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Dependency."1991. The Free Press, New York, New York. In the book she describes the importance of receiving gratitude when we help others; because giving help without recognition can embitter us as individuals. We need to be kind, in order to count on kindness as we age. The person who has |
dementia cannot always provide gratitude for their caregiver. Gratitude must be looked for in gentle ways and unassuming ways. Perhaps it is a smile, or a gesture, or an expression of love such as placing the head on the caregiver's shoulder. If gratitude is not felt even on an occasional |
basis, it is difficult to cope with death and dying. Death and dying as Dr. Kubler-Ross indicates, is the "final stage of growth". Death and Dying During the final stages of dementia due to Alzheimer's disease, an individual may lose his/her ability to ambulate, verbally communicate, swallow, or may become |
totally incontinent and continue to lose weight despite nutritional supplements. Usually people with Alzheimer's die of another problem---perhaps a stroke, or pneumonia due to aspiration. At this point, the caregiver must be aware that the only way a person can stay alive is by inserting a stomach tube that provides |
artificial nutritional sustenance. Caregivers may have different feelings about this intervention for religious or personal reasons. At the end stage of Alzheimer's the use of invasive procedures such as a stomach tube, can keep the persons alive from months to years. This important decision must be made by the family |
member and can create an "ethical dilemma". Families, should in no way feel pressured by a medical professional to insert life sustaining interventions. When family members are prepared with regard to the physical process of death and dying they are more able to accept death as an inevitable and peaceful |
process. The recent expansion of Hospice Services has done much to promote discussions about death and acceptance of withholding end-of-life medical interventions. Once a person is terminal, as determined by a physician who understands the disease process, a caregiver may decide to engage Hospice Services. The physician must be willing |
to certify that a person will die within six months. If the person does not die within six months, they are not disqualified from the program. Hospice Services are usually provided by a local Home Health Agency. Hospice services can be provided in the home, assisted living facility as well |
as a skilled nursing facility. When a family signs up for Hospice Benefits they agree to forgo extreme invasive procedures and agree to support procedures that alleviate pain for the person with dementia. This is known as "palliative care" or comfort measures. At the final stage of death, water and |
food are withheld as the individual no longer desires this. This is a part of the natural process of dying. Families can anticipate the final stages of death by the various physical stages a person may be going through. Barbara Karne, a Hospice R.N. developed a very comprehensive booklet entitled |
"Gone From My Sight: The Dying Experience" which delineates the various physical stages of death and dying. To obtain a booklet, contact her at the following address: Barbara Karnes, R.N., P.O. Box 335, Stillwell, Kansas, 60085, 1995. In Karnes' booklet she describes what occurs, one-three months prior to death, one |
to two weeks before death, days or hours before death, and then the final minutes. This information has been extremely helpful to families and can be summarized as follows: One to three months prior to death · Withdrawal from world and people · Decreased food intake · Increased sleep · |
Going inside self · Less Communication One to Two Weeks Prior to Death · Talking with Unseen · Picking at Clothes · Physical Changes o Decreased blood pressure o Pulse increase or decrease o Color changes; pale, bluish o Increased perspiration o Respiration irregularities o Sleeping but responding o Complaints |
knees, feet, hands, blotchy · Pulse weak and hard to fine · Decreased urine output · May wet or stool the bed · Fish out of water breathing · Cannot be awakened It is important that individuals be aware of their wishes and that the wishes be formally documented in |
a legal document that is known as an "Advance Directive". Each state has different instruments for these directives and the caregiver should contact the local medical facility to determine the appropriate document to be used. The Advance Directive delineates one's wishes regarding medical treatment and appoints a surrogate decision-maker on |
a person's behalf. Of course, the important aspect of the Advance Directive is to discuss end-of-life care before one becomes diagnosed with dementia or has an another debilitating illness. pp.309-311. Beckerman, Anita G. and Tappen, Ruth. M. 2000. It Takes More Than Love. Health Professions Press: Baltimore, MD. 1. Review |
the video clip on death and dying narrated by Dixie Merrill. Dixie Merrill is a caregiver who is also taking care of three sets of parents--in laws, step parents, as well as parents. Dixie has been part of a support group and has indicated how information learned in the group |
has helped her cope with the death and dying. Note how she describes the process of death and dying as peaceful and calming. She indicates talking about death and dying has made it less fearful and she also emphasizes the importance of advance directives. 2. Consider the following questions for |
reflection when watching the video: · What strategies helped the Merrill family cope with their mother's death and dying process? · How can "Advance Directives" help individuals cope with the dying process? Link back to index.html |
Friday, 11 December 2009 mental ray_Adding glow to the window glass The above image was produced whilst at GMJ Design Ltd In our latest book, we have covered a number of ways of emulating light without the need of creating a physical light. Production companies often adopt similar methods to reduce the rendering times and retain the overall quality. It is worth pointing out |
that the usage of Ambient Occlusion(i.e. AO) as a separate pass or/and directly from Max is utterly imperative for the final shot. The following exercise will take you through another unique methodology of achieving similar results with reduced rendering times: Another quick way of emulating “glow”/"light" on windows, is to in fact enable the glow function on the glass panes themselves. To do this, |
simply go to the main material parameters, under the "refraction" group. 1-Reduce the transparency to about 0.9 to prevent the surface from being fully transparent. 2-To add a bit of blur to the transparency, decrease the glossiness to about 0.78. Note that, these values may vary depending on one’s camera angle...and the level of transparency/blurriness intended. 3-Next,change the colour swatch from white to a |
warm yellow. Also, the "fast (interpolate)" function, can be enabled for quick and fast results, as the glossiness and its samples can often slow down the renders.However,it may create artifacts. 4-Pan down to the "self illumination (glow)" parameters and enable the "self illumination (glow)" function. 5-Under the "luminance" group, change it from "unitless" to "physical units: cd/m2)". Also, pick and choose any relevant bitmap |
(i.e. photo) that has a prominent light source. Note: The "unitless" function often creates artifacts on glossy reflections, therefore, to be avoided at all costs. Depending on time in hand, one can set the glow to generate light, or not, through the FG, by checking the "illuminates the scene (when using fg)" function. ...and... “...let there be light...”!!! The final rendered image below was |
The most illustrious Czars and mighty Princes, John and Peter Alexewitz, my most gracious Lords, having in their Wise Council of State resolved to send a splendid Embassy, on some important affairs, to the Great Bogdaichan, or Sovereign of the famous Kingdom of Kitai, by us Europeans commonly called China: This obliged me with a welcoming opportunity of traveling through part of the famous, |
but hitherto unknown, Siberian and Kitaian Countries, (never before visited by any German) and informing my self by credible witnesses of the remainder of those Lands, as well as obtaining a certain knowledge of several things with which the World hath not been hitherto acquainted. Evert Ysbrants Ides was the first educated European to travel in Siberia and gather firsthand information about the collection |
of fossil ivory. Ides' opportunity to travel across Siberia was the direct result of the satisfactory settlement of a small war on the Chinese border. The speed with which the first wave of Russian fur traders, called promyshleniki, crossed Siberia created serious supply problems for them. Men carrying small loads of goods and supplies could easily cross Siberia using a network of rivers and |
short portages by boat in the summer and sled in the winter. Bringing large loads of bulky goods, specifically enough grain to feed a small settlement, was a much more difficult and expensive proposition. It could take three or four years for a shipment of grain to reach a remote place like Yakutsk and, by then, the majority of the load would be inedible. |
Because of this, the promyshleniki were relieved and excited when they began to hear rumors of the Amur, a valley in the south filled with grain, cattle, and silver. The first expedition to reach the Amur was a group of 132 cossacks under Vassily Poiarkov in 1643-46. The Amur natives, whom the Russians called Daurians, greeted Poiarkov with hospitality but the relationship turned sour |
as the Russians resorted to kidnapping, plunder, and, it is reputed, cannibalism to get what they wanted. This kind of behavior went over with the locals about as well as you might expect. Poiarkov had to fight his way out of the country and lost half of his command to native attacks and starvation. However, because he confirmed that the Amur was a land |
of cattle and grain (he didn't find any silver), the expedition was proclaimed a success. Several other Russians tried to map out a better route into the Amur valley. In 1651, Yerofey Khabarov fought his way down the river with even more brutality than Poiarkov had and built a fort near the site of the city that now bears his name. This is when |
things began to go to hell. Khabarov knew, but chose to ignore, that the Amur was within the Chinese sphere of influence. What he might not have known was that it was also part of the homeland of the new Qing dynasty of China. The only reason he was able to occupy as much land as he did was that most of the armed |
Manchu horsemen were still busy conquering China. A year after Khabarov built Achansk, a Chinese military expedition arrived to drive him out of the valley. This was the beginning of more than thirty years of seesawing occupation of the Amur country. By the early eighties, with most of China finally pacified, the Kangxi emperor was ready to deal with the Russians once and for |
all. Now it was the turn of Moscow to get alarmed. Moscow, in the 1680s, was infected with a bad case of "who's in charge here?" In April 1682, Tsar Fedor III died at the tender age of twenty one without leaving an heir. The succession fell on his brothers Ivan and Peter. The elder of the two, Ivan, was severely epileptic, nearly blind, |
and may have suffered from a variety of other problems (diagnosing the physical and mental health of historical figures is more of a parlor game than a science among historians). Peter was strong as an ox, but only ten years old. To further complicate matters, the two boys had different mothers and the two sets of in-laws formed powerful and antagonistic factions at court. |
Fedor's death was followed by a week of riot and rebellion (not all of which was related to the succession). When the dust cleared, Ivan and Peter had been declared co-tsars and their sister Sophia was the de facto regent ruling in their names. Except for a few years during the reign of Catherine the Great, historians have not been kind to Sophia. She |
has been reduced to cartoonish stereotype of a scheming woman (which is bad) who was finally put back in her place by a strong male (which is good). In fact, Sophia Alexeevna Romanov was an extraordinary woman. She was intelligent, well informed, and literate in three languages. She was comfortable giving orders and appearing in public at a time when most upper-class Russian women |
were kept in harem-like seclusion for their entire lives. During the seven years that she served as regent for the two tsars, Sophia had successes and failures no different than any other rulers’. For the advance of mammoth knowledge, her most important achievement was settling the Amur conflict. Since the beginning of the century, the tsars had recognized the potential for Siberia to become |
a private trade route to China, but every attempt at making official contact with the Chinese court had failed due to cultural misunderstandings. Despite that, the Kangxi emperor wanted to open trade with the Russians and hoped that a show of strength would be enough to drive the promyshleniki and Cossacks out of the Amur valley. In 1684 a large and well supplied Chinese |
army arrived on the lower Amur and began to move west driving the Russians before them. At Albazin, on the northern bend of the Amur, the Russians attempted to make a stand, but were soon defeated. The Chinese allowed the survivors to retreat, razed their fort, and moved down river to their base of operations. When word of the defeat on the Amur reached |
Sophia and her advisors, they quickly dispatched an envoy to make peace with the Chinese. This should have been the end of the crisis, but, before the envoy could arrive, the Siberian Russians returned to Albazin and built a new fort provoking the Chinese army to return and start a new siege. They were only saved by the arrival in Beijing of advance messengers |
from the embassy. The Kangxi emperor ordered his army to lift the siege and prepared his own diplomatic mission to meet the Russians. Further complications--and there are always further complications in diplomacy--delayed the meeting of the two missions until the summer of 1689. The negotiation took place at the Russian outpost of Nerchinsk on a tributary of the Amur almost 300 miles west of |
Albazin. Amid elaborate ceremonies by the official heads of the missions, the real negotiations were carried out in Latin by a Polish cavalry officer (for the Russians) and a French Jesuit (for the Chinese). The agreement, signed on August 27, the first formal treaty signed between China and a Western power, required the Russians to evacuate the entire Amur valley, but established formal trade |
through Nerchinsk. Sophia did not get to celebrate the Treaty of Nerchinsk. At the same time that the negotiations were wrapping up in the East, Sophia's regency was coming to an abrupt and unanticipated end in Moscow. Sophia's position had been dramatically weakened by two disastrous campaigns in the Crimea and by her half brother Peter turning seventeen in June. Amid rumors that Sophia |
was planning to murder Peter and rule in her own name, supporters of the two Romanovs engaged in a month of dramatic maneuvers that resulted in Peter taking control and Sophia retiring to a convent. Peter's half brother Ivan stayed on as co-tsar until his natural death seven years later. When word of the treaty reached Peter, he accepted the terms and began planning |
a trade mission to Beijing. Russia had a severe shortage of literate agents who were competent to make their way through foreign cultures, which explains the necessity of hiring Latin speaking Polish cavalry officers to conduct delicate diplomatic negotiations. For his first official trade mission to China, Peter hired a German, Dutch, or possibly Danish merchant named Evert Ysbrants Ides*. Ides had been in |
Russia since 1677, operating his own merchant house, first in Archangel and later in Moscow. In the spring of 1692, Ides left Moscow at the head of a 400 man caravan with instructions to exchange ratifications of the treaty, determine the best items for trade, feel out official attitudes toward the treaty, and request that a Chinese envoy be sent to Moscow. The most |
direct route from Moscow to China is the same one that the Trans-Siberian Railway follows today, around the southern end of the Ural Mountains, across the steppe lands at the center of Eurasia, across Lake Baikal, and on to the Amur. Unfortunately, the steppe lands were controlled by Kirghiz nomads and unsafe for Russian merchants. For this reason, Ides' caravan had to take a |
much more roundabout path to Baikal that took them across the Urals on the same path as Ermak a century before, down the Irtysh River to its junction with the Ob, up the Ob and its tributary the Ket, to a portage into the Yenisei basin, and up the Angara River to Baikal. By October, the mission had only reached the way station of |
the Frozen Sea. ... I had a Person with me to China, who had annually went out in search of these Bones; he told me, as a certain truth, that he and his Companions found the Head of one of these Animals, which was discovered by the fall of such a frozen piece of Earth. As soon as he opened it, he found the |
greatest part of the Flesh rotten, but it was not without difficulty that they broke out his Teeth, which were placed before his Mouth, as those of the Elephants are; they also took some Bones out of his head, and afterwards came to his Fore-foot, which they cut off, and, carried part of it to the City of Trugan [Turukhansk], the Circumference of it |
being as large as that of the wast of an ordinary Man. The Bones of the Head appeared somewhat red, as tho' they were tinctured with Blood. This account by Ides is the first Western description of a frozen mammoth and the beginning of a scientific and popular fascination that hasn't ended over three hundred years later. Locating the mammoth to which Ides' unnamed |
traveling companion referred is a little tricky. Makofskoi was, and still is, a small town on the western end of the portage between the Ob and Yenisei Rivers. Ides gave no indication of how far he meant when he said mammoth remains were found in the hills to the Northeast. My conclusion, based on Ides' phrase "not far from hence," is that the find |
must have been close to Makofskoi. The explorer Adolf Nordenskiold, who traveled along the Arctic coast in the late nineteenth century, thought, because the hunter took the mammoth's foot to Turukhansk, that the find must have been close to that place. Turukhansk is 450 miles north of Makofskoi, which is not "not far from hence." In Ides' day there were two major towns on |
the Yenesei where his companion might have sold the ivory, Turukhansk and Yeneseisk, which is only eighty miles from Makofskoi. That argues in Nordenskiold's favor. If the find was closer to Yeneseisk the only reasons the hunter would have had for going all the way to Turukhansk would have been if Turukhansk was offering a better price for ivory or if he had other |
business there. Without more evidence there's no way to settle the matter. If we split the difference between Makofskoi and Turukhansk we arrive at the Stony Tunguska River. Maybe the site was blown up in 1908 by the Tunguska meteorite. Ides goes on to report what the locals believed about the remains. Concerning this Animal there are very different reports. The Heathens of Jakuti, |
Tungusi, and Ostiacki, say that they continually, or at least, by reason of the very hard Frosts, mostly live under ground, where they go backwards and forwards; to confirm which they tell us, That they have often seen the Earth heaved up when one of these Beasts was on the March, and after he was past, the place sink in, and thereby make a |
deep Pit. They further believe, that if this Animal comes so near to the surface of the frozen Earth as to smell, or discern the Air, he immediately dies, which they say is the reason that several of them are found dead, on the high Banks of the River, where they unawares came out of the Ground. This is the opinion of the Infidels |
concerning these Beasts, which are never seen. But the old Siberian Russians affirm, that the Mammuth is very like the Elephant, with this only difference, that the Teeth of the former are firmer, and not so straight as those of the latter. They also are of Opinion, that there were Elephants in this Country before the Deluge, when this Climate was warmer, and that |
their drowned bodies floating on the Surface of the Water of that Flood, were at last wash'd and forced into Subterranean Cavities... The description of the mammoth as a subterranean animal that dies on exposure to surface air is almost identical to that given by the Chinese writer Tung-fang So in the second century BC. The three "heathen" tribes that Ides mentions are names |
given by the Russian conquerors and used to lump together all of the peoples of the Lower Irtysh, Ob, Yenisei, and Lena river basins. That is to say, he was ascribing the belief in the mammoth as a giant mole to most of the people of Western and Central Siberia. Later travelers ascribed different beliefs to many of these peoples. Still other travelers confirmed |
Ides' observations. When Ides traveled across Siberia, most of these peoples had been under Russian rule for a century, giving them plenty of time to have heard about the ideas of tribes with which they had had very little contact and to have learned the Biblical stories of Noah and Behemoth. Today, it is virtually impossible to sort out which tribes believed what before |
their contact with the Russians. While Ides was the first educated European to travel in Siberia and report firsthand information on the collection of fossil ivory, he wouldn't be the last. Peter the Great's diplomacy, wars, economic needs, and personal curiosity would send a constant stream of educated Europeans into his Eastern realms. They in turn would send back a constant stream of information |
that would be eagerly consumed by a Europe that was looking at the world through an increasingly scientific lens. Hmmm. I still seem to be having trouble with that "keep your blog posts under a thousand words" thing. Oh well... * Ides nationality and name have been the source of much confusion over the years. Accounts of his journey describe him variously as Dutch, |
German, and Danish. In the opening quote he implies that he considers himself to be German, but the first edition of his book was published in Dutch. The confusion comes from the fact that his parents were Dutch immigrants to Holstein, a German-speaking province that is the home of many cows and was then ruled by the King of Denmark. It's likely that Ides |
was fluent in both German and Dutch. The possible spellings given for his first and middle names are even more varied than his nationality. Because his middle name is sometimes spelled Ysbrand, some writers have assumed that he and the mission's secretary, Adam Brand, were one person. Adding to that confusion was the fact that both of them published memoirs of the journey, which |
There's this kid who gets bullied a lot by everyone. What should I do? Hooray for the person who sent this question in to us! There are a lot more |
kids who witness bullying than there are victims of bullying. Often, people who see something happen are called bystanders. Wouldn't it be excellent if those bystanders would do something to |
help someone who's being bullied? But how exactly do you find your courage and do it? First, be sure to let an adult know what's going on. If it's happening |
at school, have a talk with a teacher or school counselor about it. If it happens at camp, the camp counselor is the one to talk to. Approach the adult |
and say you need to talk. Explain what's been going on the best you can. Give details. The adult can take steps to stop the bullying. Plus, once they know |
about bullying, adults can do things to help the kid who's been bullied feel better and stronger. Adults can also help the kid who bullies learn to treat others with |
respect, friendship, and kindness. After talking to an adult, here are some other things you can do. Be friendly to the kid who gets bullied. For example, say "hi" at |
the lockers or bus line, include that kid at your lunch table, or invite the kid to play at recess or to be in your group for a project. This |
helps for two reasons: Any kid who gets bullied is likely to feel left out and alone. Your friendship helps that kid feel included and welcome. Friendship also helps prevent |
bullying because bullies are less likely to pick on kids when they are with friends. And when you see the bully acting mean, you can say, "Hey, knock it off, |
that's not cool," and invite the kid who's being picked on to walk away with you. You can just say, "C'mon, let's go." This can work even better if you |
get a couple of your friends to join you in standing up for the kid. Tell your friends ahead of time: "I'm going to stick up for that kid. Will |
you do it with me?" Be sure to update the adult about what's going on until the problem is solved. This is also a very good thing to talk to |
parents about. Your parent will want to know about all this and can give you more advice and support. Plus, your mom or dad will be proud that you're the |
kind of kid who cares and who stands up for others and for what's right! Bullying makes kids feel terrible — and not just the kid who's being bullied. Just |
You may associate pneumonia with the melodrama of a soap opera: prolonged hospital stays, oxygen tents, and family members whispering in bedside huddles. It's true that pneumonia can be serious. But more often pneumonia is an infection that can be |
easily treated at home without a hospital stay. What Is Pneumonia? Pneumonia (pronounced: noo-mow-nyuh) is an infection of the lungs. When someone has pneumonia, lung tissue can fill with pus and other fluid, which makes it difficult for oxygen in |
the lung's air sacs to reach the bloodstream. With pneumonia, a person may have difficulty breathing and have a cough and fever; occasionally, chest or abdominal pain and vomiting are symptoms, too. Pneumonia is commonly caused by viruses, such as |
the influenza virus(flu) and adenovirus. Other viruses, such as respiratory syncytial virus(RSV), are common causes of pneumonia in young children and infants. Bacteria such as Streptococcus pneumoniae can cause pneumonia, too. People with bacterial pneumonia are usually sicker than those |
with viral pneumonia, but can be effectively treated with antibiotic medications. You might have heard the terms "double pneumonia" or "walking pneumonia." Double pneumonia simply means that the infection is in both lungs. It's common for pneumonia to affect both |
lungs, so don't worry if your doctor says this is what you have — it doesn't mean you're twice as sick. Walking pneumonia refers to pneumonia that is mild enough that you may not even know you have it. Walking |
pneumonia (also called atypical pneumonia because it's different from the typical bacterial pneumonia) is common in teens and is often caused by a tiny microorganism, Mycoplasma pneumoniae. Like the typical bacterial pneumonia, walking pneumonia also can be treated with antibiotics. |
What Are the Signs and Symptoms? Many symptoms are associated with pneumonia; some of them, like a cough or a sore throat, are also common with other common infections. Often, people get pneumonia after they've had an upper respiratory tract |
infection like a cold. Symptoms of pneumonia can include: unusually rapid breathing chest or abdominal pain loss of appetite vomiting and dehydration Symptoms vary from person to person, and few people get all of them. When pneumonia is caused by |
bacteria, a person tends to become sick quickly and develops a high fever and has difficulty breathing. When it's caused by a virus, symptoms generally appear more gradually and might be less severe. Someone's symptoms can help the doctor identify |
the type of pneumonia. Mycoplasma pneumoniae, for example, often causes headaches, sore throats, and rash in addition to the symptoms listed above. The routine vaccinations that most people receive as kids help prevent certain types of pneumonia and other infections. |
If you have a chronic illness, such as sickle cell disease, you may have received additional vaccinations and disease-preventing antibiotics to help prevent pneumonia and other infections caused by bacteria. People with diseases that affect their immune system (like diabetes, |
HIV infection, or cancer), are 65 or older, or are in other high-risk groups should receive a pneumococcal vaccination. They also may receive antibiotics to prevent pneumonia that can be caused by organisms they're especially susceptible to. In some cases, |
antiviral medication might be used to prevent viral pneumonia or to lessen its effects. Doctors recommend that everyone 6 months and older gets a flu vaccine. That's because pneumonia often happens as a complication of the flu. Call your doctor's |
office to see when these vaccines are available. Because pneumonia is often caused by germs, a good way to prevent it is to keep your distance from anyone you know who has pneumonia or other respiratory infections. Use separate drinking |
glasses and eating utensils; wash your hands frequently with warm, soapy water; and avoid touching used tissues and paper towels. You also can stay strong and help avoid some of the illnesses that might lead to pneumonia by eating as |
healthily as possible, getting a minimum of 8 to 10 hours of sleep a night, and not smoking. How Long Does It Last? The length of time between exposure and feeling sick (called the incubation period) depends on many factors, |
particularly the type of pneumonia involved. With influenza pneumonia, for example, someone may become sick as soon as 12 hours or as long as 3 days after exposure to the flu virus. But with walking pneumonia, a person may not |
have symptoms until 2 to 3 weeks after becoming infected. Most types of pneumonia resolve within a week or two, although a cough can linger for several weeks more. In severe cases, it may take longer to completely recover. If |
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