making it difficult to completely empty the bladder. Prostatitis—an inflammation of the prostate—or other enlarging of the prostate can lead to similar issues with bladder emptying, increasing the risk of infection. An enlarged prostate is more common in older men. Kidney stones can also block the urinary tract.
People with suppressed immune systems are also more susceptible to bacterial infections. This can include disorders like diabetes and HIV/AIDS as well as certain immunosuppressant medications, like chemotherapy for cancer.
Men who have not been circumcised may also be at greater risk of urinary tract infections as bacteria has a greater chance of building up. As E. coli is most commonly found in and around the anus, men who take part in unprotected anal sex are also more likely to develop urinary tract infections.
Catheters are often used in patients who are unconscious, ill, or otherwise unable to void. As clean and sterile as catheters are, extended use can cause incomplete urination, leading to irritation and a possible infection.
Symptoms of UTI in Men
The severity of the symptoms usually depends on how far the infection has reached. General symptoms you can expect of a lower urinary tract infection include:
- Burning or pain during urination (a condition known as dysuria)
- The sensation of needing to urinate constantly and urgently
- Peeing a very small amount, despite the urgency and frequency
- Urine that appears cloudy, red, pink, or a dark cola color
- Urine that smells bad
- Pain in the lower abdomen
- Pain or pressure in the pelvis
- A mild fever, usually less than 101 degrees Fahrenheit
- General feeling unwell or ill
When the infection spreads to the upper urinary tract, you may experience some of the above symptoms combined with:
- A fever higher than 101 degrees Fahrenheit
- Chills and shaking
- Pain in the back and flanks, around waist level
Older men may also experience:
- A poor appetite or poor feeding
Remember that everyone is different. While some people exhibit these symptoms, others may experience symptoms more similar to a sexually transmitted disease. Other men may not experience any symptoms at all.
Understanding Frequent or Recurrent Infections in Men
Getting just one urinary tract infection as a man is rare, but getting more than one could actually point to other underlying issues. A recurring infection is often caused by a separate type or strain of bacteria. In other words, even if both infections are caused by E. coli, the second is likely a mutation or separate form of E. coli.
A study from the National Institute of Health found that bacteria has the ability to attach to the cells lining the urinary tract, a contributing factor to recurrent urinary tract infections.
In women, recurrent UTIs are often a result of changing bacteria within the urinary tract. In men, frequent urinary tract infections are caused by obstructions, like kidney stones or an enlarged prostate, and procedures that require the use of a catheter.
Treatments for Urinary Tract Infections in Men
The main mode of treatment for male UTIs is antibiotics, usually delivered over the course of one week or more. Your doctor may also prescribe medication that numbs your bladder and urethra to relieve painful, burning urination. The most common medications prescribed for urinary tract infections in men include:
In recent years, doctors have also begun to prescribe a class of drugs called quinolones. These drugs include:
Urinary tract infections should get cured within a couple days of the treatment, assuming the infection is not caused by an obstruction or a separate disorder. Always make sure you take the full course of the prescribed medication to ensure elimination of remaining bacteria. The full course often lasts for over a week.
Doctors will prescribe longer term treatment for patients who show signs of prostate or kidney infections and patients with diabetes or structural abnormalities. Doctors also recommend longer treatments for men who have urinary tract infections as a result of mycoplasma or chlamydia. These are often treated with doxycycline, tetracycline, or a mix of trimethoprim and sulfamethoxazole.
If the infection is severe enough to have spread to the kidney, you may be hospitalized so doctors can administer antibiotics intravenously. Kidney infections can take several weeks of antibiotic treatment for full recovery. You’ll generally have to stay hospitalized until you can take fluids and medications on your own.
Treating an infection that has been caused by systemic disorder or obstruction usually requires taking care of the underlying issue, which could mean undergoing a surgical procedure. Without taking care of the underlying issue, you risk suffering kidney damage, which can lead to a whole host of other problems.
Home Remedies for Urinary Tract Infections in Men
While antibiotics do most of the heavy lifting during the treatment phase, you can take several steps to maintain your comfort and ensure that all the bacteria are eliminated from your body. Some beneficial steps to take include:
- Drink more water. This dilutes your urine and encourages the flushing out of bacteria from your urinary tract.
- Avoid alcohol, coffee, citrus juice, sugary sodas, and spicy foods. All of these may irritate your bladder and contribute to your frequent, urgent urinating.
- Use a heating pad or hot water bottle. Using a warm heating pad on your abdomen can help with the pain and discomfort.
- Quit smoking. Smoking is one of the main contributors to bladder cancer.
- Drink cranberry juice. Some studies suggest that cranberry juice can help with UTIs by preventing bacteria from sticking to the walls of your urinary tract. Other studies are inconclusive or suggest otherwise, but if you think drinking cranberry juice is helping you, then by all means drink it. Just watch your calorie intake, and avoid drinking cranberry juice if you’re taking any blood-thinning medication, like aspirin or warfarin.
Preventing Male Urinary Tract Infections
As rare as urinary tract infections are in men, make sure you take the right steps to ensure you never have to worry about one:
- Pee when you need to. Don’t hold your pee, and always try to empty your bladder fully.
- Wear cotton underwear and loose fitting clothing. Tight pants and non-cotton underwear tend to trap moisture, making for a great environment where bacteria can grow.
- Wash your genital area after sex.
- If you’re uncircumcised, wash your foreskin regularly.
- Urinate soon after sex to flush out any bacteria that may have entered your urethra.
- Practice safe sex in general.
- Take showers instead of baths.
Most importantly, make sure you go to your doctor regularly, especially if you suspect something is wrong. Urinary tract infections may point to more serious underlying issues. The best thing you can do is act early. Remember to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases if you are sexually active. And if kidney stones become a common issue, consult your doctor for help with changes in your lifestyle or diet. | <urn:uuid:8f82fc70-8e97-4d62-abb2-1d48b1909164> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://plushcare.com/blog/urinary-tract-infection-men/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371604800.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20200405115129-20200405145629-00035.warc.gz | en | 0.939011 | 2,281 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Why Do Some Cats Eliminate Outside the Litter Box?
Litter box use problems in cats can be diverse and complex. Behavioral treatments are often effective, but the treatments must be tailored to the cat’s specific problem. Be certain to read the entire article to help you identify your particular cat’s problem and to familiarize yourself with the different resolution approaches to ensure success with your cat.
Litter box Management Problems
If your cat isn’t comfortable with her litter box or can’t easily access it, she probably won’t use it. The following common litter-box problems might cause her to eliminate outside of her box:
- You haven’t cleaned your cat’s litter box often or thoroughly enough.
- You haven’t provided enough litter boxes for your household. Be sure to have a litter box for each of your cats, as well as one extra.
- Your cat’s litter box is too small for her.
- Your cat can’t easily get to her litter box at all times.
- Your cat’s litter box has a hood or liner that makes her uncomfortable.
- The litter in your cat’s box is too deep. Cats usually prefer two to three inches of litter.
- Your cat can’t get into the litterbox easily. Some older and overweight cats have mobility issues that make it difficult to navigate high sided litterboxes.
- The litterbox is in a scary place. Laundry rooms and basements can make some cats nervous, they need areas that aren’t so dark and noisy.
- Your litterboxes are all lined up against a wall. Some cats see this as one big box and need more separation. Placing a box on every level of the home would be preferable.
- She’s not familiar with the litterbox you’ve offered her. If a cat is not accustomed to using an electronic box, it could be scary for her. She’ll need to be desensitized to this box, while also offering her a more traditional box to keep her on track with her litterbox use.
- You’ve recently changed the type of litter that she’s used to, or she’s new to your home and is uncomfortable with the litter that she’s been offered. Unconventional litters like pine and paper litters need to be introduced slowly to your cat as they’re likely not something she’s used to. You can start by slowly adding the new litter to her box until it’s all new litter, but you’ll want to be sure that she’s consistently using the box as you increase the amount of the new litter.
- You’re using a scented litter. Cats prefer a soft, unscented litter over most other litters.
- Your clumping litter clumps so tightly that it’s creating cement-like rocks in the litterbox. These can be painful to step on, making your cat uncomfortable entering the litterbox. You’ll want to either change your litter or make sure that you’re scooping twice a day.
Negative Litterbox Association
There are many reasons why a cat who has reliably used her litter box in the past starts to eliminate outside of the box. One common reason is that something happened to upset her while she was using the litter box. If this is the case with your cat, you might notice that she seems hesitant to return to the box. She may enter the box, but then leave very quickly—sometimes before even using the box. One common cause for this is painful elimination. If your cat had a medical condition that caused her pain when she eliminated, she may have learned to associate the discomfort with using her litter box. Even if your cat’s health has returned to normal, that association may still cause her to avoid her litter box. It’s always important to have your cat seen by a veterinarian at the first sign of litterbox issues, even if you think your cat is healthy.
Stress can cause litterbox problems. Cats can be stressed by events that their owners may not think of as traumatic. Changes in things that even indirectly affect a cat, like moving, adding new animals or family members to your household- even changing your daily routine- can make your cat feel anxious.
Multi-Cat Household Conflict
Sometimes one or more cats in a household control access to litter boxes and prevent the other cats from using them. Even if one of the cats isn’t actually confronting the other cats in the litter box, any conflict between cats in a household can create enough stress to cause litter-box problems.
What to Do If Your Cat Eliminates Outside the Litter Box
Basic Tips for Making Cats Feel Better About Using Their Litter Box
- Virtually all cats like clean litter boxes, so scoop and change your cat’s litter at least once a day. Rinse the litter box out completely with baking soda or unscented soap once a week.
- The majority of cats prefer large boxes that they can enter easily. Plastic sweater storage containers make excellent litter boxes as do cement mixing containers.
- Most cats like a shallow bed of litter. Provide three inches of litter rather than four or five inches.
- Most cats prefer soft clumping, unscented litter.
- Your cat may prefer the type of litter she used as a kitten.
- Most cats don’t like box liners or lids on their boxes.
- Cats like their litter boxes located in a quiet but not “cornered” location. They like to be able to see people or other animals approaching, and they like to have multiple escape routes in case they want to leave their boxes quickly.
Resolving a Litter Box Problem
The first step in resolving elimination outside the litter box is to rule out medical problems. Have your cat checked thoroughly by a veterinarian. Once your veterinarian determines that your cat doesn’t have a medical condition or issue, try following these guidelines:
- Provide enough litter boxes. Make sure you have one for each cat in your household, plus one extra. For example, if you have three cats, you’ll need a minimum of four litter boxes.
- Place litter boxes in accessible locations, away from high-traffic areas and away from areas where the cat might feel trapped. If you live in a multistory residence, you may need to provide a litter box on each level. Keep boxes away from busy, loud or intimidating places, like next to your washer and dryer or next to your dog’s food and water bowls, or in areas where there’s a lot of foot traffic.
- Put your cat’s food bowls somewhere other than right next to her litter box.
- Remove covers and liners from all litter boxes.
- Give your cat a choice of litter types. Cats generally prefer clumping litter with a medium to fine texture. Use unscented litter. Offer different types of litter in boxes placed side-by-side to allow your cat to show you her preference.
- Scoop at least once a day. Once a week, clean all litter boxes with warm water and unscented soap, baking soda or no soap, and completely replace the litter. The problem with scented cleaners is that your cat could develop an aversion to the scent.
- Clean accidents thoroughly with an enzymatic cleanser designed to neutralize pet odors. You can find this kind of cleaner at most pet stores.
- If your cat soils in just a few spots, place litter boxes there. If it’s not possible to put a box in a spot where your cat has eliminated, place her food bowl, water bowl, bed or toys in that area to discourage further elimination.
- Make inappropriate elimination areas less appealing. Try putting regular or motion-activated lights in dark areas. You can also make surfaces less pleasant to stand on by placing upside-down carpet runners, tin foil or double-sided sticky tape in the area where your cat has eliminated in the past.
- If you have a multi cat home, make sure that you’ve got plenty of resources throughout the home. This could mean adding feeding stations and safe spots/ vertical space in addition to adding litterboxes.
- Make sure that you’re cleaning accidents thoroughly with an enzymatic cleanser designed to neutralize pet odors. You can find this kind of cleaner at most pet stores.
If Your Cat Has Developed a Surface or Location Preference
If your cat seems to prefer eliminating on a certain kind of surface or in a certain location, you’ll need to make that surface or its location less appealing. If the preference is in a dark area, try putting a bright light or, even better, a motion-activated light in the area. You can also make surfaces less pleasant to stand on by placing upside-down carpet runners, tin foil or double-sided sticky tape where your cat has eliminated in the past. At the same time, provide your cat with extra litter boxes in acceptable places in case part of her problem is the location of her usual litter box, and be sure to give her multiple kinds of litter to choose from so that she can show you which one she prefers. Put the boxes side-by-side for a while, each with a different type of litter, and check to see which one your cat decides to use.
If Your Cat Has Developed a Litter Preference or Aversion
Cats usually develop a preference for litter type and scent as kittens. Some cats adapt to a change of litter without any problem at all, while other cats may feel uncomfortable using a type of litter that they didn’t use when they were young.
If you think your cat may dislike her litter type, texture or smell, try offering her different types of litter to use. Cats generally prefer clumping litter with a medium to fine texture. They also usually prefer unscented litter. To help your cat pick her preferred litter, put a few boxes side-by-side with different types of litter in them. She’ll use the one the she likes best.
If Your Cat Is Unable to Use Her Litter Box
Special-needs cats such as those who are older, arthritic or still very young might have trouble with certain types of litter boxes. Boxes that have sides that are too high or have a top-side opening might make it difficult for your cat to enter or leave the box. Try switching to a litter box with low sides.
Negative Litter Box Association
If your cat has experienced some kind of frightening or upsetting event while using her litter box, she could associate that event with the litter box and avoid going near it. Things that might upset your cat while she’s eliminating in her box include being cornered or trapped by a dog, cat or person, hearing a loud noise or commotion, or seeing something frightening or startling. These experiences—or any other disturbing experience—could make your cat very reluctant to enter her litter box. If your cat is afraid of her litter box, you may notice her running into the box and then leaving again very quickly, sometimes before she’s finished eliminating. You may also notice her eliminating nearby, but not inside her box. This means that your cat is worried about using her box, especially if she has reliably used litter box in the past. See below for some ideas on how to treat this.
Treatment for Household Stress
Cats sometimes stop using their litter boxes when they feel stressed. Identify and, if possible, eliminate any sources of stress or frustration in your cat’s environment. For instance, keep her food bowls full and in the same place, keep her routine as predictable as possible, prevent the dog from chasing her, close blinds on windows and doors so she isn’t upset by cats outside. If you can’t eliminate sources of stress, try to reduce them. Incorporate the use of Feliway spray or diffusers, which deliver a synthetic pheromone that has been shown to have some effect in relieving stress in cats. You can find Feliway products in many pet stores and online.
Treatment for Multi-Cat Household Conflict
Sometimes an elimination problem can develop as a result of conflict between cats who live together. If you have multiple cats and aren’t sure which cat is soiling, speak with your veterinarian about giving fluorescein, a harmless dye, to one of your cats. Although the dye does not usually stain carpeting, it causes urine to glow blue under ultraviolet light for about 24 hours. If you can’t get or use fluorescein, you can temporarily confine your cats, one at a time, to determine which one is eliminating outside of the litter boxes in your home.
If there is a conflict between your cats and one of them seems stressed, provide additional litter boxes in locations where the anxious cat spends the majority of her time. Also be sure to provide adequate resting areas for each cat. It can very useful in multi-cat households to create vertical resting spots on shelves or window sills or by buying multi-perch cat trees. It may help to distribute resources such as food, water, cat posts or trees, and litter boxes so that each individual cat can make use of them without coming into contact or having a conflict with one of the other cats. Using Feliway spray or diffusers can reduce general social stress in your household.
Always consult with your veterinarian or a veterinary behaviorist before giving your cat any type of medication for a behavior problem. Medications can provide additional help in treating inappropriate elimination when the behavior is in response to stress or anxiety. If you’d like to explore this option, speak with your veterinarian, a veterinary behaviorist or a Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist who can work closely with your vet.
What Not to Do
Regardless of what you do so solve your cat’s elimination problems, here are a few things to avoid:
- Do not rub your cat’s nose in urine or feces.
- Do not scold your cat and carry or drag her to the litter box.
- Do not confine your cat to a small room with the litter box, for days to weeks or longer, without doing anything else to resolve her elimination problems.
- Do not clean up accidents with an ammonia-based cleanser. Urine contains ammonia, and therefore cleaning with ammonia could attract your cat to the same spot to urinate again. Instead, use a product specifically for cleaning pet accidents, such as Nature’s Miracle.
This information was originally provided at www.aspca.org | <urn:uuid:8a22e638-0885-4058-a553-91d13c8f76cd> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.hshv.org/tips-for-resolving-litterbox-problems/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370506477.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20200401223807-20200402013807-00155.warc.gz | en | 0.935471 | 3,072 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Recovering after strokeStroke rehabilitation; Cerebrovascular accident - rehabilitation; Recovery from stroke; Stroke - recovery; CVA - recovery
A stroke happens when blood flow to any part of the brain stops.
A stroke occurs when blood flow to a part of the brain stops. A stroke is sometimes called a "brain attack. " If blood flow is cut off for longer th...
Each person has a different recovery time and need for long-term care. Problems with moving, thinking, and talking often improve in the first weeks or months after a stroke. Some people will keep improving months or years after a stroke.
WHERE TO LIVE AFTER A STROKE
Most people will need stroke rehabilitation (rehab) to help them recover after they leave the hospital. Stroke rehab will help you regain the ability to care for yourself.
Most types of therapy can be done where you live, including in your home.
- People who are not able to care for themselves at home after a stroke may have therapy in a special part of a hospital or in a nursing or rehabilitation center.
- Those who are able to go back home might go to a special clinic or have someone come to their home.
Whether you can go back home after a stroke depends on:
- Whether you can take care of yourself
- How much help there will be at home
- Whether the home is a safe place (for example, stairs in the home might not be safe for a stroke patient who has trouble walking)
You may need to go to a boarding home, adult family home, or convalescent home to have a safe environment.
For people who are cared for at home:
- Changes may be needed to stay safe from falls in the home and bathroom, prevent wandering, and make the home easier to use. The bed and bathroom should be easy to reach. Items (such as throw rugs) that may cause a fall should be removed.
Safe from falls in the home
Older adults and people with medical problems are at risk of falling or tripping. This can result in broken bones or more serious injuries. Use the ...Read Article Now Book Mark Article
Older adults and people with medical problems are at risk of falling or tripping. This can result in broken bones or more serious injuries. The bat...Read Article Now Book Mark Article
- A number of devices can help with activities such as cooking or eating, bathing or showering, moving around the home or elsewhere, dressing and grooming, writing and using a computer, and many more activities.
- Family counseling may help you cope with the changes needed for home care. Visiting nurses or aides, volunteer services, homemakers, adult protective services, adult day care, and other community resources (such as a local Department of Aging) may be helpful.
- Legal advice may be needed. Advance directives, power of attorney, and other legal actions may make it easier to make decisions about care.
SPEAKING AND COMMUNICATING
After a stroke, some people may have problems finding a word or being able to speak more than one word or phrase at a time. Or, they may have trouble speaking at all. This is called aphasia.
- People who have had a stroke may be able to put many words together, but they may not make sense. Many people do not know that what they are saying is not easy to understand. They may get frustrated when they realize other people cannot understand. Family and caregivers should learn how best to help communicate.
- It can take up to 2 years to recover speech. Not everyone will fully recover.
A stroke can also damage the muscles that help you speak. As a result, these muscles do not move the right way when you try to speak. This is called dysarthria.
A speech and language therapist can work with you and your family or caregivers. You can learn new ways to communicate.
Learn new ways to communicate
Dysarthria is a condition that occurs when there are problems with the muscles that help you talk. Most times, dysarthria occurs:As a result of brai...
THINKING AND MEMORY
After a stroke, people may have:
- Changes in their ability to think or reason
- Changes in behavior and sleep patterns
- Memory problems
- Poor judgment
These changes may lead to:
- An increase in the need for safety measures
- Changes in ability to drive
- Other changes or precautions
Depression after a stroke is common. Depression can start soon after a stroke, but symptoms may not begin for up to 2 years after the stroke. Treatments for depression include:
- Increased social activity. More visits in the home or going to an adult day care center for activities.
- Medicines for depression.
- Visits to a therapist or counselor.
MUSCLE, JOINT, AND NERVE PROBLEMS
Moving around and doing normal daily tasks such as dressing and feeding may be harder after a stroke.
Muscles on one side of the body may be weaker or may not move at all. This may involve only part of the arm or leg, or the whole side of the body.
- Muscles on the weak side of the body may be very tight.
- Different joints and muscles in the body may become hard to move. The shoulder and other joints may dislocate.
Many of these problems can cause pain after a stroke. Pain may also occur from changes in the brain itself. You may use pain medicines, but check with your health care provider first. People who have pain due to tight muscles may get medicines that help with muscle spasms.
Physical therapists, occupational therapists, and rehabilitation doctors will help you relearn how to:
- Dress, groom, and eat
- Bathe, shower, and use the toilet
- Use canes, walkers, wheelchairs, and other devices to stay as mobile as possible
- Possibly return to work
- Keep all of the muscles as strong as possible and stay as physically active as possible, even if you cannot walk
- Manage muscle spasms or tightness with stretching exercises and braces that fit around the ankle, elbow, shoulder, and other joints
BLADDER AND BOWEL CARE
A stroke can lead to problems with bladder or bowel control. These problems may be caused by:
- Damage to part of the brain that helps the bowels and bladder work smoothly
- Not noticing the need to go to the bathroom
- Problems getting to the toilet in time
Symptoms may include:
- Loss of bowel control, diarrhea (loose bowel movements), or constipation (hard bowel movements)
- Loss of bladder control, feeling the need to urinate often, or problems emptying the bladder
Your provider may prescribe medicines to help with bladder control. You may need a referral to a bladder or bowel specialist.
Sometimes, a bladder or bowel schedule will help. It can also help to place a commode chair close to where you sit most of the day. Some people need a permanent urinary catheter to drain urine from their body.
You have an indwelling catheter (tube) in your bladder. "Indwelling" means inside your body. This catheter drains urine from your bladder into a ba...
To prevent skin or pressure sores:
A pressure sore is an area of the skin that breaks down when something keeps rubbing or pressing against the skin.
- Clean up after incontinence
- Change position often and know how to move in a bed, chair, or wheelchair
- Make sure the wheelchair fits correctly
- Have family members or other caregivers learn how to watch out for skin sores
SWALLOWING AND EATING AFTER A STROKE
Swallowing problems may be due to a lack of attention when eating or damage to the nerves that help you swallow.
Symptoms of swallowing problems are:
Difficulty with swallowing is the feeling that food or liquid is stuck in the throat or at any point before the food enters the stomach. This proble...
- Coughing or choking, either during or after eating
- Gurgling sounds from the throat during or after eating
- Throat clearing after drinking or swallowing
- Slow chewing or eating
- Coughing food back up after eating
- Hiccups after swallowing
- Chest discomfort during or after swallowing
A speech therapist can help with swallowing and eating problems after a stroke. Diet changes, such as thickening liquids or eating pureed foods, may be needed. Some people will need a permanent feeding tube, called a gastrostomy.
Some people do not take in enough calories after a stroke. High-calorie foods or food supplements that also contain vitamins or minerals can prevent weight loss and keep you healthy.
OTHER IMPORTANT ISSUES
Both men and women may have problems with sexual function after a stroke. Medicines called phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors (such as Viagra, Levitra, or Cialis) may be helpful. Ask your provider whether these drugs are right for you. Talking with a therapist or counselor may also help.
Treatment and lifestyle changes to prevent another stroke are important. This includes healthy eating, controlling illnesses such as diabetes and high blood pressure, and sometimes taking medicine to help prevent another stroke.
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Review Date: 5/6/2019
Reviewed By: David C. Dugdale, III, MD, Professor of Medicine, Division of General Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, Brenda Conaway, Editorial Director, and the A.D.A.M. Editorial team. | <urn:uuid:63d51f13-af6b-4ae2-84e4-101b864fb58d> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://ssl.adam.com/content.aspx?productid=117&pid=1&gid=007419&site=lifecaremedicalcenter.adam.com&login=LIFE1919 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370496227.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20200329201741-20200329231741-00033.warc.gz | en | 0.927364 | 2,196 | 3.015625 | 3 |
EXPLORING THE STAGES OF INFORMATION SEEKING IN A CROSS-MODAL CONTEXT
Keywords:Collaborative information seeking, cross-modal interaction, information seeking process, accessibility, web search
AbstractPrevious studies of users with visual impairments access to the web have focused on human-web interaction. This study explores the under investigated area of cross-modal collaborative information seeking (CCIS), that is, the challenges and opportunities that exist in supporting visually impaired (VI) users to take an effective part in collaborative web search tasks with sighted peers. We conducted an observational study to investigate the process with fourteen pairs of VI and sighted users in co-located and distributed settings. The study examined the effects of cross-modal collaborative interaction on the stages of the individual Information Seeking (IS) process. The findings showed that the different stages of the process were performed individually most of the time; however it was observed that some collaboration took place in the results exploration and management stages. The accessibility challenges faced by VI users affected their individual and collaborative interaction and also enforced certain points of collaboration. The paper concludes with some recommendations towards improving the accessibility of cross-modal collaborative search.
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This list, though by no means exhaustive, provides a starting point for exploring ideas related to diversity from a Christian worldview.
We anticipate dialogue on the issues raised in these readings and others. It is our desire that this resource points you in the direction of resources for your use in the classroom as well as in your own personal thinking. Feel free to stop by the Office of Multicultural Development or contact Dr. Sheila Caldwell, Chief Intercultural Engagement Officer, to ask questions regarding the resources listed or research others.
by Lerone Bennett
An overview of Black American history which focuses on the great empires of West Africa, the transatlantic journey, the slavery era, reconstruction, the Jim Crow era and the civil rights era. The conclusion of the work puts an emphasis on black inventors/inventions. The study intentionally places the emphasis on the social-cultural milieu through which Black Americans have developed with. The conclusion is on the future which is to come.
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
In a series of essays, written as a letter to his son, Coates confronts the notion of race in America and how it has shaped American history, many times at the cost of black bodies and lives. Thoughtfully exploring personal and historical events, from his time at Howard University to the Civil War, the author poignantly asks and attempts to answer difficult questions that plague modern society.
by George A. Yancey
Sociologist George Yancey answers the reader's concerns and helps the reader as a Christian, whether black or white, see where he or she fits into God's plan for peace among the races. For individuals and churches that have avoided confronting tough reconciliation issues, Beyond Black and White offers practical avenues for replacing the facade of false harmony with true oneness in Christ.
by Glen Kehrein and Raleigh Washington
Defining a Christian resource on the solution to issues of racial discord in the United States, the authors focus on Christ and their personal experiences to define a new model for interaction. Eight principles direct a life of reconciliation among them intentionally, commitment, sacrifice and empowerment. They conclude with a call to black and white Christians out of a mode that is used at Rock of our Salvation Evangelical Church.
by Dwight Perry
This book is essential reading for the Christian leader who is committed to promoting and repairing unity in the church. There are four areas of unity that are highlighted in this book: Unity Between Races, Unity Between Classes, Unity Between Gender, and Unity Among Other Barriers. Dr. Perry and the contributing authors focus on key contemporary conflicts that endanger our ability to live as one within the Body of Christ.
by Fumitaka Matsuoka
Matsuoka provides a theological perspective on racial and ethnic plurality by exploring such issues as alienation across shifting race lines; race and justice; the interworkings of race, class, and culture; and signs of hope amid an enduring culture of opposition. Interdisciplinary in its approach, this is a constructive theological work that reflects on the role Christian faith communities play in a multiracial society-and forges a new vision of human relatedness and community building.
by John Hope Franklin
Distilling more than two centuries of history, Franklin reflects on the most tragic and persistent social problem in our nation's history-the color line-as it becomes our legacy for the next century. His message is that the color line holds fast in education, in housing, in health care, and in the legal system. Franklin illuminates some of the key episodes in our nation's history that have brought us to the present day.
A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America
by Ronald Takaki
As the author of Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans and editor of From Different Shores: Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in America, Takaki is well founded in contemporary racial and ethnic theory. This volume attempts to view differing immigrant groups from their own voices rather than an Anglo voice. Beginning with colonization through to contemporary issues, the work examines differing groups that create the American mosaic. Concluding that though from diverse backgrounds we must continue to fight to be one people, a fight which will be hard.
by Joseph Barndt
Clearly stating that his work is intended for White Americans to address the issues of racism in America, Barndt defines 3 tiers of racism and their influence on all Americans. Racism occurs on a cultural, institutional, and personal level and the major result is one of debilitating separation. The work is not designed to produce guilt, but rather address ways in which we can dismantle racism in the U.S.
by Michael O. Emerson
Emerson and Smith provide an interesting account of how white evangelicals perpetuate the very racial divisions they publicly oppose as the authors describe the racial attitudes of white evangelical Protestants. It is an account of the deep racial division within American religion. In addition, it is a penetrating look at the societal and religious-based reasons for this division within the evangelical Christian sector, and a compassionate plea for Christians to engage the issue of race and to lead the country in solving this "American Dilemma."
by Himilce Novas
In a question-and-answer format, this informative guide chronicles all the important dates and figures in Asian American history, and also provides a complete understanding of the traditions and ideas that people of Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Indian, Pacific Island descent have brought to bear on American life, while exploding myths and stereotypes.
Edited by Dennis L. Okholm
Christians of both African and Euro-American decent affirm that the gospel calls them together, that they at least should be one people, of one Lord, one faith, one baptism. In this spirit, the essays in this book consider what rigorous theological work can contribute to the noble and ongoing quest for racial reconciliation. Some of the church's most exciting black and white thinkers here address issues of theological method, hermeneutics, soteriology, ecclesiology and social ethics-always with an eye to closing the gaping wound of racism and serving God across color lines.
by Erika L. Sánchez
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian meets Jane the Virgin in this poignant but often laugh-out-loud funny contemporary YA about losing a sister and finding yourself amid the pressures, expectations, and stereotypes of growing up in a Mexican-American home.
by Austin Channing Brown
In a time when nearly all institutions (schools, churches, universities, businesses) claim to value "diversity" in their mission statements, I'm Still Here is a powerful account of how and why our actions so often fall short of our words. Brown writes in breathtaking detail about her journey to self-worth and the pitfalls that kill our attempts at racial justice, in stories that bear witness to the complexity of America's social fabric--from Black Cleveland neighborhoods to private schools in the middle-class suburbs, from prison walls to the boardrooms at majority-white organizations.
by David Anderson and Brent Zuercher
This book consists of letters between two friends, one African American and the other Caucasian American, as they explore issues in race, friendship and faith. Specifically, some of the topics they explore are the definition of racism, what is African American culture, who should apologize and reconciliation.
by Spencer Perkins and Chris Rice
Perkins is an African-American from Mississippi, while Rice is an European-American from Vermont who grew up in Korea. They define their hard-fought friendship that has been forged through years of work with each other. Racial reconciliation must begin with the church as an example to society. This process is facilitated by becoming "yokefellows" sharing each others' burden.
by Cornell West
Cornell West assumes a role much like that of a prophet in analyzing racial issues in society. West praises and criticizes the workings of conservatives, liberals and those deemed leaders of various movements-while carefully distancing himself from any particular group. Without simply conveying societal ills, West gives feasible direction and insight to racial problems, placing the burden on society as a whole. A prophetic work that is both challenging and encouraging. Designed to stimulate public discussions on the subject of race in the U.S., West attempts to dismantle the pessimism and cynicism of this nation to address the prejudices of American people. A deep faith drives his social analysis and a firm belief that each of us can make a difference if we commit ourselves to do so.
by Andrew Sung Park
Park seeks a theological model that will help transform a society of oppression, injustice, and violence into a community of equity, fairness, and mutual consideration. Park emphasizes that such a transformation does not and cannot begin only with good intentions, but must be grounded in an understanding of all the socio-economic and cultural issues that lead to oppression and tension. Using the Korean term han to describe the deep-seated suffering of racial oppression, he then suggests resources for understanding and healing in both Christian and Asian traditions.
by Michael Omi and Howard Winant
In this second edition Omi and Winant further develop their provocative theory of "racial formation" and extend their political analysis and the developments in American racial politics up to the 1990s. Offering a more detailed account of the theory of racial formation processes, they include new material on the historical development of race, the question of racism, race-class-gender interrelationships and everyday life. They introduce the concept of "racial project" linking race as representation with race as it is embedded in the social structure. They include interpretation of contemporary racial projects which covers those of the "new Democrats," in the United States. The authors offer a critique of the limits and contradictions inherent in racial identity, social analysis and politics. This work provokes further pivotal and productive debates in the rapidly developing field of race theory.
by Curtiss Paul DeYoung
DeYoung offers a moral guide and practical road map through the difficult and ultimately liberating process called reconciliation. It is a work about daring to make strangers and enemies begin to view one another as friends and equal members of the body of Christ. DeYoung provides a blueprint for a biblical, multi-racial, and multicultural response that will contribute significantly to the shalom of the city.
by Paul Kivel
Uprooting Racism is designed to help white people act on the conviction that racism is wrong. It is a supportive how-to book for white people who are willing to work to end racism. It talks about racism without rhetoric or attack. It helps readers understand the dynamics of racism in our society, institutions and daily lives, and it shares stories, suggestions, advice, exercises and approaches for working together to fight racism.
by James Breckenridge and Lillian Breckenridge
What Color is Your God? gives an in depth picture of what the people of God represent. It also illumines the necessity for all races within the church to actively pursue the biblical principles of reconciliation. It is a well-researched textbook on the timely topic of multicultural Christian education. It serves as a tool for pastors, teachers and evangelists who face the challenge of evangelizing and discipling all segments of American society.
by Judith H. Katz
A step by step model on anti-racism training. This work was designed for educators, counselors and facilitators who are concerned about social change. It focuses on racism as a "white" problem and suggests ways of changing it. The book provides the practitioner with a six stage program of designed activities that will move a group from awareness to positive action.
by Beverly Daniel Tatum
Beverly Daniel Tatum is a psychologist who explains the development of racial identity while providing a new framework for thinking and talking about race, offering skills and experiences for an epiphany of racial enlightenment. It is an unusually sensitive work about the racial barriers that still divide us in so many areas of life. Topics include defining race, the complexity of identity (racial identity in adulthood, the development of white identity, identity development in multiracial families), affirmative action, and embracing a cross-racial dialogue. | <urn:uuid:26c73207-6d22-406f-9e8e-0a3aaa5c8cf7> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.wheaton.edu/life-at-wheaton/kingdom-diversity-working/get-involved-/further-reading/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371818008.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20200408135412-20200408165912-00154.warc.gz | en | 0.938733 | 2,479 | 2.796875 | 3 |
You can download a handy pdf of this post Understanding Scale Drawings by clicking the download button below!
Understanding the concept of architectural scales and scale drawings
Scale drawings allow us to accurately represent sites, spaces, buildings and details to a smaller or more practical size than the original.
When a drawing is described as ‘to scale’, it means that each element in that drawing is in the same proportion, related to the real or proposed thing – it is smaller or indeed larger by a particular percentage.
If something is ‘drawn to scale’ we expect that it has been drawn, or printed, to a common scale that is used as standard in the construction industry. As we gain a better understanding of scale, we can view a drawing in a particular scale and instantly recognise and understand the spaces, zones and gain a quick understanding of the existing or proposed spatial relationships.
In the real world, one meter is equal to one meter. A drawing at a scale of 1:10 means that the object is 10 times smaller than in real life scale 1:1. You could also say, 1 unit in the drawing is equal to 10 units in real life.
As the numbers in the scale get bigger, i.e. 1:50 – 1:200, the elements in the drawing actually get smaller. This is because in a drawing at 1:50 there is 1 unit for every 50 unit in real life. A drawing of 1:200 is representing 200 units for every one unit – and therefore is showing the elements smaller than the 1:50 drawing.
It is worth noting that scale drawings represent the same units. So, if a drawing is at 1:50 in cm, 1cm in the drawing will be equal to 50cm in real life. Similarly, if a drawing is in mm, at 1:200 – one mm unit in the drawing will represent 200mm in real life.
The image above shows an example of a drawing set with different scales to demonstrate different aspects of the design. (cad drawing courtesy of bibliocad.com). You may want to represent a site plan at a scale of 1:500, but perhaps show floor plans at 1:100 for example.
Working with scales for architectural representation
In architecture, we use a collection of standard scales to represent our designs. For example, it is common practice to produce floor plans at a scale of 1:100 (dependent on size of project and paper). Once you gain an understanding of scales, it is easy to understand which scale is most suited to which type of drawing.
Scale bar blocks courtesy of cad-blocks.co.uk.
These scale bars show what one unit represents at different scales.
The general requirement of a scaled drawing is to convey the relevant information clearly with the required level of detail. If you are working in practice there will often be office standards. For example, they may only use layout sheets of either A3 or A1 – depending on the scale of the project and information that is being represented. As a student, you need to make these decisions based on industry standard. It is always best to use a ’round’ scale, i.e., one of the scales mentioned below, and not make up your own.
What scale should I use?
Location Plan and Key Plans
Site Plans, Sketch schemes etc
Plan drawings – floor plans, elevations, sections
Room plans, interior elevations
Component / detail drawings
Working out the scale
A scale is shown as a ratio, for example 1:100. A drawing at a scale of 1:100 means that the object is 100 times smaller than in real life scale 1:1. You could also say, 1 unit in the drawing is equal to 100 units in real life.
So, if we were drawing a table that measured 100cm wide by 200cm long at a scale of 1:50, you would draw the table 2cm wide by 4cm long on your piece of paper. This is worked out by dividing the real life size (100cm) by 50 (1:50 scale). This gives you a result of 2cm. For the length of the table we divide 200cm by 50 to get a result of 4cm.
Of course, it is not necessary to calculate the required measurements when you draw. You can either use a scale ruler to hand draw your plans, or software such as Revit, AutoCAD, ArchiCAD that will allow you to present your drawings at any scale and easily switch between scales as required.
How to use a scale ruler
A scale ruler is a tool that architects, engineers and designers use to draw their designs at an appropriate scale that it fits on a piece of paper and is in proportion to accurately convey the scheme. The scale ruler comes in different shapes, flat or triangular but they all provide sets of graduated numbered spaces, that establishes a proportion of one unit to the specified unit, i.e. different scales. As an example, the ruler I have in front of me now has the following scales; 1:1, 1:100, 1:20, 1:200, 1:5, 1:500, 1:1250, 1:2500.
Scale rules have varying number of scales on them, depending on their intended use. Using a scale rule is pretty easy when you know how.
When you are drawing a plan, you select the scale you intend to use by turn the ruler to the appropriate side. You can then draw the line to the desired measurement using the scale ruler. For example, if you have select to draw a 5m wall at 1:100, you would select your 1:100 side of the ruler, and draw 5 units along the ruler, as each unit represents 1m.
When you are reading plans, you establish the scale of the drawing or plans, and select that scale on your ruler, you are then able to measure the lines using the correct scale.
How to scale a drawing up or down
Let’s look at converting a scale drawing to a different scale. You can considering changing the scale of a drawing by a decimal factor or by a percentage. For example, lets imagine we have a drawing at 1:50, but we want amend the scale, to show that drawing at 1:200. A drawing at 1:200 is 4 times larger than a drawing at 1:50, therefore we would need to increase the size of the drawing 4 x. The table below demonstrates the different scale factors required to convert a scale up or down.
Table: Converting scales up or down
Being able to scale drawings up and down using percentages has become very useful too. Working in Adobe (Photoshop, InDesign etc), you will find you can adjust the size of an object using a percentage, which is great if you are wanting to accurately scale a drawing up or down while working in photoshop while maintaining a precise scale.
Lets imagine you are working on a drawing that you have imported into an A4 sized photoshop document. The drawing you have imported does not quite fit at its current scale of 1:50, so you will need to reduce the scale in order to squeeze the image onto the page, while maintaining an accurate scale. By using the table below, we can see that to convert from a scale of 1:50, down to 1:100 we would need to reduce the drawing by 50%. To do this we would make sure the dimension ratios of the image are locked, and proceed to type 50% into the size box.
Obviously this is a simple example but you get the idea. The table below provides the basic conversion percentages to scale a drawing up or down using the standard metric scales.
Table: Converting scales up or down
Paper size scales and magnification
We can now look at amending paper size scales and magnification. There are times when you may have a drawing on an A4 piece of paper, that you need to scale up to an A3 piece of paper for example. Let’s imagine you were needing to trace this drawing so would use a photocopier to scale the drawing up to the necessary size.
How to convert paper sizes?
To convert the paper size you can use the percentages in the table below. Note that these percentages do not correspond to the scale factors. So, if you scale or magnify a paper size accurately, it does not mean that you will retain an accurate (or standard) scale of the drawing. So, if you want to increase the scale of a drawing using a photocopier, but want to increase it to a standard scale (1:10 for example) then you must use the percentage factors for converting scale. If it is just the paper size you wish to change, then you can use the paper size converter. I hope that makes sense.
Table: Converting paper sizes and magnification factors
Working with paper sizes
When working with ISO paper layouts we know that the standard size of paper was developed on the basis of an area of 1m2, divided according to the ratio of the sides.
This basic format of 1m2 then forms the basis for all other smaller sizes. All A sized paper is either halving or doubling the basic format.
X x Y = 1
Below is a list of all the A paper sizes.
Working with scales digitally
One of the great things about using digital drafting software is that you can produce drawings as multiple scales from one single drawing. Programs such as Revit, AutoCAD, ArchiCAD and many more, allow you to draw up your designs at 1:1 scale, that is real life size, and produce drawings or plots of these designs at an appropriate scale for the paper size you have selected.
When working in CAD you can let the software do some of the hard work for you by making use of the paper space option to create layouts. On your layout sheet you are then able to create viewports which feature your drawing at the required scale. I have recorded a couple of tutorials that will help with setting up drawings for printing at appropriate scales.
I have also recorded a tutorial that explains how to scale a drawing in cad. This is useful if you have imported a drawing at a different scale.
You can download a handy pdf of this post by clicking the download button below!
Hope you find this useful, if you have any questions, or there is something else you would like to know about, please drop me an emaill (firstname.lastname@example.org) or comment below
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Average Weather in November in Half Moon Bay California, United States
Daily high temperatures decrease by 5°F, from 64°F to 59°F, rarely falling below 54°F or exceeding 71°F.
Daily low temperatures decrease by 3°F, from 50°F to 47°F, rarely falling below 40°F or exceeding 56°F.
For reference, on September 11, the hottest day of the year, temperatures in Half Moon Bay typically range from 55°F to 67°F, while on December 29, the coldest day of the year, they range from 45°F to 57°F.
Average High and Low Temperature in November
The figure below shows you a compact characterization of the hourly average temperatures for the quarter of the year centered on November. The horizontal axis is the day, the vertical axis is the hour of the day, and the color is the average temperature for that hour and day.
Average Hourly Temperature in November
Valparaíso, Chile (5,872 miles away); Tejeda, Spain (5,897 miles); and Ulverstone, Australia (7,920 miles) are the far-away foreign places with temperatures most similar to Half Moon Bay (view comparison).
The month of November in Half Moon Bay experiences increasing cloud cover, with the percentage of time that the sky is overcast or mostly cloudy increasing from 37% to 48%.
The clearest day of the month is November 1, with clear, mostly clear, or partly cloudy conditions 63% of the time.
For reference, on January 12, the cloudiest day of the year, the chance of overcast or mostly cloudy conditions is 54%, while on August 7, the clearest day of the year, the chance of clear, mostly clear, or partly cloudy skies is 91%.
Cloud Cover Categories in November
0% clear 20% mostly clear 40% partly cloudy 60% mostly cloudy 80% overcast 100%
A wet day is one with at least 0.04 inches of liquid or liquid-equivalent precipitation. In Half Moon Bay, the chance of a wet day over the course of November is very rapidly increasing, starting the month at 14% and ending it at 24%.
For reference, the year's highest daily chance of a wet day is 29% on February 21, and its lowest chance is -0% on July 23.
Probability of Precipitation in November
To show variation within the month and not just the monthly total, we show the rainfall accumulated over a sliding 31-day period centered around each day.
The average sliding 31-day rainfall during November in Half Moon Bay is rapidly increasing, starting the month at 1.5 inches, when it rarely exceeds 3.5 inches or falls below 0.1 inches, and ending the month at 2.8 inches, when it rarely exceeds 5.8 inches or falls below 0.4 inches.
Average Monthly Rainfall in November
Over the course of November in Half Moon Bay, the length of the day is decreasing. From the start to the end of the month, the length of the day decreases by 49 minutes, implying an average daily decrease of 1 minute, 41 seconds, and weekly decrease of 11 minutes, 47 seconds.
The shortest day of the month is November 30, with 9 hours, 47 minutes of daylight and the longest day is November 1, with 10 hours, 36 minutes of daylight.
Hours of Daylight and Twilight in November
The earliest sunrise of the month in Half Moon Bay is 6:35 AM on November 1 and the latest sunrise is 30 minutes later at 7:05 AM on November 30.
The latest sunset is 5:10 PM on November 1 and the earliest sunset is 19 minutes earlier at 4:51 PM on November 30.
Daylight saving time (DST) ends at 1:00 AM on November 1, 2020, shifting sunrise and sunset to be an hour earlier.
For reference, on June 20, the longest day of the year, the Sun rises at 5:48 AM and sets 14 hours, 45 minutes later, at 8:34 PM, while on December 21, the shortest day of the year, it rises at 7:20 AM and sets 9 hours, 35 minutes later, at 4:55 PM.
Sunrise & Sunset with Twilight and Daylight Saving Time in November
We base the humidity comfort level on the dew point, as it determines whether perspiration will evaporate from the skin, thereby cooling the body. Lower dew points feel drier and higher dew points feel more humid. Unlike temperature, which typically varies significantly between night and day, dew point tends to change more slowly, so while the temperature may drop at night, a muggy day is typically followed by a muggy night.
The chance that a given day will be muggy in Half Moon Bay is essentially constant during November, remaining around 0% throughout.
For reference, on September 16, the muggiest day of the year, there are muggy conditions 0% of the time, while on January 18, the least muggy day of the year, there are muggy conditions 0% of the time.
Humidity Comfort Levels in November
dry 55°F comfortable 60°F humid 65°F muggy 70°F oppressive 75°F miserable
This section discusses the wide-area hourly average wind vector (speed and direction) at 10 meters above the ground. The wind experienced at any given location is highly dependent on local topography and other factors, and instantaneous wind speed and direction vary more widely than hourly averages.
The average hourly wind speed in Half Moon Bay is increasing during November, increasing from 8.5 miles per hour to 9.8 miles per hour over the course of the month.
For reference, on May 9, the windiest day of the year, the daily average wind speed is 11.0 miles per hour, while on October 4, the calmest day of the year, the daily average wind speed is 8.0 miles per hour.
Average Wind Speed in November
The wind direction in Half Moon Bay during November is predominantly out of the west from November 1 to November 9 and the north from November 9 to November 30.
Wind Direction in November
Half Moon Bay is located near a large body of water (e.g., ocean, sea, or large lake). This section reports on the wide-area average surface temperature of that water.
The average surface water temperature in Half Moon Bay is essentially constant during November, remaining within 1°F of 56°F throughout.
Average Water Temperature in November
Definitions of the growing season vary throughout the world, but for the purposes of this report, we define it as the longest continuous period of non-freezing temperatures (≥ 32°F) in the year (the calendar year in the Northern Hemisphere, or from July 1 until June 30 in the Southern Hemisphere).
Temperatures in Half Moon Bay are sufficiently warm year round that it is not entirely meaningful to discuss the growing season in these terms. We nevertheless include the chart below as an illustration of the distribution of temperatures experienced throughout the year.
Time Spent in Various Temperature Bands and the Growing Season in November
Growing degree days are a measure of yearly heat accumulation used to predict plant and animal development, and defined as the integral of warmth above a base temperature, discarding any excess above a maximum temperature. In this report, we use a base of 50°F and a cap of 86°F.
The average accumulated growing degree days in Half Moon Bay are gradually increasing during November, increasing by 144°F, from 1,960°F to 2,104°F, over the course of the month.
Growing Degree Days in November
This section discusses the total daily incident shortwave solar energy reaching the surface of the ground over a wide area, taking full account of seasonal variations in the length of the day, the elevation of the Sun above the horizon, and absorption by clouds and other atmospheric constituents. Shortwave radiation includes visible light and ultraviolet radiation.
The average daily incident shortwave solar energy in Half Moon Bay is decreasing during November, falling by 1.1 kWh, from 3.6 kWh to 2.5 kWh, over the course of the month.
Average Daily Incident Shortwave Solar Energy in November
For the purposes of this report, the geographical coordinates of Half Moon Bay are 37.464 deg latitude, -122.429 deg longitude, and 138 ft elevation.
The topography within 2 miles of Half Moon Bay contains very significant variations in elevation, with a maximum elevation change of 873 feet and an average elevation above sea level of 177 feet. Within 10 miles contains very significant variations in elevation (2,375 feet). Within 50 miles contains large variations in elevation (4,321 feet).
The area within 2 miles of Half Moon Bay is covered by artificial surfaces (23%), water (22%), grassland (15%), and herbaceous vegetation (13%), within 10 miles by water (40%) and trees (24%), and within 50 miles by water (55%) and grassland (13%).
This report illustrates the typical weather in Half Moon Bay year round, based on a statistical analysis of historical hourly weather reports and model reconstructions from January 1, 1980 to December 31, 2016.
Temperature and Dew Point
There are 3 weather stations near enough to contribute to our estimation of the temperature and dew point in Half Moon Bay.
For each station, the records are corrected for the elevation difference between that station and Half Moon Bay according to the International Standard Atmosphere , and by the relative change present in the MERRA-2 satellite-era reanalysis between the two locations.
The estimated value at Half Moon Bay is computed as the weighted average of the individual contributions from each station, with weights proportional to the inverse of the distance between Half Moon Bay and a given station.
The stations contributing to this reconstruction are: Half Moon Bay Airport (60%, 8 kilometers, northwest); San Carlos Airport (21%, 17 kilometers, east); and San Francisco International Airport (19%, 18 kilometers, north).
All data relating to the Sun's position (e.g., sunrise and sunset) are computed using astronomical formulas from the book, Astronomical Algorithms 2nd Edition , by Jean Meeus.
All other weather data, including cloud cover, precipitation, wind speed and direction, and solar flux, come from NASA's MERRA-2 Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis . This reanalysis combines a variety of wide-area measurements in a state-of-the-art global meteorological model to reconstruct the hourly history of weather throughout the world on a 50-kilometer grid.
Land Use data comes from the Global Land Cover SHARE database , published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Elevation data comes from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) , published by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Names, locations, and time zones of places and some airports come from the GeoNames Geographical Database .
Time zones for aiports and weather stations are provided by AskGeo.com .
Maps are © Esri, with data from National Geographic, Esri, DeLorme, NAVTEQ, UNEP-WCMC, USGS, NASA, ESA, METI, NRCAN, GEBCO, NOAA, and iPC.
The information on this site is provided as is, without any assurances as to its accuracy or suitability for any purpose. Weather data is prone to errors, outages, and other defects. We assume no responsibility for any decisions made on the basis of the content presented on this site.
We draw particular cautious attention to our reliance on the MERRA-2 model-based reconstructions for a number of important data series. While having the tremendous advantages of temporal and spatial completeness, these reconstructions: (1) are based on computer models that may have model-based errors, (2) are coarsely sampled on a 50 km grid and are therefore unable to reconstruct the local variations of many microclimates, and (3) have particular difficulty with the weather in some coastal areas, especially small islands.
We further caution that our travel scores are only as good as the data that underpin them, that weather conditions at any given location and time are unpredictable and variable, and that the definition of the scores reflects a particular set of preferences that may not agree with those of any particular reader. | <urn:uuid:eb453776-825f-432a-afaf-67176fe42712> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://weatherspark.com/m/517/11/Average-Weather-in-November-in-Half-Moon-Bay-California-United-States | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371830894.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20200409055849-20200409090349-00354.warc.gz | en | 0.9231 | 2,569 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Just like a Meccano kit, the long and complicated history of the Meccano company has colorful components that can be put together in many different ways.
First, some background for the uninitiated. Meccano is a model construction system originally created in 1898 by Frank Hornby in Liverpool, England. The system consists of reusable metal strips, plates, angle girders, wheels, axles and gears and plastic parts that are connected together using nuts, bolts and set screws. In 1902 he started calling these toys Mechanics Made Easy and sold them in sets with parts supplied by external businesses in Liverpool.1
Hornby then changed the name in 1907 to Meccano, which he thought would be shorter and handier, and established his first factory. He formed Meccano Ltd. in 1908 to manufacture and distribute Meccano and other model toys and kits created by the company. By the 1920s and 1930s, Meccano Ltd. became the largest toy manufacturer in the U.K. and produced three of the most popular lines of toys in the twentieth century: Meccano, Hornby Trains and Dinky Toys.2 He must have been doing something right!
As L. Ron Hubbard says in his article of September 4, 1979, “MORE ON MARKETING BASICS,” “The duty of marketing is to make sure that something gets marketed in such a way that it will be wanted and delivered.”
Hornby wrote a number of pieces of literature marketing his creation and continuing to spark interest, including the Meccano Magazine and two full-length books. It rolled out like this:
The book Frank Hornby, the Boy Who Made $1,000,000 With a Toy was written and published by Hornby in 1915. Already a millionaire in dollars at the time, he tells the story as an autobiographical work under the aegis of Meccano, Inc. Frank Hornby says he was heavily inspired by the book Self-Help by Samuel Smiles, which told the success stories of great entrepreneurs.3
Hornby started the Meccano Magazine in 1916, publishing the first issue in black and white. The magazine told the story of Meccano’s beginnings, written by Frank Hornby himself. It was launched to promote the toys and grow sales. From 1920, the Meccano Magazine included many topics such as mechanics and Meccano building, but also planes, trains, navy, engineering, collection stamps and photography.4
In 1919 the Meccano Guild was founded to serve as an umbrella organization for all the local Meccano clubs, with the Meccano Magazine serving as the club magazine. Prior to the launch, the magazine had run a competition for essays on how entrants would choose to set up a Meccano club.
Meccano Magazine’s “Guild” columns then carried regular communications, advice and discussion on running clubs, and each issue also normally featured a small photograph and profile of a local club secretary.5
All these efforts helped to fortify the growing number of Meccano fans and attracted new members to join. From the first issue, Hornby said:
“. . . Meccano boys should become members, and we have pleasure in announcing that we have completed our plans for bringing this about in such a way that even the most lonely boy shall be able to take his part and share the happiness.
“The objects of the Meccano Guild are:
(a) To make every boy’s life brighter and happier.
(b) To foster clean-mindedness, truthfulness, ambition, and initiative in boys.
(c) To encourage boys in the pursuit of their studies and hobbies, and especially in the development of their knowledge of mechanical and engineering principles.”
His knowledge of marketing basics and engaging his audience didn’t stop there. There were even Meccano Guild badges that members could get. Many of the Guilds still survive today.
Hornby wasn’t only driving his company for profits, however; he wanted to make young men’s lives better, brighter and happier through his products.
In 1932, he retold the story of how he began his creation in “The Life Story of Meccano.”6
However, years after the founder’s demise in 1936, due to financial and labor problems, Meccano Ltd. was taken over in 1964 by Lines Bros. Ltd. (a major competitor).7
Skipping over a complex tapestry of 100 years, the original values and objective of Meccano still remain the same—to inspire builders around the world to bring their imaginations to life. Their website states: “From basic building to high‐tech robotics programming, Meccano offers something for everyone. At Meccano, our brand vision is to build a better tomorrow by empowering and inspiring the next generation of Makers. Meccano—Your Imagination Just Got Real!”8
A similar construction set had been introduced in the U.S. in 1913 under the brand name Erector, and in 2000 Meccano bought the Erector brand and unified its presence on all continents.9
Now in the twenty-first century, the brand was already a part of a British TV show, Toy Stories with James May, which told the stories in 2009 of six classic toys, featuring Meccano in one episode and Hornby Trains in another. And Meccano was slated to be featured in a Hollywood movie. An American film-production company, Helix, signed a licensing deal in 2010 to make an animated 3-D film, like Toy Story, with Erector in the starring role. Steven-Charles Jaffe, producer of Ghost and Star Trek VI, says he and his two partners were Meccano fanatics when they were boys.10
Meccano has been through various French, American and Japanese ownerships in the past five decades. Production is now based at a factory in Calais, France, which had been set up by the original British company in 1959.
With its steel struts and girders and pulleys, this company might seem to symbolize a lost industrial age. However, to market to kids in this era, modern kits have been updated to include radio control, robotics, sound and lights. All the same, French-made plastic Meccano kits have retained precisely the same shapes and the same hole spacing and sizes Frank Hornby created in 1901. The company still produces parts measured in inches and fractions of inches, not millimeters. It still provides fans with tiny, imperial-measured screws and bolts.
“We lost out for a while during the computer-game boom,” said factory manager Mattei Théodore. “But there seems, all over the world, to be a return to traditional values, and traditional kinds of toys—a trend which has been reinforced by the recession. At a time of uncertainty, people feel the need for something more solid, something they can touch, something more educational.”
Now owned by a Canadian company, Spin Master, who wisely bought the brand when it faltered for about the fifth time in 2013, Meccano is a toy construction brand with a long 100-plus-year history. Spin Master has continued to manufacture and operate Meccano out of its European headquarters. Sets, sold in 80 countries, range from multi-builds and architectural builds to a build-your-own car set. In 2015 the company introduced Meccanoid, a robotic building platform that allows children to build a four-foot-tall robot that can speak, move and interact using a number of technologies.11
And in 2017 the Meccano Micronoids (mini-robots) won Finalist in Toy of the Year Awards by the Toy Industry Association.12
We see another aspect of the natural laws of marketing at work here. Again from that same article, Mr. Hubbard says: “Thus, one markets WHAT IS THERE RIGHT NOW IN EXISTENCE THAT CAN BE DELIVERED. And the marketing of a NEW item must be dovetailed with the actual release and availability of the new item for delivery.
“In this way we reap a whirlwind of business, the public gets delivered to and the created demand gets fulfilled.”
If marketing is all about creating demand, it seems that the original and now the new, reinvented Meccano are applying these laws very successfully.
What is your company doing to create demand?
Are you following the natural laws of marketing?
Could you market what is in existence right now and then dovetail into it new items as they are released and available?
- “Meccano”; “Frank Hornby.” Wikipedia.org. Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Oct. 2018.
- Jost, Graham. “A Brief History of English Meccano.” Internationalmeccanomen.org.uk, Mar. 1999.
- “1915: Frank Hornby, the Boy Who Made $1,000,000 with a Toy.” Meccano.com. Spin Master, n.d.
- “1916: Meccano Magazine.” Meccano.com. Spin Master, n.d.
- “Category: Meccano Guild.” Brightontoymuseum.co.uk. Brighton Toy and Model Museum, 4 Apr. 2014.
- “The Life Story of Meccano.” Brightontoymuseum.co.uk/index. Brighton Toy and Model Museum, 18 Nov. 2013. (See excerpt below from Part 1.)“One snowy Christmas eve I was making a long railway journey, and as I sat in my corner seat my mind was as usual turning over new schemes for my boys’ enjoyment. At that time we were experiencing trouble in our little workshop through lack of a number of small parts for building up a splendid model crane that we were making. I had tried in all directions to buy these parts, but apparently nothing of the kind existed. Clearly it would be a long and monotonous process to make them, and as I thought over the matter in the train I was more impressed than ever before with the waste of time and labour involved in making a part specially for a single purpose. I felt that what was required was parts that could be applied in different ways to many different models, and that could be adjusted to give a variety of movements by alteration of position, etc. In order to do this it was necessary to devise some standard method of fitting one part to any other part; and gradually there came to me the conception of parts all perforated with a series of holes of the same size and at the same distance apart. Such parts, I realised, could be bolted up to a model in different positions and at different angles; and having done their work in one model could be unbolted and applied to another.“It was a long weary time before I got all my parts ready for trying out, but every day as I laboured on I felt more and more certain that I was proceeding on right lines and that success was ultimately assured. It was a great day for me and for my boys when I built up my first Meccano crane, which ran on wheels and luffed and jibbed splendidly, just in the same manner as a real crane into models.”
- “Meccano Ltd.” Wikipedia.org. Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Oct. 2018.
- “The History of Meccano.” Meccano.com. Spin Master, n.d.
- “Meccano.” Wikipedia.org. Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Oct. 2018.
- Lichfield, John. “Deconstructing Meccano: The Story of a British Icon.” Independent.co.uk. Independent
Print, 10 Apr. 2010.
- “Spin Master.” Wikipedia.org. Wikimedia Foundation, 16 Sept. 2018.
- “Meccano Micronoids: 2017 Toy of the Year Awards Finalist!” Meccano.com. Spin Master, n.d.
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|Subject: Strep throat Tue Dec 28, 2010 6:10 pm|| |
Strep throat is a bacterial throat infection that can make your throat feel sore and scratchy. Compared with a viral throat infection, strep throat symptoms are generally more severe. Only a small portion of sore throats are the result of strep throat.
It's important to identify strep throat for a number of reasons. If untreated, strep throat can sometimes cause complications such as kidney inflammation and rheumatic fever. Rheumatic fever can lead to painful and inflamed joints, a rash and even damage to heart valves.
Strep throat is most common between the ages of 5 and 15, but it affects people of all ages. If you or your child has signs or symptoms of strep throat, see your doctor for prompt treatment.
In general, signs and symptoms of strep throat include:
Red and swollen tonsils, sometimes with white patches or streaks of pus
Tiny red spots on the soft or hard palate — the area at the back of the roof of the mouth
Swollen, tender lymph glands (nodes) in your neck
Stomachache and sometimes vomiting, especially in younger children
It's possible for you or your child to have many of these signs and symptoms, but not have strep throat. The cause of these signs and symptoms could be a viral infection or some other kind of illness. That's why your doctor generally tests specifically for strep throat.
It's also possible to have the bacteria that can cause strep in your throat without having a sore throat. Some people are carriers of strep, which means they can pass the bacteria on to others, but the bacteria are not currently making them sick.
When to see a doctor
Call your doctor if you or your child has any of these signs and symptoms:
A sore throat without cold symptoms such as runny nose
A sore throat accompanied by tender, swollen lymph glands (nodes)
A sore throat that lasts longer than 48 hours
A fever higher than 101 F (38.3 C) in older children, or any fever lasting longer than 48 hours
Problems breathing or difficulty swallowing anything, including saliva
If strep has been diagnosed, a lack of improvement after taking antibiotics for 24 to 48 hours
A fever — or pain or swelling in the joints, shortness of breath or a rash — after a strep infection, even as long as three weeks after infection; these can be indicators of rheumatic fever
Cola-colored urine more than a week after a strep infection, as this may indicate kidney inflammation (poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis)
The cause of strep throat is bacteria known as Streptococcus pyogenes, or group A streptococcus.
Streptococcal bacteria are highly contagious. They can spread through airborne droplets when someone with the infection coughs or sneezes, or through shared food or drinks. You can also pick up the bacteria from a doorknob or other surface and transfer them to your nose or mouth.
Several factors can increase your risk of strep throat infection:
Young age. Strep throat occurs most commonly in children between the ages of 5 and 15.
Time of year. Although strep throat can occur anytime of the year, it tends to circulate in late fall and early spring. Strep bacteria flourish wherever groups of people are in close contact. That's why the infection spreads easily among family members, in schools and in child care settings.
Although strep throat itself isn't dangerous, it may lead to serious complications — sometimes even with treatment.
Spread of infection
Strep bacteria may spread, causing infection in your:
Strep infection may lead to other inflammatory illnesses, including:
Scarlet fever, an illness characterized by a rash
Inflammation of the kidney (poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis)
Rheumatic fever, a serious condition that can affect the heart, joints, nervous system and skin
The risk of developing severe complications from strep throat is low in the United States.
Preparing for your appointment
If you or your child has signs and symptoms common to strep throat, make an appointment with your family doctor or a general practitioner. Because appointments can be brief, and because there's often a lot of ground to cover, it's a good idea to be well prepared for your appointment.
Here's some information to help you get ready for your appointment, and what to expect from your doctor.
Information to prepare in advance
Write down any symptoms you or your child has had, and for how long.
Note any recent, possible sources of infection, such as a friend or family member with strep throat.
Write down key medical information, including any other health problems and the names of any medications you or your child is taking.
Write down your questions for the doctor.
Your time with your doctor is limited, so preparing a list of questions ahead of time will help you make the most of your time together. List your questions from most important to least important in case time runs out.
For strep throat, some basic questions to ask your doctor include:
What is the most likely cause of these signs and symptoms?
Are there any other possible causes?
What kinds of tests are needed?
What treatment approach do you recommend?
How soon do you expect symptoms to improve with treatment?
How long will this be contagious? When is it safe to return to school or work?
What self-care steps might help?
Is there a generic alternative to the medicine you're prescribing?
I or my child has these health conditions. How can they best be managed together?
In addition to the questions that you've prepared to ask your doctor, don't hesitate to ask questions during your appointment at any time that you don't understand something.
What to expect from your doctor
Your doctor is likely to ask a number of questions. Being ready to answer them may reserve time to go over any points you want to spend more time on. Your doctor may ask:
What symptoms have you noticed, and how severe are they?
Have these symptoms changed over time?
Have these symptoms included a fever? How high?
Have you or your child been exposed to anyone with strep throat in the last couple of weeks?
Does anything seem to make the symptoms better or worse?
Have you or your child been diagnosed with strep throat in the past? When? How was it treated?
Are you or your child allergic to any medications?
What medications are you or your child currently taking, including vitamins and supplements?
Have you or your child been diagnosed with any other medical conditions?
What you can do in the meantime
If you think you or your child might have strep, take steps to avoid spreading infection. Keep your hands clean, cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze and don't share personal items.
Rest, fluids, soft foods and pain relievers such as ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin, others) or acetaminophen (Tylenol, others) may ease symptoms. A gargle of 1/4 teaspoon (1.2 milliliters) of table salt in 8 ounces (237 milliliters) of warm water also may help. Avoid giving aspirin to young children and teenagers.
Tests and diagnosis
Doctors usually diagnose the cause of a sore throat on the basis of a physical exam and lab tests.
During the exam, your doctor looks for signs and symptoms of strep throat, such as fever and enlarged lymph nodes, and will probably use a tongue depressor to get a good look at the throat and tonsils.
Your doctor will check for redness, swelling, and white streaks or pus on the tonsils. There also may be tiny red spots on the soft or hard palate — the area at the back of the roof of the mouth. Although these signs indicate an infection, appearance alone doesn't indicate whether it's viral or bacterial. In fact, some viral throat infections look worse than infections caused by streptococcal bacteria.
For that reason, your doctor is likely to use one or more of the following tests to check for the presence of bacteria, including streptococcal bacteria:
Throat culture. For this test, a sterile swab is rubbed over the back of the throat and tonsils to get a sample of the secretions. It's not a painful procedure, but it may cause brief gagging. The sample is then cultured in a laboratory for the presence of bacteria, but results may take as long as two days.
Rapid antigen test. Because of lack of availability or the waiting period for a throat culture, your doctor may order a rapid antigen test on the swab sample. This test can detect strep bacteria in minutes by looking for foreign substances (antigens) in the throat. If you or your child tests positive for strep bacteria, antibiotic treatment can begin right away. But rapid strep tests have a downside. They may miss some strep throat infections. For this reason, many doctors still use throat cultures, especially if results of the rapid antigen test are negative.
Rapid DNA test. Newer rapid tests use DNA technology to detect strep throat from a throat swab in a day or less. These tests are as accurate as throat cultures, and the results are available sooner.
Treatments and drugs
A number of medications are available to cure strep throat, relieve its symptoms and prevent its spread.
If you or your child has strep throat, your doctor will likely prescribe an oral antibiotic such as:
Penicillin. This drug may be given by injection in some cases — such as if you have a young child who is having a hard time swallowing or is vomiting from strep throat.
Amoxicillin. This drug is in the same family as penicillin, but is often a preferred option for children because it tastes better and is available as a chewable tablet.
If you or your child is allergic to penicillin, your doctor likely may prescribe:
A cephalosporin such as cephalexin (Keflex)
These antibiotics reduce the duration and severity of symptoms, as well as the risk of complications and the likelihood that infection will spread to classmates or family members.
Once treatment begins, you or your child should start feeling better in just a day or two. Call your doctor if you or your child doesn't feel better after taking antibiotics for 48 hours.
If children on antibiotic therapy feel well and don't have a fever, they often can return to school or child care when they're no longer contagious — usually 24 hours after beginning treatment. But be sure to finish the entire course of medicine. Stopping medication early may lead to recurrences and serious complications, such as rheumatic fever or kidney inflammation.
In addition to antibiotics, your doctor may suggest over-the-counter medications to relieve throat pain and reduce fever, such as:
Ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin, others)
Acetaminophen (Tylenol, others)
Because of the risk of Reye's syndrome, a potentially life-threatening illness, don't give aspirin to young children and teenagers. Be careful with acetaminophen, too. Taken in large doses, it can cause liver problems. Read and follow label directions. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist if you have questions.
Lifestyle and home remedies
In most cases, antibiotics will quickly wipe out the bacteria causing the infection. In the meantime, try these tips to relieve symptoms of strep throat:
Get plenty of rest. Sleep helps your body fight infection. If you have strep throat, stay home from work if you can. If your child is ill, keep him or her at home until there's no sign of fever and he or she feels better and has completed a minimum of 24 hours of antibiotic therapy.(
Drink plenty of water. Keeping a sore throat lubricated and moist eases swallowing. Drinking plenty of water also helps prevent dehydration.
Eat soothing foods. Foods that are easy on a sore throat include broths, soups, applesauce, cooked cereal, mashed potatoes, soft fruits, yogurt and soft-cooked eggs. You may even want to puree foods in the blender to make them easier to swallow. Very cold foods such as sherbet, frozen yogurt or frozen fruit pops also may be soothing. Avoid spicy foods or acidic foods such as orange juice.
Gargle with warm salt water. For older children and adults, gargling several times a day can help relieve throat pain. Mix 1/4 teaspoon (1.2 milliliters) of table salt in 8 ounces (237 milliliters) of warm water. Be sure to tell your child to spit out the liquid after gargling.
Use a humidifier. Adding moisture to the air can help ease discomfort. Moisture keeps mucous membranes in your throat from becoming dry and even more irritated. Choose a cool-mist humidifier and clean it daily, because bacteria and molds can flourish in some humidifiers. Saline nasal sprays also help to keep mucous membranes moist.
Stay away from irritants. Cigarette smoke can irritate a sore throat and increase the likelihood of infections such as tonsillitis. In addition, avoid fumes from paint or cleaning products, which can be irritating to your throat and lungs.
Plan low-key activities for a sick child. If your child tests positive for strep throat, he or she should take antibiotics for at least 24 hours before returning to school or child care. When staying home with your child, plan some low-key activities that you both can enjoy.
To prevent strep infection:
Clean your hands. Proper hand cleaning is the best way to prevent all kinds of infections. That's why it's important to clean your own hands regularly and to teach your children how to clean their hands properly, using soap and water or an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
Cover your mouth. Teach your children to cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze.
Don't share personal items. If you or your child does have strep throat, don't share drinking glasses or eating utensils. Wash those items carefully in hot, soapy water or in a dishwasher. | <urn:uuid:b03520b8-0e6f-4873-8329-bc2349f9c44c> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://gold2013.yoo7.com/t370-strep-throat | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370518622.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20200403190006-20200403220006-00314.warc.gz | en | 0.941632 | 2,999 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Bert Troughton, MSW, Director, SFSPCA / ASPCA Strategic Alliance
Preventing Staff Burnout
Stress is a given in animal protection work, but burnout doesn’t have to be. In this third article in our series on coping with stress, we’ll look at what managers can do to create a healthy work environment that diminishes risk of staff burnout.
A quick review: Burnout is a syndrome with physical, mental, and emotional attributes that progress through eight stages of severity. There are three dimensions to burnout: depersonalization, reduced personal accomplishment, and emotional exhaustion. Emotional exhaustion is the most debilitating and intransigent dimension of burnout and is primarily the result of job demands exceeding a person’s knowledge, skills, or preparation. In other words, there’s a gap between what a person knows and what s/he is required to do. This knowledge or skill gap causes even greater stress and emotional harm when the results from mistakes are potentially serious – for example, when mistakes could lead to risk of injury or death to self or others.
The stress of a knowledge or skill gap can be particularly hard to deal with because often employees are unable to identify particular skills or training that they are lacking. It’s a bit of a catch 22, in that often we are unaware of how little we actually know about a topic until we begin to learn about that topic in depth. Think, for example, of how knowledge of animal diseases influences our cleaning procedures, and yet how few of our cleaning staff are completely versed in the nature of these diseases and their transmission. If they were, these staff could not only perform their jobs more effectively, they could actually problem solve and function much more independently (think: with less supervision from you) and with greater confidence.
For years we have acknowledged a high turnover rate in animal protection and attributed it to the sad and brutal realities of the field. How then has it been possible for some organizations to maintain a stable staff for long periods of time? I propose that burnout is high in those animal protection organizations where orientation, training, and ongoing support is mediocre and minimal, and that those organizations which maintain a stable staff have learned to take care of their staff by ensuring they have the knowledge and skills to successfully perform their jobs. Indeed, current research on burnout in other high stress fields such as nursing and search and rescue clearly demonstrates that comprehensive orientation and training is critical for maintaining a stable, competent, and healthy staff.
As a manager, you have a brief opportunity with new employees to shape their first experience in the (sometimes strange) world of animal protection. One way to think about orientation is as an interpretation tool for the employee. In addition to the standard fare of most orientations – such as personnel policies and employee parking – consider including discussions and information on anything that will help a new employee to better understand the work, the organization, and her/his role. This includes:
- History – how and when and why did your organization come into being? how and why has your organization evolved since then?
- Mission & Vision – what is the primary purpose of your organization? what are you striving to achieve in the next five to ten years? how will that make a difference for animals, people, and the community?
- Big Picture – what’s the world of animal protection all about? what are the current goals, accomplishments, philosophical questions, and debates in the field? what’s the lingo of the field? how and where does your organization fit in relation to the big picture?
- Community – what are the community’s needs? what is the nature of the relationship between the organization and the community? who else is doing similar work in the community and what is the organization’s relationship to them?
- Tour & Introductions – what happens in every space in the organization and how does that function relate back to the mission and vision? who are the incredible people who work there and what knowledge, talents, and energy do they bring to the whole team?
- Policy – what are the organization’s philosophical, practical, safety, and personnel policies?
- Supervision & Training Plan – what is the personal mission and job description for the new employee? how and when will training be accomplished? who will be the supervisor and who can the employee go to with questions?
Obviously this kind of orientation isn’t accomplished in an hour or two. As long as orientation begins as soon as possible upon hire, it’s perfectly OK to guide new employees through extended orientations that take place over the first few months of their tenure. The purpose of orientation is not to brainwash new employees, but to provide them with credible information and a broad context so that they can make meaning of the interactions, events, and processes going on in our organizations. A good orientation is a great way to say to the employee, “Welcome! We’re glad you’re here, and we’re committed to helping you to be part of our team and to be successful in your job.” The importance of this message in laying the foundation for an employee’s success cannot be understated. People who feel valued by their organizations are more inclined to take their jobs seriously and to value the organization and other people who work there.
Training Initiates and Facilitates Learning
Training is a process of providing information, guidance, and practice to develop a person’s knowledge and skills (i.e.: application of that knowledge). Training shapes the growth of an employee within the organization. While training ideally continues throughout an employee’s tenure, for the purposes of this article we will focus on the initial training provided in the first six months of a new job.
The first step in designing a successful training program is to recognize that success is defined by how well the employee learns. Initial training can be considered successful when the employee can demonstrate knowledge of:
- everything s/he is supposed to do and how,
- why it’s supposed to be done that way [Knowing “why” enables employees to problem solve and function independently.]
- where and when their tasks are performed,
- who (animals, community and other staff) is impacted by what they do [This helps employees to see the importance of their role in the context of achieving the organization’s mission. It also helps employees to function as effective team members.]
- what to do if something goes wrong and/or they are unable to perform one or more of their tasks [“what if” tests competency, instills personal responsibility, and creates a sense of partnership between the employee and the supervisor. Often the answer to “what if” is, “consult with my supervisor.”]
Given the complexity of animal sheltering, this level of competency is easily six months in the making for nearly all animal care, handling, and adoption staff.
Unfortunately, one of the least effective methods of training is also the method most commonly used in animal protection: on-the-job-training or OTJ. While some OTJ is necessary at some point in the training, relying almost exclusively on OTJ is problematic because
it usually occurs too soon (often before the employee has received an orientation, i.e.: a context for interpreting events),
it is too much information at once,
it’s with the wrong people (training is a skill; knowing how to perform a function does not qualify someone to train that function),
it takes place in a climate not conducive to learning because it’s too noisy, fast paced and stressful, and
it occurs without adequate supervision and monitoring to see what, exactly, the employee is learning and how well they’re learning.
So what’s the alternative? In addition to workshops, courses, videos, and manuals offered by national organizations and humane federations, consider custom developing some specific skills modules for your own training program. Recognize that people have a variety of learning styles and have had previous experiences (both good and bad) with learning so make your training fun. Incorporate the principles of humane training into your program (see “Managers, Use Your Dog Training Skills” the September, ’01 Management Expert feature).
Be creative and enlist help from existing staff. Popular games adjusted to incorporate shelter knowledge can be used very effectively to train new staff and to refresh the skills of seasoned staff. For example, create Jeopardy quizzes using facts on shelter diseases, cleaning procedures, and animal nutrition. Make a matching game out of your shelter statistics. Safety procedures and practices can be transformed into a scavenger hunt for exits, eye wash stations, fire extinguishers, and msds forms. As you can see, this kind of training not only makes learning fun, but it enhances the team environment.
Follow a plan for developing training modules. First, clarify the purpose of the specific training (why or how will learning this skill help your organization?). Second, identify exactly which skill(s) the training will focus on (for example, reading feline body language). Third, specify exactly what the employee(s) should be able to do at the conclusion of the training (for example, to safely lift, hold, and move cats, and to recognize potential safety risks with certain cats). Next, create or design games, demonstrations, and supervised hands-on experiences to train the target skill(s) (for example, a slide show and guessing game of cat postures and their meaning, followed by a lecture). Finally, accumulate training resources – such as books, articles, videos, and audio tapes – that will provide further information for the employee(s).
Many staff come to this work with no prior experience in the field but incredibly eager and willing to jump in to make a difference. In essence, during the first few weeks on the job, these new employees are like sponges, soaking up everything around them. By providing comprehensive orientation and training for your staff, you can ensure they’re “soaking up” the things that will best help them and your organization. As it turns out, your best defense against burnout, is also a strategy for being a productive and successful organization.
© 2002 Bert Troughton
Re-prints with permission. Contact Bert at firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:0cafa7b4-faa6-489f-b30b-e072b72d1bec> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.petfinder.com/pro/for-shelters/preventing-staff-burnout/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371604800.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20200405115129-20200405145629-00035.warc.gz | en | 0.952358 | 2,152 | 2.59375 | 3 |
The involvement of organized crime Essay
As to what extent was the failure of prohibition due to the involvement of organized criminal offense? In 1920 the eighteenth Amendment was passed by American authorities, which prohibited the sale, creation and consumption of alcohol. Prohibition had not been only presented as a result of WW1 and numerous temperance moves, but it was also exceeded as an effort to reduce alcoholic beverages related criminal offenses and to increase health of the American persons. Referred to as the greatest cultural experiment simply by modern historians, Prohibition was abolished in 1933 by simply President Roosevelt. There is data to suggest that multiple factors were significant in causing its cessation.
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The Stock market Crash in 1929 is a crucial reason which usually helped to finish prohibition. In addition , enforcing this kind of measure efficiently proved incredibly difficult in a country like America, due to its large inhabitants as well as sophisticated geography. The support of prohibition likewise altered over the years, turning into less well-liked. However , the key reason for the failure of Prohibition was your increase in organized crime as it affected virtually all sections of the population. The reason why organized crime was the most significant reason for the failure of Prohibition is not only since it influenced personal and monetary conditions with the country, but also converted a large part of the population in criminals.
The rising volume of gangs has not been just preoccupied with the sale of alcohol, but also various other illegal operate in medicines, prostitution and firearms. Murphy argues that gangsterism in cities added largely to failure of Prohibition. The amount of bars known as speakeasies in towns like Chicago and New York was much greater following the 18th Change has been presented.
Large bande started to form in big cities featuring American citizens with all the opportunity to drink alcohol and therefore break the law. Roberts in History of America argues that by 1929 New York experienced 32, 500 speakeasies, which can be double the initial number it had before prohibition and implies this led largely to government’s decision to remove the 18th Amendment. Smugglers of alcoholic beverages, known as bootleggers were adding to the large numbers of illegal alcoholic beverages in the US.
Due to prohibition the quantity of arrests pertaining to drunken drivers, thefts, robberies and assaults increased but also the federal jail population increased by 31%. Gangs started to be organized and were able to control the political makeup of the government through their materials as well as voting support. Invoice Thomson was known for permitting gangsters to work in the metropolitan areas.
In 1923 Thompson lost the selection after being accused of losing $1 million of general public funds even though Chicago representatives attempted to enforce Prohibition more effectively, the bande moved all their headquarters and in 1927 Al Capone’s support helped Thomson to return to office. Parrish is yet another modern historian that identifies the strength of hoodlum mobs in towns and their influence on the public. In his meaning he suggests that it was the ethnic Americans that became beneficiaries of the very laws, which usually implies that arranged crime only affected a part of the population. Fripouilles were largely popular in large cities like New York and Chicago, il, and whilst they did cause a lot of challenges and concern, it was different in non-urban areas of America.
On the other hand, evidence indicates that towards the end of the twenties the metropolitan population was increasing significantly, and as Clements suggests even more that half of the population was starting to stay in cities. Consequently, a bigger area of the population had been affected by organized crime. The rise in prepared crime resulted in high problem among politicians as well as private sector organisations. Large bande were manipulating American culture at all amounts and the simply way to stop it, was it ban Prohibition. Gangsterism heavily written for government’s decision to eliminate Prohibition, but the situation was also influenced by different changes in the world during the time.
The Wall Street Crash in 1929 transformed the economic situation in the country and afflicted society’s attitude towards intake of alcoholic beverages. The break of the stock exchange caused the continuing depression, which changed people’s opinion with the extent of government’s involvement in personal issues like alcohol consumption. In addition , reintroduction from the alcohol sales would facilitate creation of new businesses and improve the economy, which is what the population needed at the time. Even though, M. Jones, recognizes that organized offense was significant he argues that the major depression caused by the economic crisis concluded Prohibition.
This individual explains even more that banning Prohibition would favour the industry and help economy since it would provide employment to get a million men. The depression in the country was forcing many families to increase cities to find work; which means urban human population was growing. By reopening legal alcoholic beverages industry, the government would have had the capacity to increase the national income from duty, and commit it to be able to help the condition, therefore government would have directly benefited using this, and so might private businesses. On the other hand, the us government could have successfully found different solutions to the depression in the usa without banning Prohibition if this wasn’t already failing by 1929.
The corruption developed by the rise in organized offense made it tough for government bodies to enforce any laws and regulations effectively, hence the first step was going to reduce affect of large mafias, and this would have only been achieved through repealing Prohibition. Therefore , though Wall Street Crash caused a change in American society on an economic and social level, the increase of organized crime was a lot more important for government’s decision to pass the twentieth Amendment. The opposition for the 18th Modification was increasing throughout the years, and in addition the initial supporters started to become divided. The concept of individual freedom started to be deemed with more importance and particular groups demanded repeal in the 18th Variation.
The migrating population, brought on partially by the Wall Street Crash, moved into cities like New You are able to or Chi town, was fewer more likely to favour individual freedom and likely to compliment dry political figures. The Relationship Against the Prohibition Amendment started to become more popular among the list of affluent element of population. It had been supported by wealthy business men who applied their impact to obtain political supporters in the our elected representatives.
The introduction of Forbidance created interpersonal divide with the American populace. The values and philosophy of the rural people were very different to for people who live in cities. A Player and V Sanders items further that Prohibition triggered more than a sociable and even spiritual conflict, putting an emphasis on that Forbidance was not having positive effects on the American culture and failing to fulfill its initial aims. However , in 1928 it absolutely was clear that still almost all of the population had been satisfied with the course of Prohibition.
In 1928 Al Smith was a democratic presidential candidate who proposed to abolish Prohibition, nevertheless his suggestions were too revolutionary for many rural arreters and this individual lost the election. This demonstrates that even if competitors to Prohibition was growing, it was even now not strong enough to end this completely. The organized crime made alcohol widely attainable and with the sophisticated situation brought on by the Wall Street Crash government was pressured into actions by the two of these forces somewhat being confident by numerous opposition teams.
The organization from the ban as well proved incredibly ineffective and was highly linked to the failing of the assess. The approximated budged come to $2 million was not a sufficient sum control operation upon such a grand-scale. At most of the there were just 3000 Treasury Agents, in whose job was going to enforce the law.
They were paid low wages shut down illegitimate industries. This resulted in bribes and standard corruption with the system. Parrish supports the concept the failure of Prohibition was as a result of corruption in the prohibition providers. Clements likewise emphasizes the lovely view that the lack of federal as well as local type contributed to the failure from the measure.
This could have been far better, if other factors did not interrupt the process. In the event that more real estate agents with larger wages were employed they can have been not as likely tempted by simply bribes plus more likely stop illegal transport. However it is definitely difficult to what extent they can have been effective, because methods of obtaining alcoholic beverages were not very hard to find. Apart from home made substances, it could end up being obtained in speakeasies and saloons, therefore emphasizing the importance of gangsters in the inability of Forbidance The flawed regulations and impartibility with the law was another reason so why it failed.
Enforcing a ban of alcoholic beverages on a country with 18, 700 kilometers of coastline and area boarder proven impossible. Dough and Leslie Willoughby propose that the law was unrealistic and overambitious, which was the main reason for its failure. The geography from the country caused it to be very difficult for the law to be imposed. Clements proposes that only 5% of smugglers have been intercepted simply by authorities, putting an emphasis on how tough it was to enforce the ban.
Despite the fact that alcohol was official suspended, government even now permitted its production for medical uses. Parrish identifies that there were too many problems in the development of the regulation, which resulted in its inability. He shows that prohibition was doomed mainly because alcohol was easy to construct from legal substances just like near- bear and the federal government was unable to prevent people carrying out that process.
Sanders proposes that geography of America enabled gangsters to be given its extended borders and smuggle alcohol across. Nevertheless the measure would have had a greater chance of success, if the bande throughout America had not been as organized. All their careful layout and preparing meant that even if America was a smaller country, it would be not impossible to smuggle alcohol in to the country, focusing that structured crime was hence a much more important explanation in the failure of Prohibition than the fault in its construction. Overall, historical evidence gives various reasons behind the failure of Forbidance.
Although some historians like Parrish and Manley may believe the government was responsible for certainly not enforcing it effectively enough, it was the strong within organized criminal offense which induced the failure of the assess. As argued by Murphy prohibition wasn’t able to succeed because the involvement of gangs in major towns was too strong as well control rather than enough intend to smuggled alcoholic beverages was intercepted, to make the system work. In addition oragnised criminal offenses caused various other problems in the country, like bribery and data corruption.
Although, Wall Street Crash built the situation harder for the government to manage, it could have been easier if it wasn’t for the organized criminal offense.
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Sources A, B and C all give info on what happened in the battle of Dunkirk and about the evacuation. All three sources were authored by British persons which means ... | <urn:uuid:8ff3ec53-422c-4b46-874a-910ceea9f4b6> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://neacollege.com/the-involvement-of-organized-crime-essay/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371886991.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20200410043735-20200410074235-00434.warc.gz | en | 0.980267 | 2,411 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Heel and foot pain are very common. The most common cause is plantar fasciitis which causes a pain under the heel. It usually goes away with time but various treatments may help.
Some anatomy of your foot
Spare a thought for your feet - they have to bear the weight of your whole body. There are many bones in each foot (see the images below) and these can briefly be divided into three parts:
- Forefoot: made up of the toes (phalanges) and the five long bones (metatarsals). These are named from first to fifth. The first metatarsal bone is the largest and is the bone that joins to your big toe. Each toe has three phalanges, except the big toe which has only two. This means there are three joints in the toes (two in the big toe).
- Midfoot: a collection of bones forming the arches of the foot.
- Hindfoot: the ankle joint and the tarsal bones, including the biggest, the heel bone (calcaneum).
What is the Achilles tendon?
Your Achilles tendon is an important part of your leg. It is found just behind and above your heel. It joins your heel bone (calcaneum) to your calf muscles. The function of your Achilles tendon is to help in bending your foot downwards at the ankle, as iyou do when you're pointing your toes. (This movement is called plantar flexion.)
What is the plantar fascia?
Your plantar fascia is a strong band of tissue (like a ligament) that stretches from your heel (calcaneum) to your middle foot bones. It supports the arch of your foot and also acts as a shock absorber in your foot.
There are also many other tendons, as well as muscles and ligaments, within your foot. The bones, ligaments and tendons within your foot form the foot arches. These arches are called the longitudinal and transverse arches. It is your foot arches that allow your foot to hold up the weight of your body. Nerves provide sensation to the skin of your foot.
What causes heel and foot pain?
Do you have painful feet? You're not alone - plantar fasciitis is a really common cause of pain under the heel (calcaneum). While plantar fasciitis is one of the most common causes of heel and foot pain, it is not the only reason:
Common causes of heel and foot pain
- Plantar fasciitis (see below).
- Inflammation of the Achilles tendon (Achilles tendinopathy) can cause pain in the back of the ankle, going down to the back of the heel.
- Rupture of the Achilles tendon can cause sudden heel pain and problems walking.
- In the ball of your foot:
- A fracture of one of the metatarsal bones; or
- Inflammation around the head of the metatarsal bones can cause pain in the forefoot.
- So can Morton's neuroma, a problem with one of the nerves that run between the metatarsal bones.
- Flat feet by contrast can cause pain almost anywhere in the foot, although usually the condition doesn't cause any symptoms.
- Sever's disease is a painful inflammation of the heel that can affect children between the ages of 8 and 14 years.
There are also many conditions that can cause problems elsewhere in the body, as well as in the feet - for example:
- Conditions that cause painful joints, such as:
- Gout often causes sudden severe pain in the foot, typically the big toe.
- Bunions (hallux valgus) also cause pain in the big toe but this comes on very gradually.
- Problems with the nerves to the feet, such as peripheral neuropathy, sciatica or tarsal tunnel syndrome.
- Problems with the blood vessels to the feet, which is usually due to peripheral arterial disease or diabetes.
The rest of this leaflet is about plantar fasciitis.
What is plantar fasciitis?
Plantar fasciitis means inflammation of your plantar fascia.
It is a condition that affects around one in ten people at some point in their lives. It's also known as 'jogger's heel' - although you don't have to be a runner to develop it. Luckily, it usually gets better in time, but treatment may speed up your recovery. So, what can you do about it? Useful treatment includes rest, good footwear, heel pads, painkillers and exercises. A steroid injection or other treatments may be used in more severe cases.
What causes it?
Repeated small injuries to the fascia (with or without inflammation) are thought to be the cause of plantar fasciitis. The injury is usually near to where the plantar fascia attaches to your heel bone.
What makes it likely for someone to develop plantar fasciitis?
You are more likely to injure your plantar fascia in certain situations. For example:
- If you are on your feet for a lot of the time, or if you do lots of walking, running, standing, etc, when you are not used to it or have previously had a more sedentary lifestyle.
- If you have recently started exercising on a different surface - for example, running on the road instead of a track.
- If you have been wearing shoes with poor cushioning or poor arch support.
- If you are overweight - this will put extra strain on your heel.
- If there is overuse or sudden stretching of your sole. For example - athletes who increase running intensity or distance; poor technique starting 'off the blocks', etc.
- If you have a tight Achilles tendon (the big tendon at the bottom of your calf muscles above your heel). This can affect your ability to flex your ankle and may make you more likely to damage your plantar fascia.
Plantar fasciitis may be confused with 'policeman's heel' but they are different. Policeman's heel is called plantar calcaneal bursitis - inflammation of the sack of fluid (bursa) under the heel bone (calcaneum). This is not as common as plantar fasciitis.
Often there is no apparent cause for plantar fasciitis, particularly in older people. A common wrong belief is that the pain is due to a bony growth, or 'spur', coming from the heel bone. Many people have a bony spur of the heel bone but not everyone with this develops plantar fasciitis.
How common is it?
Plantar fasciitis is common. Around 1 in 10 people will develop plantar fasciitis at some time in their lives. It is most common in people between the ages of 40 to 60 years. However, it can occur at any age. It is twice as common in women as it is in men. It is also common in athletes.
What are the symptoms?
Pain is the main symptom and this can be anywhere on the underside of your heel. However, commonly, one particular area is found as the main source of pain.
Where is the plantar fascia?
This diagram shows the position of the plantar fascia in relation to the bones in the foot. Inflammation of this band of tissue causes the symptoms of plantar fasciitis. ('-itis' is the medical term for inflammation).
What symptoms does inflammation of the plantar fascia cause?
Pain is the main symptom. You can imagine how the inflamed plantar fascia can hurt when you put pressure on the foot while walking. This pain can be anywhere on the underside of your heel. However, commonly, one spot is found as the main source of pain. This is often about 4 cm forward from your heel and may be tender to touch.
The pain is often worst when you take your first steps on getting up in the morning, or after long periods of rest where no weight is placed on your foot. Often, it's described as a stabbing or aching pain. Gentle exercise may ease things a little as the day goes by. However, a long walk or being on your feet for a long time often makes the pain worse. Resting your foot usually eases the pain - this can be very frustrating for people who are trying to improve their fitness levels by taking up running!
Sudden stretching of the sole of your foot may make the pain worse - for example, walking up stairs or on tiptoes. You may limp because of pain. Some people have plantar fasciitis in both feet at the same time.
How is it diagnosed?
Your doctor can usually diagnose plantar fasciitis just by talking to you and examining your feet. Rarely, tests are needed if the diagnosis is uncertain or to rule out other possible causes of heel pain. These can include X-rays of the heel or an ultrasound scan of the fascia. An ultrasound scan usually shows thickening and swelling of the fascia in plantar fasciitis.
What is the treatment?
Usually, the pain will ease in time. 'Fascia' tissue, like 'ligament' tissue, heals quite slowly. It may take several months or more to go. However, there is a variety of treatments that may help to speed recovery. A combination of different treatments may help. These vary from rest and simple exercises (most common) to surgery (rare).
Collectively, these initial treatments are known as 'conservative' treatments for plantar fasciitis:
Rest your foot
This should be done as much as possible. Avoid running, excess walking or standing, and undue stretching of your sole. Gentle walking and exercises described below are fine.
Do not walk barefoot on hard surfaces. Choose shoes with cushioned heels and a good arch support. A laced sports shoe rather than an open sandal is probably best. Avoid old or worn shoes that may not give a good cushion to your heel.
Heel pads and arch supports
You can buy various pads and shoe inserts to cushion the heel and support the arch of your foot. These work best if you put them in your shoes at all times. The aim is to raise your heel by about 1 cm. If your heel is tender, cut a small hole in the heel pad at the site of the tender spot. This means that the tender part of your heel will not touch anything inside your shoe. Place the inserts/pads in both shoes, even if you only have pain in one foot. A podiatrist may be able to help with specialist inserts.
Painkillers such as paracetamol will often ease the pain. Sometimes anti-inflammatory medicines such as ibuprofen are useful. These are painkillers but also reduce inflammation and may work better than ordinary painkillers. Some people find that rubbing a cream or gel that contains an anti-inflammatory medicine on to their heel is helpful.
An ice pack (such as a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a tea towel) held to your foot for 15-20 minutes may also help to relieve pain.
Regular, gentle stretching of your Achilles tendon and plantar fascia may help to ease your symptoms. This is because most people with plantar fasciitis have a slight tightness of their Achilles tendon. If this is the case, it tends to pull at the back of your heel and has a knock-on effect of keeping your plantar fascia tight. Also, when you are asleep overnight, your plantar fascia tends to tighten up (which is why it is usually most painful first thing in the morning). The aim of these exercises is to loosen up the tendons and fascia gently above and below your heel. Your doctor may refer you to a physiotherapist for exercise guidance.
Exercises (done with or without shoes on) to help treat plantar fasciitis
- Stand about 40 cm away from a wall and put both hands on the wall at shoulder height, feet slightly apart, with one foot in front of the other. Bend your front knee but keep your back knee straight and lean in towards the wall to stretch. You should feel your calf muscle tighten. Keep this position for several seconds, then relax. Do this about 10 times then switch to the other leg. Now repeat the same exercise for both legs but this time, bring your back foot forward slightly so that your back knee is also slightly bent. Lean against the wall as before, keep the position, relax and then repeat 10 times before switching to the other leg. Repeat this routine twice a day.
- Stand on the bottom step of some stairs with your legs slightly apart and with your heels just off the end of the step. Hold the stair rails for support. Lower your heels, keeping your knees straight. Again you should feel the stretch in your calves. Keep the position for 20-60 seconds, then relax. Repeat six times. Try to do this exercise twice a day.
- Sit on the floor with your legs out in front of you. Loop a towel around the ball of one of your feet. With your knee straight, pull your toes towards your nose. Hold the position for 30 seconds and repeat three times. Repeat the same exercise for the other foot. Try to do this once a day.
- Sit on a chair with your knees bent at right angles and your feet and heels flat on the floor. Lift your foot upwards, keeping your heel on the floor. Hold the position for a few seconds and then relax. Repeat about 10 times. Try to do this exercise five to six times a day.
- For this exercise you need an object such as a rolling pin or a drinks can. Whilst sitting in a chair, put the object under the arch of your foot. Roll the arch of your foot over the object in different directions. Perform this exercise for a few minutes for each foot at least twice a day. This exercise is best done without shoes on.
Plantar Fasciitis Management Options
Each treatment option for Plantar Fasciitis has various benefits, risks and consequences. In collaboration with health.org.uk, we've put together a summary decision aid that encourages patients and doctors to discuss and assess what's available.
Are there any other treatments?
If the above treatments are not helping to relieve your symptoms, or if you are someone such as an athlete who needs a quick recovery, other treatments are available. There is no one specific treatment that appears to stand out as the best.
A steroid (cortisone) injection is sometimes tried if your pain remains bad despite the above 'conservative' measures. It may relieve the pain in some people for several weeks but does not always cure the problem. It is not always successful and may be sore to have done. Steroids work by reducing inflammation. Sometimes two or three injections are tried over a period of weeks if the first is not successful. Steroid injections do carry some risks, including (rarely) tearing (rupture) of the plantar fascia.
Extracorporeal shock-wave therapy
In extracorporeal shock-wave therapy, a machine is used to deliver high-energy sound waves through your skin to the painful area on your foot. It is not known exactly how it works but it is thought that it might stimulate healing of your plantar fascia. One or more sessions of treatment may be needed.
This procedure appears to be safe but it is uncertain how well it works. This is mostly because of a lack of large, well-designed clinical trials. You should have a full discussion with your doctor about the potential benefits and risks.
In studies, most people who have had extracorporeal shock-wave therapy have little in the way of problems. However, possible problems that can occur include pain during treatment, skin reddening, and swelling of your foot or bruising. Another theoretical problem could include the condition becoming worse because of rupture of your plantar fascia or damage to the tissues in your foot. More research into extracorporeal shock-wave therapy for plantar fasciitis is needed.
Other possible treatments
Various studies and trials have been carried out looking at other possible treatments for plantar fasciitis. Such treatments include injection with botulinum toxin and treatment of the plantar fascia with radiotherapy. These treatments may not be widely available.
Some people benefit from wearing a special splint overnight to keep their Achilles tendon and plantar fascia slightly stretched. The aim is to prevent the plantar fascia from tightening up overnight. In very difficult cases, sometimes a plaster cast or a removable walking brace is put on the lower leg. This provides rest, protection, cushioning and slight stretching of the plantar fascia and Achilles tendon. However, the evidence for the use of splint treatment of plantar fasciitis is limited.
What about surgery?
This may be considered in very difficult cases. Surgery is usually only advised if your pain has not eased after 12 months despite other treatments. The operation involves separating your plantar fascia from where it connects to the bone; this is called a plantar fascia release. It may also involve removal of a spur on the heel bone (calcaneum) if one is present. Surgery is not always successful. It can cause complications in some people so it should be considered as a last resort. Complications may include infection, increased pain, injury to nearby nerves, or rupture of the plantar fascia.
What is the outlook (prognosis)?
Most people have completely recovered from an episode of plantar fasciitis within a year. However, some of the treatments described above may help to speed up your recovery.
Can it be prevented?
There are certain things that you can do to try to prevent plantar fasciitis, especially if you have had it before. These include:
- Regularly changing training shoes used for running or walking.
- Wearing shoes with good cushioning in the heels and good arch support.
- Losing weight if you are overweight.
- Regularly stretching the plantar fascia and Achilles tendon, especially before exercise.
- Avoiding exercising on hard surfaces.
Further reading and references
Extracorporeal shockwave therapy for refractory plantar fasciitis; NICE Interventional Procedures Guidance, August 2009
Plantar fasciitis; NICE CKS, June 2015 (UK access only) | <urn:uuid:4705cb98-dee4-4ce0-a0b5-e9f52ed3a0aa> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://patient.info/foot-care/heel-and-foot-pain-plantar-fasciitis | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370497301.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20200330181842-20200330211842-00114.warc.gz | en | 0.9392 | 3,863 | 3.3125 | 3 |
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Many people love birds and keep them as pets. While they are lovely to watch, birds come with delicate systems and their feathers and dander can cause allergic reactions especially to people who already have allergies. Today, we’ll look at the best air purifier for birds.
Understanding Bird Dander
Bird dander is a conclusive term used to define the particles, dust, and odor which emanates from pet birds. When your birds flap their wings, they release a whole lot of pollutants in the air which can trigger allergies to your birds and your loved ones. Further, some bird species produce a unique type of feather dander known as bird powder. This bird substance is made of fine particles and can easily circulate across your room and into your system through inhalation.
Why is my bird so dusty?
All birds generate dander which in this case is the grooming of your pet bird’s feathers and the aftermath of new growth. Keratin coats the covering of a new feather and this is bound to dry as the feather grows. It will eventually disintegrate into tiny pieces which result in dander. Birds produce more dander during the preening and molting periods.
The Winged Wisdom e-zine magazine suggests that bird dander is usually triggered by an additional set of small feathers which leave a waxy fine powder made of keratin. The white powder waterproofs the birds and is circulated among the feathers during the grooming period. The powder provides the birds with a silky and soft feel. Lack of this powder in your pet birds can be an indication of illness. There are numerous species of birds some of which are popularly known for generating dust in fine form, also referred to as powder down birds.
Is dust bad for birds?
When birds are in the forest, both dander and dust are harmless since they have sufficient wind and air and can move freely from one place to the other. While the birds generate the same amount of dander as confined birds, dander from forest-based birds disperses in the environment without accumulating to harmful levels.
Pet birds, however, lack this privilege seeing that they live in limited spaces. Fine particles of both dander and dust circulate and build up in the air and can cause serious effects both to the bird and humans if measures are not taken to eliminate it. Below are some bird dander and dust allergy symptoms.
- Itchy and watery eyes
- Shortness of breath
- Rashed and itchy skin
- Sore throat and
- Post nasal drip
People with respiratory-related complications and asthma are at high risk of developing allergies from pet dander. Maintaining high-quality air in your surroundings will play a huge role in keeping your home clean and ensuring both you and your pets breath pure and non-contaminated air.
Eliminating Bird Dust and Dander
If your bird doesn’t produce lots of dander, you don’t need to take drastic measures to eradicate it. However, if your pet generates loads of dander, you may need to consider more effective measures. There are numerous steps you can adopt to eradicate bird dander and dust without getting rid of your bird as seen below.
- Use a specially designed air purifier for birds to clean your pet’s room and enhance the quality of air in their surrounding. This will also play a big role in reducing allergic symptoms.
- Purchase a vacuum cleaner that’s specially made to block allergies and vacuum your room regularly to maintain as minimal dust as possible.
- Clean your pet’s cage more frequently using robust methods such as; replacing the pet cage liners and wiping surfaces. Where possible, use a disinfectant for enhanced cleanliness.
- Install floorboards in your pet bird rooms instead of carpets. The former is easier to clean as compared to the latter. Easy and thorough cleaning helps prevent particle buildup in carpets which are difficult to clean.
- Change your decorations and furniture and adopt easy to clean types. For instance, leather is easy to clean compared to fabric furniture. Blinds and plastic based curtains can be cleaned easily. What’s more, you should utilize vertical blinds as opposed to horizontal ones to prevent a buildup of dander.
- If you are prone to allergies, always wear a face mask while cleaning your pet bird’s cage
- Avail pet bird baths in the cage to allow your birds to clean themselves. You can also provide other types of bathing opportunities.
- Purchase a spray to facilitate removal of dander
- Keep a limited number of pet birds depending on the available space. However, you can keep as many birds as possible if space allows.
- Should you opt for an air purifier, ensure that it’s specially designed to HEPA standards replace the filter regularly.
Are Air Purifiers Safe for Birds?
Technology has advanced and today you can find effective air purifiers specially designed for your pet birds. These gadgets help maintain healthy birds while ensuring they breath better. One of the most effective air filtration methods is guaranteed to eradicate both contaminants and small particles from the air such as chemical pollutants and mold. This method involves the use of an air purifier fitted with an active charcoal carbon filter and a true HEPA air filter.
The latter will eliminate particle contaminants from the air such as mold, dust, pollen, and fuel or smoke emissions. Active charcoal carbon filters then absorb harmful chemicals from the air such as; VOCs, off-gassing plastics and cleaning supplies. An air purifier minimizes air pollution from the air in your surroundings and enhances the quality of air making it safe both for you and your pet birds.
In order to protect your birds from lung infection, high ozone-generating air purifiers. However, you can choose an air purifier that features ozone free settings or ozone levels that are below the maximum recommended for human safety. There are various air filtration technologies such as UV-C light, ionic, ozone generators, and activated carbon.
These, however, may not be effective in terms of eliminating bird dander even though carbon can help eradicate pet odor. For activated carbon to eradicate odor, ensure it’s in pellet or granular form. Further, you need 3 pounds of carbon for strong pet odors. If your air purifier comes with an ionizer, you can easily switch it off. Remember, birds’ systems are delicate and you want to avoid any type of ozone anywhere near your birds. Ozone is an indoor air contaminant which is harmful to birds.
Considerations to make before Purchasing Air Purifiers for Birds
There are 3 main factors to consider when searching for the ideal air purifiers for your pet birds. First, ensure your preferred gadget features a highly effective true HEPA air filter complete with high quality and big size filter media. These are the ideal specifications for effective eradication of fine bird dust.
Secondly, the ideal air purifier gadget should have a solid motor and fan. To ensure effective filtration of air in your surrounding, there must be sufficient circulation of air. Finally, ensure that the system is secure for your birds. Look out for ozone generating air purifiers and avoid them. Purchase a HEPA filtration system complete with an option to switch off the auxiliary ionizer
Best air purifiers for bird owners
Below are some of the best air purifiers that you can purchase for your birds.
Max HEPA Air Purifier
The Max HEPA Air Purifier helps you clean the air and eradicates allergy-causing particles such as bacteria, pollen, dust, mold spores, and pet dander. It is specially designed to keep the air clean especially to avoid asthma triggers. This gadget is ideal for you if you have a pet bird. You can also use it in your bedroom, basement area, living room, or even office.
Not only is it compact, but it is also portable and you can move it from one place to the other with ease. This air purifier was ranked number one in a comprehensive study of air filters conducted in a University. It comes with an energy star certification having been tested by the AHAM test laboratory. You can use this air purifier in your baby’s room or even for your pet birds. Are you prone to nasal stuffiness?
Regain your comfort by purchasing this air purifier and improve the quality of air in your home. It’s silent and causes no disturbance to you or your pet birds. It’s easy to use and all you need is to plug it in a power outlet and enjoy fresher air in an allergy free environment. This gadget features an intelligent and smart air quality monitor which regulates the quality of air in your house and automatically modifies the speed of the gadget’s fan to guarantee the circulation of high-quality air.
Erik 650A Air Purifier
The Erik 650A Air Purifier is specially designed for use in a large room, laboratory, or even office. It helps eradicate airborne pollutants such as pet dander, smoke, mold, asthma causing allergies, and other airborne contaminants. It comes with robust medical grade filters manufactured in the USA and a powerful German motor. This air purifier has been fitted with robust filters which were ranked the most effective.
These filters have been utilized in the nuclear industry, in hospital operating rooms, laboratories, containment units, and pharmaceuticals. The package comes with a user manual, installed filters, and the Erik 650A Air Purifier. Enjoy the gadget’s ten-year warranty which not only gives you peace of mind, but it gives you value for your investment. You don’t have to buy filter replacements regularly to enjoy the warranty as is the case with various other warranty programs.
OV200 Air Purifier
The OV200 Air Purifier is specially designed to help you get rid of asthma-causing pollutants such as mold spores, pet dander, dust, and pollen. You can use it in your home if you have pet birds. It can be used in 400 square feet spaces and feature a 99% HEPA filter efficiency. If you are prone to nasal stuffiness, then this gadget will enhance the quality of air in your home and make your home cleaner and fresher.
You can enjoy your sleep without having to worry about the gadget’s noise. It’s designed to operate silently. You will enjoy using this gadget for your birds because it doesn’t generate ozone or have an ionizer. This air purifier is easy to utilize. You only need to plug it on a power source and delight in an allergy free environment enabling you to breathe with ease.
It offers easy access to the filter and comes with an intuitive user interface. There are no complex set-up procedures and the gadget comes with a remote control. This air purifier comes with a 10-year warranty.
EJ120 Air Purifier
The EJ120 Air Purifier is specially designed for large basement areas, laboratories, offices, and homes. It’s effective when it comes to eradicating smoke, dust, asthma causing allergies, mold, and pet dander. It features medical grade high-quality filters and a robust silent motor.
The filters are used in some of the high-end environments such as hospitals, pharmaceuticals, laboratories, and in the nuclear industry. The package comes with the EJ120 Air Purifier, user manual, and installed filters. This air purifier utilizes a softer carbon to enhance its odor eradication effectiveness.
Birds are beautiful to watch and it’s no wonder that more people are keeping them as pets. Still, their dander is not only annoying, but prolonged exposure to the same can also cause adverse health effects both for you and your birds. Remember, birds are adapted to live in the wild and confining them in your home can make them uncomfortable. In order to enhance their health and prevent allergy-related complications, choose one of the above-mentioned air purifiers specially designed for birds and enjoy good quality air in your environment. You can also find a review of the best whole house air purifier that will cover your entire needs here. | <urn:uuid:f17e0ef1-610f-490b-9c10-7e6053aa360b> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.bloomingair.com/blog/best-air-purifier-for-birds/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371604800.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20200405115129-20200405145629-00035.warc.gz | en | 0.935508 | 2,513 | 2.640625 | 3 |
For most homeowners, their home is their biggest investment. For that reason, they get very upset when they think termites might be attacking their home. There are above ground termites that are called drywood termites. The drywood termites are found on almost areas urban and rural.
The most common termites live underground. These are called subterranean termites. Subterranean termites are found in every province. The subterranean termites invade most often and cause the most damage.
Every year people spend thousands of pesos to treat termites and to repair the damage that they cause. Most of the expense is for treatment of subterranean termites. A few homeowners do the treatments themselves, but most rely on a pest control professional.
Residential termite control can be challenging. Termites can squeeze through very thin cracks. This enables them to enter homes through cracks in the slab or the foundation.
Termites invade homes in hard–to–reach places. They have been found traveling between the foundation and the brick veneer. They have also been found moving behind stucco that was applied to the outside of a home.
Termites often enter through an expansion joint — where two slabs meet. If the termites can hide inside of a wall or under a carpet, they can cause extensive damage before they are noticed.
Residential termite control is often done to prevent termites from invading. Many treatments are necessary to eliminate termites that have already attacked the home. Treatments are most commonly done with liquid termiticide or termite bait. These tools can be used separately or they can be combined in the same treatment.
BUG ASSASSINS EXPERT AND EFFECTIVE TERMITE CONTROL METHODS
TERMITICIDES ( LIQUID BARRIER TREATMENT)
TERMITE BAITING SYSTEM (SENTRICON)
Although there are several types of termites in the Philippines, subterranean termites are most common. They are found in every province. They attack more homes and cause more damage than the other types of termites. Because of this, most termite control using termiticides is done to stop subterranean termites. Subterranean termites live in the soil. In nature they attack dead trees and stumps that are near the surface of the soil. They attack homes by moving up into the structure and eating the wood, cardboard, and paper products that they find. Termite control using termiticides creates a barrier in the soil to keep the termites from reaching the home or other protected structure. Since the 1980’s, scientists have found a variety of new termiticides. The new products kill or repel termites more effectively than the old petroleum–based products. Some of the new termiticides are very repellant to termites. When the termites detect the termiticide in the soil, they turn away. Other termiticides are non–repellant. The termites move through the treated soil without detecting the termiticide. The termites pick up some of the termiticide on their bodies. As they move around in the colony, the affected termites pass the termiticide to their nest mates by physical contact in the colony. The termiticide barrier in the soil keeps the termites out of the home. The barrier must be applied uniformly so there are no gaps. It is important to be sure that there is the same amount of termiticide in the soil all around the structure. If the barrier has gaps, termites can squeeze through and enter the building. Around the exterior of the building, a shallow trench is usually dug next to the foundation. The trench is seldom more than a few inches wide. The purpose of the trench is to hold the liquid termiticide and prevent runoff. If the footer of the foundation is close to the surface of the soil, the treatment only requires putting the liquid termiticide into the trench. The termiticide label prescribes the amount of termiticide that is applied. If the footer is deep in the soil, the technician injects the termiticide into the soil with a hollow rod until it reaches the footer. Houses with crawl spaces would normally be treated underneath the crawl space. The trenching and treatment process in the crawl space is similar to the outside treatment. All of the piers are treated in the same way. Many homes have concrete slabs against the foundation. These are often porches, patios, and garages. In these cases, the technician drills holes in the concrete. Termiticide is injected into the holes to form a barrier next to the foundation. The holes are plugged and sealed with concrete after the treatment. If the foundation wall is made of bricks or concrete blocks, it is often necessary to drill holes into the blocks to allow treatment. A small amount of termiticide is injected into the holes to treat the void spaces inside the blocks. Homes that are built on concrete slabs have openings in the slab for pipes to enter. The termiticide must be applied under the concrete near all of these openings. The technician drills a hole in the concrete near each pipe penetration. After treating each hole with termiticide, the technician plugs the holes and patches them with concrete. It is common to use a foam–generating machine for treating these pipe penetrations. The machine changes the liquid termiticide into foam. The foam spreads under the concrete and helps ensure that there is a complete barrier around each pipe.
The termite–baiting program is designed to intercept termites outside the home. The program’s objective is to eliminate termites before they get to the home and attack it. There are several different termite–baiting systems available. Some systems are available at home or garden stores. Other systems are available from pest control professionals. They use different active ingredients and different types of stations. However, the principles are similar in many respects. The process starts with the installation of the stations in the ground. Termites forage at random in the soil, so the stations are spaced around the outside of the home so that the termites will be likely to find them. It is normal for extra stations to be installed in areas where termites would be likely to go. Stations are often placed near woodpiles, in shady areas, and near downspouts. During the installation, the technician makes holes in the soil with an auger. The stations are pushed down so the tops are level with the top of the soil. Most stations have a clear lid or a removable lid. This allows the stations to be inspected without removing them from the soil. In most systems, the stations contain untreated wood. The wood serves as a monitoring device. When termites find a station, they will begin to eat the wood. The stations are checked on a regular schedule. The frequency depends n the location and the time of the year. Along the Gulf Coast, stations might be checked weekly or twice each month during the spring and summer In the Northern states, stations might not be checked at all during the winter. When termites are found in a station, a bait device is placed in the station. The device usually contains cardboard or paper. The cellulose material is treated with an active ingredient. The termites eat the treated cellulose and ingest the active ingredient. As termites travel back to the nest, they share the active ingredient with their nest mates. In this way, the bait program can eliminate many of the termites. In some tests, the bait eliminated the entire termite colony. As long as termites are feeding in the station, the bait must be kept full and fresh. When the termite activity is finished, the bait device is removed. Wood monitors are replaced in the station and the monitoring schedule resumes. At the time of the installation, some systems can be combined with a liquid termiticide treatment. This helps eliminate active termite infestations. In these cases, the monitors are installed to start keeping out any future infestations.
Liquid termiticide is used to form a barrier in the soil against the termites. Depending on the home’s construction, liquid termiticide can be applied into the soil beside the foundation. This might be done outside and in the crawl space. Treatment of slab homes often includes drilling holes in the concrete to protect cracks or expansion joints.
Termiticide might also be applied in areas where plumbing pipes enter the home. Some of these treatments might be made with a machine that turns the termiticide to foam. This helps the termiticide spread to the places where it is needed.
Termite baits are usually applied in the ground around a home. In most bait systems, the stations initially contain un–treated wood. The stations are spaced to improve the chances of termites finding them. They are also placed in areas that are likely termite targets — near stumps, woodpiles, or downspouts.
When termites attack a station, the wood inside is replaced with a material that is toxic to termites. The termites eat the material and share it with their nest–mates. This process can eliminate many of the termites. Sometimes the entire colony can be eliminated.
Homeowners can help prevent termites from attacking their home. A careful inspection can reveal conditions that might give termites an easy entryway. . Wooden structural members that extend into the ground can give termites an entryway to the home. Siding or stucco that extends into the soil can also enable termites to invade.
Mulch in flowerbeds can make the area comfortable for termites. Many experts recommend raking mulch 12″ away from the foundation. Firewood piles should be raised off of the ground and stored as far from the house as possible. Soil in flowerbeds that is higher than the home’s slab can also give termites an easy entrance to the home.
Many homeowners call a pest control professional for a termite inspection. During the inspection process, these experts can point out maintenance or structural issues that might make the home more attractive to termites. Correcting or changing these conditions can help prevent termites from attacking the home. | <urn:uuid:1e752c64-9f91-444e-9e8d-29c68005833c> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.bugmurderer.com/termite-control | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370494064.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20200329074745-20200329104745-00275.warc.gz | en | 0.949281 | 2,097 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Were jinn created before human beings? Are jinn superior to human beings? Will the realm of jinn be different in the hereafter?
Were human beings or jinn created earlier? How are jinn tested? Were jinn given more properties than those given to human beings? Will the realm also change for jinn when Doomsday strikes?
Submitted by on Tue, 18/07/2017 - 10:19
Dear Brother / Sister,
Allah states the following about the creation of these two species in a verse regarding the issue:
“We created man from sounding clay, from mud molded into shape; And the Jinn race, We had created before, from the fire of a scorching wind.” (al-Hijr, 15/26-27)
As it is understood from the verse, Jaann (jinn, the ancestor of jinn) were created beforehuman beings. If it is considered that the creation ofhuman beings is the last ring of the creation of the universe, jinn were created as the second last ring.
Man, who was sent as the vicegerent above all jinn and beings, is superior to jinn in terms of his nature, creation as well as his intelligence, intellect, memory, reasoning and worshipping. Some jinn who have not learned any lessons from a heavenly religion do not accept this superiority of man due to the lessons they have received from Satan and are jealous of man.
Allah states the following in the Quran regarding the issue:
“We have indeed created man in the best of molds.” (at-Tin, 95/4)
Thus, He states that man is superior to not only jinn but also all beings.
Jinn do not accept the superiority of human beings; in addition, they put human beings in difficult positions and do their best in order to make them need them. Those who do not know the nature and structure of jinn expect help from them. Spiritualists and healers make use of these gullible and ignorant people.
Those who do not know the nature, essence and structure of jinn sometimes overestimate them. They regard them and show them as beings that know everything, that can do everything, that are talented and that are superior to human beings. This is sheer delirium.
Who lived in the world before human beings?
It is understood from some expressions in the Quran that some beings that were held responsible like human beings were lived in the world before human beings. However, it is not possible to say something definite about what kind of beings they were. Badiuzzaman Said Nursi sates the following regarding the issue:
“I will create a vicegerent on earth.” (al-Baqara, 2/30) The word ‘vicegerent (khalifa)’ in the verse suggests that before conditions on the earth were readied for human life, there were intelligent creatures for whose lives, conditions during the earth’s early epochs were suitable. This view is in conformity with wisdom. The most widely held view is that these creatures were a species of jinn, but they spread corruption on the earth so were succeeded by mankind." (1)
Abdullah Aydemir, who gathered the views of hadith and fiqh scholars, states in his book called “Tefsirde İsrailiyyat” the following verse, which forms the basis for evidence about the views put forward regarding the issue, that tafsir scholars mention many things while interpreting this verse and that one of them is the information about the inhabitants of the earth before Hz. Adam:
“Behold, thy Lord said to the angels: "I will create a vicegerent on earth." They said: "Wilt Thou place therein one who will make mischief therein and shed blood?- whilst we do celebrate Thy praises and glorify Thy holy (name)?" He said: "I know what ye know not.".”
Abdullah Ibn Umar states the following:
“Jinn, who were called Sons of Jaann, were in the world two thousand years before the creation of Hz. Adam. Allah sent an army consisting of angels against them because they caused mischief and chaos in the world, shed blood and committed murders. These mischief-makers, who were punished by angels, saved their lives by taking refuge on the islands in the sea. Thereupon, God Almighty said to angels, “I will create a vicegerent on earth …”
Ibn Abbas states the following:
"Man was created out of mud. Jinn used to live in the world first. They shed blood on the earth and killed one another. Allah sent an army consisting of angels under the command of Iblis against them. Iblis and the angels under his command fought those jinn and drove them away to the islands in the sea and on mountains. After gaining this victory, Iblis felt conceited and boasted: “I have done something that nobody else has done.” Allah knew this conceit in the heart of Iblis. The angels that were with Iblis did not know about it. God Almighty said to the angels that were with Iblis, “I will create a vicegerent on earth.” Thereupon, the angels said, “Will You place therein one who will make mischief therein and shed blood like the jinn You ordered us to drive away?” (2)
(1) İşaratü’l-İ'caz, p. 201.
(2) Tabari, Tafsir, I/195-214;Tarikh, I/1,107-112.
To hide, to remain hidden, invisible secret (hidden) forces.
An individual of jinn is called a jinni. The word "jaann" is synonymous with jinn. Ghoul and ifrit are other types of jinn.
Before Islam, jinn were the "satyrs" and "nymphs" of the desert in Arabia. They represented the part of the natural life that were not dominated by human beings and that remained as enemies. However, during the allegiance of the Prophet (pbuh), jinn were among the important and unknown deities. Makkan Arabs say that there is a close kinship between jinn and Allah (as-Saffat, 37/158); they even elevated jinn to the level of Allah's partners (al-An'am, 6/128) and they asked help from them. (al-Jumua, 62/6)
The existence of jinn is definite by the Quran and the Sunnah. Living creatures do not consist of the human beings in this material world only and the animals whose varieties we do not know. There are also some beings that can be seen only by prophets and pure slaves of Allah; they are angels and jinn. They are created in a form that can take various shapes. Angels never disobey Allah. They live in the sky but descend to the earth upon the order of Allah and ascend to the sky again. Jinn live on the earth like human beings. There are believers and unbelievers among them. Since the existence of angels and jinn is definite by the Quran and the Sunnah, denying them will damage the Islamic creed.
Jinn are held responsible like human beings; prophets were sent to jinn too: "O ye assembly of Jinn and men! Came there not unto you apostles from amongst you, setting forth unto you My signs, and warning you of the meeting of this Day of yours?" (al-An'am, 6/130)
"And as for us, since we have listened to the Guidance, we have accepted it: and any who believes in his Lord has no fear, either of a short (account) or of any injustice." (al-Jinn, 72/13)
"Behold, We turned towards thee a company of Jinns (quietly) listening to the Qur'an: when they stood in the presence thereof, they said, "Listen in silence!" When the (reading) was finished, they returned to their people, to warn (them of their sins). They said, "O our people! We have heard a Book revealed after Moses, confirming what came before it: it guides (men) to the Truth and to a Straight Path. "O our people, hearken to the one who invites (you) to Allah, and believe in him: He will forgive you your faults, and deliver you from a Penalty Grievous. "If any does not hearken to the one who invites (us) to Allah, he cannot frustrate ((Allah)'s Plan) on earth, and no protectors can he have besides Allah. such men (wander) in manifest error." (al-Ahqaf, 46/29-32)
Hadith narrators hold different views whether the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) saw jinn or not. According to the narration from Abdullah Ibn Mas'ud included in Muslim, the Prophet accepted the invitation of the jinn, saw them and guided them. According to the narration from Ibn Abbas included in Bukhari and Muslim, Hz. Prophet led the morning prayer in "Nahla" on the way to Uqaz Fair with his Companions; a group of jinn came and listened to the Quran; they became Muslims. God Almighty informed us about it in the first verses of the chapter of al-Jinn. (al-Jinn, 72/1-3)
Tafsir scholar Imam Qurtubi interprets these two narrations as follows: According to the narration of Ibn Abbas, Hz. Prophet did not see jinn in that incident; God Almighty informed him later that they listened to the Quran and became Muslims. However, the incident that Ibn Mas'ud narrates is different. As a matter of fact, Ibn Mas'ud said, "One night, we were with the Messenger of Allah. He suddenly disappeared. We looked for him in the valleys and on the mountains but we could not find him. We were very worried that night. In the morning, we saw him coming from the direction of Hira. We said, ‘O Messenger of Allah! We lost you. We looked for you but we could not find you. Therefore, we spent the whole night anxiously’ He said, ‘A jinni came to invite me. I went with him. I read the Quran to them.‘" (Qurtubi, al-Jami' li-Ahkamil-Qur'an, Beirut 1967, XIX, 2 ff.)
The jinn did not know the unseen. (Saba, 34/14) They cannot find out what Allah informed His prophets about: "Indeed they have been removed far from even (a chance of) hearing it." (ash-Shuara, 26/212)
Jinn were created before human beings. It is stated in the Quran that they were created from a poisonous fire:
"And the Jinn race, We had created before, from the fire of a scorching wind." (al-Hijr, 15/27)
There are male and female jinn. They get married, reproduce, eat and drink. There are old ones and young ones. They are also held responsible like human beings; they have to obey Allah's orders and prohibitions: "I have only created Jinn and men, that they may serve Me." (adh-Dhariyat, 51/56)
The nature of Jinn is suitable for taking different shapes and doing hard work. As a matter of fact, as it is stated in the Quran (an-Naml, 27/39), when Hz. Sulayman (Solomon) wanted the throne of Balqis to be brought from Yemen, a jinni said he would bring it before Hz. Sulayman got up from his throne and that he had the power to do it. Hz. Sulayman was in Jerusalem and the throne was in Yemen. To bring it in a second meant to have a big speed and power. Hz. Sulayman made the jinn do hard jobs: Which of you can bring me her throne before they come to me in submission?" Said an 'Ifrit, of the Jinn: "I will bring it to thee before thou rise from thy council: indeed I have full strength for the purpose, and may be trusted." Said one who had knowledge of the Book: "I will bring it to thee within the twinkling of an eye!" Then when (Solomon) saw it placed firmly before him, he said: "This is by the Grace of my Lord."
"…And there were Jinn that worked in front of him, by the leave of his Lord, and if any of them turned aside from our command, We made him taste of the Penalty of the Blazing Fire." (Saba, 34/12)
Satan is also from jinn. Allah ordered him to prostrate before Hz. Adam but Satan did not prostrate stating that he was created out of fire and that Adam was created out of dust. Thereupon, Allah dismissed him from His mercy and Satan became an unbeliever. (al-Baqara, 2/24) The leader of Satan is called Iblis. Satan resorts to various ways in order to deceive human beings. It is necessary to avoid him:
"And to Solomon (We made) the Wind (obedient): Its early morning (stride) was a month's (journey), and its evening (stride) was a month's (journey); and We made a Font of molten brass to flow for him; and there were Jinn that worked in front of him, by the leave of his Lord, and if any of them turned aside from our command, We made him taste of the Penalty of the Blazing Fire?" (Yasin, 36/60)
"Verily Satan is an enemy to you: so treat him as an enemy." (Fatir, 35/6).
Hz. Prophet (pbuh) said,
"Allah made a jinni a friend for you each.” The Companions asked, "O Messenger of Allah! You too?" The Messenger of Allah said, "Yes. However, Allah helped me against him and he became a Muslim. He orders me only good deeds now." (at-Taj, V, 233)
It is understood from this hadith that Satan makes man go astray. According to Ahl as-Sunnah belief, Satan harms man’s body and mind.
Most philosophers, especially Ibn Sina and Farabi do not accept the existence of jinn but some of them do. They call jinn low souls. They claim that jinn respond faster than the heavenly spirits but that they are weaker.
On the other hand, the nations who believe in prophets and have certain shari'ahs accepted the existence of jinn without hesitation but they put forward different opinions about their nature. Some say they are aerial beings; that is, they were created from the wind and that they could take various forms. Some of them say they are essence and that they are not properties or matter. They divide these essences into some parts with various natures. Some of them are good, righteous and charitable. Others are bad, vile and evil. Only Allah knows their number.
Some madhhabs say jinn are material but that their nature are different and that their attributes are the same. Their attributes are as follows: they take up space, they are three dimensional, such as having length, width and depth. Jinn are divided into parts like subtle, lofty and low. It is not impossible for aerial, subtle things not to resemble other objects in terms of nature. Therefore, they have their own knowledge, they can do hard jobs that people cannot do and they can take various forms and shapes. This is because God Almighty gave them this power. Some madhhabs say that things are equal in terms of their nature and that body was not necessary for being alive. Imam Abul-Hasan al-Ash'ari and his followers hold this view.
On the other hand, Mu'tazila does not accept this view and the existence of jinn. They claim that body is necessary for being alive and that the body must be solid in order to able to do difficult things. This view has been rejected by the majority. For, those who hold this view deny extraordinary things and reject the things whose existence is definite by the Book and the Sunnah.
Jinn are also dealt with in two parts in terms of the religion of Islam: believers and unbelievers. Jinn are to believe in the Prophet (pbuh) like human beings. For, the Prophet was sent also to them. Therefore, the jinn who believe in him are included in the group of believers and enter Paradise with believers. Those who do not believe in him will be with devils and go to Hell.
Since jinn are held responsible for Islam, they must be informed about it and the religion of Islam must be conveyed to them. At this point, the contact of jinn with the Prophet is in question.
When jinn were not yet aware of the prophethood of Hz. Muhammad (pbuh), they used to ascend to the sky and listen secretly to what was spoken there. They used to add many things to what they heard and convey them to people. They had not known about the prophethood of Hz. Muhammad (pbuh) yet when they tried to hear things in the sky as they usually did on one occasion. However, this time, they encountered burning fires and violent guardians. They started to investigate the reason for this. They flocked to the earth. A group among them found the Prophet while praying in Nahla. They listened to the Quran; they were astonished by its beauty and perfection. It is stated that there were three to ten of them or nine of them.
Our Prophet (pbuh) taught them Islam (Muslim, 1, 332, Kitabus-Salat, hadith no: 150-153, Abu Dawud, 1, 10, hadith no: 39). It should be reminded immediately that jinn re creatures that are totally opposite to us. Only Allah and His Messenger know how they are held responsible for Islam. We only need to believe it.
Questions on Islam
- How should we understand the statement of the angels "Wilt Thou place therein one who will make mischief therein and shed blood?" when Allah created Hz. Adam?
- Were there any human beings that were created before Hazrat Adam? What was created first? Were there any human beings before Adam?
- Who were the inhabitants of the earth before Humans?
- Are angels Allah's daughters?
- Will you give information about the creation of satans and jinn and their nature?
- Was Satan (Iblis) from the jinn, if so why was he among the angels?
- Is there a contradiction between these two verses as to the purpose of creating men and jinn?
- How did Iblis (Satan) act when the order to bow down to Adam(PBUH) was given by Allah? What is the relationship between the devil and the angels in terms of creation?
- Did Allah wish Satan’s denial and not prostrating before Hz. Adam?
- Can you give information about the creation and the nature of Satan? | <urn:uuid:dd6be6dc-fd26-42e3-b734-ba57e25de5c5> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://questionsonislam.com/question/were-jinn-created-human-beings-are-jinn-superior-human-beings-will-realm-jinn-be-different | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370491857.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20200328104722-20200328134722-00195.warc.gz | en | 0.975193 | 4,060 | 2.59375 | 3 |
At gardening shops or at botanical gardens, you might have discovered plants with the name “sedum” that differ so much, you question if they relate at all. Some sedum plants are tall and bush-like, others have spiral or rose-shaped leaves that creep along the ground. Indeed, there are lots of kinds of sedum out there: the sedum genus includes a minimum of 470 separate species.
The different types of sedum have particular qualities in common. They are succulents, and for that reason have water-storing leaves. They have star shaped flowers, thick stems, and plump leaves. Many are perennials, which will keep returning, however some are grown as annuals, which need replanting each year.
The genus of sedum becomes part of the bigger plant household Crassulaceae, or stonecrops, named due to the fact that of their capability to grow in dry, cold locations where there is little water and their capability to grow in little locations like along walls or in between rocks. Natively, sedum is normally discovered in the northern part of the world, and in dessert locations in Africa and South America. Because they need little care as soon as established, and grow in a range of extreme conditions, sedum ranges make a great choice for lots of gardens.
Of the almost 500 types of sedum, some are more popular and more commonly used than others. The varieties are primarily categorized into sneaking sedums and upright growers. Here are a few of the most popular and enticing types.
Sedum Humifusum: This variety is low-growing and perfect as a groundcover. When in bloom, it has small intense yellow flowers. When not in flower, it has actually yellow-green spiral shaped fleshy foliage. It is classified as a creeping sedum. This is possibly one of the most popular ranges of sedum. It is used both outdoors to fill in blank spaces or spaces in between stones, and is typically utilized in indoor containers. It is a perennial.
Sedum “Blue Spruce”: This variety is called as such due to the fact that of its resemblance to blue-colored conifers. It is low-growing, but taller than sedum humifusum. It has blue-green spiral leaves and small yellow flowers. It is evergreen in warmer to moderate regions. It is likewise classified as a groundcover– it can grow only up to 5 inches high, but will spread out in between 15 to 18 inches wide. It is sturdy in zones 3-11.
Sedum “Dragon’s Blood”: “Dragon’s Blood” is a creeping sedum that is dark purple in color. In late summer, it is accentuated by pinkish purple flowers. It will grow in USDA strength zones 4-9. This range, an evergreen, will only reach 4 inches tall, and is perfect for a significant purple border, or filling out spaces in stones or walls.
Sedum “Autumn Delight”: “Fall Pleasure” looks totally different than creeping sedum. It is an upright flowering plant, with consists of green stalks 1 to 3 ft high bearing pink to copper flowers from August to November. Fall Pleasure grows in zones 2-9. In cooler parts of the nation it will pass away back throughout winter season, but return in the spring.
Sedum Pallidum: This creeping range has forest green foliage that turns copper red in the fall. It will grow in zones 5-9. It will spread out rapidly, as leaves will settle on any surface area they are touching. It will only reach about 3 inches tall.
Sedum “Dazzling”: This types is a seasonal that matures to 18 inches tall, and boasts bigger pink flowers that bloom in mid-summer. It is a hardy perennial that will prosper in zones 3-10. When not in blossom, it still displays fleshy gray-green leaves. It will lose its leaves in fall, however will return the following spring.
Sedum “Purple Emperor”: This range, imported from England, is also a taller-growing sedum. Its stems rise to 15 inches high, and are a deep, rich purple color. The stems are topped with pinkish purple flowers throughout the summer. It is hardy in zones 3-7.
Sedum “Wintry Morn”: This is another upright grower. It has lighter colored blue-green foliage with a slight edge around each leaf. This white accent looks like a touch of frost, hence its name. It has light pink flowers in late summer season and early fall. “Wintry Morn” is generally used in borders or in rock gardens. It, like all sedum, is simple to look after and requires little water or soil amendments. It will grow 15 to 18 inches tall, and plants need to be planted 12 inches apart.
Uses in Landscaping and Gardening.
Due to its vast array of looks in sedum varieties, they can be discovered in all sorts of gardening circumstances.
Since of its drought-tolerance, numerous types are used in xeriscape gardening, a type of gardening created to love little to no extra water besides what nature supplies. They also succeed in rock gardens, and will cascade over the sides of rock or stone borders.
Sedum is likewise used regularly in container gardens as a “spiller” or “filler.” It complements other flowering plants, along with other succulents. It does not need to be watered, and can remain outdoors over winter season, making it a good maintenance-free option for containers.
Since of its adaptability, sedum can be used to complete spaces where other plants won’t grow, or where mowing is hard or difficult. It looks fantastic when planted in mass plantings along hillsides or slopes.
Mini or sneaking varieties are commonly used in fairy gardens due to the fact that of their small functions.
Sedum Plant Care.
Environment: Various species have various ideal environments and hardiness zones. In the contiguous United States, there is at least one type of sedum that will grow in each growing zone. Lots of are durable and will return the following year if left alone, as long as they don’t receive an abundance of excess moisture over the winter season. Sedum are found in the wild in dry, dry areas generally on mountain tops or along stones. Their perfect environment is one in which they do not get excessive water.
Soil Requirements: Sedum is one plant that in fact does much better in bad soil. It can likewise grow in areas where there is no soil at all! Sedum will tend to grow roots whenever it is touching a surface. If it is planted in a location with other plants that do require garden compost or fertilizer, it will most likely do fine, however don’t make a point to fertilize sedum itself. Make certain that soil is well-drained.
Water: As soon as sedum is developed, it does not need to be watered. It will be fine with whatever water it receives from rainfall. In reality, if sedum is left to sit in moist conditions, it will die. It is far better for it to go a little bit longer without water, than to water it unnecessarily.
Sunshine: Some types will do OKAY in partial shade, however for one of the most part, sedum carries out finest completely sunshine. Sneaking varieties are less particular about sunlight requirements.
Fertilizer: Do not fertilize sedum plants. They choose poorer soil.
Very few problems develop sedum, however those that do are generally associated with watering problems. If sedum plants are enabled to sit for too long in water, they might begin to collapse. The root and stem may start to rot, and it can impact the whole plant. If you believe among the stems is affected, remove it and don’t water the sedum– provide it an opportunity to dry, so the remainder of the plant can be conserved.
Fungus can impact the stems of sedum, and is once again generally caused by extreme wetness. Symptoms will consist of yellowing, withering leaves and flowers. Get rid of impacted plant parts immediately, and ensure the soil is draining correctly.
To avoid illness or rot, make sure plants are spaced out sufficiently, and prevent over watering. Do not mulch sedum plants, as this can keep excessive moisture in the ground and cause death of the plant.
To ensure sturdy ranges will return next spring, prune them in the fall. After the first frost, prune foliage and stems back to an inch high. If established plants end up being too thick, they can be divided in the spring and simply laid on the soil where you wish them to grow.
How to Propagate Sedum.
Different sedum plants are propagated in different methods depending upon the types. Those that are low-lying groundcovers can be propagated by seed in mid-spring. You can likewise divide the plant or root stem cuttings throughout summer season to produce similar sedum plants.
Seeds are very small. Take care to space them appropriately, depending upon the variety of sedum you are planting. Since they are so small, you can simply push them into the soil. There is no requirement to cover them with an additional layer of soil. Seeds can be acquired at lots of garden shops or online. If direct sowing from seed, seeds should be planted in fall so they have a chance to settle in prior to the following growing season.
To collect seeds from your existing sedum plants, take browned fruit from a drying flower, and allow it to dry inside. Once it is dry you must be able to shake it on top of a notepad to gather the tiny, dust-like seeds. These can be planted in a wet, sandy planting medium, and misted up until plants start growing. After a year, these can be solidified off and transplanted outside. This is a very tedious technique, and is hardly ever used– most garden enthusiasts choose to grow brand-new sedum plants by division or cuttings, which is much easier and faster.
To grow via department, collect a clump of sedum, divide the plant, and plant the individual clumps where you would like them to grow. Depending upon the variety, the brand-new divisions ought to be planted 12 to 18 inches apart.
Taller ranges can be replicated by taking cuttings from new (softwood) development and rooting them. Take a cutting of brand-new development using sterilized garden shears, and just stick it in the ground where you would like the brand-new sedum plant to grow. Additionally, dip it in rooting hormonal agent, and stick it in a pot of growing medium until developed. Then, solidify off the plant and plant outdoors in its new permanent place. | <urn:uuid:2f452310-0210-4c4b-a8ce-4686e800765f> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | http://quatn.info/sedum-plant-types-care-and-propagation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370506673.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20200402045741-20200402075741-00035.warc.gz | en | 0.94608 | 2,300 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Local regiments – recruitment and training
When war was declared the country quickly realised that it needed a lot of men to join up to fight. There was a big poster campaign and all sorts of people joined in to help recruitment, including musical hall stars. The posters were everywhere and Hampstead men joined a number of different units. Hampstead Heath was a useful training ground for new recruits, who often had to wait for proper uniforms and equipment.
Images above courtesy of the Advertising Archives
- Volunteering for the Forces
- Infantry and the Pals battalions
- How the army was organised – divisions, regiments and battalions explained
- Royal Artillery
- ‘Hampstead Howitzers’ and ‘Hampstead Heavies’ – local artillery units
- Training and Refreshments on Hampstead Heath
- Night attack on Hampstead Heath
- Suggested Questions
- Further Resources
- Imagine that war has been declared and you are a young man old enough to join the army. Write a letter to a friend explaining why you want to join the army.
- Have a look at this video and then this video for ideas and then make your own video or poster encouraging people to join the army.
- Stories of Eight Soldiers
- Women filling men’s roles (particularly the description of the white feather movement)
Volunteering for the Forces
From the outbreak of war onwards there was considerable social pressure on men to join up. In the week that war was declared, the Mayor encouraged residents to volunteer for the armed forces, or for other units like the Special Constabulary (police), or the Red Cross/ St John ambulance services. The Hampstead and Highgate Express reported an influx of recruits – including architects, a solicitor, an opera singer and an author. At the Borough Council meeting in mid December, the Mayor announced that “about 140 men from the Borough’s staff were now with the colours”; UCS school reported that 394 “Old Gowers” had joined up; and a Hampstead Cadet training battalion had provided another 450.
Every high street had posters like the ones above encouraging people to enlist, and every High Street had a recruitment office where men could join the army (infantry or artillery) or the navy. There were often recruitment rallies with flags and bands playing patriotic songs to encourage men to join. This short video gives you some idea of the pressure young men were under to fight with the armed forces (including the musical hall song ‘Your King and your country want you’).
Three hundred thousand men joined up in the first month of the war and, on a single day in September 1914, thirty-three thousand men enlisted. In Hampstead young men volunteered in their thousands. The unit a man joined depended partly on which service or regiment was he attracted to, and partly on which units were recruiting in the area at the time. Hampstead men joined a wide variety of units:
- Infantry regiments which were organised on “county” lines, and Hampstead was within the natural recruiting territory of the Middlesex Regiment. Even so, there was strong local competition for men from the City of London Regiment (which became part of the Royal Fusiliers) and from the London Regiment.
- Artillery regiments which were organised differently, in that the various units – the Royal Horse Artillery, the Royal Field Artillery, the Royal Garrison Artillery – all came under the Royal Artillery.
- Recruits into the cavalry regiments, like the Royal Hussars, were often retrained and transferred into more modern fighting units, like the Machine Gun Corps.
- Specialist Regular units, like the Royal Engineers (which built and maintained the battlefield infrastructure), the Army Service Corps (which provided everything from canteens to ammunition), as well as the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Navy. These last two attracted a smaller number of recruits from Hampstead.
All these units were initially manned by a mixture of serving regulars and reservists (like the Territorial Army). But from October 1914 onwards they were supplemented by volunteers. Reports of local men being killed at the Front encouraged men to volunteer (like the one below reported in the Hampstead and Highgate Express on 19th December 1914).
“Hampstead Hero’s Death”:
Charles George Miles, a Private in the 1st Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, was buried this week in the first military funeral at Hampstead Cemetery. From a West Hampstead family business, he was a professional infantryman and had served in the Boer War and India before going to France and Flanders. He died of wounds receivedat the battle of Ypres.
However as the war continued there were not enough volunteers and conscription was introduced in January 1916 which forced men to join up.
Infantry and the Pals battalions
Arguably the “Poor Bloody Infantry” had the deadliest role of all. Life in the rain and mud of the trenches was difficult enough, without the constant noise of the bombardments and the fear of sudden attack as well. Not only were casualty levels extremely high, the infantry also shouldered the burden of much carrying and labouring work (see a description of the Pioneer battalions in the story of Carl Bingen in the topic ‘Stories of Eight Soldiers’).
Lots of men were needed and the War Office realized that local ties could help recruitment – more men would enlist if they could serve alongside their workmates, friends and relatives and not just people from the same area. Several units – called Pals Battalions – were recruited on this basis. Many of the Pals units sustained heavy casualties, which had a significant impact on their home communities.
Two units, however, had particular advantages in recruiting in Hampstead. The National Reserve had a Territorial unit based at the Harben Armoury in Pond Street from the early 1900s. The 1st Cadet Battalion, Royal Fusiliers was also based there to provide basic training to youngsters. By December 1914 it had trained 450 cadets and transferred them into the Regular Army.
TheMiddlesex Regiment had a Territorial unit(“the Hampstead volunteers”)based at the Drill Hall in Heath Street/ Holly Bush Vale (built in 1888 where the Everyman Cinema is today). The local unit of the Church Lads Brigade, which shared their quarters, became a regular source of recruits for the army.
How the army was organised – divisions, regiments and battalions explained
- The government was in responsible for fighting the War through the War Office
- The War Office ran the armed forces through its General Headquarters (GHQ)
- The GHQ commanded several Armies (the British eventually had five in France and Flanders)
- Each Army commanded several Corps, which contained several Divisions (each of about 20,000 men)
- Each Division commanded several Brigades (each of about 5,000 men, commanded by a Brigadier)
- Each Brigade commanded several Battalions, including infantry, artillery and support services
- An infantry Battalion (about 1,000 men under a Lieutenant Colonel) is part of a Regiment, but is often moved around quite independently
- Each Battalion was made up of Companies (each commanded by a Major), which in turn comprised Platoons (commanded by a Captain)
- Within each Platoon there were several Sections (commanded by a Lieutenant) and lots of individual Soldiers
“The war of 1914-18 was an artillery war: artillery was the battle-winner, artillery was what caused the greatest loss of life, the most dreadful wounds, and the deepest fear”.
John Terraine, military historian, in White Heat – the new warfare 1914-18
During World War One the Royal Regiment of Artillery comprised three main elements:
- The Royal Horse Artillery: the senior arm of the Artillery; each battery of 200 men was armed with six light, mobile, horse-drawn 13-pounder field guns; in theory it provided firepower to support the cavalry but in practice it supplemented and was then absorbed by the Royal Field Artillery.
- The Royal Field Artillery: the most numerous arm of the artillery; the horse-drawn RFA was responsible for the medium calibre 18-pounder field guns and the 4.5-inch howitzers deployed close to the front line and was reasonably mobile. In 1914 an army Division had 3 Field Brigades and 1 Howitzer Brigade, supported by an ammunition column.
- The Royal Garrison Artillery: developed from fortress-based artillery located on British coasts, it was armed with heavy, large calibre (60-pounder) guns and 5-inch howitzers positioned some way behind the front line. Its large calibre high explosive shells had immense destructive power, and were most often employed in destroying or neutralising enemy artillery, as well as strong-points, dumps, stores, roads and railways behind enemy lines.
‘Hampstead Howitzers’ and ‘Hampstead Heavies’ – local artillery units
The artillery was so popular that Hampstead raised units (i.e batteries) of both Horse (light) and Garrison (heavy) Artillery. These men had a range of skills in addition to serving the guns, which included driving and caring for horses. (A large number of horses were commandeered in Hampstead to support the war effort.).
The “light” artillery unit was a local company of the Royal Horse Artillery, which became known as the “Hampstead Howitzers” after the type of gun that they had. Click here to see an image of a Howitzer gun firing (it is painting 7 of ‘Painting of life along the Western Front). The 183rd (Hampstead) Howitzer Brigade numbered 700 men, divided into 4 batteries. This unit was filled in less than 4 weeks. By September 1915 the “Hampstead Howitzers” had moved into camp in Golders Hill Park. The YMCA Rooms in Finchley Road were opened to provide recreation for them.
After the Howitzers came the two Heavy Batteries the 138th and the 139th (Hampstead) Royal Garrison Artillery. These consisted of some 600 men who volunteered in Autumn 1915. The 138th Battery soon became known as the “Hampstead Heavies” and most of its initial training from October 1915 to March 1916 took place on Hampstead Heath. The Hampstead Heavies probably got their name from the big field gun that was part of their equipment. You can find out more about them from their website . (This was dangerous work – of the 200 officers and men in one battery who landed in France, only 1 officer and about 30 other ranks were left when the last round was fired.)
Training and Refreshments on Hampstead Heath
With its wide open spaces away from houses for drilling, its trees for camouflage and its hills for climbing, Hampstead Heath was an ideal space for training troops. As well as being useful for local battalions it was also useful for battalions raised in central London who didn’t have access to as much open space. Below are links to images on the Imperial War Museum website, showing troops training in Hampstead and on the Heath (you can click on the images to enlarge them) –
http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205025732 – (In this image men are training in their own clothes because the army didn’t yet have sufficient uniforms to give them.)
Cavalry charges on Parliament Hill Fields
Dorothy Baker recalled –
“….In the early days of the 1914-18 war the Parliament Hill Fields were used as parade grounds for training the troops. I have a very clear memory of watching teams of horses pulling gun-carriages, racing up and down the hill in practice for the battle across the Channel. I am not sure how many horses pulled one gun, but think it was four, and the driver must have been mounted on the leading right-hand horse, for there was certainly no seat for him on the gun carriage….”
Source: Hampstead & Highgate Express, 5th August 1977
For men training on the Heath it was often difficult to get lunch and refreshments. The YMCA (a charity that still exists today) erected a large marquee near the Vale of Health. It was open to all men in uniform. It had floor boards and radiators to keep men warm when it was cold. And it had a platform which men could use for singing. Community singing was very popular – especially of patriotic songs like ‘It’s a long way to Tipperary’ and ‘Pack up your troubles’ (this clip also shows recruitment and training of soldiers). Everyone needed to keep their spirits up and singing songs was a good way to do so.
Food, tea and coffee was all made and served by local volunteers and the cost of fitting out the facility was met through local fund raising.
The Hampstead and Highgate Express on 15th January 1916 records –
(Yesterday) 150 soldiers were served with luncheon and entertained to half an hour’s music at the new YMCA tent near the Vale of Health….So expeditiously were they served and waited upon by the voluntary lady workers that the whole function only occupied an hour..
And on 30th December 1916 it reported –
… that in the previous four month period over 20,000 dinners had been served in the YMCA marquee.
This was quite an achievement for the lady volunteers!
Night attack on Hampstead Heath
On 29th January 1916 the Hampstead and Highgate Express included the following report –
The opposing contingents of the National Volunteers from the Hornsey district were ranged against one another for the attack and defense of Hampstead Heath last Saturday night. Everyone was keen. A sharp lookout was being kept by the defenders for the least sign of the approach of the enemy, and any attempt to break through. Some skirmishing had taken place, and a few prisoners were captured. Everything was going well, and the attack was at its height when orders were given to cease operations and take the prisoners down to the YMCA marquee.
What had happened? Had this recently erected rendezvous for the use of troops been commandeered as the prison and the seat of judgment for the unfortunate attackers who had fallen into the hands of the defenders? If not why were they being sent to the YMCA marquee?
The distant sounds that were heard were like an army rejoicing over the spoils of victory, and the prisoners were wondering what awaited them. The nearer they got to the marquee the greater the number of soldiers hurrying forward. The moonlight revealed friend and foe making for the same centre until in the congestion at the entrance the prisoners lost themselves in the crowd. But what a change! Instead of a place of judgment it was a place of refreshment and entertainment – marquee lit, food, drink, music and singing. So much noise it was heard at Spaniards and the police came down to see what was happening.
After great fun the troops marched back to Hornsey and Wood Green.
- Why did so many men want to join up? Why was it important?
- Have a look at the posters on the first page. What messages do you think they were trying to give to men to encourage them to join up?
Chapter 1: ‘For King and country’ in ‘Wartime Camden: Life in Camden during the First and Second World Wars’, compiled by Valerie Hart and Lesley Marshall , published by London Borough of Camden Libraries Department
‘Conscription and Recruitment in WW1: did everyone want to be a hero’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYO-NuoXDVk with a musical accompaniment ‘I don’t want to be a hero’ ; this shows a lot of WW1 posters
- Commonwealth War Graves Commission http://www.cwgc.org/
- Imperial War Museum http://www.iwm.org.uk/
- Hampstead Heavies http://hampstead-heavies.com/index.html
- Recruitment WW1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUwm3-nhCV0
- Extracts from the Hampstead & Highgate Express, for the years 1914 to 1918
- Extracts from the Hampstead Parish Church Magazine for the years 1914 to 1918
- Adie, Kate (2013). Fighting on the Home Front. London: Hodder and Stoughton
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The Maori: People of the Land
Published in the Fall 2009 Issue of Canadian World Traveller
Text by Tom Koppel © 2009 (firstname.lastname@example.org)
Photos by Annie Palovcik
“Are we ready?” asks muscular Hone Mihaka, who stands in the bow of a fifty-foot-long ‘waka’, or Maori war canoe. His bare chest, shoulders, thighs and buttocks are covered in swirling blue-black tattooing. And he is wearing nothing but a fringed breach cloth, a big white fishhook pendant, and a bone ornament through one earlobe.
“Good,” he says, as his nine-year-old grandson Tani calls out a Maori chant. Hone, chief of his local clan, has been training Tani since infancy to be a future chief.
Six of us, all foreign visitors, begin to paddle, shouting out, “hey!” on each stroke. Tani says a prayer for a safe sojourn. The canoe moves slowly upstream on the Waitangi River near Paihia on New Zealand’s North Island.
We pass a village along the heavily wooded shore, where rows of cormorants perch like picket fences on high branches.
“The people have changed,” Hone says, “but the village remains the same. We are the guardians of this area, and we’ve been here for many, many centuries. Some call us Maori, but the people here – my grandson and I – are the ‘tangata whenua’. It means people of the land.”
Sacred Family Site
Soon we reach a small family ‘marae’, or sacred ancestral site, that Hone and Tani built to give canoe guests a sense of their people’s spiritual ways.
“My grandson will issue a challenge to one of you men,” Hone announces. “He’s going to be carrying a leaf. He’ll place it on the ground and use his weapon to point at one of the men. If he chooses you, make sure to maintain eye contact. So, look at the leaf with your peripheral vision and pick it up.”
The idea is to show that you are forthright and come in peace with honest motives.
Tani suddenly appears carrying a spear, which he points at me, and places the leaf on the ground. I fix my eyes on his while bending and retrieving the leaf. He backs away slowly and allows us to enter the ‘marae’.
Carved Father Image
We duck into a little thatched meeting house with wooden benches and full of decorative items: baskets of sea shells, wooden paddles, old photos, flags, kerosene lanterns, torches and antique rifles.
Dominating one end is a carved wooden statue representing Hone’s father, who died ten years ago.
It has an exaggerated forehead and nose, a fierce, intimidating expression and inlaid pearl-shell eyes. Deeply engraved tattoo lines cross his face. “Those tell the stories of his journey while he was alive,” Hone explains. “So, folks, this is a picture of my father.”
We sit down on the benches. Tani and Hone chant and sing, and Tani gives a brief speech acknowledging all the dead in his family.
Hone invites each of us to stand and say a few words about someone close to us who has died. My wife tells about her father, who came to Canada from Eastern Europe as a poor immigrant farmer. It is a moving experience.
Finally, we perform a ‘hongi’ with Tani. We press our noses and foreheads together for a few seconds, which means that we have bonded spiritually.
Leaving, we continue a short way up the river to a waterfall, and then turn back downstream to our starting point.
Another day, we visit the nearby park-like Waitangi Treaty Grounds, where in 1840 Britain and Maori chiefs signed an agreement defining colonial relations.
On display is a beautifully carved and painted 35.7 metre war canoe with high-carved ends that can carry 80 paddlers and 55 passengers. In a large, elegant meetinghouse stand carvings representing each of New Zealand’s 28 Maori tribes.
For over a week we tour areas of importance to Maori history and culture. One day, guide Phil Cross takes us north up a broad sand highway called 90-Mile Beach, showing us places where ancient Maori artefacts are eroding out of dunes overlooking the sea.
At Cape Reinga, the northernmost tip of New Zealand (or Aotearoa, “the land of the long white cloud”), legend says that the souls of the dead leave and return to their distant homeland, fabled Hawaiki.
We pass a tiny, odd-looking church of the Ratana religion, which combines Christianity with Maori political activism. Among its customs: money may not be brought inside.
Forest of Giant Trees
Heading south, at Waipoua we walk after dark with two young Maori through a forest of giant kauri trees to shine our flashlights on the largest one, ‘Tane Mahuta’ the Lord of the Forest, which is 51 metres tall and almost 14 metres in circumference.
Our guides sing a song to this colossus and tell us how it helped to create the world. Growing with great strength, it separated the sky from the earth, and let in the sunlight.
Maori Hot Springs
The central part of the North Island is a land of hot sulphurous geysers, where the Maori used the natural volcanic heat for cooking.
At Rotorua, we bathe in lakeside hot springs at the Polynesian Spa and attend an evening cultural show. The women do graceful dances, much like Hawaiian hula, while men dressed as warriors perform a ‘haka’, or traditional war dance, with violent movements, loud grunting chants, and grimacing faces.
At Lake Taupo, we meet Te Ori Paki, who hosts a program on the Maori TV channel and manages an open-air cultural “village” where steaming hot water, full of natural chemicals and colours, cascades down a series of beautiful terraces.
He shows us a wood sculpture depicting the volcanic gods of fire and takes us through a workshop where young Maori men learn traditional carving. Fine examples of their work line the region’s roads.
Near Napier, we clamber with clan chief Tipu Tareha up the steep Otatara pa, a knob-like grass-covered hill and ancient fortress, where his tribe could retreat in times of war, which were all too frequent.
He points out a deep defensive trench line about halfway to the top that was once reinforced with tall wooden palisades. Above that line are terraces where houses once stood and traces of pits where sweet potatoes were stored in case of a siege by enemy tribes.
After decades during the 20th century in which Maori language and culture were discouraged, especially in schools, both Paki and Tareha are leaders of a Maori cultural revival that began a generation ago and continues today.
But nowhere do we witness this revival as well as following our earlier river trip with Hone Mihaka and his grandson Tani. Hone takes us out sailing later that day on a friend’s trimaran to cruise the scenic Bay of Islands.
Young Tani is thrilled to take the wheel of the big boat in a stiff breeze, while Hone explains the meaning of his body’s tattoos.
His chest and shoulders are like a map of the North Island. Some designs depict specific rivers or a lake that has special importance for his tribe. Swirling, spiral lines define the curved shape of each buttock.
Generations: Past & Future
Later, Tani recites his genealogy as Hone translates. For each generation, Tani names the man who took a specific woman, and how they begat a particular son or daughter, who then married in turn.
This went back 30-odd generations, beginning long ago with the founding ancestor of their Ngapuhi tribe, a heroic figure named Rahiri.
Hone listens with pride. “Some day soon,” he says, “my grandson will speak for me at all major gatherings. Why? Because I’m preparing him for the future.
There are very few others here that are living the way he lives. Speaking Maori at home. Knowing the links to his most ancient ancestors. Having respect for tribal traditions and protocol. He’s the future of our people.”
Where to Stay
A good base from which to explore the Northland area is the Scenic Circle Hotel in Paihia on the beautiful Bay of Islands.
For the central North Island, try the Regal Palms Hotel in Rotorua.
While in Auckland, the Sky City Grand is a very elegant and centrally located hotel.
For information on the Waitangi River Waka Tours with Hone Mahaka:
For four-wheel drive tours of 90-mile beach with Phil Cross:
To see the great kauri trees with a Maori guide:
For the cultural village and hot springs-fed terraces near Lake Taupo:
For Otatara Pa touring near Hawkes Bay without a guide, visit: www.doc.govt.nz/conservation/historic/icon-sites/otatara-pa-hawkes-bay
For More Info about New Zealand:
Tourism New Zealand | <urn:uuid:94da2920-81bc-42a8-a8bd-913f96d70a41> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | http://worldtraveler.travel/australia-oceania/new-zealand-the-maori-people-of-the-land/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371803248.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20200407152449-20200407182949-00075.warc.gz | en | 0.94005 | 2,054 | 2.65625 | 3 |
All of the world’s cultures, no matter how different or distanced they are, share one thing in common – an aptitude for retelling the stories of their ancestors. Whether oral or written, with the emphasis on the former, stories shape the history of humankind and oftentimes carry meaningful messages for future generations, lessons in how to behave, live, and love. One such an example among a sea of others is Tirupati Balaji story.
Seen today, Tirupati might seem an ordinary Indian city, donning the rich spiritual and cultural heritage as if it were a lovely dress. In the state of Andhra Pradesh, Chittoor district, there’s a temple that, even though not entirely different than any other Devasthanam (divine abode) of India, still has millions of devotees flocking in from all over the country. Tirumala Venkateshwara Temple is perhaps one of the largest Vaishnavism temples in the world, and definitely, the most frequently visited one. The followers of Lord Vishnu, or Vaishnavas, make the pilgrimage to the temple in millions each year, bringing all sorts of offerings whose roots can be traced back to stories and legends of the past. Not only that, but it was also the richest temple in India, at least until they opened the vaults and antechambers of Padmanabhaswamy Temple and found the wealth hidden beneath.
The story of Tirupati Balaji gives an account of the events that preceded the construction of Tirumala Venkateshwara Temple. As you will soon find out (or already know), Indian stories, and those of other cultures alike, often find their oral and written tales to be mismatched. Various sources recount various details, but all of them begin and end more or less the same.
The story begins with Kali Yuga, or ‘era of strife and disorder’. In Hindu mythos, Yuga is an epoch consisting of four stages, with Kali Yuga beings the last one, almost completely deprived of all morality and spirituality.
Lord Brahma, one of the Trimurti (the holy trinity of supreme lords of Hinduism), had realized that humans are going to need divine help in order to overcome Kali Yuga, and so he sent Sage Narada to Earth where maha yagnam, or great sacrifice, was about to commence.
Alternative: In another version of the story, there’s no mention of Sage Narada nor Brahma. Instead, it is Sage Kashyapa who’s selecting of the other sages, or rishis, to invite one of the supreme lords of Trimurti to attend maha yagnam as the main guest. Regardless of the version of the story, it is Sage Bhrigu who is chosen for this occasion.
Narada challenges them to find the most supreme being of Trimurti, a task that rishis did not expect. Sage Bhrigu takes it upon himself to bring one of the gods to maha yagnam, as he possessed a third eye on the sole of his right foot, granting him access to other worlds.
First, he visits Satyaloka, the abode of mighty Lord Brahma. He introduces himself and asks Brahma to let him in on the ultimate knowledge, referring to Narada’s challenge. He utters the question three times, but he is not met with a response from Brahma who is listening to the divine music of his wife Saraswati. Angered at such indifference from one of the supreme gods, Sage Bhrigu curses Brahma to never have even a single follower on Earth.
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Then, he makes his way to Kailasha, where he finds the lord of that abode, Shiva, being locked in an ecstatic dance called Tandavam with Parvati. Again, he asks the god for knowledge three times, but he is met with silence. Now already enraged, Sage Bhrugu curses Shiva to forever be revered as nothing but a Lingam.
Finally, the sage reaches Vaikuntha, the celestial home of Lord Vishnu. He was accompanied by his female counterpart and consort Lakshmi. Bhrigu approached Vishnu and his wife, again giving them his name and asking for knowledge three times. As you can expect, Vishnu ignores him like all the others. Infuriated by how the gods have been treating him, Sage Bhrigu kicks Vishnu in the chest with his right foot. Acting all surprised and apologetic, Vishnu beseeches the sage to forgive him for ignoring him. He compassionately inquires about sage’s foot, pretending to worry about whether it got hurt and offered to massage it. When Sage Bhrigu agreed, Vishnu grabbed ahold of him by the foot, and then took out sage’s third eye by force! With the third eye now gone, Bhrigu’s egoism and anger seemed to dissipate as well, so he fell on his knees and asked the god for forgiveness, which he granted.
All the while, Goddess Lakshmi was observing this altercation. She was furious at Vishnu for forgiving the sage hitting him in the chest, as the chest is where she lived. Taking it is as a sign of utmost disrespect for her, Lakshmi leaves Vaikuntha. Vishnu leaves his abode as well, trying to find her.
The Search for Lakshmi
Lord Vishnu scoured the Earth in the form of Srinivasa, trying to find his wife, Lakshmi, but to no avail.
Finally, he had reached Tirumala hills near Tirupati and there, he sat down in a shade to meditate, with Lakshmi’s name on his lips. He had been meditating for so long, that an ant hill started forming around him. Seeing these events unfold, Brahma and Shiva decided to help him, so they transformed into a cow and calf respectively. They joined a local herd of cows and stopped by the ant hill each day so that Brahma can deposit the milk of its udders down the ant hill and into Vishnu’s mouth.
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However, it wasn’t long before cow-herder realized that one of the cows never gave any milk. He followed the cow and witnessed it pouring all the milk down the anthill. Angre overcame him, and so he tossed his axe at the cow. Suddenly, Vishnu burst out of the ground to protect the cow (Brahma) and the axe struck his forehead. Seeing that he hurled an axe at a deity, the cow-herder fell dead.
Alternative: In a slightly different story, Vishnu forgives the man for this unspeakable act, but that version leaves the recount of a Chola king that is now to follow.
Vishnu’s blood sprayed the cow, which then made its way to the king of Cholas. Brahma, still in the shape of a cow, led the king to the place where Vishnu was. Cursing him as the man responsible for his cow-herder’s crime, Vishnu turned the Chola king into a Rakshasa, a demon. The king begged forgiveness, which Vishnu promised to grant only if the king gives him a crown in his next life.
After this event, the king was eventually reincarnated as Akasa Raja.
Srinivasa and Padmavathi
Wounded and bleeding, Srinivasa sought shelter in the forest, where a woman instantly recognized him.
Vakula Devi was a reincarnation of Yasoda, Lord Krishna’s foster mother. She realized that Srinivasa was her son, and gave him motherly love and protection. While Vishnu was incarnated as Krishna, he didn’t marry and had no children. He promised to Yasoda that he would do so in the next life. Vakula Devi remembered this promise and hoped Srinivasa would fulfill it.
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One day, Srinivasa was hunting an elephant and chased it all the way to palace gardens of Akasa Raja. There, the elephant came across Padmavathi, adopted daughter of Akasa Raja, frightening her horribly. Srinivasa used his divine power to tame the elephant and send him away, saving the girl. They immediately fell in love, and Srinivasa had forgotten all about Lakshmi. He sent his mother, Vakula Devi, to talk to Akasa Raja and ask for his daughter’s hand. But before she appeared at his court, Srinivasa took the form of a Yerukala Sani, a soothsayer. He came to Akasa Raja and let him know that Srinivasa is actually Vishnu and thus improved his odds quite a bit.
Naturally, Akasa Raja said yes and gave his crown as one of the wedding gifts. Thus, his soul was free from the demonic curse.
Since Srinivasa and his mother had no money, he asked the Hindu deity of wealth named Kubera for a loan. Kubera was more than happy to provide, but he demanded that the loan be returned with interest. Until Vishnu’s debt was repaid, he wouldn’t be able to return to Vaikuntha, his celestial abode. Srinivasa and Padmavathi were able to have the grandest of weddings, attended by all the gods and goddesses.
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After some 6 months since the wedding, Sage Narada brought the news of this event to Goddess Lakshmi.
Not believing a word of it, she went to see for herself. After confronting the two of them, Lakshmi and Padmavathi began quarreling. At the sight of two women fighting and squabbling, Srinivasa turned into a granite rock in front of their very eyes, thus becoming Venkateshwara, or ‘Lord of the Hill’. Brahma and Shiva appeared to explain that this was all a part of the grander plan, the plan for Vishnu to remain on Earth and guide the people through the turmoil of Kali Yuga. Hearing this, Lakshmi and Padmavathi both decided to remain at his side, becoming stone idols. Lakshmi sits at his left, while Padmavathi is at his right side of the chest.
After some time, Tondaman, a reincarnation of Randagasa who was a loyal devotee of Vishnu, was passing by the place where Venkateshwara was and saw a vision of Lord Vishnu. When he inherited the kingdom from his father, Tondaman raised the temple at that place, the very temple that we now know as Tirumala Venkateshwara Temple.
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So, where does Tirupati Balaji come into place? Put simply, Balaji is yet another name for Vishnu, or Srinivasa, or Venkateshwara. This is quite common in Hindu texts, so we could have as well referred to him as Lord Balaji all this time.
One of the legends says that Vishnu would appear as a little boy to a man who wanted to commit suicide. Bal, or balak, is a word for ‘boy’ while ‘ji’ is a suffix denoting respect in Hindi. Another story tells of a symbol on the granite statue’s forehead washing away, leaving only the symbol that women usually draw on their foreheads. In Sanskrit, ‘bala’ means ‘woman’, hence – Tirupati Balaji story. Story of a woman, or boy, in Tirupati where the Balaji Temple is located.
Visits to the Temple
As we’ve established before, Lord Vishnu is indebted to Kubera for frontloading the gold that was needed to have the wedding.
Today, millions of devotees come to the temple and leave offerings to help Vishnu pay his debt off. At one point, people of Bangalore wanted to determine how much money was Kubera still owed so that they could repay him! They also sometimes leave strands of hair to honor the woman that helped Vishnu when he appeared as a child. However, it’s not just Vaishnavas that come here.
Tourists from all over the world come to see the marvels of the Balaji Temple, as it’s structurally and stylistically quite imposing. There are three Dwarams or entrances that lead to sanctum sanctorum. Above the temple, there’s a magnificent white Gopuram that appears to be touching the sky. In sanctum sanctorum, you’ll find the protagonist of Tirupati Balaji story – Venkateshwara. Surrounded by five smaller deities, the lavish statue of Vishnu features the two loving goddesses on each side of his chest.
There are many legends that walk hand in hand with the statue of Vishnu to this day, so if you plan on visiting, make sure to get a guide who will tell you all about this sweating (yes, sweating) god who is resistant to chemical treatments.
But, the temple is not the only reason to visit Tirupati. Less than a mile from it, there is a natural wonder known as Silathoranam. This rocky arch is 26 feet wide and 9 feet tall and considered to be one of the 26 geological monuments of India.
This story won’t really have an end until the end of Kali Yuga when Vishnu reincarnates again and destroys the world. If you aim to visit the temple and appease the god of end times, bathe yourselves in Pushkarini River just as his loyal servant Randagasa did, and Lord Balaji might just appear before your eyes! | <urn:uuid:a985a8d1-1e5d-49c0-b19d-49f9353c4352> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://trulytraveled.com/travel-destinations/trip-ideas/tirupati-balaji-story/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370493684.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20200329015008-20200329045008-00394.warc.gz | en | 0.974086 | 2,930 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Two thousand years ago, Mary had a baby. We can relate a few historical facts about both mother and child, but very few. Then there is the theologizing about Jesus and Mary that has taken place over the centuries—lots of words and ideas. Add to that the sentimental and devotional practices that surround both, and we have what very possibly could be a truly confusing mess. As the king in The King and I stated so well, “’tis a puzzlement.”
In his apostolic exhortation Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Pope Paul VI speaks of the singular dignity of Mary as being “Mother of the Son of God, and therefore beloved daughter of the Father and Temple of the Holy Spirit” (p. 46). In this, she is “far greater than any other creature on earth or in heaven.” And yet, Mary herself claims her own nothingness in her Magnificat: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”
Mary’s greatness lies in her willingness to continue to bring Jesus to the world. She doesn't draw attention to herself, but to him. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church notes, “What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ” (487).
With these principles in mind, let’s look at a few of our beliefs and see what they tell us.
A Few Marian Beliefs
Mary as mediator. The Scriptures tell us that God chooses to shower his many gifts upon us through the mediation of others. We see this most clearly in the scriptural statements that Moses and the prophets mediated God’s word; and that the angels were often God’s messengers. We also see it clearly in creation, in the sacraments, and in the fact that our parents and teachers were highly instrumental in our coming to know Jesus. In his first letter to Timothy, Saint Paul says that Jesus is the “one mediator” between God and us. Jesus is the one in the sense of primary, not the exclusive, mediator (I Tm 2:5). That is why, in the next few verses of that same letter, Paul urges us to pray for others. Prayer is a form of mediation. We are all mediators in our own way, but Christ is the mediator in whose role he allows us to share.
It stands to reason that Mary, the perfect disciple, would be a major mediator of her son’s gifts. The gifts are given by Jesus through Mary. We see this exemplified when Mary went to visit Elizabeth. It is Mary’s son, whom she carries in her womb and makes present to Elizabeth, who causes John the Baptist to leap for joy and Elizabeth to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Mary mediates their coming together, but it is Jesus who brings the gift of joy and the Spirit (cf. Lk 1:39-45). So the doctrine of Mary as mediator not only speaks of Mary’s loving care for us, her children, but also of the generosity of her son, Jesus, in sharing his role and gifts with us.
Mary as mother. One of Mary’s titles is Theotokos (God-bearer), which is often translated “Mother of God.” This is a doctrinal statement that Mary is the one who gave human birth (and human nature) to God the Son. Thus, we speak of her divine motherhood, not meaning that she existed before God and gave birth to the Trinity, but that she was the one who gave human birth to God the Son in time.
In saying her “yes” to God through the angel Gabriel, Mary consented to this role and thus conceived her child. But this doctrine of Mary’s motherhood was not the result of independent thinking about Mary. It emerged while various councils discussed the natures of Jesus and tried to clarify what it means to say that he is both human and divine. In effect, the doctrine speaks to the reality of Jesus as the God-man by emphasizing the role that Mary played in giving him human birth. Thus, Theotokos speaks of our understanding of Jesus and Mary’s involvement in his becoming human.
We also believe that Mary is our mother. This belief implies not only an awareness of the Incarnation—God sharing in our human nature and, thus, being our fellow human being—but also an appreciation of what Jesus did from the cross as he was dying. Saint John tells us that seeing his mother along with the disciple whom Jesus loved (presumably Saint John himself) Jesus said; “Woman, behold your Son. Then he said to the disciple, Behold your mother” (Jn 26-27).
Jesus was seeing to it that his mother would be taken care of after his death, but there was a great deal more at stake here. By this statement, Jesus emptied himself of that very intimate relationship between himself and his mother, which he had known and relished all his life. In one last gesture of love, Jesus gave up his exclusive relationship with Mary and shared her with us. Jesus gave his mother to be our mother. Thus, calling Mary our mother not only speaks of Mary’s maternal love for each of us, but also of Jesus’ total self-sacrifice on our behalf.
Mary as the new Eve. Here we have an example of what might be called theology by analogy. It’s a technique often used by the early Church preachers and writers. Saint Irenaeus, for example, used it to communicate a truth about Mary and Jesus by contrasting their behavior with those who are considered historical figures in the Bible, Adam and Eve.
But, as we know, some aspects of an analogy do not follow logically (otherwise we would have an identity instead of an analogy). So the identification of Mary with Eve—and of Jesus with Adam—is not a perfect fit. For instance, Eve is seen as the physical mother of all mankind; Mary is our mother because she gave birth to Jesus, our brother, and was given to us by Jesus on the cross.
But Saint Irenaeus used this analogy to speak of how one virgin corrected the activity of another, how Mary’s faithful obedience counteracted Eve’s unfaithful disobedience. His thinking was based on Saint Paul’s statements in Rom 5:19 and I Cor 15:45 in which Saint Paul compared Jesus with Adam (cf. Against Heresies). Here we have a doctrine about Mary that clearly flows from our understanding of Jesus.
Two Key Doctrines Related to the Church
When we look at the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary, we add yet another connection to our doctrines about Mary—the Church (us). These two doctrines are a little different from the previous ones in that they are not found directly in the Scriptures, but flow logically from what we find there.
On December 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX formally confirmed the faith of the people of God in Mary’s Immaculate Conception and defined as a doctrine the fact that Mary “in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin." Simply stated, this means that the disorder that we know as original sin never was a part of Mary and, as a result, she remained sinless her whole life. This, of course, did not mean that she was preserved from the effects of original sin for we know that she endured great suffering in her life.
It’s important to note that Pope Pius IX stated that it was “by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race” that this gift was granted to Mary. Mary did not earn it or deserve it, but it was granted to her as gift. It was God’s way of preparing her for her life’s mission as mother of Jesus, his Son. As the great Franciscan doctor John Duns Scotus argued: Potuit, decuit, ergo fecit (it was possible, it was fitting, therefore God did it).
This doctrine not only says a great deal about Jesus and his role as savior of the human race, but also about what the Church teaches concerning the Sacrament of Baptism. The gift given to Mary is similar to the gift given to each of us at Baptism—the ability to overcome sin. While we may not be as successful in avoiding sin as was Mary, nevertheless she is our hope and our model as baptized Christians.
The notion of Mary being assumed into heaven body and soul—defined by Pope Pius XII on November 1, 1950—is a long-standing belief among the faithful dating back to the early centuries of the Church. It emphasizes the close relationship of Jesus with his mother in the life to come as well as here on earth, for death is not the end of love relationships, but their purification.
This glorified state, in which Mary presently participates to the full, will be ours after the resurrection of the dead. In this, Mary models what the Church desires and hopes to be.
Simple Mother, Profound Model
Marian doctrine can seem a little dry and esoteric when wrapped in theological and historical terms. But it speaks about a very practical reality—the love of a mother and her divine son and their love for us. Perhaps we find ourselves lost in all that theological talk, but I hope this look helps us see the human being beneath that talk and discover the simple mother who is always leading us to her son and a profound model of what it means to be church. | <urn:uuid:9988256f-a9c6-46fd-b1a2-102d2164b7ee> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://blog.franciscanmedia.org/franciscan-spirit/mary-our-path-to-jesus | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370510287.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20200403030659-20200403060659-00115.warc.gz | en | 0.978361 | 2,073 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Flashcards in HLA Immunogenetics: Strength In Numbers Deck (52):
On what chromosome are the HLA (MHC) genes located?
How many base pairs are there?
How many loci are there?
3.6 million bps
150 loci (half are immune related)
What does it mean that HLA is polygenic?
Multiple genes encode the structure
HLA-I has HLA-A, HLA-B, HLA-C loci
HLA-II has HLA-DQ(ab) HLA-DR(ab) and HLA-DP(ab)
Where is the gene encoding the HLA-I light chain located?
Where are the CD1 genes located?
B2m is on chromosome 15
CD1 is on chromosome 1
Which sub-loci of HLA-II can have 2 B loci?
HLA-DR can have two B loci and one A
(although technically the number of DQ and DP loci are also variable for B)
Where are the genes from proteins involved in the processing and presentation of antigens for HLA-I and HLA-II (like TAP and DM) located?
They are also located on chromosome 6 amongst the genes for class 2 HLA (DQ, DP, DR)
The HLA complex has loci for innate and adaptive immune functions. What are some of these loci?
1. Complement function (class III)
2. Antigen processing and presentation (TAP)
3. HLA-II antigens (DM)
4. NK receptor
5. HLA-E,F,G and MIC-A, MIC-B (non-classical class 1)
6. cytokine genes (TNF)
What is linkage disequilibrium?
non-random association of alleles at two or more loci which impact an organism's fitness
How have MHC systems evolved to deal with subversion of pathogens that have mutated to avoid HLA groove binding?
What is polygeny?
Each MHC on chromosome 6 contains multiple class 1 and class 2 genes to allow hosts to bind a larger repertoire of microbial proteins
What is meant by polymorphism?
there are multiple variants of each gene within the population (multiple alleles) at the same locus
Which loci of HLA-I is the most polymorphic?
HLA-B has the highest number of different complexes
Which loci of HLA-II is the most polymorphic (most number of alleles worldwide)?
HLA-DQ when you multiple the allelic possibilities for a and b
In addition to the incredible diversity from the polygeny and polymorphism of the MHC complex, what else contributes to the population diversity?
The HLA alleles are expressed codominantly so in heterozygotes both alleles at each locus are expressed
Why are the majority of individuals in a population heterozygous for genes encoding HLA-I and HLA-II proteins?
Because there are an enormous number of alleles for each locus (except for DRA) so there is a high likelihood that their parents had different alleles
What does it mean that HLA-II heterozygous complexes can be "cis" or "trans"?
"Cis"- ab products from polygeny
"trans" a from one chromosome binds to the b from the other 6 chromosome to form an even greater number of heterozygous combinations
What nomenclature would you use if you were referring to the HLA protein dimer in serum?
What nomenclature would you use if you were referring to the single chain gene alleles of the DNA of HLA-II?
How many known alleles are there for HLA-I loci?
How many known alleles are there for HLA-II genes?
Which is more polymorphic, HLA-II A or B?
What is a haplotype?
The combination of class I and class II alleles present on a single chromosome ("cis")
How are HLA complexes passed from parent to child?
The haplotype of class 1 and 2 genes is passed down as a single unit
Mendelian inheritance applies.
HLA matching is crucial for bone marrow transplantation. Who is the best match?
Siblings are the most compatible donors (1/4 chance they have the same HLA molecules)
Parents are not likely to share both HLA haplotypes with a child due to the high polymorphism.
Variability plots show that the genetic polymorphism localizes mainly to where?
DNA sequences for the a1 and b1 domains of the HLA-II molecule and a1, a2 domains of the HLA-I molecule because these make the peptide binding groove.
What is the heterozygote advantage?
The more HLA variants one has, the higher the person's fitness if there is balancing selection (no 1 HLA confers advantage or detriment). This is because since HLA are codominantly expressed, the more antigens the HLA can bind
The more __________________ the haplotypes of the parent, the more antigens the offsprings HLA will be able to bind.
What is the difference between balancing and directional selection?
Balancing is where no particular gene confers advantage against a pathogen. (heterozygores are better to phase these situations because they can recognize a larger range of pathogens).
Directional selection is when one particular gene confers advantage over the others and allele frequency shifts toward that particular gene
What accounts for the rapid emergence of new HLA variants in order to bind mutating microbes?
gene duplication, point mutations, gene conversion events
What is the difference between interallelic conversion and gene conversion?
Interallelic conversion involves the exchange of alleles of the same gene
Gene conversion involves looping of DNA and the exchange of alleles of different genes
What gene predisposes people to Ankylosing Spondilosis? Where is this gene most common?
What is this the reverse of? (making us think selectivity for an allele fighting this pathogen may have purged the allele for AS)
HLA-B27 is most common further from the equator.
This is the opposite of malaria so most likely an HLA-B that confers malarial resistance is more common than HLA-B27 near the equator
What factors shape the geographical distribution of HLA alleles?
1. influx of HLA and non-HLA gene pools via migration of people
2. local pathogenic pressures (kill out "bad" alleles)
3. other selection processes (effect of HLA allele on reproductive success
What does it mean that HLA-B27 has a high relative risk for Ankylosing spondylosis?
People that have HLA-B27 are still not likely to get AS (5%), but people that have AS are VERY likely to have HLA-B27 (95%).
This shows that HLA-B27 allele probably is a contributing factor, but is not sufficient to cause the disease.
Almost all people for narcolepy have what HLA allele?
What has it been difficult to demonstrate that disorders linked to HLA are actually brought about by peptides binding to unique HLA alleles?
1. linkage disequilibrium which misidentifies the causative HLA gene
2. HLA loci are involved in cis and trans
3. HLA is not causative but amplifies phenotype
Why do we care about the HLA linkage to certain diseases?
1. aid in diagnosis
2. delineating the pathogenesis of these conditions
What HLA genes are associated with diabetes (type 1) and celiacs?
DQ2 and DQ8
What is Celiac Disease (CD)?
pathological immune response to gluten in wheat rye and barley that causes inflammation in the small intestine
What is the HLA gene that contributes to CD? What percent of the caucasian population has this gene? What percent of people actually get CD?
HLA-DQ2 is in 25% of the Caucasian population but only 4% develop CD so there are other genes/factors that contribute to susceptiblity
What HLA genes are HLA-DQ2 frequently encoded with?
HLA-DQ2 is on the highly conserved haplotype 8.1 with B8 and DR3.
CD is also associated with HLA-DQ8 but to a lesser extent.
What peptide combination and gene dosage gives the worst CD?
DQ2/DQ8 together in trans or homozygous individuals for these alleles
What peptides can the HLA-DQ2 groove bind?
Gliadin peptides (proline rich gluten epitopes)
When gliadin peptides from gluten bind HLA-DQ2 what happens?
CD4 T cells make IFN gamma which can be cytotoxic to epithelial cells in the small intestine
Is CD an autoimmune disorder?
No because gluten is not a component of the host cell. It is more of an inflammatory disease
What enzyme modifies the peptides in gluten so that they can bind HLA-DQ2?
When gliadin in the HLA-DQ2 molecule activates a CD4 T cell, what happens?
1. The activated T cell kills epithelial cells by binding Fas receptor.
2. The T cell secretes IFN gamma which activates the epithelial cell
How does gluten also affect class I like molecules?
IFNgamma released from the T cell stimulates MICA and MICB which activate intraepithelial T lymphocytes (IEL) via NKG2D receptors which kill the epithelium
What is type 1 diabetes?
the autoimmune destruction of insulin-secreting B- pancreatic islets of Langerhans
What HLA peptide is associated with T1D?
DQ8 (and a little bit DQ2)
What is the most likely autoantigen that binds DQ8/DQ2 in T1D?
Who has the highest risk for developing type 1 diabetes?1
DQ8/DQ2 heterozygotes have a higher risk of disease (so trans heterodimer individuals)
What haplotype linkage disequilibrium has the strongest T1D risk?
DR3-DR2 and DQ8-DR4 haplotypes | <urn:uuid:f5dc7423-0579-4695-a343-aae193823f10> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.brainscape.com/flashcards/hla-immunogenetics-strength-in-numbers-836903/packs/1542769 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371805747.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20200407183818-20200407214318-00515.warc.gz | en | 0.89159 | 2,218 | 3.421875 | 3 |
At the Bisley rifle meeting in England last year, great interest was centered in a new type of target that has been invented by Lieut.-Col. George A. Peters of the Ninth Toronto Light Horse for the automatic indication by electrical agency of the effect of shots. This apparatus has been designed for the purpose of securing an immediate and accurate record of the shot fired, dispensing with the necessity and cost of constructing a mantelet for the protection of the markers, and also with the attendance of markers, two of whom are ordinarily required in the operation of the usual balanced type of target. In this self-registering electric target there is a face-plate of solid steel which, through the agency of certain mechanical devices distributed over its posterior surface, is capable of responding in sections. When a bullet strikes any part of the target, the corresponding unit behind the plate is set in operation, in such a way that an electric circuit is closed, and a disk on the corresponding part of an indicator or annunciator, similar to that employed in connection with electric bells, is exposed at the firing point. The apparatus illustrated in the accompanying engravings is designed for use in indoor or miniature ranges, but the principle of design and the operation are precisely the same as in those for use on outdoor ranges. The main framework of the target is composed of a pair of substantial upright standards connected by cross-beams, and furnished with bases which are firmly bolted to a square horizontal platform of heavy timber. In the case of those adapted to miniature range practice, as illustrated, the target is carried upon a heavy iron pedestal. The target itself is swung upon the standards by means of a rocking frame, the front arms of which are mounted on pivots near the four corners of the plate. The rocking frame is designed upon the principle of a parallel ruler or a system of parallel motion levers by means of which the plate as a whole can be raised and lowered in the direction of the arc of a circle having a radius equal to the length of the anterior arms of the rocking frame this length is also equal to the radial length of the hammers without altering the vertical position of the frame. By this means the plate may be brought nearer to or removed farther from the back plate supporting the hammers without disturbing the vertical position. The presence of the rocking frame enables the target to be made adjustable as regards sensitiveness for various ranges, weights, and velocities of different ammunition, while it is also through the movement of this section that the working integrity of all parts of the target may be tested. The target plate is constructed of three layers of chrome steel, alternately hard and soft, as adopted in the laminated construction of burglar-proof safes. When the range exceeds 100 yards, but little impression upon its surface is made by the bullets. The plate supporting the moving hammers is composed of mild steel about % inch in thickness, and is rigidly bolted to the cross-beams between the standards. It is pierced by a series of oblong slots for the reception of the hammers, which are supported by pairs of lugs or brackets obtained by simply bending up the strips of plate from the sides of the slot. The number of hammers adopted varies according to the size of the target. The target required for indoor or miniature range practice is only 15 inches in diameter and 37 hammers are employed, while in a target 4 feet in diameter 61 hammers are required. The hammers are placed in concentric circles about the central hammer, which corresponds to the "bull's eye," there being 6 hammers in the "inner" circle, 12 in the "magpie" circle, 18 in the "outer" circle, and an additional circle of 24 outside of these which are grouped for working purposes with the hammers of the "outer" circle. In a 6-foot target for use at 500, 600, and 800 yards, respectively, which is the largest yet made, and which has recently been installed at the Toronto Rifle Ranges, the same number of hammers as in the 4-foot target is utilized, the hammers being placed farther apart. Each hammer is supported upon the back plate by a pivot which passes horizontally through it near its rear extremity, and rests simply by its own weight upon the lugs or brackets already described. Thus each hammer can easily and readily be removed by hand when required for examination or repair. The opposite end of each hammer is provided with a rounded head, and this rests normally against the rear face of the target plate. The backward motion of the hammer, however, is regulated by means of a shoulder which insures that the center of gravity of the hammer piece is always in front of Its supporting pivot, so that after being driven backward by the impact of the bullet striking the target plate it immediately falls back into its normal position against the target plate. The end of the hammer projecting beyond the point where it is pivoted Is provided with a tall or spur which projects almost vertically upward, when the hammer is In the normal position. When, however, the hammer is forced backward by the Impact of the bullet, this spur moves In a circular direction bacK-ward and establishes sliding electrical contact, with a slender Insulated brass spring connected by wire with the annunciator. This contact continues through a length of time corresponding to the end of the rearward movement of the hammer, and also to the beginning of its return movement It will thus be seen that a length of contact is obtained which Is considerably in excess of that required to cause the corresponding indicator upon the annunciator to drop. One of the leads of the electric cable is soldered to each brass contact, while earthing is obtained by soldering the wire to some portion of the supporting plate, thereby forming a complete electrical circuit broken only between the hammer spurs and their respective brass springs. The battery Is located at the annunciator end of the cable. When one hammer or more is moved and an electrical connection established, the corresponding magnet or magnets on the annunciator are energized and the indicator or ind'-cators fall, recording the result of the shot fired. The annunciator is constructed of galvanized iron with a weather-proof case and Incloses a number of electro-magnets arranged in concentric circles to conform to the arrangement of the hammers of the target. Each of the electro-magnets when energized operates a very simple form of corresponding gravity drop. The groups of indicators in the respective rings carry the customary scoring numbers. The annunciator is equipped with a restoring mechanism which is operated by a strong magnet, so that after the drop or drops have fallen, the simple pressing of a button resets the apparatus. When a bullet strikes the plate, no appreciable movement of the whole results from the Impact, but the Impact sets up a bulging over a certain circumscribed area, around the point where the missile strikes. Should this point be immediately opposite one of the hammers, that hammer only will be forced backward. At the same time It is obvious that the area to which any hammer will respond will be circular in outline, and it is equally obvious that the disposition of the hammers must be such that the circular areas must overlap one another, so that no dead spaces are I ft, which would be irresponsive to the impact of the bullet. Therefore, should the bullet strike the target in the space where two hammer areas overlap, both corresponding hammers will be affected and driven back, and their corresponding indicators on the annunciator will fall. Similar results will attend the striking of the target at those places where three and even four fields of Influence overlap, so that it is possible for four indicators to be exposed as the result of one shot. At first sight this circumstance might appear to militate against the utility of the apparatus for scoring purposes, but as a matter of fact It assists appreciably in the localization of the shot. For Instance, in a target having 37 hammers, if It were required that each shot should be responded to by the fall of one drop only, then there could be only 37 points of localization; but when It Is remembered that the location of each shot is approximately opposite the hammer when only one drop falls, and In the case of the bullet hitting the target mid-way between two hammers when two indicators fall, and so on with three and four drops, the number of points of localization becomes considerably Increased, aggregating over 150 different points. The degree of accuracy of localization by means of this apparatus will be readily appreciated when It Is remembered that In regard to the "bull's eye" alone there are thirteen different localizations that can be automatically indicated in the circular area 7 inches in diameter at a range of 200 yards. Ricocheting shots, which often enter into the scoring with the canvas targets, are with this apparatus eliminated, since they have not sufiBcIent momentum when finally striking the target to force the hammer back far enough to make the necessary electrical contact. At the present time, all "bull's eyes" are placed on an even basis in scoring, and In rifle competitions "ties" often result, simply because there is no fair way of discriminating between the marksman who strikes the dead center of the "bull's eye" and the one who strikes it upon the circumference of its area. With this apparatus, however, it is quite easy to make such distinctions with perfect fairness. Owing to the overlapping of the respective fields of influence, Instead of there being only four zones corresponding to "bull's eye," "Inner," "magpie," and "outer," respectively, there are seven distinct fields. Upon rifle ranges where a series of targets may be required, each target Is provided with its own annunciator at the firing line, but a cable with a single set of wires will suffice for an unlimited number of targets, provided there are as many wires in the cable as there are hammers or groups of hammers in any one target, besides a ground wire for each target. Thus a range having 10 targets and 37 hammers upon each would require a cable with 47 wires. This equipment would enable all the targets being in operation at the same time without any possibility of one interfering with the other, since it Is apparent that each annunciator will only respond when the circuit is completed through its own ground wire. For protecting the cable from stray bullets It should be burled at a depth of about 8 inches.
This article was originally published with the title "The Peters Self-Registering Electric Target for Rifle Ranges" in Scientific American 97, 22, 395-396 (November 1907) | <urn:uuid:66644ade-350a-4b50-b577-77fca14aab89> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-peters-self-registering-electri/?error=cookies_not_supported&code=83e0cf3d-a151-4e41-a4e2-59ff25337ea0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370506477.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20200401223807-20200402013807-00155.warc.gz | en | 0.952152 | 2,166 | 3.046875 | 3 |
The Green in this spiritual portrait represents Alexander Hamilton's dominant personality trait, his rationality. In Extraverts, the dominant trait is directed outwardly, and spiritual portraits use a long vertical line to represent this, because it is the side of their personality that is most evident. He demonstrated this trait when he used logic to write pamphlets explaining his position on controversial issues, such as the assumption of state debts by the federal government for the Revolutionary War.
The Yellow in this spiritual portrait represents Alexander Hamilton's auxiliary personality trait, his realistic outlook. In Extraverts, the auxiliary trait is directed inwardly, and spiritual portraits use a horizontal line to represent this. He demonstrated this trait in his ongoing insistence that America needed a strong military to protect its borders and presence on the seas.
Founding Father and First Secretary of the Treasury of the USA — Sep. 11, 1789 to Jan. 31, 1795
Alexander Hamilton was born on January 11 of either 1755 or 1757, in Charlestown, the capital of the island of Nevis in the Caribbean Sea. Although no one is sure which year he was born, it is certain he was ....
Although no one is sure which year he was born, it is certain he was illegitimate, the youngest of the seven
key Founding Fathers, and the only one of that group who was born outside of the Thirteen Colonies.
Hamilton, the Decision Maker
Because his parents were unmarried, Alexander Hamilton and his brother James were unable to attend school at the Church of England. He supplemented the tutoring he received at a private school with reading his family's books.
Still a teenager, Hamilton came to America in 1772 and, after a year or so, began studying at King's College (now Columbia) in New York City. He was exposed to and soon joined the patriots' revolutionary cause, and served as one of Washington's aides de camp for four years.
The decisiveness that Alexander Hamilton developed during his youth — represented by the vast amount of Green in his spiritual portrait — served him well during the war, giving him courage and conviction. After the war, his strong will and keen reasoning ability led him to pursue a career in law.
The Inevitable Push-Back
Even as a young man, Hamilton did not find as much satisfaction in his law career. He became interested in the politics of the new nation, and his father-in-law Philip Schuyler chose him to represent New York in the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
Anyone who has ever been among decisive people, whether it be on a playground or in a board room, can certainly confirm
Publius's observation in Federalist No. 70:
Men often oppose a thing, merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
— Alexander Hamilton, as Publius in Federalist No. 70, The Executive Department Further Considered, March 18, 1788.
These publications are sometimes mistakenly thought to be Hamilton's alone, because he initiated and managed the series. Ultimately Madison wrote 29 and Jay penned just 5, while the decisive and ambitious Alexander wrote 51 of them.
Hamilton, the Realist
Alexander Hamilton's experiences in the Revolutionary War were a driving force behind his desire for a strong Federal Government. As Washington's aide, he had seen first hand how the lack of essential supplies — food, weapons, uniforms, and even pay for the soldiers — dangerously hampered the war effort.
With Shay's Rebellion in 1786 and 1787, America had already experienced a militant uprising that threatened the lives of law-abiding citizens. However, in the years following the Revolutionary War the country's standing army was miniscule. And with no codified way to repay lingering debt for the war, Hamilton knew it would be very difficult to find new recruits.
Alexander Hamilton's prevailing realism — represented by the Yellow in his spiritual portrait — contrasts quite strongly with the idealism of Thomas Jefferson. Where Jefferson, who lived in the Virginia countryside, envisioned a rural, agrarian society, Hamilton, who lived on the island of Manhattan in New York City, foresaw large, bustling cities.
Hamilton's and Jefferson's different attitudes are especially evident with regards to the idea of a standing army:
Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.
— Alexander Hamilton, as Publius in Federalist No. 34, The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation, January 4, 1788.
While Jefferson thought the United States could remain neutral without a standing military, Hamilton knew this idea was dangerously unrealistic.
Hamilton, the Meta-President
Alexander Hamilton was never president. This is due to a number of reasons, including being illegitimate and foreign-born, his relatively young age, and his unfortunate involvement in the infamous Maria Reynolds scandal.
Alexander Hamilton could rightly be called a meta-president, though:
- As a member of the Constitutional Convention he had a role in creating and defining the presidency.
- His Federalist No. 70, The Executive Department Further Considered, outlines the specific duties of the president in considerable detail.
- As someone with a considerable amount of pull with the presidential electors, he could make or break candidates in the first few elections.
No one dared oppose George Washington in the first two Presidential elections in 1788 and 1792. So those two terms were a done deal, and to this date, Washington has been the only president who did not belong to a political party.
However, when Washington refused to run for a third term, Hamilton worked behind the scenes to help John Adams get elected in 1796. Hamilton also helped Thomas Jefferson get elected President in 1800.
While he lived, Alexander Hamilton was more than a president, he was a meta-president.
A Complicated Assumption
State governments were frequently forced to fund the Revolutionary War with notes that were essentially I.O.U.s. Some people — such as farmers who were formerly soldiers and needed to buy seeds, for example — had sold their notes to speculators, often for mere cents on the dollar. And some states, such as Virginia and North Carolina, had paid off most of this debt, while other states, such as Massachusetts and South Carolina, had heavy debts left yet to pay.
Figuring out a way to make everyone happy in this situation was problematic:
- Should the federal government assume the states' debts — rewarding the states that still had massive debts at the expense of the more conscientious ones?
- Should the I.O.U.s be paid off at full face value — rewarding the speculators at the expense of people like the hard-working farmer-soldiers?
Hamilton believed the answer to both questions was
Yes, and as the nation's first Secretary of the Treasury, his opinions mattered more than anyone else's. He set forth the facts and his reasoning about them in the First Report on the Public Credit, and delivered the 40,000 word document to Congress on January 9, 1790.
Alexander Hamilton's Report on the Public Credit, presented to Congress in January of 1790, got a lot of push-back. A stalemate resulted, with House Representative James Madison and Washington's new Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson leading the opposition.
Just a few years prior to this, Hamilton had bemoaned the creation of political parties, and the difficulty inherent in trying to change people's opinions, once they've been formed:
[N]othing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has, at all times, characterized political parties. In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.
— Alexander Hamilton, as Publius in Federalist No. 1, General Introduction, October 27, 1787.
The stalemate over assumption ended on June 20, 1790, when Alexander Hamilton sat down to dinner with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and to discuss the situation. During this famous conversation, Jefferson and Madison agreed to acquiesce on the assumption of state debts if Hamilton would agree to move the nation's capitol south from its original home in Manhattan — a city that some of Hamilton's fans actually wanted to call Hamiltonopolis.
The Funding Act called for the assumption of the states' war debts by the Federal Government — and everything that went along with that. And the Residence Act called for temporarily moving the nation's capitol from its current home in New York City to Philadelphia. From there it would move again to a permanent home in Washington, D.C., a new city on the Potomac River between Maryland and Virginia.
A significant side effect of all this was the creation of America's two-party system. The process started with Jefferson's and Madison's informal Anti-Administration Party in 1789.
Two years later, Alexander Hamilton and his supporters formed the Federalist Party. And a year after that the informal Anti-Administration Party evolved into the formal Republican Party — known to some historians as the Democratic-Republican Party, and not to be confused with today's GOP — in 1792.
Some people claim that Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson actually semantics, one might reasonably like to think the Founding Fathers were better than that.
Indeed, some recent accounts of their relationship paint Jefferson as a villain. However, allegations of hatred are a bit exaggerated.
In Thomas Jefferson's Anas he states Alexander Hamilton was
honest, and honorable in all private transactions, amiable in society, and duly valuing virtue in private. This is hardly the language of a
Likewise, when Alexander Hamilton helped Jefferson beat Aaron Burr in the fourth presidential election in 1800, he showed he had at least some respect for Jefferson. Again, this does not sound like something a
hater would do.
No Time for Hate
When Aaron Burr forced Alexander Hamilton into their infamous duel, there is ample evidence that Hamilton intended to throw his shot away. And if Hamilton actually did throw away his shot on that fateful day, then he effectively died for refusing to
hate Burr — someone who fully intended to kill him — and someone who, sadly, was successful.
Hate is an emotion, but Hamilton, Jefferson, and Adams were predominantly logical people. Emotions — such as those that dominated the French Revolution around this time — are the driving force behind mobs.
Although Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson became political rivals, these three were nonetheless strongly united in their contempt for mob violence. It is actually the lack of hatred and predominance of reason that made the American Revolution much less bloody than the one in France.
Saying the Founding Fathers
hated each other sounds shocking because it's hyperbole — essentially fake news — at best, a poor choice of words. If Alexander Hamilton was a more emotional person, and more likely to be a
hater, the tendency to be emotional would show up as more Red in his spiritual portrait.
About This Portrait
This spiritual portrait is based on the biography of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. There is also an American Experience video about Hamilton's life, but Chernow's book — which inspired the musical about Hamilton — is far more comprehensive.
For a personal review of Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton, along with recommendations for books and videos about other Founding Fathers, see Hamilton and Jefferson Were Both Awesome on tomhartung.com.
Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton is an excellent work, detailed and informative, well-organized and well-written, and easy to read — despite being over 700 pages long. I highly recommend it for everyone!
Hamilton and Jefferson on ArtsyVisions.com
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Some of our workshops serve people struggling with severe, chronic mental illnesses. These students have given me profound insights in learning to teach personal safety more effectively to people of all abilities. Their honesty and courage have added depth to my understanding of what it means to be safe and have showed me how, with a little imagination, People Safety skills can be adapted to help address all kinds of problems. Here are a few stories about working with these very vulnerable people.
Useful in All Worlds
In one workshop, I started the session by asking, “What concerns do you have about your emotional or physical safety?”
A very kind tired-looking woman said earnestly, “I am terrified that evil people from my Lower or Upper Worlds will attack my therapist and the other people who are helping me here in the Middle World.”
“Well,” I said, “We’re going to practice many different ways of protecting ourselves from people who might want to harm us. You can tell me what you think might work best for your situation. And think of it, you can teach these personal safety skills to your therapist and other people you care about, so they’ll be safer no matter what world someone who wants to bother them comes from. Okay?”
I grinned at her and she grinned back.
Rude Voices on the Bus
In another workshop, we were talking about mistakes, and a large, formidable-looking woman said contritely, “I made a really big mistake on the way over here. I was riding the bus, and the voices in my head were bothering me, so I jumped up and yelled at them to, ‘SHUT THE FUCK UP!’ Only I yelled out loud, and everybody on the bus stared at me. What should I do when that happens?”
This took a little thought. We brainstormed some options and decided that the best thing to do if your behavior was alarming to the people around you would probably be to sit down quietly and say in a clear, calm voice, “Excuse me. I didn’t realize that I was talking out loud.” And then to say silently to yourself some things like, “Nobody’s perfect … mistakes are part of learning … I’m a good person even if I have problems.”
NOT Getting Into Fights
A large, tough-looking man suddenly said, “I need to learn how not to get into fights. When I was in the store, somebody bumped into me and said, ‘Watch where you’re going, you stupid jerk!’ I got really mad and almost got into very bad trouble.”
I demonstrated with my teaching partner what happens when you react aggressively to someone who is rude. Everyone could see how dangerous escalating the situation might be. We then showed how it was possible to say, “Oops, excuse me!” and walk away, even if the person was saying and doing rude things to try to pick a fight with you.
Everyone practiced being shoved, apologizing even though it wasn’t true or fair, and then moving away with awareness, calm, and confidence. Each person then practiced throwing away the words, “Stupid Jerk” and saying to herself or himself, “I am a great person, and it takes more courage to not fight than to fight.”
Practicing the “Oops, excuse me” self-defense tactic has become a standard part of many of our teen and adult workshops, because learning to leave with kindness even when others are mean while you protect your own feelings combines many useful skills.
Ella’s Story – “What you teach could hurt someone’s feelings!”
I taught occasionally at a day treatment program, and “Ella” came to every class. At first, Ella would peek in for just a few minutes and then run out as soon as she heard me say the word, “No.” If anyone used a loud voice with her, she would bow her head and scuttle away in a perfect victim posture. Over the years, Ella started to stay longer and longer and would even occasionally say “Stop” herself or do some of the practices.
Ella explained repeatedly to me and to everyone who would listen that she was so horribly afraid of rejection that it upset her to be told “No” or to stop, or to have to set boundaries with anyone else. “I just want to know that if I do something wrong, I will still be loved and forgiven,” Ella mourned. “Couldn’t you teach us about peace and love instead of about self-defense and boundaries? What you teach could hurt someone’s feelings!”
Ella called our office periodically to leave some interesting thoughts for me on our voice mail, handed me books about social justice, and peeked at the Wake Up video I gave her, showing children practicing Kidpower, in much the same way that she used to peek into our workshops. “Those children say ‘No’ a lot!” she said in a mixture of fascination and fear. She was a big fan of Pete Seeger and showed us a letter from him encouraging Ella to “Never give up!”
The first day in one round of workshops, we were sitting at the lunch that this program provided as an incentive to get people to come. Ella sat next to me to tell me once again about her longing to be forgiven if she hurt someone. A couple of the other people there said that they also wanted to be forgiven, because they knew that they had done things sometimes in their illness that were hurtful to people they cared about.
Suddenly, I had an inspiration. I turned to the person next to me on the side away from Ella and said, “Please forgive me for hurting you.” I coached her to answer me, “I forgive you!” and then to ask for forgiveness from her neighbor. We went around the circle asking for forgiveness and being forgiven.
When it was Ella’s turn, she looked at me beseechingly and said in a shaking voice, “Please forgive me. I am really sorry I hurt you!”
I paused for a moment to really take Ella in with her round tall body, shaven head, book and papers falling off her lap, mustard and bits of hot dog smeared around her mouth, and big, anxious, brave brown eyes. I then said, with a great deal of affection and truth, “Ella, I forgive you and I will always, always love you, no matter what!”
For about twenty seconds the whole room including Ella basked in a rosy glow of universal forgiveness and unconditional love.
The spell was broken when Ella said in a worried voice, “Thank you, Irene … But what about all the other people?”
“Ella,” I said firmly, “Everyone in this room could say they forgive and love you, and everyone in Santa Cruz could say they forgive and love you, and everyone in the whole world could say they forgive and love you, but it won’t be enough unless you forgive and love yourself! Remember the practice we did about stepping too close into each other’s boundaries? When you demand that people feel a certain way and they don’t, you are stepping too close into their boundaries, and they are likely to want to move away from you.”
The next session, Ella brought a stuffed animal, a lioness, and introduced her to my teaching partner and me. “She says she is my mother, and she gives me lots of love.” Clutching her lioness protector, Ella stayed for almost the whole class.
“Have you noticed, Irene,” Ella asked me in the break, “That I have much less fear in this class than I used to?”
Boundaries at the Doctor’s Office
We often work on applying the skills learned to a wide variety of problems and practice not getting triggered in order to be effective in setting boundaries. For example, one woman, who I’ll call Rosa, needed her x-rays from a doctor’s office so that she could take them to court on a domestic violence case. Rosa’s trigger was that busy people in offices don’t listen. We talked about how one can stay centered and respectful while being persistent and powerful, and how people are more likely to do what you want if you sound firm but not upset.
I pretended to be a totally insensitive, overworked office clerk at the doctor’s office. With a little coaching on the words to say, Rosa repeatedly spoke up for herself in a calm, centered voice, “I see that you’re busy, but I need this information for my court case … your office said that it would be ready … I took the bus to get here … I’ll just wait right here until you can help me … if you can’t help me, I want to speak to your supervisor.”
A man sat down to join us in one workshop and suddenly started talking in a way that at first didn’t seem connected with what we were working on. “Yesterday I was making the meal,” the man explained with a serious face. “There was only a little broccoli. There wasn’t going to be enough for everybody, so I chopped the broccoli and chopped the broccoli until it was in very small pieces. That way everyone could have some.”
I smiled at him. “Making sure everyone can have some broccoli is a very good way of helping people to feel safe.”
“Yes”” the man said seriously. A few minutes later, having imparted his wisdom, he got up and walked away.
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Miriam is only mentioned by name in 14 verses in the Bible, but she is one of the most important people found in the pages of scripture. While she is often overlooked, Miriam was the only person right by Moses’ side from birth to death.
Who Was Miriam’s Mother?
Miriam, Moses, and Aaron were all born to Jochebed while living in Egypt, Africa. We actually know less about their mother than we do about there father, and there is almost nothing said about him in the Bible.
Who Was Miriam’s Father?
While the story doesn’t mention their father Amram, it is likely he had an influence in Moses’ life as well. The Bible doesn’t give us much to go on other than a name and a tiny bit of genealogy.
How Old Was Miriam?
We’re not told how much older she was than Moses, but we know that she was old enough to comprehend the situation, be concerned for her brother, figure out a way to keep the family together, and more. What we know to be true is that Aaron was three years older than Moses, and a three year old most likely wouldn’t have thought to follow their brother down the river and then suggest that their mother nurse the baby.
Miriam was definitely older than Moses and Aaron, and likely close to her teens, if not already in her teens when she met Pharaoh’s daughter.
Miriam and The Birth of Moses
Her story begins with the decree from Pharaoh that all newborn Hebrew males should be aborted immediately. This decree was given to two Hebrew midwives that feared God more than they feared Pharaoh.
“And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah: And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live. But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive” – Exodus 1:15-17
Now an older sister to a new baby brother, we can only imagine how she must have felt knowing that that he might be killed.
Miriam and Pharaoh’s Daughter
When the mother of Moses couldn’t hide him anymore, it was Miriam that stayed by his side until he was rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter.
“Then said his sister to Pharaoh’s daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child’s mother.” – Exodus 2:7-8
Seeing her brother was going to survive, she was quick on her feet and suggested that their mother Jochebed (Numbers 26:59) raise the child for the princess. Her quick thinking insured that their entire family remained together. It was likely due to the fact that Moses was raised by his biological mother that he decided to kill the Egyptian in defense of his Hebrew brothers.
Miriam The First Prophetess
Even though it was Miriam who was in a position to keep her family together, her name isn’t given until further in Exodus, when she’s seen singing and dancing in celebration of Israel’s freedom.
“And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.” – Exodus 15:21
Not only is this the first mention of Miriam’s name, but it is the first time we’re introduced to the concept of a prophetess. Miriam is the first of six prophetesses mentioned in the Bible:
- Miriam (Exodus 15:21)
- Deborah (Judges 4:4)
- Huldah (2 Kings 22:14)
- Noadiah (Nehemiah 6:14)
- Unnamed (Isaiah 8:3)
- Anna (Luke 2:36)
In addition to these six, there is a final seventh named as a false prophetess in the book of Revelation:
- Jezebel (Revelation 2:20)
In Old Testament times prophets served as the messengers of God and as the leaders of his people. We see Miriam’s role as leader develop throughout the story of the Exodus, but it isn’t until the book of Micah that we receive confirmation that she was indeed one of the first three leaders of the nation of Israel.
The First Woman To Lead Israel
In a patriarchal society there were very few circumstances under which a woman would be allowed to lead a man, and even fewer under which she’d be allowed to lead an entire nation of people.
“For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants; and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.” – Micah 6:4
One of the unique circumstances that would put Miriam in charge of a nation of men was her prophetess status. Prophets spoke on behalf of God, and in the beginning of Israel’s history, they respected the word of the prophets. Although spoke on behalf of God, it didn’t stop her from speaking on behalf of herself and incurring God’s wrath for it.
Miriam Given Leprosy and Turned White As Snow
The section of text dealing with Moses’ marriage to an Ethiopian (Cushite) woman is one of the most controversial events in the Bible. While the text is not 100% clear on why Miriam and Aaron had an issue with Moses’ marriage to an Ethiopian woman, it does seem to imply that the interracial marriage was the problem:
“And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman. And they said, Hath the LORD indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us? And the LORD heard it.” – Numbers 12:1-2
There are many people that attempt to use this verse to make the claim that God is against interracial marriage. Unfortunately, those people stop short of reading the entire story or simply disregard the rest of the story in order to support their own personal beliefs, just like Miriam.
One possible interpretation of this verse is that Miriam and Aaron intended to pass off their own personal opinion as the word of the Lord in order to chastise Moses for his marriage to his second wife. The text also seems to indicate that they didn’t think Moses was any more special than they were, but the Lord heard it.
“And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the LORD shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” – Numbers 12:6-8
The Lord makes it clear that he is capable of speaking for himself when and if he had a problem with Moses’ decision to marry an Ethiopian woman. God didn’t have a problem with it, and by Miriam attempting to pass off her personal prejudice as if it was the word of God, she became the focus of his anger:
“And the anger of the LORD was kindled against them; and he departed. And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle; and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow: and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous.” – Numbers 12:9-10
Our understanding of leprosy is largely skewed because of tradition. The Bible actually describes three different skin conditions with the same word:
- Leprosy – a contagious skin disease. Results in lighter or reddish spots on the skin. Also results in scales on the skin.
- Vitiligo – a non contagious skin disease that turns various parts of the skin white.
- Albinism – having little or no melanin, which results in pale white skin, even if the person is born to black parents.
Based on the text, it would seem that God turned her into an albino since she “became leprous, white as snow”. Her entire body was turned white, which rules out vitiligo and the skin disease. The reason this is such a big deal is because Miriam had the same skin color as an Egyptian. We know her skin was black because she was the sister of Moses and Moses was mistaken for an Egyptian by the Midianite girls (Exodus 2:19).
After seeing Miriam turned from the same color as Egyptians to snow white, Moses and Aaron immediately pray for her to be restored (Numbers 12:11-13).
“And the LORD said unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? let her be shut out from the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again. And Miriam was shut out from the camp seven days: and the people journeyed not till Miriam was brought in again.” – Numbers 12:14-15
What bothers many people about these verses is that God stripped Miriam of her melanin as a punishment. Many adherents to Eurocentric Christianity often teach that black skin was a punishment from God served out on both Cain and Ham. Neither of those things actually occur in scripture, but the changing of Miriam is a clear use of white skin as a punishment. Not only is it used as a punishment, but God likens it to her father spitting in her face. What was done to Miriam is so important that God tells the Hebrews to remember this specifically.
“Remember what the LORD thy God did unto Miriam by the way, after that ye were come forth out of Egypt.” – Deuteronomy 24:9
After being shut out of the camp for a week, Israel waited for Miriam to be restored before continuing their journey (Numbers 12:15).
How Did Miriam Die?
How did Miriam die? That’s a question that shall remained unanswered, but it was likely due to old age. Not much is said about Miriam after her encounter with God, but we are told when and where she died. While the Bible doesn’t tell us how old she was, we know that Moses was nearing or over 100, and she was his older sister.
“Then came the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, into the desert of Zin in the first month: and the people abode in Kadesh; and Miriam died there, and was buried there.” – Numbers 20:1
Miriam was buried on the Sinai Peninsula in the Wilderness of Zin. The following map shows the area of Africa the Hebrews were in when Miriam died.
Suggested Reading – The Family of Miriam
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Decapitation or beheading, is the removal of the head from a living body, inevitably causing death. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, such as a means of murder or execution. It may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, or knife, or by means of a guillotine. Beheading has been used as the standard method of capital punishment in many cultures around the world throughout history. For some, it was considered the honorable way to die, and reserved for the nobility; for others, the mutilation of the body was considered disrespectful and was used as a most severe punishment.
As humankind has progressed, gaining a greater awareness of the value of life and respect for the human rights of all, beheading has become less common—numerous countries have abolished the death penalty while those retaining it seek to impose it by more humane methods, such as hanging, gas chamber, or lethal injection. Ultimately, indeed, intentional beheading has no place in a peaceful, harmonious world.
Decapitation (from Latin, caput, capitis, meaning head), or beheading, is the removal of a living organism's head. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, such as a means of murder or execution. It may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, or knife, or by means of a guillotine. Accidental decapitation can be the result of an explosion, automobile or industrial accident, improperly-administered execution by hanging, or other violent injury. Suicide by decapitation is rare, but not unknown. Decapitation is always fatal, as brain death occurs within seconds to minutes without the support of the organism's body. There is no way to provide life support for a severed head with current medical techniques.
The word decapitation can also refer, on occasion, to the removal of the head from a body that is already dead. This might be done to take the head as a trophy, for public display, or to make the deceased more difficult to identify.
Decapitation has been used as a form of capital punishment for millennia. The terms "capital offense," "capital crime," and "capital punishment" derive from the punishment for serious offenses being the removal of the criminal's head.
In biblical record, John the Baptist was beheaded after being imprisoned by Herod Antipas, whom he had reproved for taking his brother Philip's wife Herodias (Luke 3:19). Herod had married Herodias contrary to the Mosaic Law and John vehemently protested this, which led to his arrest. When Herod made an oath in the presence of his guests to reward Heorodias' daughter for the excellence of her dancing before the crowd, it provided an excuse to murder John. Herod promised to grant Heorodias' daughter Salome whatever she might ask. Prompted by her mother, Salome requested the head of John the Baptist on a platter:
And she went out, and said to her mother, “What shall I ask?” And she said, “The head of John the Baptizer.” And she came in immediately with haste to the king, and asked, saying “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” (Mark 6:24-26)
Execution by beheading with a sword (or axe) was sometimes considered the "honorable" way to die for an aristocrat, who, being warriors, could often expect to die by the sword. The Roman Empire used beheading for its own citizens, while others were crucified. In England it was considered the privilege of noblemen to be beheaded. This was distinguished from a "dishonorable" death by hanging on the gallows or through burning at the stake. High Treason by nobles was punished by beheading; male commoners, including knights, were hanged, drawn, and quartered; female commoners were burned at the stake.
Political prisoners (traitors) and serious criminals often had their heads removed and placed on public display for a period of time. For instance, in medieval England, the heads were placed on spikes along the walls of the Tower of London.
If the headsman's axe or sword was sharp and his aim was true, decapitation was a quick and thought to be a relatively painless form of death. If the instrument was blunt or the executioner clumsy, however, multiple strokes might be required to sever the head. The person to be executed was therefore advised to give a gold coin to the headsman so that he did his job with care. However, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex and Mary I of Scotland required three strikes at their respective executions.
William the Conqueror was the first to use beheading in Britain, executing Waltheof, Earl of Northumberland in 1076. The punishment was reserved for members of the nobility and royal family who committed such high crimes as treason or murder. Most of the beheadings took place in the Tower of London. It was common that the executioner would raise the severed head, displaying it to the crowd and proclaiming, "Behold the head of a traitor." The last instance of beheading in England took place in 1747 with the execution of Simon Lord Lovatt.
In China, decapitation was considered a more severe form of punishment than strangulation, although strangulation caused more-prolonged suffering. Strangulation was preferred because the Chinese believed that their bodies were gifts from their parents, and that it was therefore disrespectful to their ancestors to return their bodies to the grave dismembered. The Chinese had other extremely severe punishments, such as the "lingering death," that involved cutting the body into multiple pieces. When the Communists came to power in the twentieth century, they replaced decapitation with shooting.
Decapitation by guillotine was a common, mechanically-assisted form of execution, invented shortly before the French Revolution (although earlier versions such as the Scottish "Maiden" and the English "Halifax Gibbet" were used earlier). The guillotine was designed was to create a painless and quick form of execution that did not require great skill to carry out.
The executioner would hold the severed head up to the crowd. It was believed (with dubious evidence) that the head could still see for around ten seconds. The French had a strict code of etiquette surrounding the executions. A man named Legros, one of the assistants at the execution of Charlotte Corday, was imprisoned and dismissed for slapping the face of the victim after the blade had fallen in order to see whether any flicker of life remained (witnesses say that it flushed as though angry, although with no blood circulation possible, this "evidence" is likely false). While the idea of showing the dying head the reaction of the crowd or their own dead body is perhaps not beyond the cruelty of the revolutionaries, it would certainly go against the "humane" spirit in which the guillotine was introduced and applied. The guillotine was used in France during the French Revolution and remained the normal judicial method in peace time, in use until the abolition of the death penalty in France in 1981.
Many German states used a guillotine-like device known as a Fallbeil since the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Decapitation by guillotine was the usual means of execution in Germany until it abolished the death penalty in 1949. In Nazi Germany, the guillotine was reserved for criminal convicts. It is estimated that some 40,000 persons were guillotined in Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. This number includes resistance fighters both in Nazi Germany itself and in those countries that were occupied by them. As these resistance fighters were not part of any regular army they were considered common criminals and were often taken to Germany where they were decapitated. Decapitation was considered a "dishonorable" death, unlike an "honorable" death, such as execution by firing squad.
In Japan, decapitation was a common punishment, sometimes for minor offenses. In addition, decapitation was historically performed as the second step in seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment). After the victim had sliced his own abdomen open, another warrior, a selected attendant, (kaishakunin) or second, would strike his head off from behind with a sword to hasten death and to reduce the suffering. The blow was expected to be precise enough to leave intact a small strip of skin at the front of the neck—to spare invited and honored guests the indelicacy of witnessing a decapitated head rolling about, or towards them, whilst spraying blood. Such an event would have been considered inelegant and in bad taste. The sword was expected to be used upon the slightest sign that the practitioner might yield to pain and cry out—avoiding dishonor to him, and to all partaking in the privilege of observing an honorable demise. As skill was involved, only the most trusted warrior was honored enough to take part as the second. The second was usually, but not always, a friend. If a defeated warrior had fought honorably and well, an opponent who wanted to salute his bravery would volunteer to act as his second. Japan continued to use beheading to the end of the nineteenth century, when it was replaced by hanging as the method of execution.
In Scandinavia, decapitation was the usual means of carrying out capital punishment. Noblemen were beheaded with a sword, and commoners with an axe. The last executions by decapitation in Finland in 1825 and Norway in 1876 were carried out with axes. The same was the case in Denmark in 1892. The last decapitation in Sweden in 1910 was carried out with a guillotine.
Decapitation by sword in modern times has occurred in jurisdictions subject to Islamic Sharia. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Qatar all allow decapitation as a form of capital punishment, but only Saudi Arabia practices it: A curved, single-edged sword is used, in public. Saudi Arabian authorities beheaded four men in February 2007—four Sri Lankan workers were convicted in a Saudi Arabian court for an armed robbery committed in October 2004. Their deaths sparked reactions from the international human rights watchdog Amnesty International, which called on the Saudi authorities to abolish the death sentence.
Militant Islamic groups have carried out so-called "beheadings" with small knives, some as small as pocket knives. Unusually, these "beheadings" begin with cutting the throat, then slowly hacking away at the spine. Historically, most methods of beheading use a heavy, sharp steel blade, cutting through the neck from behind, which quickly severs the spine, then cuts the blood vessels, trachea, and esophagus: A single stroke usually suffices. The frontal approach more closely resembles Dhabiĥa, a method used to slaughter animals, thereby rendering the meat hallal, in which the goal is to drain all the blood from the animal as quickly as possible. Ritual slaughter of this kind does not require decapitation; only the draining of all the blood.
Less orthodox instances of decapitation have also occurred in some areas of Colombia. Marxist FARC guerrilla as well as right-wing paramilitary groups such as the AUC have sometimes used this method to intimidate local populations and political opponents, and it has not been uncommon for criminal gangs of druglords to also make limited use of decapitation on occasion. In 2006, a drug war carried out by Mexico's new president, Felipe Calderón, against druglords and various other criminals caused many beheadings by those druglords in retaliation. The heads were then reportedly tossed into a nightclub and placed in front of various other government buildings accompanied with notes of warning from the druglords. The primary means of decapitation in these cases has been the use of a machete or chainsaw.
In Southern Thailand, there were at least 15 cases where Buddhists were beheaded. Thai officials suspected the attackers were Islamist extremists seeking to separate the Muslim-dominated south from the rest of Thailand.
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Two elements are essential in any evolutionary/biblical intermingling whether Day Age, Gap Theory, Theistic or Atheistic evolution: First, the universe and the earth have existed for very long periods of time; and second, Darwinian common ancestry (so called molecules-to-man) evolution is true. (1)
“One day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.”2 Peter 3:8
Peter is expressing in this passage that the passage of any amount of time is meaningless to an all powerful God. The same God who created everything including time itself.
The next passage explains the context
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise (second coming), as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”2 Peter 3:9
This verse clearly explains that the evidence that Jesus has not yet returned is not indication of any delay but is actually a blessing for everyone that has not yet been saved. Everyone who has coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus since this time would have to agree!
This is not the only passage used to explain the hypothesis of The Day Age theory. This theory, much like the Gap Theory, proposes creation week as periods of undefined duration’s. Day-age advocates claim the sequence of creative activities defined in Genesis match the sequence of events as deciphered by astronomers and geologists.
Days of Creation:
“Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day” (Genesis 1:3-5).
2- Atmosphere (Firmament)
“Then God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.’ Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day” (Genesis 1:6-8).
3- Dry Land, Seas, & plants
“Then God said, ‘Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear’; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:9-10).
“Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth’; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the third day” (Genesis 1:11-13).
4- Sun, moon, and stars
“Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth’; and it was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day (the sun), and the lesser light to rule the night (the moon) . He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day” (Genesis 1:14-19).
5- Birds & sea animals
“‘Then God said, ‘Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.’ So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’ So the evening and the morning were the fifth day” (Genesis 1:20-23).
6- Land animals & Humans
“Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind’; and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”
“And God said, ‘See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food’; and it was so. Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day” (Genesis 1:24-31).
7- Sabbath- day of rest
“Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made” (Genesis 2:1-3).
It is interesting to note that the seventh day of creation refers to the same day found in the fourth commandment to remember creation by resting on the Sabbath Day (Exodus 20:8-11). “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work…For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”
Vegetation (plants) appear on day three and animals appear on day five while geological fossil evidence finds oceanic animals (invertebrates) in the earlier rock layers before vegetation. One ‘save’ for Day-agers claim that perhaps the days of creation were overlapping. This is not only torturing of the text of the bible but:
“it is textual mutilation”.Davis Young: why he abandoned the day-age theory, February 2006
On day four God created the heavenly bodies after the earth (which was already in existence). This is a vast departure from the worldview of evolutionary ‘science’. The nebular hypothesis is used to describe the formation of such heavenly bodies as stars, galaxies, solar systems, and planets. Astronomy insists that the sun and the stars are much older than earth. The ‘save’ this challenge to the theory Day-agers claim that perhaps the light (created on day one) was actually obscured due to a very thick atmosphere; The newly created atmosphere did not begin to dissipate until the fourth day when the mists ultimately thinned to the point where the sun (and other heavenly bodies such as the moon and stars) became visible from the surface of the earth.
Another argument for the Day Age theory includes that God’s seventh day of creation is still continuing today as evidenced by the expanding universe and evolution (presumed again as true). This argument is self refuting by biblical text in Genesis and Exodus regarding the day of rest and the forth commandment (the Sabbath). In Genesis God rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.” Exodus explains within the ten commandments that “in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.” It seems clear the bible is stating God has completed His creation after day six.
Another, perhaps the strongest argument for Day-age theory is a chronological one. The argument claims that the days must have been longer (than a standard twenty four hour duration) because way too many things transpired on day six for a mere human to accomplish (Adam) on day six which included naming thousands of animals, perceiving his own loneliness, and then God’s creation of Eve.
This does seem like a very busy day but naming animals is not beyond time constraints as we have many kinds and millions of species from these kinds. Additionally, loneliness does not require its separated time from other duties, perhaps it was during the naming of the animals that such loneliness was realized. Of course God’s part of creating Eve from Adam’s rib would take as little time as any of the other events.
“There is no aspect of creationism which is under greater attack by evolutionists than the biblical doctrine of recent creation. The evolutionist, knowing the weakness of the scientific case for evolution, almost always directs his own argument not against creation, but against recent creation and flood geology. As a result, many people who consider themselves creationists have been intimidated against this biblical concept. As far as the biblical record itself is concerned, there is not the slightest indication anywhere in Scripture that the earth endured long ages before the creation of Adam and Eve. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself said: ‘But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female’ (Mark 10:6).https://creation.com/recent-creation-is-a-vital-doctrine
In conclusion, man’s attempt to meld together naturalistic concepts such as evolution, billions of year time lines, and chemical emergence of life (abiogenesis) into the biblical creation finds the results irreconcilable and absurd. The atheist reminds such compromised Christians that these attempts render the biblical creation account as clearly illogical based on the “known” order of both cosmological (big bang to planetary formation) and biological evolution. Also, such non-believers will remind those that believe the biblical text that a fully formed and functioning universe from the beginning testifies of a God of deception . Deception because of the appearance of an ancient earth and universe (which is false). Therefore, either way, whether the biblical text is taken more literal or a pure allegory, to the unbeliever biblical doctrine is “babble” and speaking of its truth makes you a “babbler”. In Acts 17:18 philosophers thought what apostle Paul spoke of made him a “babbler”. To the lost ancient people a “babbler” was one who spoke of things that were strange and “out of this world”. Belief in the bible continues to this day to be babble to the lost world. Why strip God of any miracles conveyed to us by scriptures merely to gain approval from either apathetic atheists or compromising Christians? My friends: believe God and doubt man!
2 All Images from the days of creation from https://www.bibleinfo.com/en/questions/what-are-7-days-of-creation | <urn:uuid:7cce37ac-6706-4ea3-b1a5-f9193dc28623> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.evolutionisamyth.com/biblical/day-age-theory-taken-out-of-context-of-scripture/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370496669.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20200330054217-20200330084217-00354.warc.gz | en | 0.963999 | 2,633 | 2.875 | 3 |
As with any type of chemical reaction, combustion takes place when chemical bonds are broken and new bonds are formed. It so happens that combustion is a particularly dramatic type of oxidation-reduction reaction: whereas we cannot watch iron rust, combustion is a noticeable event. Even more dramatic is combustion that takes place at a rate so rapid that it results in an explosion.
Coal is almost pure carbon, and its combustion in air is a textbook example of oxidation-reduction. Although there is far more nitrogen than oxygen in air (which is a mixture rather than a compound), nitrogen is very unreactive at low temperatures. For this reason, it can be used to clean empty fuel tanks, a situation in which the presence of pure oxygen is extremely dangerous. In any case, when a substance burns, it is reacting with the oxygen in air.
As one might expect from what has already been said about oxidation-reduction, the oxygen is reduced while the carbon is oxidized. In terms of oxidation numbers, the oxidation number of
Combustion has been a significant part of human life ever since our prehistoric ancestors learned how to harness the power of fire to cook food and light their caves. We tend to think of premodern times—to use the memorable title of a book by American historian William Manchester, about the Middle Ages—as A World Lit Only By Fire. In fact, our modern age is even more combustion-driven than that of our forebears.
For centuries, burning animal fat—in torches, lamps, and eventually in candles—provided light for humans. Wood fires supplied warmth, as well as a means to cook meals. These were the main uses of combustion, aside from the occasional use of fire in warfare or for other purposes (including that ghastly medieval form of execution, burning at the stake). One notable military application, incidentally, was "Greek fire," created by the Byzantines in the seventh century A.D. A mixture of petroleum, potassium nitrate, and possibly quicklime, Greek fire could burn on water, and was used in naval battles to destroy enemy ships.
For the most part, however, the range of activities to which combustion could be applied was fairly narrow until the development of the steam engine in the period from the late seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century. The steam engine applied the combustion of coal to the production of heat for boiling water, which in turn provided the power to run machinery. By the beginning of the twentieth century, combustion had found a new application in the internal combustion engine, used to power automobiles.
An internal combustion engine does not simply burn fuel; rather, by the combined action of the fuel injectors (in a modern vehicle), in concert with the pistons, cylinders, and spark plugs, it actually produces small explosions in the molecules of gasoline. These produce the output of power necessary to turn the crankshaft, and ultimately the wheels.
An explosion, in simple terms, is a sped-up form of combustion. The first explosives were invented by the Chinese during the Middle Ages, and these included not only fireworks and explosive rockets, but gunpowder. Ironically, however, China rejected the use of gunpowder in warfare for many centuries, while Europeans took to it with enthusiasm. Needless to say, Europeans' possession of firearms aided their conquest of the Americas, as well as much of Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, during the period from about 1500 to 1900.
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the development of new explosives, such as TNT or trinitrotoluene, a hydrocarbon. Then in the mid-twentieth century came the most fearsome explosive of all: the nuclear bomb. A nuclear explosion is not itself the result of an oxidation-reduction reaction, but of something much more complex—either the splitting of atoms (fission) or the forcing together of atomic nuclei (fusion).
Nuclear bombs release far more energy than any ordinary explosive, but the resulting blast also causes plenty of ordinary combustion. When the United States dropped atomic bombs on the
Oxidation-reduction reactions also fuel the most advanced form of transportationknown today, the space shuttle. The actual orbiter vehicle is relatively small compared to its external power apparatus, which consists of two solid rocket boosters on either side, along with an external fuel tank.
Inside the solid rocket boosters are ammonium perchlorate (NH 4 ClO 4 ) and powdered aluminum, which undergo an oxidation-reduction reaction that gives the shuttle enormous amounts of extra thrust. As for the larger single external fuel tank, this contains the gases that power the rocket: hydrogen and oxygen.
Because these two are extremely explosive, they must be kept in separate compartments. When they react, they form water, of course, but in doing so, they also release vast quantities of energy. The chemical equation for this is: 2H 2 + O 2 →2H 2 O + energy.
On January 28, 1986, something went terribly wrong with this arrangement on the space shuttle Challenger. Cold weather had fatigued the O-rings that sealed the hydrogen and oxygen compartments, and the gases fed straight into the flames behind the shuttle itself. This produced a powerful and uncontrolled oxidation-reduction reaction, an explosion that took the lives of all seven astronauts aboard the shuttle.
Combustion, though it can do much good, can also do much harm. This goes beyond the obvious: by burning fossil fuels or hydrocarbons, excess carbon (in the form of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide) is released to the atmosphere, with a damaging effect on the environment.
In fact, oxidation-reduction reactions are intimately connected with the functioning of the natural environment. For example, photosynthesis, the conversion of light to chemical energy by plants, is a form of oxidation-reduction reaction that produces two essentials of human life: oxygen and carbohydrates. Likewise cellular respiration, which along with photosynthesis is discussed in the Carbon essay, is an oxidation-reduction reaction in which living things break down molecules of food to produce energy, carbon dioxide, and water.
Enzymes in the human body regulate oxidation-reduction reactions. These complex proteins, of which several hundred are known, act as catalysts, speeding up chemical processes in the body. Oxidation-reduction reactions also take place in the metabolism of food for energy, with substances in the food broken down into components the body can use.
At the same time, oxidation-reduction reactions are responsible for the spoiling of food, the culprit here being the oxidation portion of the reaction. To prevent spoilage, manufacturers of food items often add preservatives, which act as reducing agents.
Oxidation may also be linked with the effects of aging in humans, as well as with other conditions such as cancer, hardening of the arteries, and rheumatoid arthritis. It appears that oxygen molecules and other oxidizing agents, always hungry for electrons, extract these from the membranes in human cells. Over time, this can cause a gradual breakdown in the body's immune system.
To forestall the effects of oxidation, some doctors and scientists recommend antioxidants—natural reducing agents such as vitamin C and vitamin E. The vitamin C in lemon juice can be used to prevent oxidizing on the cut surface of an apple, to keep it from turning brown. Perhaps, some experts maintain, natural reducing agents can also slow the pace of oxidation in the human body.
Clearly, oxidization can have a corrosive effect, and nowhere is this more obvious than in the corrosion of metals by exposure to oxidizing agents—primarily oxygen itself. Most metals react with O 2 , and might corrode so quickly that they become useless, were it not for the formation of a protective coating—an oxide.
Iron forms an oxide, commonly known as rust, but this in fact does little to protect it from corrosion, because the oxide tends to flake off, exposing fresh surfaces to further oxidation. Every year, businesses and governments devote millions of dollars to protecting iron and steel from oxidation by means of painting and other measures, such as galvanizing with zinc. In fact, oxidation-reduction reactions virtually define the world of iron. Found naturally only in ores, the element is purified by heating the ore with coke (impure carbon) in the presence of oxygen, such that the coke reduces the iron.
Copper, as we have seen, responds to oxidation by corroding in a different way: not by rusting, but by changing color. A similar effect occurs in silver, which tarnishes, forming a surface of silver sulfide, or Ag 2 S. Copper and silver are two of the "coinage metals," so named because they have often been used to mint coins. They have been used for this purpose not only because of their beauty, but also due to their relative resistance to corrosion. This resistance has, in fact, earned them the nickname "noble metals."
The third member of this mini-family is gold, which is virtually noncorrosive. Wonderful as gold is in this respect, however, no one is likely to use it as a roofing material, or for any such large-scale application involving its resistance to oxidation. Aside from the obvious expense, gold is soft, and not very good for structural uses, even if it were much cheaper. Yet there is such a "wonder metal": one that experiences virtually no corrosion, is cheap, and strong enough in alloys to be used for structural purposes. Its name is aluminum.
There was a time, in fact, when aluminum was even more expensive than gold. When the French emperor Napoleon III wanted to impress a dinner guest, he arranged for the person to be served with aluminum utensils, while less distinguished personages had to settle for "ordinary" gold and silver.
In 1855, aluminum sold for $100,000 a pound, whereas in 1990, the going rate was about $0.74. Demand did not go down—in fact, it increased exponentially—but rather, supply increased, thanks to the development of an inexpensive aluminum-reduction process. Two men, one American and one French, discovered this process at the same time: interestingly, their years of birth and death were the same.
Aluminum was once a precious metal because it proved extremely difficult to separate from oxygen. The Hall-Heroult process overcame the problem by applying electrolysis—the use of an electric current to produce a chemical change—as a way of reducing Al 3+ ions (which have a high affinity for oxygen) to neutral aluminum atoms. In the United States today, 4.5% of the total electricity output is used for the production of aluminum through electrolysis.
The foregoing statistic is staggering, considering just how much electricity Americans use, and it indicates the importance of this once-precious metal. Actually, aluminum oxidizes just like any other metal—and does so quite quickly, as a matter of fact, by forming a coating of aluminum oxide (Al 2 O 3 ). But unlike rust, the aluminum oxide is invisible, and acts as a protective coating. Chromium, nickel, and tin react to oxygen in a similar way, but these are not as inexpensive as aluminum.
Electrochemistry is the study of the relationship between chemical and electrical energy. Among its applications is the creation of batteries, which use oxidation-reduction reactions to produce an electric current.
A basic battery can be pictured schematically as two beakers of solution connected by a wire. In one solution is the oxidizing agent; in the other, a reducing agent. The wire allows electrons to pass back and forth between the two solutions, but to ensure that the flow goes both ways, the two solutions are also connected by a "salt bridge." The salt bridge contains a gel or solution that permits ions to pass back and forth, but a porous membrane prevents the solutions from actually mixing.
In the lead storage battery of an automobile, lead itself is the reducing agent, while lead (IV) oxide (PbO 2 ) acts as the oxidizing agent. A highly efficient type of battery, able to with stand wide extremes in temperature, the lead storage battery has been in use since 1915. Along the way, features have been altered, but the basic principles have remained—a testament to the soundness of its original design.
The batteries people use for powering all kinds of portable appliances, from flashlights to boom boxes, are called dry cell batteries. In contrast to the model described above, using solutions, a dry cell (as its name implies) involves no liquid components. Instead, it utilizes various elements in a range of combinations, including zinc, magnesium, mercury, silver, nickel, and cadmium. The last two are applied in the nickel-cadmium battery, which is particularly useful because it can be recharged over and over again by an external current. The current turns the products of the chemical reactions in the battery back into reactants.
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Zumdahl, Steven S. Introductory Chemistry: A Foundation, fourth edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. | <urn:uuid:dc84950a-232d-42e0-871a-60b5dc012767> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | http://www.scienceclarified.com/everyday/Real-Life-Chemistry-Vol-2/Oxidation-Reduction-Reactions-Real-life-applications.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370491857.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20200328104722-20200328134722-00194.warc.gz | en | 0.946621 | 3,005 | 3.9375 | 4 |
"It is only with the heart we can see. What is essential is invisible to the eye."-Antoine de St. Exupery
What does silence in the classroom look like? What are the benefits? How can silence be used for renewal? And most importantly why?
This paper will address these very rich and intriguing questions. Through a philosophical examination of silence as well as through self-reflective exercises, it is hoped that this will speak directly to the reader’s heart and spirit. However, questions can sometimes be more profound than any proposed answers. How can a topic that needs to be experienced be discussed in words? How can you give verbal expression to a non-verbal experience? What follows is a humble approach to address the power of silence, in general, and in the classroom in particular.
The gifts of silence touch the cognitive, psychological, physiological and spiritual dimensions of our lives. But, silence and stillness are very foreign to our culture. We live in a world that is so fast paced that when we slow down, we almost metaphorically topple over. What a true sign of imbalance! What would it be like if our lives weren’t so frenetic and we took time out of our busy days to just slow down? What would the classroom look like with periods of silence?
Sometimes, we just need to stop before we can continue. Stop and listen to the silence. At first, the silence can be deafening. If we take the passive action, if you will, of sitting quietly, the chatter in our brain can slow down, and if we do it long enough we might even be able to watch it go away.
If you look at a muddy pond, and you stare long enough, the mud will settle on the bottom of the pond and the water will appear clear. It is the same with our thoughts. If we can find the courage to sit quietly with gently closed eyes, giving ourselves the permission to leave the outer world and enter our inner one, our thoughts will settle and our minds will become clear. It is in this stillness and solitude where the potential harmony of the heart and mind reside.
Why is it that we have to give ourselves permission to be silent? It is as if our culture tells us that if we aren’t making noise, verbally or otherwise, we are not being productive, the yardstick for success. It is through listening to the silence that resides deep within the heart that we can hear and find our own voice, our true essence.
In my yoga-inspired work with children, it has become very clear to me that we are born with the desire deep in our hearts to be heard. In order for that to occur, we need to first find our inner voice, our true essence, then we need to know that our voice will be listened to with complete and honest open hearted respect.
The ancient art and science of yoga offers us a system of using the breath, nesheemah, in Hebrew, to help us find stillness and silence. The breath is the vehicle into the inner world. It is the bridge between the body and the mind, the gateway to the soul. It is through the breath that we enter our inner world, and in turn have the opportunity to quiet our thoughts so we can listen to our heart.
Exercise 1: The Journey Inward
What happens when we first sit in stillness? The “monkey chatter” begins in the brain. As my 6 year old friend Matan says, “It is hard for me. First, I get one thought, then another thought, then another thought and then another thought and I just don’t know which one to listen to.” We are all so busy rushing about doing the next thing that when we try to stop for a moment and sit in stillness, our thoughts continue to race. We find it very difficult to find this inner sense of quiet. We want to be anywhere but here, right where we are. All of a sudden, we forgot to turn off the oven, or we are overcome with the irresistible urge to mow the lawn, something we have never done before, or even considered doing before.
This type of silence is more a quietness of the heart, rather than the absence of sound. There is a stillness that resides deep in the heart.
To enter this quietness means to relax into it, no matter what the distractions are around you. To approach it with “effortless effort”, as the world renowned yoga instructor Baron Baptiste says. It is a journey into the quiet to find that place of solitude and balance.
There is a transformative power, a renewal that occurs after periods of focused silence. As with the muddy pond, when the mud settles and the water is clear, so to after periods of silence, the thoughts settle and the mind can become clear. Quiet reflection can be very self-nurturing and is accessible to us at any time.
Silence in the classroom has to start with the teacher. It is only when the teacher has had her own self-reflective experience with silence, that she can in turn facilitate experiences of silence and stillness for her students. The teacher’s role of providing a calming presence in a safe nurturing environment can be supported by offering moments of silence in the classroom.
Exercise 2: Silence at the Desk
After doing this exercise with a group of 10 year olds, we discussed why we place our hands on our hearts to listen in. One girl said, “Because we relax from our hearts.” What would happen in a classroom of noisy and loud students if the teacher offered the permission to be silent? To relax from their hearts? What would it look like if she guided her students inward? Inviting them to gently close their eyes, to slowly drop inside and just listen. Listen to the sounds in the room. Listen to their own heartbeats. Listen to silence.
When the teacher understands the power of silence, because of her own personal experience with it, she can create a safe environment where silence is a welcomed break from the frenetic and hectic school day. If the teacher can find her way into her own heart, she can be present to help her students do the same and help them find their own way inward.
Exercise 3: Magic Carpet Ride
Psychiatrist Anthony Storr in his study, Solitude: A Return to the Self, found that “learning, thinking, innovation and maintaining contact with one’s own inner world are all facilitated by solitude.” Richard Mahler in his brilliant book Stillness, refers to silence and solitude as “creative allies” that we can “enlist in a personal campaign to create simpler, more balanced, less frenetic lives”. He says if we slow down, and “help the distracting exterior clamor to subside” we will be able to really see, hear and even feel what is going on inside us, within our hearts. Mahler says, “getting away from it all helps us get close to it all. We are likely to be more at peace with ourselves when we occasionally stop to sit quietly and attentively.” Mahler calls this, “the undefined interior space.”
Exercise 4: Rainbow Journey
After 9 year old Devorah went on a Rainbow Journey she said, “I am going to try this at night to help me fall asleep. I will take myself to the rainbow. I will look at all the colors, but I won’t have thoughts about the journey and the colors, I will just have the feelings that I get from the colors.” Devorah and I are working on her problems with anxiety during the day, and we are looking for ways to help her sleep better at night. From her comment, you can see that she understands how the silence of her rainbow journey can give her the opportunity to tune in to her feelings and help her relax.
While being silent, teachers have the ability to offer a certain presence, which can be heard very loudly and clearly if the students can only attune to it. Through silence, an awakened deeper awareness can develop. It is a place beyond words.
We have seen that there are many benefits in using silence in the classroom and they all speak right to the heart. It is a simple tool, yet is very challenging. Used for self-reflection and awareness, silence offers an opportunity to develop a strong understanding of self. As each self-aware student comes together with other self-aware students, a sense of community develops. This coming together of the hearts creates an experience for spiritual awakening and offers an opportunity for deep and profound renewal. When we allow ourselves to go into our own inner world, we find who we really are.
Give yourself the gift of silence and listen to who you really are. But remember, it is only when the mud settles in the pond that the water is clear. Who and what we experience after the stillness and silence is the true guide.
The following exercises promote deep relaxation and are best done when you can be guided by someone else. It is almost impossible to do the exercises by yourself, trying to read as you have the experience. A few ways to try them are: 1. find a partner and take turns reading as the other experiences. 2. record your voice as you read it, and then play it back as you experience the exercise. Whichever way you choose, pause where you see the ellipses (three or four dots ….) then continue.
Exercise 1: The Journey Inward
Sit in a comfortable position on the floor, cross legged on whatever feels right, with a straight spine. Your hands resting on your knees. Gently lower your gaze taking in as much as you can on the floor. See the colors, textures, patterns. See all that you can see….When you are ready, invite your eyes to gently close. With your eyes closed, listen to the sounds around you. What do you hear? …….. Allow yourself the chance to fully listen, taking in as much as you can…. When you feel like you want to open your eyes, resist the urge, and bring your awareness to your breath. Watch how you are breathing, without judging it. It isn’t right or wrong, it just is. Continue to watch your breath and when it feels right deepen your breath filling up your belly on the inhale and watching your belly fall on the exhale. Allow yourself to watch your breath for a few more rounds just like this……. Take a few deep breaths, inhaling through your nose, exhaling through your nose…….., Keeping your gaze down, gently open your eyes and take in the floor again. Does it look different this time? What do you see? Focus on the colors, textures, patterns, all that you see. Slowly allow the light of the room to fill you, and, as you are ready, invite the outside world into your world.
Exercise 2: Silence at the Desk
Find a comfortable position at your desk, with back straight and feet firmly planted on the ground. Gently rest your hands on your knees or on top of your desk, palms down. Slowly invite your eyes to close and slowly drop inside. Listen to the sounds in the room…..Listen to the sounds outside the room…… Maybe even listen to the sound of your own heartbeat…….. Keeping your eyes gently closed, bring your right palm up and place it on your heart, then place your left palm on top of your right and gently listen. Can you feel your heart beating? Can you hear it talking? What is it saying? Listen to the silence.
Exercise 3: Magic Carpet Ride
Lying down on the floor, either on a towel, blanket or preferably on a yoga mat, find a way to comfortably release into the ground. When you are comfortable begin this journey. Here comes a magic carpet of clouds to swoosh you up into the sky. If you don’t want to go up, just stay just where you are. Allow the carpet of clouds to take you higher and higher up in the sky. As you float, look around and see what you can see. What colors do you see? What sounds do you hear? Where is the carpet taking you? Allow it to take you to a special place just for you. It can be somewhere you’ve been before or a brand new place. It doesn’t matter where it is as long as you feel good when you are there…….Look around…..where are you? What do you see? Are you alone or do you have company? What colors do you see? What is the weather like? What are you wearing? What do you hear? What do you smell? Take a deep breath in and try to smell the fragrances in your special place. If your mind starts to take you somewhere else, just take a deep breath in to bring you back. Stay in this special place for a few more moments, then slowly start your journey back, bringing with you the memories of being in a special place. Remembering that this special place is always there for you, and you can go there any time you need to. When you arrive back on the floor, on your mat, begin to bring your awareness into your body. Take a deep breath in and as you exhale, begin to wiggle your fingers and toes. Slowly bring your knees up to your chest and give yourself a nice delicious hug, hugging in all the sensations of being in a special place. Slowly roll onto your right side, and hug your knees in again taking a deep breath. Gently push yourself up into a comfortable seated position and sit for a few more moments with your eyes closed. Allow your self to feel whatever sensations or feelings are coming up.
Exercise #4: Rainbow Journey
Lying down on the floor, either on a towel, blanket or preferably on a yoga mat, find a way to comfortably release into the ground. When you are comfortable begin this journey. Here comes a magic carpet of clouds to swoosh you up into the sky. If you don’t want to go up, just stay just where you are. Allow the carpet of clouds to take you higher and higher up in the sky……. Look above you…There is a beautiful rainbow…..Look at all the colors as you take a deep inhale through your nose and out through your nose…..See all the colors in the rainbow beginning with red…inhale red into your body, then exhale…filling your entire body with red…now see orange…inhale orange…then exhale orange…..next, see yellow…inhaling yellow….exhaling yellow….see green filling up your body as you inhale and exhale green….inhale blue…exhale blue…inhale purple….exhale purple……Pay attention to how the colors make you feel…..If you’d like, stay with one color noticing why you chose that color….What are you feeling?....stay with your rainbow for a few more breaths….start your journey back, bringing with you the feelings and sensations that you had while you were on your rainbow journey…. Remember how each color made you feel……. When you arrive back on the floor, on your mat, begin to bring your awareness into your body. Take a deep breath in and as you exhale, begin to wiggle your fingers and toes. Slowly bring your knees up to your chest and give yourself a nice delicious hug, hugging in all the sensations of being in a special place. Slowly roll onto your right side, and hug your knees in again taking a deep breath. Gently push yourself up into a comfortable seated position and sit for a few more moments with your eyes closed. Allow yourself to feel whatever sensations or feelings are coming up.
These exercises offer a very powerful way to get in touch with your inner world. They can take just a few minutes, not less than two, or this can be the beginning of a much deeper and longer experience in guided imagery. Notice how you feel when you finish the exercise. You might want to write down or draw a picture of what you are experiencing. What are your thoughts? What are your feelings? Are you more relaxed? More anxious? Frustrated? Do you feel exhilarated? Sad? Inspired? Check in with what is going on for you right now. As you honestly scan your thoughts and feelings, imagine being with others right now. Who are you to them right now? If you are a teacher who is the teacher who is showing up? Do you recognize that teacher? Has your perspective changed at all? Listen carefully to what comes up for you. That is the true guide!
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This research project, studies the effect of poor maintenance of art studio tools, equipment and machinery on the teaching and learning of art in tertiary institution, with special focus on I. M. T. ceramic studio.
The purpose of the study is to identify the various ways in which poor maintenance of studio equipment affects students training in art and how students can engage in self help activities to reactivate machineries, other equipment and tools for effective studio practice.
The scope of the project covers the study of dis–functional electric potters wheels understanding and identifying the problematic aspects of the equipment and how to repair and reactivate them.
The significance of this project is the opportunity it affords, the art student to have a technical knowledge of some of the equipment and machines used in production of art works particularly in his or her area of specialization with such knowledge, the student artist prepared him or herself to meet with the challenge of studio practice anywhere, anytime.
The researchers, takes look at different contribution of authors, which are related to this topic.
Finally the researchers expose the effect of poor maintenance on tools and equipment and recommended ways how those in authority and Government could make provision in their budget for maintenance of faulty tools and equipments, before they are grounded. It is said that “a stitch in time saves nine”.
1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY
The issue of poor maintenance culture as it affects tools and equipment used in art production in tertiary institutions in Nigeria cannot be over emphasized. It is a poor attitudinal behaviour which has eaten deep into the social fabric of the Nigerian people. It manifests in different aspects of the industrial life of the people.
Most institutions of higher learning where Art is taught lack adequate infrastructure facilities and equipment for effective teaching and learning of art. Some of the institution that could boast of some facilities and equipment, have them in their dilapidated conditions were as a result of carelessness handling by student artists poor maintenance culture and total negligence on the part of departmental studio managers.
This attitude to Art studio materials, equipment and machineries is in line with the general attitude prevailing within the nation.
A visit to various ministries such as works and Housing: Agriculture citic will reveal sorry site of abandoned tractors, vehicles and other heavy equipment and machineries which otherwise would have been put to effective use in the pursuit of the objectives and goals of such ministries.
It is not surprising therefore that professor Adesing Oladapo Aderisigbe of Obafemi Awolowo University Ile Ife would lament over inadequate funding in the faculty of Agriculture which has resulted in the abandonment of many of the facilities and equipment of the faculty for decades. (Kehinde Adio, 2005).
The abandonment must have been as a result of their functional state which in most cases must have been as a result of poor maintenance.
Writing on the collapsed Nukkei bridge in, Jalingo Taraba state, David Molomo (2005) quoted Alhaji Abubarka (Deputy Governor) is attributing the collapse of the bridge to poor structure and maintenance.
Within the premises of the campus 2 of the Institute Of Management and Technology Enugu would be found a good number of water tankers, pail loader, and other vehicles which have been abandoned in a state of despair. At the industrial center would also be found, equipment for various productions which have not been assembled or have been allowed to rust.
According to the Head of work and services department the institute lacks the necessary fund to put these vehicles and equipment back to life – hence their abandonment.
From the foregoing it is discovered that lack of fund is one of the major factors responsible for the poor maintenance culture that is prevailing within the Nigeria system.
Another major factor to consider is non availability of the required technical know how. Most staff within the ministries, display lack of technical competence in the handling of machine and other working equipment. Where there are competent hand, surely maintenance cost would be reduced as the required repairs parts would be procured and repairs effected without engaging “experts” whose services would be very exorbitant.
Reporting on the repair being carried out on the Niger bridge, Nwabueze Okonkwo of Saturday sun pointed out that the Commissioner for works lamented that lack of maintenance culture which has affected the bridge since 1962.
Architectural structures also suffer similar fate. There are reports of such collapsed buildings all around the country in recent times.
Poor maintenance culture has been the bane of our country which is having very adverse effect on national growth and development.
1.2 STATEMENT OF PEOBLEM
Most art studio in institutions of higher learning have facilities for the teaching and practice of art but because of their conditions many of them are not functional this situation has affected student artist especially those who are specializing in ceramics.
Because of financial constraints facing management, money is not readily available to repair such equipment like electric potters wheels, kick wheels, kilns, ball mill, blunger, and other higher equipment like pugmill and compressors.
For lack of fund, electrical and mechanical experts cannot be consulted to effect repairs on these broken down equipment to this end, what is expected of the student artist whose progress in training depend on the availability of such tools and equipment.
1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this study is to identify the possible ways art student can organize themselves through costless self help project to undertake effective repairs of broken down equipment and machineries in the art studio of their institutions that aid their training.
1.4 SCOPE AND DELIMITATIONS OF PROJECT
The scope of this project cover a study of the design of the non–functional electric wheel, with the aim of understanding the working relationship of the components and identifying the faults. It also covers the dismantling of the components with the aim of understanding the extent of damage and identifying steps to take in the restoration of functionality.
Thirdly, it also covers the repair and replacement of damaged parts and finally the reassembling of the entire components.
The project did not cover the historical development of potters where through the ages. It was not concerned with a comparative study of different electric wheels and their efficiency. Finally the project did not deal with design and production of new electric potters wheel.
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF PROJECT
The significance of this project is the new dimension it introduces in the study of art. Under this new dimension, students have the opportunity to study and understand the design and mode of operation of the tools, equipment and machinery that are used in art production particularly with reference to one’s area of specialization.
In this regard the art student will not see his working tool or equipment as object whose production is beyond his scope of knowledge and understanding.
This approach place the art student in a position of great advantage like the driver/ mechanic. He or she will be asked to overcome problems associated with production within the studio or the industry.
1.6 DEFININTON OF TERMS
POTTERS WHEEL: Machine designed to help potters to produce circular forms from a lump of plastic clay place on it revolving wheel head. This machine could be powered manually by kicking a pedal with the foot or by electric motor.
THROWNG: A method of producing ceramic form in which a lump of clay placed on a revolving wheel head is manipulated with the fingers to become cylindrical and consequently give the desired shape of a flower vase, or mug or cup or bowl.
WHEEL HEAD : This is a flat round metal disk which usually revolves on a vertical shift on which clay lumps are place for the production of cylindrical clay forms.
CERAMICS TOOLS: It is a light hand instrument used in preparing and extracting clay; on dealing forms, smoothening; felting and decorating clay ware.
CERAMIC EQUIPMENT: ALL heavy duty machinery used in ceramic production such as kiln, potters wheel, pug mill, ventilation both spraying machine, spray gun, etc.
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SIMILAR FINE APPLIED ARTS FINAL YEAR PROJECT RESEARCH TOPICS
» ABSTRACT Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country and the central gravity for the continent emerging democracies. Political scientists see politics...Continue Reading »
2. FILM STUDIES AND THE INTERROGATION OF AFRICAN GIRL-CHILD’S IDENTITY: AN ASSESSMENT OF “DRY” BY STEPHAINE LINUS AND “CHILD NOT BRIDE” BY EMEK...» TABLE OF CONTENTS Title page i Certification ii Dedication iii Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents v Abstract vii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Back...Continue Reading »
» CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1. BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY The textile world is very broad and everyone is dependent on it. Nearly every aspect of our live...Continue Reading »
» ABSTRACT There is a wide concern for the high rate of abnormal behaviour evident in our youth as a result of home video films they are exposed to. Thi...Continue Reading »
» Abstract This work content analyzed Cartoons in Nigerian dailies. Its central objective is hooked on the measurement of efficiency in deployment of ca...Continue Reading »
6. THE PLACE OF SEMIOTICS IN CONTEMPORARY NIGERIAN DANCE: A STUDY OF NNAMDI AZKIWE UNIVERSITY THEATRE’S “HARVEST OF GOOD WILL” AND JIGAWA STATE’S...» ABSTRACT Contemporary Nigerian dances are as diversified as the culture from which they emerge. This project is an exploration of the use of semiotics...Continue Reading »
7. THE MARKETING PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES OF REMODELLING AND RENAMING THE UNIVERSITY OF UYO STUDIO THEATRE» ABSTRACT Theatre is a place of seeing. It is a place that people go in to interact with the productions. Since theatre is a service oriented instituti...Continue Reading »
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10. A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF AIR TRAVEL AND TOURISM IN PORT HARCOURT AND MURTALA MUHAMMED INTERNATIONAL AIRPORTS.» ABSTRACT This research work is the relationship between air travel and tourism: a comparative case study of Murtala Muhammed International Airport and...Continue Reading » | <urn:uuid:b8d4db94-036d-48cc-8c85-544e5cb4a700> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://codemint.net/fine-and-applied-arts/effect-of-poor-maintenance-studio-equipment-and-the-practice-of-art/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370505730.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20200401100029-20200401130029-00395.warc.gz | en | 0.934498 | 2,358 | 2.5625 | 3 |
BESTHESDA, MD—For traumatic musculoskeletal injuries, the Military Health System (MHS) provides cutting-edge care as it continues to pioneer new techniques to preserve limbs and restore function. For more mundane, yet frequently disabling injuries, both the VA and DoD rely on data-driven therapies and innovation to repair damage and minimize pain.
“Military orthopedic surgeons have more experience dealing with traumatic injuries than any other healthcare system,” said Marvin Helgeson, MD, chief of orthopedics at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. “As a profession, that’s our niche.”
The DoD has focused on streamlining “the reconstructive ladder from point of injury to restoring function,” Helgeson told U.S. Medicine.
Efficiently delivering servicemembers from where they incurred the injury to the initial level of care is the first step. Once there, “we take a multidisciplinary approach to cleaning wounds and stabilizing fractures,” Helgeson said.
For warriors who have sustained traumatic limb loss or are at risk of amputation, minimizing the risk of infection is paramount. “Musculoskeletal infections frequently complicate the clinical course of combat-injured patients with traumatic amputations and limb-threatening wounds,” according to a recent review of musculoskeletal injuries in the U.S. military.1 “Infectious complications range in severity from cellulitis, requiring only antibiotic therapy, to deep infection requiring surgical debridement.”
Because physicians within the MHS see many more of these injuries, “we lead the community in research in debridement and closure techniques, as well as in reconstructing tissue to optimize function,” Helgeson noted. Orthopedic, plastic and trauma surgeons work together to help injured service members achieve the best possible results, he added.
Walter Reed has developed two unique procedures to maximize use and minimize issues associated with prosthetics for amputees. Osseointegration addresses the difficulties created by the socket required for attachment of most prosthetics. For leg prosthetics, the socket transfers the force of the prosthetic foot hitting the ground to the skin, soft tissues and muscles before reaching the remaining bone.
The wear and tear on the skin and soft tissue is particularly problematic for battle-injured amputees who are more likely to have had split thickness skin grafts to preserve maximum limb length, but are more susceptible to ulceration, according to Walter Reed. Heterotopic ossification or bone formation in soft tissues of injured limbs, which occurs in up to 91% of traumatic amputations, also contributes to ulceration, pain, and nerve damage with traditional prosthetics.
The new procedure entails implanting a titanium peg into the femur or humerus to which an abutment that goes through the skin is attached. The external prosthesis then directly attaches to the abutment, eliminating the need for a socket. “We have done this procedure in 20 to 30 patients and all have able to maintain their prostheses,” Helgeson said.
Patients also experience an improved range of motion, better ambulation, and greater sensory awareness of the limb, which leads to more natural gait.2
The second advance is targeted muscle reinnervation, which can preemptively avoid pain from neuromas and phantom limb pain by surgically transferring amputated nerves to motor nerves in nearby muscles at the time of amputation.3 In addition, it “allows more function by being able to recruit muscle fiber more actively for amputees,” Helgeson added. The procedure also enables more intuitive control and an expanded range of motion for prosthetics.
Beyond Battlefield Injuries
Both the DoD and the VA have made significant investments in improving care and outcomes for service members or veterans who have experienced more common, non-combat-related injuries that lead to low-back pain and anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) ruptures.
Broadly speaking, VA/DoD guidelines encourage patients and physicians to try a wide range of interventions before resorting to surgery for back pain. “In the low-back realm, spine surgery as a whole gets a negative rap sometimes. In the civilian sector, there is evidence that there is too much surgery” with too little benefit, Helgeson said.
“Discectomies classically do well and patients who have them tend to stay on active duty. But reherniation happens in about 5% of cases, though we have no good studies that correlate reherniation to technical aspects of the surgery,” he observed. “It may be the manner in which you remove the disc and tissue around it, but no one has been able to prove that. In the meantime, we don’t want to miss the short-term outcomes because if something you do makes them undeployable for a year, they won’t be in the military.”
Other surgeries provide no simpler answers. “For cervical spine one- or two-level fusion or disc replacement, there are more questions about what happens 10 to 20 years down the road, whether it leads to degeneration,” he noted. “We don’t know if the best option is to fuse someone in the long-term because of problems with healing and adjacent damage. And only about half of patients stay on active duty after fusion.”
The advances seen in cervical spine options have not been paralleled in the lumbar region, Helgeson noted. “We’ve been on the leading edge for the last 15 years with cervical disc arthroplasty and patients have done very well. In the lumbar spine, we were in leading trials, but lumbar spine arthroplasty has not been proven to preserve motion as well as cervical.”
Walter Reed has adopted minimally invasive techniques as they have been developed. Those approaches may be especially suitable for the relatively young and healthy active duty population, which has a unique profile. Most back surgery patients have pain resulting from age-related degeneration.
The VA sees more of that older cohort as well as younger veterans who sustained injuries that led to ongoing back pain. Like DoD, VA focuses on providing a range of service to address pain, including surgery.
“Patients are choosing to be proactive about seeking musculoskeletal evaluation earlier rather than simply masking the pain with opiates. By seeking care earlier, we can intervene with non-surgical methods earlier as well, which tend to help,” said Alan Dang, MD, orthopedic attending at the San Francisco VAMC.
“There are multiple new techniques and technologies that are advancing the field of spine care, including endoscopic approaches for decompression,” Sanjog Pangarkar, MD, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Greater Los Angeles VAMC, told U.S. Medicine. “In addition, certain lumbar surgery approaches such as OLIF [oblique lateral lumbar interbody fusion], are muscle sparing and allow faster recovery times.”
The VA also offer radiofrequency ablation for back pain, sometimes called “laser surgery,” as well as very complex multiday, staged spinal fusion surgeries, 3D printed titanium spine implants, robotic surgery, and computer navigation for complex cases, Dang said. “Any surgery that has strong evidence for use and, if applicable, is FDA cleared or approved is available at the VA,” he noted.
More recently, the San Francisco VA has used 3D patient-specific printed models created in-house to plan surgery and communicate with the surgical team and patient, Dang added. The cost can be less than a pair of sterile gloves and production takes less than 24 hours.
VA has also developed more intensive interdisciplinary pain programs than any other system, including cognitive behavior therapy, aquatic and physical therapy, acupuncture, yoga, tai chi, and other non-pharmacological, non-surgical techniques to help veterans “restore functioning and regain a sense of purpose,” said Jennifer L. Murphy, PhD, national cognitive behavioral therapy for chronic pain master trainer at the Tampa VAMC.
With ACL tears 10 times more common among active duty forces than civilians, military orthopedic surgeons have had abundant opportunity to study the injury and techniques for repair. “DoD is very interested in musculoskeletal injuries such as ACL ruptures because it’s one of the most common reasons for individuals to be not ready for deployment,” Helgeson said.
“Our sports-related surgeons do an incredible amount of volume,” he added. That allows the DoD to “critically assess long-term outcomes and whether specific technical aspects have an impact. Does ACL surgery result in recurrence or long-term stability or increase the risk of osteoarthritis? If so, is that outcome procedure specific?”
Continual evaluation of results and refinement of procedures keep “our folks always at the leading edge,” Helgeson said. “There is a lot of variation in how to approach ACL ruptures. We use the most advanced techniques here and continually evaluate how they might be refined to improve outcomes.”
- Grimm PD, Mauntel TC, Potter BK. Combat and Noncombat Musculoskeletal Injuries in the US Military. Sports Med Arthrosc Rev. 2019 Sep;27(3):84-91.
- Zaid MB, OʼDonnell RJ, Potter BK, Forsberg JA. Orthopaedic Osseointegration: State of the Art. J Am Acad Orthop Surg. 2019 Nov 15;27(22):e977-e985.
- Valerio IL, Dumanian GA, Jordan SW, Mioton LM, Bowen JB, West JM, Porter K, Ko JH, Souza JM, Potter BK. Preemptive Treatment of Phantom and Residual Limb Pain with Targeted Muscle Reinnervation at the Time of Major Limb Amputation. J Am Coll Surg. 2019 Mar;228(3):217-226. | <urn:uuid:97c6700a-22ce-4428-9c2f-bec5160196f6> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.usmedicine.com/supplement/musculoskeletal-injuries-in-the-dod-and-va/dod-va-take-aim-at-musculoskeletal-injuries-with-innovation-data/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371896913.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20200410110538-20200410141038-00313.warc.gz | en | 0.932947 | 2,151 | 2.59375 | 3 |
1 MATHEWS, J. H., and HENKE, LEE K. The Comparison Camera. Jour. Crim. Law and Criminology 37: 247 (1946).
2 MATHEWS, J. H., and HENKE, LEE K. The Rifling Meter. Ibid. 35: 134 (1944).
3 BRADFORD, L. W., and BRACKETT, J. W. R. Identification News. March 1953.
4 MUNHALL, B. D. Proceedings of the I. A. I. 1950 (pp. 166-171).
Fig. 45. Early type comparison microscope. Employed by Albert S. Osborn for document examinations. Constructed by Bausch & Lomb.
Fig. 46. Diagram illustrating tli principle of the comparison microscope. (Schematic illustration by Burton D. Munhall, courtesy of the Institute of Applied Science, Chicago, 111.)
Fig. 47. Bausch & Lomb comparison microscope. (Early type.) This instrument obtained by author in 1925 on special order. A similar microscope had been made by B & L for Professor Chamot of Cornell University for his study of primers during World War I.
Fig. 48. Leitz comparison microscope made by E. Leitz, Wetzlar, Germany.
Fig. 49. Bausch & Lomb comparison microscope. A later type. Illumination is from a single lamp rather from individual spot lights whose position and intensity can be adjusted. Such flexibility is desirable.
Fig. 50. Bausch & Lomb microscope and camera. Same microscope as shown in Fig. 49 but with addition of camera.
Fig. 51. Bausch & Lomb comparison microscope. Modern type. (Photo by courtesy B & L.)
Fig. 52. Spencer comparison microscope. (Photo courtesy American Optical Co.)
Fig. 53. An early case of matching of rifling marks by means of the comparison microscope. Photograph taken by Goddard subsequent to the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, while case was being reviewed on order of the Governor. Comparison microscope photographs and comparison microscope testimony not used at the trial. Much of the testimony was very unscientific and irrelevant.
Fig. 54. Comparison microscope matchings. Test bullets above horizontal line, evidence bullets below line. Four different cases.
Fig. 55. Matching of rifling marks.
Left: Matching of marks made by land.
Above line: Test bullet from suspect gun.
Below line: Fatal bullet.
Right: Matching of marks made by groove.
Above line: Test bullet from suspect gun.
Below line: Fatal bullet.
Note: All six lands and grooves could be matched.
Fig. 56. Matching of rifling marks (comparison microscope photos). Above line: Rifling mark on test bullet fired from suspect gun. Below line: Rifling mark found on evidence bullet.
Fig. 57. Comparison microscope photograph. Showing matching of rifling marks on a tiny fragment of bullet jacket taken from victim's kidney by surgeon (upper) with marks produced on a test bullet (lower) fired from suspect's gun. This tiny portion of the copper jacket was all that was found, the remainder having been torn off in passing through the side of an automobile.
Fig. 58. Comparison microscope photographs. Showing matchings on two pairs of bullets. Two different guns.
Fig. 59. Lines on deformed bullets fail to match. While the matching of the test (upper) bullet with the evidence bullet (lower) is good in each case in the center part of the photos, it will be noted that the lines become farther apart on the evidence bullet, due to its expansion. This is a common occurrence with evidence bullets that are deformed, as they so frequently are. (Note: Bullets were fired from different guns.)
Fig. 60. Matching of breechblock marks (comparison microscope photos). These are matches obtained in three separate cases. In each case, test shell is above line of separation.
Fig. 61. The comparison camera. Used particularly for the examination, comparison, and photographing of fired bullets.
Fig. 62. Comparison camera. Same as Fig. 63 but from different angle.
Fig. 63. Comparison camera. Showing forward assembly all of which is mounted on a block which slides forward or back to accommodate lenses of different focal length.
Fig. 64. Comparison camera. Showing detail of mechanism for rotating bullets.
Fig. 65. Rear end of comparison camera. Bullets may be moved in three dimensions and rotated by turning lettered knobs. Bullet images are necessarily dim in this photo as the lights were on in the room in order to take the picture.
Fig. 66. Comparison camera photographs. Showing the matching of the same pair of bullets in three successive positions. Above line: Test bullet. Below line: Fatal bullet. (.25 cal. metal-jacketed bullets.)
Fig. 67. Comparison camera photograph. Showing matching of two bullets fired from a .32 cal. Savage automatic pistol. Reproducible markings on lands as well as in the grooves. jacketed bullets often do not show good markings on lands.
Fig. 68. Comparison camera photograph. Showing matching of two bullets fired from a .38 cal. revolver.
Fig. 70. Comparison camera photographs. Four successive matchings on a pair of lead bullets fired from a .38 cal. revolver whose cylinder did not line up properly with the bore of the barrel, causing the shaving of lead. This is a frequent occurrence with poorly-made guns and sometimes with guns of good make which have become badly worn. Test bullet above line. Evidence bullet below line.
Fig. 71. Matching of .22 Short bullets (comparison camera, 60 mm. lenses). The matching of .22 Short bullets is usually a difficult matter and, as in this instance, the results are often inconclusive. Often the bullets will show few if any distinguishing rifling marks and all too frequently they are so deformed that even a comparison of widths of rifling marks may not be satisfactory. This was not the case here.
Fig. 72. Comparison camera photograph. Showing four matchings obtained on a pair of .22 cal. lead bullets. Above line: Test bullet. Below line: Evidence bullet.
Matchings of this quality on .22 cal. lead bullets are rare. This is due to their small size, the softness of lead, the low powder pressures used, and the fact that arms of this caliber are often not cared for properly and are likely to have rifling which is worn, rusty, or leaded.
Fig. 73. Comparison camera photograph. Evidence bullets are often badly deformed. This makes identification difficult and sometimes impossible. In the case illustrated, however, it was possible to get a quite satisfactory matching of the test bullet (upper) with the fatal bullet (lower).
Fig. 74. Comparison camera photograph. Showing matching of breechblock markings on primer of a fatal shell (below line) with markings on primer of a test shell (above line) fired from suspect's gun.
Fig. 76. Dial, vernier, and reading lens. Lens swings on an are. Dial calibrated 180° right and 180° left.
Fig. 77. Auxiliary clamping device for barrels having extreme taper or unusual shape.
Fig. 78. Lead disk-cutter press and dies for cutting lead disks used with the rifling meter.
Fig. 79. Assembly of apparatus for measuring pitch of rifling on a fired bullet. This is useful only in case the bullet is in near perfect condition.
Fig. 80. Apparatus for measuring angle of rifling pitch from a fired bullet. (An alternate method.)
Fig. 81. Diagram illustrating the principle and technique involved in the determination of the angle of rifling from measurements made on a fired bullet. This reticle (grid of fine parallel lines) is in the eyepiece of the microscope. The angle of rifling is determined by lining up a groove edge with one of the parallel lines and then lining up the sides of the bullet with others of the parallel lines. The amount that the bullet has to be turned to do this represents the angle of the rifling. The lines of the grid are actually much finer than those shown in this illustration.
Fig. 82. Measurement of rifling angle on fired bullet. Showing quartz fiber mounted in fixed position directly above the bullet and in exact line with the axis of rotation of the screws that hold the bullet in position.
The bullet is rotated by turning the knob at the extreme right, and the „driving edge" of each land impression is brought directly under the quartz fiber before any settings are made.
After determining the exact position of the quartz fiber, and thus determining the reference axis, measurements of the angle between the land impression and this axis are made for each land impression on the bullet. The average of these values is used in computing the length of barrel required for one turn of the rifling.
Fig. 83. Leitz instrument for measuring rifling angle. (The author has had no experience with this instrument and therefore is not qualified to pass judgement on it.)
Fig. 84. Leitz instrument for measuring width of lands on fired bullet.
Fig. 85. Complete assembly of apparatus for measuring groove widths on fired bullets. Greenough type binocular microscope on rotatable table, device for holding bullet and measuring groove width, and two-tube fluorescent lamp (Burton).
Fig. 86. Device for holding bullet and for measuring width of grooves on a fired bullet. Slide carrying bullet mount moves to right or left as Starrett micrometer spindle is rotated. Lens enables operator to make accurate readings from microscope eyepiece level.
Fig. 87. Slippage marks. Bullets fired from revolvers are particularly likely to show slippage marks such as shown here. The bullet, already having attained a high velocity before striking the lands, resists taking a rotational movement because of its inertia. This results in a double impression of the lands. The proper width to measure is indicated by the arrow between the two parallel lines. This represents the width of the land that made the groove.
Fig. 88. Lead disk on end of „thrust rod" after being forced through a rifled barrel, in operation of the rifling meter.
Fig. 89. Set of Starrett Small Hole Gauges, modified as described in the text. Used for measuring bore and groove diameters of rifled barrels.
Fig. 90. Enlargement of three gauges shown in Fig. 89. Left: Unmodified gauge. Center: Two ,fins" (for even number of grooves). Right: One „fin" (for odd number of grooves).
Fig. 91. Diagram of modified Starrett Small Hole Gauge, with two „fins," for measuring groove diameters when number of grooves is even.
Fig. 92. Diagram of modified Starrett Small Hole Gauge, with one „fin," for measuring .groove diameters" when number of grooves is odd.
Fig. 93. Set of tapered gauges. Used for measuring bore diameter of guns having an odd number of grooves. Taper is such that there is a difference in diameters of ca. 0.020" at the two ends of the taper. Complete set consists of 13 gauges.
Fig. 94. Micrometer stand, a simple and convenient device for holding the micrometer so that one may have use of both hands for manipulation.
Fig. 95. Photography of hand guns. Equipment used by the author for photographing hand guns. It is described fully in the text.
Fig. 96. Illustrating importance of proper placement of scale in gun photography. The upper scale was 11/16" closer to the camera. Scale should be supported so that it is at the same level as the bore of the barrel.
Fig. 97. Better photographs of rusted nickel-plated guns can be made by first dusting with aluminum powder.
Fig. 98. Stereocamera on binocular microscope. Shows a rifle shell head being photographed. As set up here the head of the shell is illuminated with a Silverman Illuminator (large size), which gives even illumination from all directions.
Fig. 99. Stereophotomicrographs. The binocular microscope, which gives a three-dimensional view of an object, is indispensable. To make a permanent record of what the binocular microscope reveals, a threedimensional photograph is necessary. Above are examples of such photos. To bring out the third dimension they must be viewed with a stereoscope.
Fig. 100. Stereophotomicrographs. Showing breechblock markings on two shells fired in the same gun. To bring out the third dimension these must be viewed with a stereoscope.
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Executive summary: Our health our future – A national dialogue on healthy weights dialogue report
The number of overweight and obese Canadian children has risen steadily in recent decades. Today, more than one in four children in Canada is overweight or obese. Responding to growing concern of this alarming trend, in fall 2010 the federal, provincial and territorial (FPT) Ministers of Health and/or Health Promotion / Healthy Living endorsed Curbing Childhood Obesity: A Federal, Provincial and Territorial Framework for Action to Promote Healthy Weights. This document, which articulates a vision, strategies and priority areas for collaboration to address this issue, served as the foundation for a national engagement initiative.
Launched in March 2011, Our Health Our Future – A National Dialogue on Healthy Weightsset out to: inform Canadians of the impact of the issue; raise awareness of the factors that can contribute to childhood overweight and obesity; stimulate discussion on the issue and; encourage commitment to action to move toward healthy weights for children. This initiative will culminate with the National Summit, where stakeholders across the country will showcase best practices and propose concrete actions for the future. Upon completion, the key findings from this engagement process will be presented to the FPT Ministers of Health.
This report is divided into the five sections, including an introduction, the engagement approach, the participation profile, key findings and a conclusion.
The Our Health Our Future national dialogue brought together diverse groups of individuals and organizations to discuss ways of promoting healthy weights for children. A multi-stream engagement strategy provided Canadians with different ways to get involved. From March to September 2011, Canadians across the land participated through three participant channels.
- In-person events: Each dialogue was designed to allow participants to learn about childhood obesity and related issues; share their ideas, experiences and best practices and; reflect on possible actions for addressing this challenge. To maximize the opportunity for participation and interaction, a mix of small breakout groups and larger plenary discussions was used. These events were held in every region of Canada and engaged a diversity of stakeholder groups.
- Online conversations: An interactive, bilingual website was created at www.OurHealthOurFuture.gc.ca to act as a hub for online participation, where visitors could submit their ideas or comments through the Idea Forum and/or Submissions Area. A set of web-based tools enabled Canadians to share their ideas and engage in an online conversation on promoting healthy weights. Additionally, the broader objective of the website was to foster greater awareness and understanding of childhood obesity, and inform Canadians about current government actions (federal, provincial, territorial) to address this challenge. The website contained a suite of learning resources to help people learn about the issue in greater depth.
- Social media engagement: Facebook and Twitter were also used to gather input. A customized, bilingual presence was built for the Our Health Our Future initiative. Facebook users could like the initiative's profile page, post messages or links on the wall, respond to discussion questions posted by the moderation team, and share, vote and comment on ideas through an integrated Idea Forum. Traditional advertising, viral marketing and recommendations were used to further engage the Facebook community. The Twitter strategy was designed to bring together a network of thought leaders, researchers and stakeholder organizations to share information, perspectives and news on childhood obesity. The online conversation was facilitated by the Our Health Our Future project team, who posted discussion questions to initiate conversation between followers of the initiative.
The engagement approach was designed around the strategies and four policy areas outlined in the FPT Framework for Action document. The four topics for discussion were:
- Creating Supportive Environments: Ways to make the social and physical environments supportive of physical activity and healthy eating;
- Decreasing the Marketing to Children of Food High in Fat, Sugar and/or Sodium;
- Increasing the Availability and Accessibility of Nutritious Foods; and,
- Taking Early Action: Measures to identify obesity risks in children early.
Upon completion of the multi-stream engagement process, the research team analyzed all of the participant contributions.
The data findings from both in-person and online streams were carefully documented and analyzed by Ascentum, a third party public participation consulting firm. Specialized qualitative analysis software was used to identify the key shared themes and ideas that emerged.
Our Health Our Future heard from a wide range of individuals and organizations. Hundreds of Canadians participated in the in-person events held across the country, and more than 1000 participated online. The following table provides an overview of the participation levels by engagement channel.
|Engagement Channel / Contribution||#|
|Number of Events||20|
|Number of In-Person Participants||647|
|Comments on ideas||144|
|Votes on Ideas||477|
|Unique Website Visits||43,914|
Twenty in-person dialogues, held in 13 different cities across the country, engaged key stakeholder groups, including Aboriginal individuals and organizations, academics and researchers, caregivers, health care practitioners, industry representatives, non-profit health care and social organizations, media, provincial and territorial stakeholder groups, and youth. The coast to coast regional distribution of events demonstrates that Our Health Our Future was truly a national dialogue.
Online participation was also diverse and wide reaching, with participation from every province and territory, and some concentration in large urban centres. The level of online participation was tracked in a variety of ways. With 779 active contributions (i.e. total idea posts, comments, votes and submission), over 43,000 unique website visits, and a combined social media community of 772 individuals, Our Health Our Future was able to gather an even wider range of perspectives, while raising awareness around both the issue and initiative overall.
The multi-streamed engagement process attracted a wide range of participant perspectives. The top themes and ideas are organized under four discussion topics, which reflect the four policy areas adapted from the FPT Framework for Action.
1. Creating Supportive Environments
The most popular theme was education and training, which included three main ideas. The first was food preparation education in schools, to enable students to learn basic cooking and healthy eating skills. Participants suggested that this could be achieved by re-establishing home economics as part of the school curriculum, or by providing other types of experiential learning opportunities. The second idea was accessibility and availability of educational resources, which reflects the need to ensure that general information on healthy living is readily available to everyone. The third idea was nutrition education and literacy, which a number of participants believe should be integrated into the grade K-12 education curriculum across Canada.
The second theme under this policy area was built environment and infrastructure, which consists of three ideas. The first idea was urban planning conducive to physical activity – this included a number of actions to encourage active transportation and safe play throughout the community. The second idea was community access to school facilities, with participants proposing to open up schools to the wider community during evenings and weekends. This would help increase opportunities for free/low-cost physical activity while making use of underutilized facilities. The third idea was zoning legislation for improved access to healthy foods – this involves setting regulations related to the location of vendors that sell unhealthy foods, particularly those in close proximity to schools.
The third theme featured three ideas to influence positive behaviours and attitudes. The first idea was to institutionalize physical activity in schools, which would be done through various measures. The second idea was to shift focus away from weight, which was the most popular idea online. Many participants expressed concerns with the language around weights, and proposed using more holistic concepts, such as healthy living, and healthy growth and development. The third idea was inclusivity in sports and physical activity, whereby participants recommended reducing the focus on competitiveness in sports and encouraging both structured and unstructured physical activity of diverse types and for all skill levels.
Other common ideas that emerged included positive family lifestyle and environment, accessible recreation programs, and tax incentives.
2. Decreasing the Marketing to Children of Food High in Fat, Sugar and/or Sodium
In contrast to the other three policy areas, the ideas discussed for this topic were not organized into themes. Rather, they were treated as stand-alone ideas unique in relation to one another.
The first idea was stronger government regulations for marketing and advertising. This reflects a range of actions proposed by participants across all stakeholder groups to place greater restrictions on the marketing of unhealthy food to children. These actions reflect different degrees of stringency, which range from placing limitations on advertising during certain times and locations, to imposing a blanket ban on direct marketing to children. In general, most industry participants disagreed with the premise of this policy area, as well as the singling out of fat, sugar and/or sodium as unhealthy ingredients. The second idea was making the retail experience more conducive to the selection of healthy foods, which seeks to address how food is marketed and presented in retail environments. Many participants expressed concerns around visibility and accessibility of junk foods, particularly in high-impact areas (e.g. checkout aisles), and how this can influence food choices.
The third idea was media literacy for youth, which is aimed at teaching individuals how to critically analyze the messaging in a wide variety of media. Many participants viewed this as an essential component for addressing childhood obesity, as it would help empower children and youth to make better choices. The fourth idea under this policy area was positive marketing, which is an alternative framing of the topic. Rather than limiting marketing, this idea reflects a re-orientation to promote healthy food choices to children and youth more actively and creatively. Many participants who supported this idea felt that the media could have a potentially positive impact on this issue.
3. Increasing the Availability and Accessibility of Nutritious Foods
The most popular theme under this policy area was addressing food prices. The first idea was government regulation and policies to affect a decrease in the price of healthy foods and/or an increase in the price of unhealthy foods. This was proposed by participants representing almost all of the different stakeholder groups, with the exception of industry. Participants saw a role for government in regulating food prices, and proposed a number of actions, such as taxing unhealthy food items, subsidizing healthy food items, and developing a coupon system for selected healthy foods. The second and third ideas were aimed at supporting those communities that are particularly sensitive to food prices as a result of socioeconomic and geographic barriers. Many participants felt that supporting individuals with low incomes and individuals living in the North was essential to ensuring that healthy foods are truly accessible to all Canadians.
The second theme under this policy area was building community capacity, which involves three key ideas. The first was the promotion of community gardens –publicly available garden plots that promote food security and self-sufficiency at the local level, while also bringing community members together in a shared purpose. A number of participants discussed their experiences with community gardens and spoke to the positive impact that they have had in their respective communities. The second idea was to support local food production, which seeks to build the capacity of local food producers and make their products more accessible. A range of actions were proposed, such as promoting buy local initiatives, providing agricultural grants and subsidies, and coordinating efforts with schools. The third idea was community kitchens and meals, which would provide community members with a space to cook, share knowledge and skills and socialize with one another. This would help individuals share costs and time in preparing healthy meals.
Other ideas emerging from the in-person and online dialogues included convenient access to healthy food, product labelling, and access to and formulation of junk food.
4. Taking Early Action
Education and training was the most popular theme emerging from discussions under this policy area, and evolved around two ideas. The first idea was to engage parents and families. Many participants want to ensure that individuals have the knowledge and resources needed to guide their children towards healthy behaviours and choices. This could be achieved in a variety of ways, such as instructional courses, information sessions, social marketing campaigns and/or information packages. These types of initiatives could also leverage community-based partners, such as schools, caregivers and the local media, to get the message out. The second idea was supporting practitioners to ensure that they have access to relevant, up-to-date educational resources and training opportunities. Many participants felt that both healthcare and childcare practitioners needed to be equipped with the skills to identify and address childhood obesity through their work.
The second theme under this policy area was maternal and baby health initiatives, which includes two ideas. The first is to encourage breastfeeding. Many participants, especially caregivers, promoted breastfeeding as a fundamental component of early childhood health and nutrition. As a result, many believed that it should be the exclusive feeding practice for the first six months to one year of the child's life. The second idea was pre- and post-natal services, which would represent a comprehensive continuum of services available to mothers and families. This includes improved surveillance and monitoring and access to education and counselling on relevant topics such as prenatal nutrition and birth weights.
The third theme was the need for further research. Two ideas were put forward, both aimed at improving the overall research capacity and data currently available on childhood obesity in Canada. The first idea was to assess health needs and risk factors. Participants suggested that a comprehensive and standardized assessment would not only produce robust, accurate and up-to-date research on the issue, but it would improve the overall process for determining when and where to make interventions. The second idea was improved health monitoring and tools, which would utilize effective, world-recognized tools like the World Health Organization (WHO) growth charts. This idea also represents actions to re-examine current monitoring practices, which many participants felt were inadequate because they did not account for the comprehensive set of factors that can impact a child's growth and development.
The Our Health Our Future engagement process succeeded in engaging a diversity of stakeholders from across Canada in an informed dialogue on how to promote healthy weight for children and youth. Their input will help inform the work of the FPT Ministers of Health as they move forward to determine future action on this issue. Equally important, the engagement process has also created numerous opportunities for collaboration among stakeholders from industry, the not-for-profit sector, families and researchers.
Based on participant evaluations, the majority valued the dialogue opportunity, appreciated the freedom to express their views freely and the effectiveness of the facilitation, and was satisfied that the session objectives were met. Some participants were so keen that they expressed a desire for even more time for discussion.
The results of this national initiative reveal a strong appetite for concerted and coordinated multisectoral action to reverse the trend of childhood obesity. Participants know that sustained action and long-term commitment means governments, families, communities and industry must make this a priority. They are prepared to join together in this critical first step to addressing childhood obesity in Canada.
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Apologetics (from Greek ἀπολογία, "speaking in defense") is the discipline of defending a position (often religious) through the systematic use of information. Early Christian writers (c. 120–220) who defended their faith against critics and recommended their faith to outsiders were called apologists.
In political usage, apologetics is used in a negative fashion to describe the defence of controversial actions or policies, like terrorism or politically repressive governments.
- Etymology 1
- Politics 2
- Bahá'í 3.1
- Buddhism 3.2
- Mormonism 3.3.1
- Roman Catholicism 3.3.2
- Hinduism 3.4
- Islam 3.5
- Judaism 3.6
- Pantheism 3.7
- Literature 4
Notable apologists 5
- American apologists 5.1
- Native Americans 5.2
- See also 6
- References 7
The term apologetics etymologically derives from the Classical Greek word apologia. In the Classical Greek legal system, two key technical terms were employed: the prosecution delivered the kategoria (κατηγορία), and the defendant replied with an apologia. To deliver an apologia meant making a formal speech or giving an explanation to reply and rebut the charges, as in the case of Socrates' defense.
This Classical Greek term appears in the Koine (i.e. common) Greek of the New Testament. The Apostle Paul employs the term apologia in his trial speech to Festus and Agrippa when he says "I make my defense" (Acts 26:2). A cognate term appears in Paul's Letter to the Philippians as he is "defending the gospel" (Philippians 1:7), and in 1 Peter 3:15 believers must be ready to give an "answer" for their faith. The word also appears in the negative in Romans 1:20: unbelievers are αναπολόγητοι (anapologētoi) (without excuse, defense, or apology) for rejecting the revelation of God in creation.
Early uses of the term (in the first sense) include Plato's Apology (the defense speech of Socrates from his trial) and some works of early Christian apologists, such as St. Justin Martyr's two Apologies addressed to the emperor Antoninus Pius and the Roman Senate.
An additional early use of the term, is Augustus Caesar's apologia or defense of his accomplishments as Roman Emperor inscribed outside of his tomb, at his death in 14 AD on pillars of bronze, called The Deeds of the Divine Augustus (in Latin: Res Gestae Divi Augusti). They were widely copied and distributed throughout the Roman Empire. It is regarded as one of the more important apologias of the ancient world.
The legal nuance of apologetics was reframed in a more specific sense to refer to the study of the defense of a doctrine or belief. In this context it most commonly refers to philosophical reconciliation. Religious apologetics is the effort to show that the preferred faith is not irrational, that believing in it is not against human reason, and that in fact the religion contains values and promotes ways of life more in accord with human nature than other faiths or beliefs.
In political usage, apologetics is used as a synonym for propaganda, to describe the defence of controversial actions or policies, like terrorism, rape, torture or politically repressive governments.
As the world's religions have encountered one another, apologetics and apologists from within their respective faiths have emerged. Some of these apologetics respond to or fight back against the arguments of other religions and secularism; others are pure defense.
Many apologetic books have been written in response to attacks on the history and teachings of the Bahá'í Faith. The religion's founders themselves wrote several books in response to such questioning presenting proofs of their religion, among them are the Báb's Seven Proofs and Bahá'u'lláh's Kitáb-i-Íqán. Later Bahá'í authors wrote prominent apologetic texts, such as Mírzá Abu'l-Fadl's The Brilliant Proof and Udo Schaefer et al.'s Making the Crooked Straight;.
One of the earliest Buddhist apologetic texts is The Questions of King Milinda, which deals with ethical and intellectual problems. In the British colonial era, Buddhists in Sri Lanka wrote tracts that rejected Christianity. In the mid-19th century, encounters between Buddhists and Christians in Japan prompted the formation of a Buddhist Propagation Society. In recent times, A. L. De Silva, an Australian convert to Buddhism, has written a book, Beyond Belief, designed to refute the arguments of Christian evangelists. Gunapala Dharmasiri has challenged the Christian concept of God from a Theravadan Buddhist perspective.
Christian apologetics combines Christian theology, natural theology, and philosophy to present a rational basis for the Christian faith, to defend the faith against objections and misrepresentation, and to expose error within other religions and world views.
Christian apologetics has taken many forms over the centuries. In the Roman Empire, Christians were severely persecuted, and many charges were brought against them. J. David Cassel gives several examples: Tacitus wrote that Nero fabricated charges that Christians started the burning of Rome. Other charges included cannibalism (due to a literal interpretation of the Eucharist) and incest (due to early Christians' practice of addressing each other as "brother" and "sister"). Saul of Tarsus, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and others often defended Christianity against charges that were brought to justify persecution.
Later apologists have focused on providing reasons to accept various aspects of Christian belief. Christian apologists of many traditions, in common with Jews, Muslims, and some others, argue for the existence of a unique and personal God. Theodicy is one important aspect of such arguments, and Alvin Plantinga's arguments have been highly influential in this area. Many prominent Christian apologists are scholarly philosophers or theologians, frequently with additional doctoral work in physics, cosmology, comparative religions, or other fields. Others take a more popular or pastoral approach. Some prominent modern apologists are Frederick Copleston, John Lennox, Walter R. Martin, Dinesh D'Souza, Douglas Wilson, Cornelius Van Til, Gordon Clark, Francis Schaeffer, Greg Bahnsen, Edward John Carnell, James White, Hank Hanegraaff, Ravi Zacharias, Alister McGrath, Lee Strobel, Josh McDowell, Peter Kreeft, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, Hugh Ross, David Bentley Hart, Gary Habermas, Norman Geisler and Scott Hahn.
Christian apologists employ a variety of philosophical and formal approaches, including ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments. Many Christian apologists also note, however, that the Gospel is the best defense and living a life according to the tenets of Jesus' teachings is the best argument.
There are notable Latter-day Saint apologists who focus on the defense of Mormonism, including early church leaders such as Parley P. Pratt, John Taylor, B. H. Roberts, James E. Talmage and more modern figures such as Hugh Nibley, Orson Scott Card, and Jeff Lindsay.
Several well-known Mormon apologetic organizations, such as the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (a group of scholars at Brigham Young University) and the Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (an independent, Mormon-run, not-for-profit group), have been formed to defend the doctrines and history of the Latter Day Saint movement in general and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in particular.
Notable apologists within the Roman Catholic Church include Fr. Robert Barron, G. K. Chesterton, Dr. Scott Hahn, Kenneth Hensley, Karl Keating, Ronald Knox, Peter Kreeft, and Gus Lloyd. Topics regarding Catholic history and doctrine presented by apologists and various lecturers are often made available via CD and digital download by Lighthouse Catholic Media. Probably the best known Catholic apologetics website is Catholic Answers.
Hindu apologetics was an inevitable consequence of the confrontation with Christianity during the British colonial period. A number of Indian intellectuals had become critical of the British tendency to devalue the Hindu religious tradition. As a result these Indian intellectuals, as well as a handful of British Indologists, were galvanized to examine the roots of the religion as well as to study its vast arcana and corpus in an analytical fashion. This endeavor drove the deciphering and preservation of Sanskrit. Many translations of Hindu texts were produced which made them accessible to a broader reading audience.
A range of Indian philosophers, including Swami Vivekananda and Aurobindo Ghose, have written rational explanations regarding the values of the Hindu religious tradition. More modern proponents such as the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi have also tried to correlate recent developments from quantum physics and consciousness research with Hindu concepts. The late Reverend Pandurang Shastri Athavale has given a plethora of discourses regarding the symbolism and rational basis for many principles in the Vedic tradition. In his book The Cradle of Civilization, David Frawley, an American who has embraced the Vedic tradition, has characterized the ancient texts of the Hindu heritage as being like "pyramids of the spirit". A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada translated over sixty volumes of classic Vedic scriptures including the biography and conclusions of the famous 16th century bhakti scholar Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu; many of these translations and commentaries have been further translated into as many as eighty languages, producing over half a billion books distributed throughout the world. Such individuals have tried to construct an intellectual defense of Hinduism during a phase when the fundamentalistic elements of other faiths have sought to denigrate the ancient religion in an effort to gain converts.
Islamic apologists have also defended their beliefs and practices from criticism by others throughout Islam's history. The late South African, Ahmed Deedat, is regarded as an Islamic apologist. He was a prolific popular writer who debated Christian evangelists by arguing over discrepancies in the Bible. Other notable apologists include: Shabir Ally, Yusuf Estes, Zakir Naik and Hamza Yusuf
Jewish apologetic literature can be traced back as far as Aristobulus of Paneas, though some discern in the works of Demetrius the chronographer (3rd century BCE) traces of the style of 'questions' and 'solutions' typical of the genre. Aristobulus was a Jewish philosopher of Alexandria and the author of an apologetic work addressed to Ptolemy VI Philometor. Josephus's Contra Apion is a wide-ranging defense of Judaism against many charges laid against Judaism at that time, as too are some of the works of Philo of Alexandria.
Similar to religious apologies, this form of writing often appears historically in literature. Dissimilarly, however, literary apologies defend either poetic and aesthetic qualities, or the author's ability to write about the subject directly following the apology. Plato's Apology may be read as both a religious and literary apology; however, more specifically literary examples may be found in the prefaces and dedications, which proceed many Early Modern plays, novels, and poems. Eighteenth century authors such as Colley Cibber, Frances Burney, and William Congreve, to name but a few, prefaced the majority of their poetic work with such apologies. In addition to the desire to defend their work, the apologetic preface often suggests the author's attempt to humble his- or herself before the audience.
Tertullian was a notable early Christian apologist. He was born, lived and died in Carthage. He is sometimes known as the "Father of the Latin Church". He introduced the term Trinity (Latin trinitas) to the Christian vocabulary and also probably the formula "three Persons, one Substance" as the Latin "tres Personae, una Substantia" (itself from the Koine Greek "treis Hypostaseis, Homoousios"), and also the terms Vetus Testamentum (Old Testament) and Novum Testamentum (New Testament).
In his Apologeticus, he was the first who qualified Christianity as the vera religio ("true religion"), and symmetrically relegated the classical Empire religion and other accepted cults to the position of mere 'superstitions'.
Arngrímur Jónsson was an Icelandic scholar who wrote the book Brevis commentarius de Islandia in Latin as a "defense of Iceland" where he criticized the works of numerous authors who had written about the people and the country of Iceland.
John Henry Newman (February 21, 1801 – August 11, 1890) was an English convert to Roman Catholicism, later made a cardinal, and beatified in 2010. In early life he was a major figure in the Oxford Movement to bring the Church of England back to its Catholic roots. Eventually his studies in history persuaded him to become a Roman Catholic. When John Henry Newman entitled his spiritual autobiography Apologia Pro Vita Sua in 1864, he was playing upon both this connotation, and the more commonly understood meaning of an expression of contrition or regret.
At the end of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century a group of conservative American economists and social scientists became known as the American Apologists. Their different theoretical orientations notwithstanding, they were apologists for the status quo and rose to defend the new industrial age and condemn unions and populist causes.
They included Simon Newcomb at Johns Hopkins, John Bates Clark at Columbia, James Laurence Laughlin at Chicago, Charles F Dunbar and Frank William Taussig at Harvard, Arthur T. Hadley and William Graham Sumner at Yale, and controlled the American university system in the East. This was backed by the cleansing of socialist reformers from American higher education after the Haymarket affair, an 1886 incident in Chicago.
- Christian countercult movement
- Christian existential apologetics
- Existence of God
- List of apologetic works
- Presuppositional apologetics
- Problem of evil
- "Apologists". Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005
- "So a torture apologist is one who defends torture by argument." as quoted by
- "an enthusiastic apologist for fascism in the 1920s" as quoted by
- Lewis N. & Reinhold M., Roman Civilization, vol ii, pp. 9–19, New York: Columbia University Press (1955)
- A.L. De Silva (1994) Beyond Belief: A Buddhist Critique of Fundamentalist Christianity, Three Gems Publications ISBN 978-0-6462-1211-1
- J. David Cassel. "Defending the Cannibals: How Christians responded to the sometimes strange accusations of their critics." http://www.ctlibrary.com/ch/1998/issue57/57h012.html
- Tacitus, Annals XV.44
- The Scott Hahn Conversion StoryCatholic Education Resource Center:
- http://www.wordonfire.org/about/fr-robert-barron/ WordOnFire.com Fr. Robert Barron
- http://catholicapologeticsacademy.com/faculty/kenneth-hensley/ Catholic Apologetics
- Obituary (Archive): Ahmed Hoosen Deedat (1918–2005): by Goolam Vahed, Department of History, University of KwaZulu Natal
- John Granger Cook (2000) The Interpretation of the New Testament in Greco-Roman paganism p.4., Mohr Siebeck Verlag, Tuebingen, Germany
- A History of Christian Thought, Paul Tillich, Touchstone Books, 1972. ISBN 0-671-21426-8 (p. 43)
- The American Apologists History of Economic Thought Website at The Schwartz Center for Economic and Policy Research , New School University. Accessed January 2009 | <urn:uuid:83b916ab-be94-440f-82ed-831951a24cff> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | http://www.worldheritage.org/articles/eng/Apologetics | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370500331.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20200331053639-20200331083639-00435.warc.gz | en | 0.933664 | 3,392 | 3.609375 | 4 |