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Questions for Evaluating a Summer Camp In This Article: Do Their Campers Return? Inquire about the camper return rate. Not every camper wants to go back to the same place the following summer, but a large number of returning campers probably is a sign that the children and their parents were highly satisfied with the camp's offerings and the way it is operated. This is more important to know when evaluating resident camps than day camps. Children change their choice of day camps more frequently in order to find more variety or to be with their friends. When campers are engaged in risky activities such as swimming or horseback riding, there should be additional adult supervision. Find out about the camp's medical resources. Is there a full-time nurse? Is there a doctor on call? How close is the nearest hospital and the nearest ambulance service? What are the camp's protocols about when parents are called if their child is ill or injured? If your child has special medical requirements, ask the camp staff how they would be handled. Is there appropriate storage for medications, for example? Can the cafeteria provide special foods for children on restricted diets? What accommodations are made for children with allergies? If, for example, a student carries an injection to be administered in case of bee sting, will all his counselors know how to use it so that precious minutes aren't wasted taking the child to the nurse? If your child will ride the bus to day camp and must wait alone at his stop, make sure he knows what to do if the bus doesn't arrive by a certain time. Also, ask what the drop-off policy is. Younger children may not be allowed to be dropped off at a stop where no parent is waiting unless the parent has provided written authorization. Many day camps provide bus transportation to and from their facility morning and afternoon. Buses also may be used for field trips. Some resident camps provide bus service from metropolitan locations. If your child will be using the camp's bus or van, ask how often the vehicles are inspected by mechanics. Find out the drivers' qualifications and if there are any ongoing training or safety programs. If you want to take the extra step of visiting the camp before enrolling your child, find out if any open houses are scheduled. You won't see the camp in operation, but you can observe firsthand whether the facility is well-maintained and possibly meet some of the staff. Whether you visit or not, find out where kids will be swimming—either a pool or a natural body of water—and if the water is monitored for bacteria. Is there a shallow area marked off for kids who are still learning to swim? Are swimming lessons offered? Are lifeguards certified in lifesaving always present when campers are in the water? If boating is offered, ask whether counselors are always in the boats with campers. Do campers have to pass a test before they take boats out on their own? If you don't know any families whose children have attended the camp, get references from the director. Ask these parents their overall impressions of the camp, what they liked best, and what they liked least. Other High-Risk Activities For any high-risk activity your child might engage in at camp—from rock climbing to white-water rafting—make a point of asking questions about protective equipment, staff training, and safety precautions. If your child will be riding horses, for example, he should wear a helmet. Ask if the camp requires this. State health departments or other regulatory bodies should be responsible for making sure camps prepare and store food safely, but enforcement may be spotty. Ask about food handling, both in the camp cafeteria and when meals are sent out with campers on trips. More on: Childhood Safety Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Child Safety © 2000 by Miriam Bacher Settle, Ph.D., and Susan Crites Price. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. To order this book visit Amazon's web site or call 1-800-253-6476.

Showing Jesus' Love For Ages: 2-5 Begin by singing "This Little Light of Enrichment Idea: You might decide to darken the room and use a tiny flashlight or light a small candle during your discussion. Before you read, turn the lights on again. Ask, "Have you ever been afraid of the dark?" Why? How do lights help us? If I cover my light what will happen? (It gets dark and it might make some of us scared or upset.) Read Matthew 5:14-16 from a child-friendly Bible. Jesus is telling us that when we follow him we are like lights, because we can show others the way to see Jesus' love and how to follow him. We do this when we show kindness to others, and by sharing and speaking kindly. What are some ways we can show kindness to others? Who can we show kindness to today? (Allow for What happens if we decide not to show love and kindness to others? (allow for discussion) We are like the light that is covered up. We darken our world and that's a sad thing! But when we show love and kindness to others we honor God in our lives! To remember our lesson, we will create a special painting. What You Need: T-shirt or another item to paint on, sponges cut to approximately 1" x 4", acrylic paint (yellow, red-orange, green and blue), permanent black marker, What You Do: Dip the sponges into blue and then green paint to paint the candle and holder (as shown in the picture above). Have children press their thumbs into red-orange paint to paint the flames. Now press children's palms into the yellow paint to paint the glow of the flame (their handprints). When the paint is dry use the marker to write child's name as shown in the picture. You might decide to outline the lamp and flame with the End by singing song and with prayer. Copyright 2004 Sarah Keith makes the free resources possible! Click here to tell your friends about this craft. Invite them to visit SundaySchoolNetwork.com. Return to the Crafts

Over the past years, we have been investigated the potential of Personalized Learning & Assessment (PLA) for use in the secondary and tertiary educational systems. We have been examined evidence that PLA offers an effective, efficient, and attractive mode to enhance students’ knowledge. We aim at showing the ability of PLA to foster students’ and workers’ learning, motivation, attitudes, collaboration, creativity, innovativeness, digital competence and other 21st century skills and abilities. Our research covers all the phases of a PLA system, from sensing the context (e.g. learner’s knowledge, experiences, behavior, performance, attitude, motivation) to intelligently guide him/her by providing personalized recommendations and feedback (visualizations, cognitive, affective, motivational) in order to achieve his/her goals. We have been examined the strength of Feedback during Computer-based Assessment (CBA). Our objective is to show that feedback and interventions could support students’ learning and enhance their performance, collaboration, self-efficacy, motivation (among others). We have defined several feedback types classified in cognitive, emotional and conational feedback. We have argued that designers of CBA systems should adapt the feedback to the learner and/or the educational context. Then we have presented what feedback’s attributes could be adapted to the learner’s state. Based on experimental findings, we have shown that students can achieve higher test scores in CBA when they receive motivational feedback (than without). Also, the CBA system could recognize the learner’s emotional state and support him/her using emotional feedback. We have proposed several personalized emotional feedback types and a model for applying this personalized feedback in order to help the learner improve his/her knowledge and acquire a positive attitude towards learning. Emotions are very important during learning and assessment. We have measured students’ instant emotions during a CBA. The findings have shown that most of the time students were experiencing Neutral, Angry, and Sad emotions. Furthermore, there were differences between genders’ instant emotions. Also, we have developed models that can predict the student’s mood during CBA. We have developed Empathetic Agents (Avatars) that provide feedback to learner’s emotions. Then we have examined the impact of these Empathetic Agents’ emotional face expressions and tone of voice combined with empathetic verbal behavior when displayed as feedback to students’ fear, sad, and happy emotions in the context of a self-assessment test. Based on experimental findings, the agent performing parallel and then reactive empathy appeared to be effective in altering an emotional state of fear to a neutral one. Usability, media presentation, interactivity, collaboration, security, technology (among others) are important features to seriously consider during the design of a Computer-based Assessment (CBA) system. We have Designed & Developed various Web-based and/or Mobile Assessment Systems that were Used and Evaluated by a large number of students, in real exams conditions. We have found that ease of use, playfulness, and electroencephalography (EEG) frontal asymmetry are important factors that directly affect the student’s Intention to Use these WBA systems. In addition, usefulness, computer self-efficacy, social influence, facilitating conditions, content and goal expectancy have indirect effects. We have also found that there were some gender differences. In addition, the students’ personality, emotions, and learning style influence their intention. We have also examined all different variables that have been used in adaptive educational systems. We have been investigated the potential of these variables to prompt adaptations in a Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT) system. The learner’s parameters ‘Knowledge on the domain presented’, ‘background-experience’, ‘preferences’, ‘personal data’, and ‘mental models’ can produce more efficient CAT. For the Evaluation of a CAT system, key parameters include utility, validity, reliability, satisfaction, usability, reporting, administration, security, and those associated with adaptivity, item pool, and psychometric theory. Mobile learning & assessment is gaining high momentum and popularity. We have presented a framework of Requirements (educational, socio-cultural, economical and technical) for effective mobile applications for educational purposes. We have identified the key design issues for the development and implementation of a CAT system on mobile devices. The formative evaluation of this system was an integral part of the design. We have developed the Mobile Based Assessment - Motivational and Acceptance Model (MBA-MAM) and have showed that it explains and predicts Behavioral Intention to Use Mobile-based Assessment in terms of both acceptance and motivational (autonomy, competence and relatedness) factors. Also, we have developed the Mobile-Based Assessment Acceptance Model (MBAAM) by adding to the Perceived Ease of Use and Perceived Usefulness, the constructs of Facilitating Conditions, Social Influence, Mobile Device Anxiety, Personal Innovativeness, Mobile-Self-Efficacy, Perceived Trust, Content, Cognitive Feedback, User Interface and Perceived Ubiquity Value and investigated their impact on the Behavioral Intention to Use MBA. MBAAM explains and predicts approximately 47% of the variance of Behavioral Intention to Use Mobile-Based Assessment. Personalizing computer-based testing services to examinees can be improved by considering their behavioral models. We have been exploited learning analytics regarding the examinee’s time-spent and achievement behavior during testing as well as their five personality traits. We have used Partial Least Squares to detect fundamental relationships between the collected data, and Supervised Learning Algorithms to classify students. Results indicate a positive effect of extraversion and agreeableness on goal-expectancy, a positive effect of conscientiousness on both goal-expectancy and level of certainty, and a negative effect of neuroticism and openness on level of certainty. Further, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness have statistically significant indirect impact on students’ response-times and level of achievement. Moreover, the ensemble RandomForest method provides accurate classification results, indicating that a time-spent driven description of students’ behavior could have added value towards dynamically reshaping the respective models. Access to open education, open content and open educational resources (OER) is gaining more and more attention worldwide. The arrival of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) has already changed dramatically the idea of education and has oriented learners to educational courses that are open, participatory, distributed and at the same time support the idea of lifelong networked learning. Language competencies and intercultural skills will more than ever be a part of the key qualifications needed to successfully work and live in this new reality. The need for MOOCs related to language education has already paved the way for the creation of the first “open and massive” foreign language courses. We have investigated the requirements for a successful online Language Learning course as well as MOOCs in Language Education. Then we have developed an evaluation methodology for Massive Open Online Language Learning Courses and evaluated existing such MOOCs.

You're on the final leg of your daily run when a cramp strikes your lower leg. Your stride shortens and you begin to limp, hands reaching toward your calf. What causes this painful problem that's sometimes called a Charley Horse? Experts aren't exactly sure. Cramps can occur during exercise when a muscle becomes tired from repeated activity and when there's a salt/fluid imbalance. The muscle suddenly contracts, often causing a very tight ball or knot. Some cramps occur at night, long after exercise. Cramps do not mean there is a problem with the muscle itself; rather, experts believe they happen when the fluid and electrolyte imbalance catches up to you or when a nerve overstimulates a muscle. This can also occur without exercise, as a symptom of some diseases or drugs, and for other, unknown reasons. Most exercise-related muscle cramps affect the foot or calf because they're often in repeated motion. Being in good condition can reduce the risk of cramps. If you get frequent muscle cramps or if you just started getting them and you can't point to a particular exercise, see your health care provider. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons recommends doing flexibility exercises before and after you work out to stretch the muscle groups most prone to cramping. Drink plenty of fluids. That's even more important if you're working out for a long time or it's hot and humid. Unless you have a health condition or take medication that requires you to restrict fluids, you should drink enough fluids during the day so that you have to urinate every two to four hours. During long periods of exercise, ideally you should drink 8 ounces every 20 minutes. When you urinate, your urine should be a pale color. Stay in condition. Increase the amount and vigor of exercise slowly, over weeks and months. Talk with your health care provider first. If you're working out, stop at once. Massage the muscle that's cramping. Apply warmth to tense, cramped muscles and cold to sore, tender muscles. Gently stretch the muscle. For example, sit with your leg outstretched, extend your hands forward, and pull your toes back toward your knees.

NodeList interface provides the abstraction of an ordered collection of nodes, without defining or constraining how this collection NodeList objects in the DOM are live. The items in the NodeList are accessible via an integral index, starting from 0. See also the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification. Public Method Summary The number of nodes in the list. public abstract int getLength () The number of nodes in the list. The range of valid child node indices is 0 to public abstract Node item (int index) indexth item in the collection. If index is greater than or equal to the number of nodes in the list, this returns |index||Index into the collection.| - The node at the indexth position in the nullif that is not a valid index.

At KPRDSB, an integral part of learning about Indigenous histories, cultures and perspectives is learning from First Nation, Métis and Inuit people when possible. We encourage teachers and schools to invite Indigenous resource people into their schools and classrooms to provide more depth of understanding as well as to foster positive relationship-building. Through these visits, a deeper and more authentic learning opportunity may provide increased insight and foster understanding that books, videos and internet searching just cannot provide. Encouraging the inclusion of authentic First Nation, Métis and Inuit voice and presence in our classrooms and schools by inviting people who are recognized Knowledge-Keepers and Elders is fundamentally important in our steps toward reconciliation and helps to create conditions where all of our students learn from Indigenous people in schools. This learning and knowledge has been lacking historically, and with respectful inclusion in our school environments, lasting positive impacts —Sheryl Mattson, K-12 First Nation, Métis & Inuit consultant To even mention the word, “initiative,” to high school teachers is a risky endeavour these days. Many a discussion has taken place around the union table focused on how to juggle all of the initiatives created at the local or provincial level and how to effectively sift out the nuggets of educational gold from each of them without getting too bogged down. Luckily, the latest program that I have been fortunate enough to be involved in has been properly supported through the release of a curriculum writing team, adequate funding for new classroom materials and moneys set aside from ongoing, teacher-driven professional development, all in response to a professional call to action that has become a deeply personal one. In District 14, Kawartha Pine Ridge (KPR), many teachers have played an active role in reconciliation for a long time. Most schools have approached reconciliation by trying to incorporate Indigenous content into a variety of courses, but there has never been a whole-board concerted effort to shift a compulsory course to its Indigenous counterpart. Last fall, Jack Nigro, Superintendent of Education: First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Education and Equity and Diversity, approached the Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School (TAS) English department to pilot a new Indigenous English program. John McGee, long-serving Lead Teacher of English and Languages, reflected, “TAS is an ideal school for this initiative for several reasons, the first of which is the already-existing relationships with the two local reserves. TAS has a long history of working with Hiawatha First Nation and Lakefield District Secondary School has a similar history with Curve Lake First Nation. Now that the two schools are combined, with those connections already in place, a positive and inclusive environment has been created. The fact that TAS has a relatively high percentage of students who are First Nations is also part of this. TAS is also a comprehensive school, both in terms of its wide range of courses available in all streams, and in its makeup of students—some rural, some city, some ELL, some integrated arts, some tech, some athletes. It’s also an accepting school with a long history of GSA groups, a variety of ethnicities, and a wide range of religious beliefs. I think this culture of acceptance makes a good foundation for the new courses.” Several meetings took place with our school’s admin team, local union leaders and members of the English Department to discuss how we could create and implement a fully-Indigenous Grade 11 English program (replacing all ENG (English) with NBE (English: Contemporary Aboriginal Voices) and the feasibility of a September start date. There was much discussion over the merits of developing strong units at each grade level vs. a fully-Indigenous Grade 11 program. Which would be best? In the end, we decided on both. “I feel it is imperative that all students are exposed to Indigenous based literature so they can more fully understand the history and culture of the First Peoples on our continent (and beyond), so that we can move forward, better equipped to tackle deeply ingrained racism and inequities that have been the norm for too long. It’s about changing the narrative so that different perspectives are respected and enjoyed,” stated Marianne Donovan, English and foods teacher. A fully-immersive program is necessary to tackle the complexity of Indigenous writing and the ideas it explores. Having always incorporated Indigenous literature into my English courses and having just finished a stint as an Indigenous Re-Engagement Consultant for KPR, I was very excited to be part of the pilot program. Greg Barraball, English teacher, was also keen to spend time on this project. “Having had a chance to work with a small group of First Nations students in the ‘Beliefs, Values and Aspirations’ course the year previously woke me up to just how much I didn’t know about First Nations culture,” said Greg. “Having met these students, and having had a chance to learn a bit more about the history of our country, I began to realize how important the truth and reconciliation dialogue is. I wanted to work with people who would stimulate my professional thinking and support my learning in this area. I had access to a lot of that in this process and it was really valuable.” In the end, Greg and I were assigned a period during second semester with a mandate to select texts and write material for all three Grade 11 English pathways to be presented to staff at the end of June. A whole period per day to read books and work closely with a colleague I highly respect? What could be better? Of course, then second semester started and the full weight of what we were about to do hit us. Day one: Greg and I started out with only a snippet of an advanced copy of the new NBE curriculum, a box of books suggested by GoodMinds, and a rapidly growing list of major considerations. After much discussion that first week, we realized that there was no clear starting point. Simultaneously, Greg and I started reading extensively, finding the intersections between the ENG curriculum, the new NBE document and Growing Success, and, most importantly, structuring our work around the tenets of Truth and Reconciliation, honouring and incorporating local Indigenous voices and laying the groundwork for appreciation, not appropriation. Developing new material is both daunting and energizing. Greg is a highly organized planner. Everything is built into complex, eye-catching and engaging PowerPoints. My planning it a hot mess of sticky notes and notepads covered in writing going every which direction, and scraps of paper frantically written upon as I try to capture that great idea I had in the middle of the night or on my morning jog. While both very thoughtful, Greg and I approach course development differently; he focused on the skills and I focused on the big ideas. We had brief daily check-ins and a weekly meeting to share what we had been developing and to brainstorm where to go next. Structured collaboration allowed us to work both individually and bring our strengths to the table. Working with a colleague who teaches and plans very differently is an excellent way to develop a course that will meet the needs of a variety of teachers. Writing for colleagues is challenging. We wanted to make sure that we provided them with a helpful structure with all the curriculum links included, a variety of tasks, interesting reading material and the ability to feel confident that they could use our material exclusively the first time through the course, or to tweak or redesign as they saw fit. As part of the pilot, our superintendent put money aside to provide ongoing PD in the coming year and our department is keen on using it so we can regularly check in, discuss the material already developed, identify and fill the gaps and then collaborate on our final 30 per cent culminating activities/exams. To really launch this program well, ongoing PD that is responsive to the needs of our specific department and students is essential. It has often been said that knowledge is power. It stands to reason then, that education is power. No other statement rings with more truth when speaking of our FNMI students. Western style education is a necessary product of our modern world. It is this western view that will allow our FNMI students to make their way through the world. It will allow them a lifestyle that they can achieve through their own hard work and diligence. This education is something FNMI have wanted for generations. Having Indigenous Knowledge in the curriculum provides an opportunity for FNMI students to connect with their heritage and culture. This is a very different style of education. Indigenous knowledge provides a base for FNMI students to build on. Indigenous Knowledge is based on Bimaadiziwin, living life in a good way. This is very different from western style learning. Bimaadiziwin is land-based knowledge that has been taught and handed down through the generations. Bimaadiziwin encompasses those skills needed to find balance in life. That balance gives us strength through connecting with culture, traditions, ceremony and heritage. Our language, Anishinaabemowin, holds all of that knowledge. When our youth have the opportunity to learn who they are through this style of learning, they understand how important that path is to finding out about themselves. With all of the concern about reconciliation, Indigenous Knowledge in the curriculum is the single most important thing the western world can do for First Nation, Métis and Inuit Nations. Allowing our youth to connect with Bimaadiziwin will save our Nations. —Anne Taylor, Cultural Archivist, Curve Lake First Nation Knowing both the teachers and the students would be learning together, we created an introductory unit that covers everything from what First Nation, Métis, and Inuit (FNMI) stands for to the present-day echoes of residential schools. This cultural groundwork, not usual in an English course, will provide the context for us to move forward as a community of learners; it was a humbling task to put the introductory unit together because it afforded us the opportunity to fully realize how many gaps we needed to fill and assumptions we needed to test. Then, each course was broken up into units centred around a core text, the inclusion of an Indigenous knowledge holder and a variety of lessons and tasks that linked specifically to the NBE curriculum. We decided on using Google Drive as our platform so teachers could easily collaborate digitally. “I was really grateful for the amount and variety of curriculum put together. It is great that we can tackle the actual teaching without scrambling for resources. There is a lot to choose from and a diverse range of assignments that will fit many teaching styles while, at the same time, will address the learning strands outlined by the Ministry. I really appreciated the plethora of Canadian content,” reflected Joanne Hipkin, English and Teacher-Librarian. As the pilot school, we had a certain budget to purchase new materials. We chose a few anthologies that would work for all pathways, then chose a core novel, play and created book-box style independent study unit (ISU) so that we would have enough copies of texts if a teacher wanted to use an ISU book as the core novel instead. We wanted to provide as much opportunity for teacher-choice as possible. Finishing up the courses, Greg and I felt good about our reading selections and lessons. Our learning curves were steep. “There was so much I didn’t know about First Nations culture when I started,” Greg commented. “I am still very much in that position. I think I will always feel that way, but the learning is fun. I learned a lot about systemic racism, things that had been invisible to me, but that are as real as the tables we sit at and very much in the way of many members of our communities. Finally, I learned a little bit about another set of symbols that were not ‘Western’ in nature. ‘Western’ culture, like every culture, has long-standing representations or symbols that act as a shorthand for large multifaceted ideas. When you shift cultural symbol sets and conventions in communication the dialogue becomes really interesting.” In late June, squeezed between finishing report cards and final-day activities, we met as a department to review the broad strokes of the new curriculum, how we organized the course material and our rationale for selecting the texts we did. Then, we broke into smaller pathway groups and reviewed each unit together. Our goal was to send teachers home with a fully-developed program to look over, if they wanted to, in the summer. There were two main teacher concerns that emerged from our roll-out day. To teach or not to teach. The omission of Shakespeare in any university-stream course is always a lightning rod for debate. Greg and I presented a fully-Indigenous roster of writers and felt that the critical analysis skills our students will be honing will put them in good stead for any 4U study of King Lear or Hamlet (the plays we tend to do). Other teachers who will be teaching 3U discussed the inclusion of The Tempest as a means of introducing postcolonial theory and preparing them for a Grade 12 Shakespeare unit. As a department, we did not come to any formal conclusion. Some classes will study Drew Hayden Taylor’s, Dead White Writer on the Floor and other classes will study a dead, white writer. Whether a teacher teaches Shakespeare in their class or not, our discussion was very meaningful in challenging us to consider our own perspectives, blind spots and ways to teach themes and narratives that we ourselves might not have studied in our own formal education. The second concern centred around being able to confidently teach the material. As a department, we are asking ourselves to do what we ask our students to do every day: learn. While reconciliation may be an increasingly trending buzzword, it is not eduspeak; it is a deeply personal journey that all Canadians have been called on to make. As English teachers, we are expanding our department’s reading repertoire and brushing up on historical and contemporary issues and elements of literary analysis. Teachers’ concern about doing or saying something ‘wrong’ or not having an answer to a question is natural; the way I approach this is to remind myself that avoiding Indigenous content out of concern for doing it wrong looks and feels the same to a student as avoiding Indigenous content because of a misperception of its value. Our solution is to work as a team and really support each other’s efforts; we are all, after all, at different places along the path. “Indigenous perspectives, issues, cultural norms, etc. are still a little-explored area of the Canadian social identity. This class will hopefully continue the process of allowing non-Indigenous students to simply gain perspective. Indigenous culture doesn’t have to be mysterious and scary. It is simply another side of the Canadian perspective. It also allows Indigenous students to explore their own cultural literature, to share their own experiences, and to lose the label of ‘different.’ Knowledge is the only weapon we have against fear, the stem of racism, division, apathy, and misunderstanding. This course will benefit all students towards that end,” reflected English teacher Dave Kaushik. Sheryl Mattson, our K-12 First Nations, Métis & Inuit consultant has also been instrumental in supporting teachers’ concerns about appropriation by connecting local Elders and knowledge holders with our program. While we cannot turn back time, we can capture the spirit of the early silver covenant chain by incorporating sustained Indigenous community involvement in our exploration of FNMI voices in literature. We plan to have guest speakers who will speak to several Grade 11 classes at a time in our auditorium, and engage students in small group activities both on and off the school grounds, and through other opportunities to connect with the land in an authentic way. While teaching Indigenous literature is the right thing to do for reconciliation, it is also the right thing to do for our students. Indigenous lit is evocative, edgy, witty and heartbreaking. It gives our students an opportunity to broaden their contexts and their understanding of archetypes, symbology and philosophy, to challenge the literary narrative they have studied and help them to explore the Canadian experience more fully. TAS students know that Grade 11 will be different in the coming year. Several of the Indigenous students I spoke to are both nervous and excited. One student shared that when his mother heard the news, she cried. She had not imagined that such a shift could take place between her own educational experiences and that of her son. However, this program does not just benefit Indigenous students. NBE is just as important for non-Indigenous teachers and students as Indigenous ones. “I’m excited for students seeing themselves in the rich stories, poems, plays and media we bring into class, and to be highlighting the talents of writers close to home and becoming a better and more balanced educator,” reflected Greg. Senator Murray Sinclair, Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is very clear: “Education got us into this mess and education will get us out.” At first glance, the statement seems straightforward, simple even. While Sinclair’s comments were directed at a much larger audience than Ontario teachers, the question becomes how do we, as teachers, rise to the challenge? At its best, public education in Ontario affords students the opportunity to learn, to grow, to question and to think critically, to be inspired, to inspire others and to engage in their communities; therefore, we need to do what we do best as OSSTF/FEESO: listen, learn, collaborate and lead with humility and integrity.

You may have noticed that the antenna for arrays with uniform weights have unequal sidelobe levels, as seen here. Often it is desirable to lower the highest sidelobes, at the expense of raising the lower sidelobes. The optimal sidelobe level (for a given beamwidth) will occur when the sidelobes are all equal in magnitude.| This problem was solved by Dolph in 1946. He derives a method for obtaining weights for uniformly spaced linear arrays steered to broadside (=90 degrees). This is a popular weighting method because the sidelobe level can be specified, and the minimum possible null-null beamwidth is obtained. To understand this weighting scheme, we'll first look at a class of polynomials known as Chebyshev (also written Tschebyscheff) polynomials. These polynomials all have "equal ripples" of peak magnitude 1.0 in the range [-1, 1] (see Figure 1 below). The polynomials are defined by a recursion relation: Examples of these polynomials are shown in Figure 1. Figure 1. Examples of Chebyshev polynomials. Observe that the oscillations within the range [-1, 1] are all equal in magnitude. The idea is to use these polynomials (with known coefficients) and match them somehow to the array factor (the unknown coefficients being the weights). To begin to see how this is achieved, lets assume we have a symmetric antenna array - for every antenna element at location dn there is an antenna element at location -dn, both multiplied by the same weight wn. We'll further assume the array lies along the z-axis, is centered at z=0, and has a uniform spacing equal to d. Then the array factor will be of the form given by: The array is even if there are an even number of elements (no element at the origin), or odd if there are an odd number of elements (an element at the origin). Using the complex-exponential formula for the cosine function: The array factors can be rewritten as: Recall that we want to somehow match this expression to the above Tschebyscheff polynomials in order to obtain an equil-sidelobe design. To do this, we'll recall some trigonometry which states relations between cosine functions: we will end up with an AF that is a polynomial. We can now match this polynomial to the corresponding Tschebyshef polynomial (of the same order), and determine the corresponding weights, . The parameter is used to determine the sidelobe level. Suppose there are N elements in the array, and the sidelobes are to be a level of S below the peak of the main beam in linear units (note, that if S is given in dB (decibels), it should be converted back to linear units SdB=20*log(S), where the log is base-10). The the parameter can be determined simply from: The resulting Array Factor (AF) will have the minimum null-null beamwidth for the specified sidelobe level, and the sidelobes will all be equal in magnitude. In the next section, we'll illustrate this method with an example. Next: More on the Dolph-Chebyshev Method Antenna Arrays (Main) Antenna Arrays (Main)

Apollo XI Certificate This mass-produced certificate appears to have been presented to National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) employees in appreciation for their support of the Apollo Program. The item measures 16 by 20 inches and has color illustrations, including one of the Apollo Lunar Module (LM) on the Moon with two astronauts in the … Grumman Apollo Lunar Module Propulsion Reports and Photographs [Arons] This collection consists of the following material documenting the work of Grumman on the Apollo Lunar Module propulsion systems: sixteen reports prepared by Raymond Arons, propulsion engineer for Grumman; two reports prepared by the Grumman Propulsion Analytic Group; one report prepared by NASA; and twenty-five photographs taken by NASA, TRW … Soviet Space Newspapers This collection includes 12 Russian newspaper articles from three Russian newspapers, including Pravda. These articles provide information on the Russian space flights Soyuz 11, Soyuz 9, Lunakhod 2, and on the Russian spacecraft Luna 21. Also included are two 1969 Pravda articles reporting the flight of Apollo 11. All articles are in Cyrillic. Apollo 11 Stamp Collection [Cooke] Hereward Lester Cooke (1916-1975), a curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, was extremely interested in the moon landing as well as in stamp collecting. He acquired over five hundred stamps relating to the 1969 lunar landing from countries including: Afghanistan, Algeria, Belgium, Bhutan, Brazil, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, China … Apollo 11 Training Material The Apollo program began as part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) long-term plan for lunar exploration. Dr. Donald R. Maitzen worked with NASA's Flight Planning Branch as the Task Manager for On-Board Data for Apollo 11. This collection consists of material pertaining to the Apollo program inlcuding correspondence, photographs, and publications. Apollo Stowage Lists National Air and Space Museum (U.S.). Division of Space History This collection consists of a complete set of printed stowage lists, including revisions lists, from the Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 missions. The collection also includes fully searchable pdf files of the lists created in 2019 by a special project initiated by the National Air and Space Museum's Department of Space History and executed by the Smithsonian's Transcription Center. Apollo 8 and 11 Notes and Letters [Bourgin] This collection consists a memo and correspondence relating to the Apollo 8 broadcast as well as notes relating to various astronaut post-flight tours. Apollo 11 Launch Images [Burgess] This collection consists of 118 digital image files created in 2009 by photographer Travis Burgess by scanning original 35 mm black and white photographic negatives which he had made in July 1969. The first series of 112 images feature Apollo 11 astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edward E. "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr. participating in a preflight press conference on July 5, 1969, at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas. The second series consists of 6 images taken at the launch of Apollo 11 on its Saturn V rocket from Launch Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on the morning of July 16, 1969. Apollo Lunar Module (LEM, LM) Photographs [Cosentino] This collection consists of approximately 0.36 cubic feet of material relating to the Apollo Lunar Module (LEM, LM) and other programs of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The majority of the collection is comprised of 8 by 10 inch photographs (both color and black and white) of interior details of various … Apollo-Soyuz Test Project Soviet Crew Material This collection consists of four cosmonaut trading cards, featuring individually the four Soviet members of the Apollo Soyuz Test Project: Aleksei Arkhipovich Leonov, Commander of Soyuz 19; Valeri Nikolayevich Kubasov, flight engineer for Soyuz 19; and Anatoli Vassilyevich Filipchenko and Nikolai Nikolayevich Rukavishnikov, back-up flight crew. Also included is one 11 1/2 by 8 1/2 inch …

Melting Arctic Sparks Interest in China The changing global climate has become increasingly more difficult to ignore due to climbing air and water temperatures, rising sea levels, and melting of polar snow and ice. Recent reports have stated that the area of ice in the arctic has never been smaller, which has recently caught the attention of Asian economists. The opening of the Arctic north promises new trade routes, untapped reserves of oil, and an abundance of minerals to discover. The thawing of the north has come at a beneficial time for struggling economies such as the United States and many parts of the European Union. Asia’s access to the Northern Sea Route will provide much faster trade routes, for example, cutting as many as 4,000 miles off of the trek from Shanghai to Hamburg. The voyage will become even shorter as ice continues to melt and China continues to develop non-nuclear ice-breaking vessels. The drilling of untouched oil reserves is attractive to China, considering it is the second-largest importer of crude oil, following the United States. Yet Asia’s involvement with the north has encountered several barriers. There is already an established intergovernmental forum, the Arctic Council, which promotes environmental protection in the Arctic. They also promote cooperation among the Arctic states and are active in the indigenous communities. This council is composed of 8 Arctic states, which obviously does not include any Asian regions, so China is lobbying to become a member, but that will not be finalized until May of 2013. China needs to remain in good graces with the Arctic states considering it has no experience in drilling and mining in those types of conditions. Not to mention, the passage of the Northern Sea Route remains dangerous and uncertain. Consequently, Asia’s itch for resources in the Arctic must be delayed until China’s rights to the land are secured. Needless to say, China may benefit more greatly by focusing their attention on alternative fuels and limiting their sulfur dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions instead of investing in more coal and oil from the Arctic.

Handwriting Problems can be caused by Visual Perception Problems, Fine Motor Skills Problems or Gross Motor Skills Problems - or of course, not having been taught how to form the letters properly. Visual Perception Problems The handwriting course that helps with visual perception problems is Write from the start It works best for kids aged 4 - 8. I highly recommend getting your childs eyesight tested by a behaviour optometrist and doing vision therapy if recommended. Gross Motor Skills is the best program to address these problems. Basically in order to be able to write properly you need enough core strength to sit up straight and enough shoulder strength to control your hand. Fine Motor Skills This is problems with being able to use your fingers. To improve this you need to do exercises for hand strength and pincer grip. Therapeutic Hand Putty is what OTs recommend for this.

Definition of tetartohedral a. - Having one fourth the number of planes which are requisite to complete symmetry. 2 The word "tetartohedral" uses 13 letters: A A D E E H L O R R T T T. No direct anagrams for tetartohedral found in this word list. Adding one letter to tetartohedral does not form any other word in this word list.Words within tetartohedral not shown as it has more than seven letters. All words formed from tetartohedral by changing one letter Browse words starting with tetartohedral by next letter

Ammonium perchlorate (AP) is a colorless, odorless, inorganic, crystalline compound with the molecular formula ClH4NO4 and CAS number 7790-98-9. It imparts a bitter and salty taste to water and does not readily burn, but will burn if contaminated by combustible materials. When powdered into particles smaller than 15 microns in diameter or if powdered into larger particles but thoroughly dried, ammonium perchlorate is classified as a division 1.1 explosive. Ammonium perchlorate is considered acutely toxic and can be harmful if swallowed, cause serious eye irritation, skin irritation, and may cause respiratory tract irritation if its dust is inhaled. Perchloric acid – ammonium salt, perchlorate.

« PředchozíPokračovat » ure from the common paths of ordinary justice, they were able to conduct the affairs intrusted to them, and preserve at the same time their popularity and their integrity. It is the consequence of war, particularly civil war, that the rights of unoffending and peaceable citizens are oftentimes sacrificed for the benefit of the dominant party, whichever by the fortune of the day may happen to be so, while the existing authority appropriates for itself or the public, whatever property is sufficiently of value to attract its notice. That cases of this sort must have occurred in the progress of the American revolution, is not now to be questioned ; but wherever they did occur during that period, when under the direction of the provincial congress, the spirit of patriotism supplied the place of law, they were found to have resulted from circumstances which exonerated the individuals of the committee from all suspicion or complaint. Indeed the whole period of the controversy with the mother country is marked by a regard for private rights, worthy of the cause in which the people were engaged, and nowhere is that general feeling more deserving of commendation than in the conduct of the committee of safety even amid the frequent and imperious demands, which might sometimes have been an apology, if not a justification, for different conduct. The course adopted by the committee of the provincial congress, was that which the opinion of the body collectively indicated as the path of duty. In the novel and alarming situation of the country, the deliberations and acts of this band of patriots marked the prudence, the firmness, the intelligence and the strong American feeling by which they were influenced. Educated in principles of loyalty, and attached by habit and early associations to the monarchy, they had not originally any idea of national independence; but feeling a constitutional right to the enjoyment of British liberty, and conscious that the dignity of their own character required its preservation, they contented themselves with claiming nothing beyond their chartered rights, but did not hesitate, at any possible peril, to demand their entire possession. They were unwilling to be rebels, but they resolved not to be slaves. This cautious course, required by loyalty on the one side and patriotism on the other, this opposition to the king's ministry and the laws of parliament, with a professed respect for the king's person and royal authority, it was difficult always to maintain. Regard for the rights of the province led them to oppose themselves to the rights of the crown, and it is probable that their early reverence for the royal authority might render them more circumspect in maintaining popular privileges. They do not, however, appear to have faultered in the work they began. Every moment of their remaining together was a continued violation of their allegiance in the opinion of the governour, whose strong military force might have made his opinion their law. The courage they displayed in maintaining their principles, and the firmness, almost the rashness of their resolution to continue their sessions, implied a resource for protection not the less formidable because it was not immediately obvious, and discouraged the military representative of majesty from any hostile assault upon their personal liberty. This first provincial congress continued its sessions, at intervals, until the tenth of December, when it was dissolved by its own authority. Second Provincial Congress of Massachusetts........Letters of John A new provincial congress, of which Mr. Gerry was a member, assembled in Cambridge, in February 1775 ; and after a few days' session adjourned to meet again in March. Like their predecessors, this congress endeavoured by a well written and animating address to instruct the public mind, and excite and regulate that patriotic spirit which the emergency required. With the characteristic piety of their forefathers they set apart a day for religious duty, acknowledging the power of an overruling providence, and seeking from the goodness of Heaven that wisdom and strength, which were necessary for their safe conduct in the perilous condition of Though nearly the same persons were returned to this congress who had sat in the former, it was apparent from the tone of their speeches, and the measures they adopted, that a pacific termination of the existing troubles was no longer expected. They seemed to realize the arbitrary determination of the ministry to subject them to a disgraceful vassalage, and they prepared themselves to resist it with the sword. The British general with a view to possess himself of the continental military stores in Essex county detached a part of his troops from Boston by water to Marblehead, and thence through Salem to Danvers, but without success. The circumstance was mortifying to their pride, and proportionally excited the spirit of the provincials. It was the occasion of the following letter. MR. HANCOCK TO MR. GERRY. Boston, FEB. 28, 1775. DEAR SIR, We are all extremely pleased at the conduct of Marblehead and Salem. The people there have certainly convinced the governour and troops that they will fight, and I am confident this movement will make the general more cautious how he sends parties out in future to attempt the like. The matter was conducted with the greatest secrecy. We knew nothing of it in town until 10 o'clock on Monday. I hear nothing of sending troops to York or any where else. Should any thing occur worthy of your notice you shall be informed. Mr. Adams and all friends are well, and much pleased with your conduct. conduct. I hope when the day of trial

PHILADELPHIA – No doubt proteins are complex. Most are “large” and full of interdependent branches, pockets and bends in their final folded structure. This complexity frustrates biochemists and protein engineers seeking to understand protein structure and function in order to reproduce or create new uses for these natural molecules to fight diseases or for use in industry. From-scratch design of an oxygen transport protein buries hemes in a bundle of protein columns (alpha helices) linked by loops into a candelabra geometry. Click on thumbnail to view full-size image Using design and engineering principles learned from nature, a team of biochemists from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have built – from scratch – a completely new type of protein. This protein can transport oxygen, akin to human neuroglobin, a molecule that carries oxygen in the brain and peripheral nervous system. Some day this approach could be used to make artificial blood for use on the battle field or by emergency-care professionals. Their findings appear in the most recent issue of Nature. “This is quite a different way of making novel proteins than the rest of the world,” says senior author P. Leslie Dutton, PhD, Eldridge Reeves Johnson Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics. “We’ve created an unusually simple and relatively small protein that has a function, which is to carry oxygen. No one else has ever done this before.” Animation: a schematic view of the functional action of the oxygen transport maquette. Click on thumbnail to view full-size movie “Our aim is to design new proteins from principles we discover studying natural proteins,” explains co-author Christopher C. Moser, PhD, Associate Director of the Johnson Foundation at Penn. “For example, we found that natural proteins are complex and fragile and when we make new proteins we want them to be simple and robust. That’s why we’re not re-engineering a natural protein, but making one from scratch.” Currently, protein engineers take an existing biochemical scaffold from nature and tweak it a bit structurally to make it do something else. “This research demonstrates how we used a set of simple design principles, which challenge the kind of approaches that have been used to date in reproducing natural protein functions,” says Dutton. The natural design of proteins ultimately lies in their underlying sequence of amino acids, organic compounds that link together to make proteins. In living organisms, this sequence is dictated by the genetic information carried in DNA within chromosomes. This information is then encoded in messenger RNA, which is transcribed from DNA in the nucleus of the cell. The sequence of amino acids for a particular protein is determined by the sequence of nucleotides in messenger RNA. It is the order of the amino acids and the chemical bonds between them that establish how a protein folds into its final shape. To build their protein, the Penn team started with just three amino acids, which code for a helix-shaped column. From this, they assembled a four-column bundle with loop that resembles a simple candelabra. They added a heme, a chemical group that contains an iron atom, to bind oxygen molecules. They also added another amino acid called glutamate to add strain to the candelabra to help the columns open up to capture the oxygen. Since heme and oxygen degrade in water, the researchers also designed the exteriors of the columns to repel water to protect the oxygen payload inside. Initially, the team used a synthesizer – a robot that chemically sticks amino acids together in a desired sequence – to make the helix-shaped columns. “We do the first reactions with the robot to figure out the sequence of amino acids that we want,” says Moser. When they are satisfied with the sequence, they use the bacterium E. coli as a biological host to make the full protein. The team used chemical tests to confirm that their protein did indeed capture oxygen. When the oxygen did bind to the iron heme molecule in the artificial protein, the solution in which the reaction took place changed color from dark red to scarlet, a color signature almost identical to natural neuroglobin. “This exercise is like making a bus,” says Dutton. “First you need an engine and we’ve produced an engine. Now we can add other things on to it. Using the bound oxygen to do chemistry will be like adding the wheels. Our approach to building a simple protein from scratch allows us to add on, without getting more and more complicated.” In addition to Dutton and Moser, co-first authors J.L. Ross Anderson, PhD, a postdoc in the Dutton lab and Ronald L. Koder, PhD, a former postdoc in the Dutton lab now with the Department of Physics at the City College of New York; Lee A. Solomon, a PhD student in the Dutton lab, and Konda S. Reddy, PhD, were also authors on the paper. This work was funded by the Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation. PENN Medicine is a $3.6 billion enterprise dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. PENN Medicine consists of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System. Penn's School of Medicine is currently ranked #4 in the nation in U.S.News & World Report's survey of top research-oriented medical schools; and, according to most recent data from the National Institutes of Health, received over $379 million in NIH research funds in the 2006 fiscal year. Supporting 1,700 fulltime faculty and 700 students, the School of Medicine is recognized worldwide for its superior education and training of the next generation of physician-scientists and leaders of academic medicine. The University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS) includes its flagship hospital, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, rated one of the nation’s top ten “Honor Roll” hospitals by U.S.News & World Report; Pennsylvania Hospital, the nation's first hospital; and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. In addition UPHS includes a primary-care provider network; a faculty practice plan; home care, hospice, and nursing home; three multispecialty satellite facilities; as well as the Penn Medicine Rittenhouse campus, which offers comprehensive inpatient rehabilitation facilities and outpatient services in multiple specialties. Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $6.7 billion enterprise. The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top five medical schools in the United States for the past 20 years, according to U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $392 million awarded in the 2016 fiscal year. The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center -- which are recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report -- Chester County Hospital; Lancaster General Health; Penn Wissahickon Hospice; and Pennsylvania Hospital -- the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional affiliated inpatient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, a partnership between Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network and Penn Medicine. Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2016, Penn Medicine provided $393 million to benefit our community.

Jul 19, 2012 · Shared psychotic disorder (SPD) or folie à deux, induced psychosis, and induced delusional disorder (IDD) is that which is shared by two or more people with close emotional links. The essence of this phenomenon is a transfer of delusions from one person (inducer) to another (recipient, involved or induced partner).Cited by: 2. Little is known about the relationship between sexual deviancy and psychosis. Wallace et al 3 linked databases of individuals convicted of serious crimes with public mental health system contact and found a significant association between schizophrenia and sexual offending. Convicted sex offenders were nearly 3 times more likely than non-offenders in the mental health system to be diagnosed. Psychosis is a mental condition that causes you to lose touch with reality. WebMD explains the causes and treatment of psychosis. Trauma: The death of a loved one, a sexual assault, or war can. Sexuality and sexual disorders of patients with psychoses are frequently neglected and under-investigated. The main purpose of the present study is to discuss the subjective experience of sexuality in patients with psychosis within the general psychodynamic and phenomenological understandings of Cited by: 3. Psychosis does exist on a continuum, and all of the things Berit mentions can be associated with psychosis, but rates of psychosis are much lower than, say, depression or anxiety. Yes, psychosis. Nov 01, 2010 · Early Sexual Abuse Linked to Later Psychosis. by Nancy Walsh, Staff Writer, MedPage Today November 1, 2010 Children who are sexually abused, .

Introduction to Discrimination eLearning is a course covering issues that occur in the work environment as a result of the introduction of anti-discrimination legislation in Jersey. Introduction to Discrimination eLearning is a 30 minute online course that ensures employees are aware of the issues of equality and diversity in the workplace and what their role is in relation to these issues. Employers are responsible for the discriminatory actions of their employees. Complying with what is generally perceived as ‘reasonably practicable’ in this area is to communicate an Equality and Diversity Policy to all staff, and provide awareness training on the potential implications of discriminatory practices in the workplace. The course is deliberately aimed at an awareness level which allows for a reasonable completion time. In this training course employees will learn: - Definitions of ‘equality’ and ‘diversity’ - The benefits of being diversity aware - The role of an individual in relation to equality and diversity responsibilities in the workplace, and standards of behaviour expected - The different types of discrimination including bullying and harassment - How to make a complaint/seek help if they are either witness to, or a victim of, discriminatory practices BENEFITS TO YOUR ORGANISATION - Supports your organisation’s commitment to promoting equality and diversity in the workplace, and the prevention of discriminatory practices in your workplace - Helps to create a culture of respect for all employees by showing that diversity is a positive aspect of the workplace and not a threat - Allows your organisation to make clear what standards of behaviour are expected in relation to equality and diversity, what kinds of behaviour will not be tolerated and the consequences of breaking behaviour codes

Portland Fire Department emphasizing the importance of fire safety in the kitchenUPDATED 7:50 AM EDT Oct 26, 2013Video Transcript LAST YEAR, THE PORTLAND FIRE DEPARTMENT RESPONDED TO MORE THAN TWO HUNDRED COOKING FIRES THAT COULD HAVE SPREAD FROM THE KITCHEN TO THE REST OF THE HOME. TODAY THE PORTLAND FIRE DEPARTMENT IS EMPHASISING THE IMPORTANCE OF COOKING SAFETY WITH SEVERAL OPEN HOUSES AT FIRE STATIONS ACROSS THE CITY. W-M-T-W NEWS 8'S KATIE THOMPSON IS LIVE IN PORTLAND WITH MORE. GOOD MORNING KATIE! -Stay in the kitchen when frying, grilling, broiling or boiling food. -Turn off stove if you leave the room. -Check food regularly, stay in the home and use a timer to remind you. -Keep children 3 feet from stove. -If possible, use stove's back burners when children are around. -Wear tight fighting sleeves while cooking. -Keep potholders, oven mitts and anything that can burn away from stovetop. -Clean food and grease from burners and stovetops.

Pidgins and Creoles (Cambridge Language Surveys) This second volume of John Holm's Pidgins and Creoles provides an overview of the socio-historical development of each of some one hundred known pidgins and creoles. Each variety is grouped according to the language from which it drew its lexicon - Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, English, African and other languages. John Holm convincingly demonstrates the historical and linguistic reasons for this organisation, which also enables the reader to perceive with ease the interrelationship of all varieties within each group. The section devoted to each variety provides a discussion of its salient linguistic features and presents a brief text, usually of connected discourse, with a morpheme-by-morpheme translation. Readers thus have access to data from all known pidgins and creoles in the world, and the volume provides possibly the most comprehensive reference source on pidginization and creolization yet available. The emphasis of John Holm's first volume was on linguistic structure and theory. Each volume can be read independently, but together the two volumes of Pidgins and Creoles provide a major survey of current pidgin and creole linguistics which lays new foundations for research in the field. We would LOVE it if you could help us and other readers by reviewing the book

Some historians believe the artsy, seaside city of New Smyrna Beach is the original St. Augustine, the Spanish-colonized town in Northeast Florida known as the nation‘s oldest city. While claims that New Smyrna predates St. Augustine delight or frustrate history buffs, depending on whom you talk to, there's no way to prove it true or false more than 500 years after the Spanish first stepped foot in Florida. What intrigues historians is the 40-by-80-foot coquina ruins, reminiscent of St. Augustine’s Castillo de San Marcos, that overlook the Intracoastal Waterway near New Smyrna’s downtown. At first glance, the ruins appear to be those of a Spanish fort, but credit for the structure is generally given to a Scottish physician named Andrew Turnbull. Dr. Turnbull colonized the area for England in 1768. He came to Florida by ship, bringing with him nearly 1,500 Greeks, Corsicans, Italians and Minorcans in hopes of establishing a new colony to grow indigo, sugar cane, hemp and other crops. Some of the settlers died on the way, while others perished quickly after arriving in the new land. Food shortages, Indian attacks, heat, mosquitoes, inadequate housing and intense labor under harsh supervision resulted in considerable hardship, sickness and death among the settlers. Because of these conditions, the remaining settlers abandoned the colony in 1777 and made their way north to St. Augustine. About a year later, Dr. Turnbull moved to Charleston, S.C., leaving behind what was left of his colony and partially built mansion. The general consensus is that the Turnbull Ruins are the remnants of this abandoned mansion, but some local historians suggest the coquina foundation may have existed before Dr. Turnbull ever landed on Florida’s shore. The appearance and location of the structure have led to much speculation about its origin and purpose. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely anyone will ever know for certain whether the structure was a colonial church, Dr. Turnbull’s mansion, a site for constructing ships or the original Castillo de San Marcos. Any clues to the ruins’ origin have likely been lost over the centuries, but local historian and publisher Gary Luther believes there are many reasons to suspect the structure dates back to Spanish times. In his book, History of New Smyrna, East Florida, Luther points out the striking similarities between the Turnbull Ruins and the Castillo de San Marcos. The ruins are constructed of coquina, a sedimentary rock composed primarily of shell fragments. This is the same material used to construct the Spanish fort in St. Augustine in the late 1600s. Building something the size of the Turnbull Ruins from coquina would have taken an enormous amount of time and labor, and Dr. Turnbull’s colonists were tired and sick and in no form to build such a massive structure. Additionally, there are buttresses on the thick exterior walls of the foundation, which implies a defensive purpose for the structure. Personal homes did not receive this type of fortification and were typically built farther inland, near smaller bodies of water. However, considering its location next to a wharf, it’s possible the foundation was built to support a large warehouse for storing supplies brought in by boat. If this was its original purpose, it could explain the extra fortification. Dr. Turnbull never mentioned the structure in any of his writings, but this may be because the Spanish buried it when it was no longer useful. Fortunately, there are records of what happened to the site after Dr. Turnbull’s departure from Florida. In 1801, Dr. Ambrose Hull from Connecticut attempted to start a new settlement on the coast to grow cotton and sugar, but his plans were delayed after Indians attacked his plantation. Eventually, Hull regrouped, called the area "Mount Olive," and built his house on top of what is now called the Turnbull Ruins. Hull's house was destroyed in 1812 during the Patriot's War. About 18 years after the destruction of Hull's home, a sugar planter named Thomas Stamps started a large sugar plantation in the same location. The Seminole Indians burned it to the ground in 1835. And, while there's no mention of Turnbull or a Spanish fort, there is a plaque at the site commemorating the destruction of the Sheldon House, a 40-room hotel built on top of the ruins in 1854 by John D. Sheldon. The hotel was destroyed during the Civil War, in July 1863, when Union ships shelled the town. Sheldon rebuilt the hotel in 1867 from salvaged wood, but this structure was torn down in 1896. Today, the ruins are part of the larger Old Fort Park. The destination isn't widely known—surprising considering its significance and mystery—and is enjoyed mostly by locals, historians and the occasional ghost hunter. Visitors can explore and photograph the site and then grab a bite to eat at one of the many downtown restaurants just a few blocks away. About three miles southwest are the Sugar Mill Ruins, another coquina structure dating back to the early 1800s. Other historical sites in the area include the Eldora House, located about 12 miles southeast of New Smyrna, and Dummit's Tomb on Canova Drive, the above-ground gravesite of one of the town’s first settlers. The New Smyrna Museum of History is at 120 Sams Ave., about one block from Old Fort Park. Some residents believe the city or county should put more effort into dating the ruins to determine their origin, but this is a difficult task, according to Irene Beckham, New Smyrna Museum of History board member and descendent of one of Turnbull’s settlers. “The rest of the history is still being explored and each day more is found. Some day we hope to have the true and complete story of this site. Funds are not always sufficient to continue with research.” So for now, the ruins -- though listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places -- remain a mystery. The Turnbull Ruins are located at Old Fort Park on N. Riverside Drive, near downtown New Smyrna Beach. From U.S. 1 (Dixie Freeway), take Canal Street (traveling east) to Riverside Drive; turn left (north) onto Riverside Drive, and continue one block to Old Fort Park. From SR 44 (traveling east), turn left onto Live Oak Street and continue to Canal Street; turn right and continue to Riverside Drive; turn left and travel one block to Old Fort Park. Street parking is available between Julia and Washington streets.

The Human Rights Index is prepared three times a year by the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights. The Iowa Review is proud to feature the Index on our website, to suggest the global political and socioeconomic context within which we read and write. Human Rights Index #46 Prepared by The University of Iowa Center for Human Rights (UICHR)* Despite efforts to increase the number of children receiving education worldwide, the numbers of out-of-school children has been increasing in the Middle East and Northern Africa due to conflicts in those regions. These regions have begun a new initiative called the Out-of-School Children Initiative, which is part of a larger worldwide initiative by UNICEF and UNESCO. The objectives of this initiative are to identify barriers to education and analyze the existing and needed policies related to increasing participation in schooling. The international legal community recognizes the right to education as a basic human right. Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) both state that everyone has a right to education, and specify that elementary education should be compulsory and free. The right to education is further guaranteed by the Convention against Discrimination in Education (1960), the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). These instruments incentivize and promote accountability among countries to improve participation in education programs and to increase the quality of schooling offered. These treaties also promote the equal right of girls and boys to attend equal education programs, which will in turn increase gender equality as a whole. The United Nations has set goals for improving education worldwide by 2020. These two goals are to reduce school drop-out rates below 10 percent and to achieve at least 40 percent of 30 to 34 year olds completing a tertiary level of education (such as university or professional programs). UNICEF has also identified universal primary education as one of its Millennium Development Goals. Part of the goal is to eliminate the gap in educational achievement between boys and girls. Some of the barriers that girls and young women face in access to education are social attitudes toward women, marriage at a young age, and a lack of female teachers to serve as role models. These are only some of the goals outlined and incentivized in the international community to increase overall access to education for all children. 1 — In every two African American high school students in the United States has access to the full range of math and science courses taught in high school compared to 70 percent of Caucasian high school students. (The New York Times 2014) 10 — Percentage decrease in financial aid toward universal education in the last ten years, partly exacerbated by the financial crisis. (UNICEF 2016) 15 — Percentage of out-of-school children polled by the Jordanian government who reported that they had applied for school enrollment and had been waitlisted due to a lack of schools. (UNHCR 2016) 33 — Percentage of children in South Asia who are completing primary school without basic literacy and numeracy skills. (World Bank 2014) 38.3 — Percentage of individuals in Turkey who dropped out or failed out of school after beginning, but before finishing secondary education. Turkey has the highest percentage in the European Union; the EU country with the lowest percentage was Slovakia with only 4.9 percent. (European Commission 2013) 41 — Percentage of adults in Brazil with a high school education, which surpasses the 35 percent of adults in Mexico with a high school education. (WorldFund.org) 50+ — Percentage of children of primary school age in Sub-Saharan Africa who do not attend school. Fifty five percent of these children are girls. (UNICEF 2016) 60 — Percentage of children in India who cannot read after three years in primary school due to poor quality in education and the fact that state funded teachers are absent 20 percent of the school days. This is despite an enrollment rate of 96 percent in India. (The Guardian 2014) 66 — Percentage of universities in the Middle East where women outnumber men. Despite this increase, there are still large disparities in gender equality in the workforce, such as Quatar, where 63 percent of university students are female, but only 12 percent of the labor force and 7 percent of legislators are female. (CNN 2012) 70 — Percentage of teachers in Mexico who failed the National Teacher Examination. Additionally, one third of teachers in Brazil barley passed high school. (WorldFund.org) 80 — Percentage of out-of-school girls in South Asia who will never start school compared to only 16 percent of boys, giving South Asia the largest gender disparity in access to education. (UNICEF 2015) 3,000,000 — Number of children out-of-school because of conflict in Iraq and Syria. (UNICEF 2015) 12,300,000 — Number of children in the Middle East and North Africa that are out of school with an estimated 6,000,000 more at risk of dropping out. (UNICEF 2015) 77,000,000 — Number of women who are illiterate throughout the world, 29 million of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa. These 77 million women make up two thirds of the world’s illiterate population. (UNESCO 2016) 124,000,000 — Number of children estimated to be out of school due to conflicts and natural disasters worldwide. (UNESCO 2015) 250,000,000 — Number of children out of the 650 million enrolled in primary school worldwide who are not learning basic skills. (CNBC 2014) *Copyright © 2016 by The University of Iowa Center for Human Rights (UICHR). UICHR’s Human Rights Indexes have been prepared under the direction of Bessie Dutton Murray Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and UICHR Senior Scholar Burns H. Weston, who passed away unexpectedly on October 28, 2015. Index #46 was one of three near completion at the time of Prof. Weston’s death. It was drafted by Prof. Weston with the generous assistance of Deanna Steinbach, research assistant at the UI College of Law, and was finalized by Prof. Weston’s UICHR colleagues. The final three entries in the Human Rights Index series are being published in memory of Prof. Weston.

Excavations on the Site of Norwich Cathedral Refectory, 2001-3 A campaign to improve visitor and education facilities at Norwh cathedral involved the construction of new buildings within the west and south ranges of the cloister, and led to excavation of the area where the medieval refectory once stood. This revealed archaeological evidence of the Late Saxon, medieval and post-medieval periods and forms the subject of this report. Excavation has confirmed the long-held supposition that this area of Norwich was populated during the Late Saxon period. Timber buildings of both post-hole and beam slot construction were present, along with rubbish pits, many very substantial in size. A rutted trackway developed into a metalled road, its discovery adding to the ever-evolving street plan of Late Saxon Norwich. It was also apparent that this area was subject to changes in the local water table, and liable to flooding. Late Saxon occupation here was brought to a sudden halt by the acquisition of the land for the building of the Norman cathedral in the latter years of the 11th century. The refectory, which has been described as one of the most magnificent in Europe, was built during the 1120s but was largely demolished during the years following the Dissolution. An extensive programme of groundworks was carried out in the 12th century, prior to construction of the refectory, with the area being levelled. Unfortunately, later use of the area has destroyed most of the evidence relating to the refectory itself. Despite this the level of the floor was established and footings for opposing engaged pillars were recorded. These would have supported an arcade, separating the high end from the main hall. Following the Dissolution, not only the refectory but many of the conventual buildings were demolished. In the period from 1538 to 1620 large pits were dug across the site of the former refectory and used for the dumping of demolition debris on a massive scale. Surprisingly, of the identifiable rubble very little originated from the refectory building itself. Architectural fragments, including some with painted designs from the infirmary and chapter house, were found along with painted window glass which probably originated from the Lady Chapel. In 1620 the western third of the site was the location for part of a prebendary's house, the remainder being established as a garden. In 1873, works undertaken specifically to reduce the risk from fire included the demolition of the prebendary's house. 'Restoration' work was carried out to the remaining medieval structure and the area which had once served as the monk's refectory was left open as a garden plot. It remained so until archaeological work began in 2001.

Meet k8, your modular robotics kit for learning Computational Thinking We believe that every kid should have a shot at learning and doing the things they might be amazing at! What's in the Box? - 1 x K8 Interface Board - The “nervous system” of your robotics kit - 3 x IR Sensors - Detects how light or dark the surroundings are - 2 x 9 Gram Servo Motors - Used to pick up and move objects around - 2 x Motors with 65mm Wheels - Drives your robot to move in its environment - 1 x Battery Box - Powers your robot (4 ‘AA’ Batteries Required) - 1 x Ultrasonic Sensor - Allows your robot to detect how far away objects are - 1 x Curriculum Platform - Curriculum based lesson plans for teaching computational thinking and deep learning principles *Please select your robotics kit with or without a micro:bit."

For some, “cloud continuum” is the buzzword of the year in the tech world. For others, it’s not a trend but a revolutionary step that bridges the gap between the digital world and the physical world. In simple terms, the cloud continuum aims to introduce new services that enable the complete distribution of intelligence across a variety of connected devices such as cars, toasters, heating systems, and additional smart devices powered by the IoT. Often described as a topology rather than a technology, the cloud continuum brings together multiple cloud-based technologies and enables them to work together. Basically, it expands between distributed and centralized computing, merging the public cloud, data centers, and distributed other computing systems. The three technologies enabling it are 5G, edge computing, and the hybrid cloud. A closer look at the enablers of the cloud continuum topology Even though it emerged several years ago, the cloud continuum didn’t have the technology and the infrastructure to fully emerge. Back in the 2000s, the IoT alone could face the challenges lying ahead. Ten years later, when containerization technology boomed, cloud development technology was finally able to use containers for easy deployment across getaways and servers. As for the cloud continuum, one of its core benefits is that it can handle building topologies, enabling data to flow and easily be processed via interconnected nodes. Now that 5G has gone mainstream, with the low latency, speed, and capability to support numerous devices, the cloud can be connected to edge computing technologies. A fundamental pillar of the cloud continuum is the cloud itself. Market providers have demonstrated that the technology can be democratized. AI, big data, and compute infrastructure have compelled organizations to move even further, launching different services and products powered by VR, IoT, and robotics. The hyper-converged infrastructure in the cloud continuum Hardware vendors and hyper-converged infrastructures play a fundamental role in the cloud continuum. Both enable easy data processing under various circumstances such as: - On devices in need of low power - In factories, retail locations, and hospitals, where space and power are limited - On-premise where computing is required on encrypted data via third-party compute infrastructures Seamless connectivity is what makes the cloud continuum function at full capacity. Telcos, its main enabler, can provide unique computing points to the network, as well as private and public 5G connectivity. For instance, 5G streamlines management and servicing, allowing users to set up their own preferences and download a myriad of applications. In the future, with the help of cloud continuum technologies, we will be able to fully operate smart devices using only 5G. Becoming a cloud continuum market competitor To many market players, the cloud continuum is a new technology with potential and viable chances of reaching mass adoption. As a consequence, many are looking to get a headstart to gain a competitive advantage. Much like cloud-based digital natives such as Uber, Airbnb, and Netflix, the continuum paves the way to creating even more disruption in the tech sector. To become a market competitor, the key is to set up a framework, or better said, a set of behaviors such as: - Cloud-first applications and focus on ongoing innovation - IT experimentation and adoption of agile principles that leverage the cloud to optimize, fail fast, adjust, and prototype experiences - Cloud democratization using tools to streamline learning - Scale awareness to balance growth such as trust, sustainability, responsibility, and safety Bottom line is, that the cloud continuum shouldn’t be seen as a destination. It’s a complex operating model that enables businesses to make the most of cloud computing as a technology. Because it uses the interlocked capabilities of the cloud, it should be treated as an innovation engine that powers a stream of improvements to develop custom experiences. Looking For a Cloud Computing Expert? Reach out maisters today

AngularJS helps you build dynamic web apps quickly and easily. If you are looking for scalability and modularity in your apps, then AngularJS is the technology for you. It provides you with all the tools necessary to develop apps that are both attractive and functional. This video course will show you how to write a complex application using AngularJS, one step at a time. You will begin with preparing the system by setting up the necessary prerequisites. Then you will scaffold your application and write your first controllers and views using data binding to stitch them together. You will then move on to implementing your own custom services as well as directives to make your app flexible and extensible. Finally, you will turn your attention to testing the code before the course ends and you are ready to write your own Angular application. You will start with an empty slate but by the end of the course, creating and implementing complex AngularJS applications will be easier than ever. About the Author Gabriel Schenker grew up in Switzerland on a wonderful farm located on top of a hill where the stars seem to touch the earth. He studied Physics at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland. There, he also got his PhD. in Physics. After working in behavioral science for a couple of years, which included training trainers, he went freelance as a software developer, consultant, mentor, and trainer. In 2009 he moved to Austin, Texas, where he is currently working as Chief Software Architect for a company writing software for pharmaceuticals, hospitals, and universities working in the area of new drug development.

The DeKalb County Board of Health saw an increase in West Nile virus activity in the county in late August. As part of the Division of Environmental Health’s routine monitoring, the number of infected mosquito collections increased from 37 during the week of Aug. 16 to 70 during the week of Aug. 23. In addition, the county reports two human cases of West Nile virus. There are no vaccines to prevent West Nile virus infection, nor are there medications to treat it. Fortunately, most infected people will have no symptoms. About one in five infected individuals will develop a fever with other symptoms such as headache, body aches, joint pains, vomiting, diarrhea or rash. Most people with this type of West Nile virus disease recover completely, but fatigue and weakness can last for weeks or months. Less than one percent of infected individuals develop a serious, sometimes fatal, neurologic illness. Severe symptoms of infection can include headache, high fever, neck stiffness, disorientation, coma, tremors, seizures or paralysis. These symptoms may last several weeks or months. Some of the effects can be permanent. “It is very unfortunate that any of our DeKalb residents has developed a West Nile virus infection. I hope this reminds everyone to educate themselves about West Nile virus prevention and to take precautions to protect themselves,” said S. Elizabeth Ford, M.D., M.B.A, district health director of the DeKalb County Board of Health. “The most effective actions against the virus are to wear mosquito repellent and to eliminate standing water where mosquitoes breed.” For more information, please click here for the full media release.

“There is no connection between food and health. We are fed by a food industry which pays no attention to health, and healed by a health industry that pays no attention to food.” What is a GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) . . . Monsanto: Plants or animals that have had their genetic makeup altered to exhibit traits that are not naturally theirs. In general, genes are taken (copied) from one organism that shows a desired trait and transferred into the genetic code of another organism. (emphasis in the original). Romer Labs: Agriculturally important plants are often genetically modified by the insertion of DNA material from outside the organism into the plant’s DNA sequence, allowing the plant to express novel traits that normally would not appear in nature, such as herbicide or insect resistance. Seed harvested from GMO plants will also contain these modification. (emphasis in the original). World Health Organization: Organisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally. The technology is often called “modern biotechnology” or “gene technology”, sometimes also “recombinant DNA technology” or “genetic engineering”. It allows selected individual genes to be transferred from one organism into another, also between non-related species. To learn about the drive to require labeling of GMOs in processed food visit these websites: LabelGMOs.org (California Petition Initiative to require GMO food labeling in California) JustLabelit.org (National movement to require GMO food labeling by the FDA) Is there anything more important than knowing where our food comes from, and who controls what we eat? The documentary The Future of Food has the disturbing answers. Today's food chain is far more complicated than the traditional farmer to table model - it has become a vertically integrated industrial complex. And with government looking the other way, genetically modified seeds have found their way into our food supply. The time has come to take back our food. Monsanto manufactures the seed technology for 90% of all the genetically-engineered crops on the planet, and thus arguably poses a greater environmental threat to mankind than any other single company. The World According to Monsanto investigates the company's checkered history and recounts its long string of alleged health scandals and environmental abuses. Deborah Koons Garcia, director of "The Future of Food", outlines the problems with GMO crops, and the imbalances in our industrial food system. She describes how "little has changed" since her film was originally released in 2004. Biologist Ignacio Chapela: "Serious Problems" with GMO Science In this interview with host Mark Hertsgaard, University of California at Berkeley biologist Ignacio Chapela discusses the dangers of genetically modified foods - not only the questionable science behind it, but also how these new plants have been distributed worldwide. FDA Barring Food Makers from Advertising Products as GMO-Free September 10, 2010 The FDA meanwhile appears to be enforcing a policy of barring food producers from trumpeting that their products don’t contain genetically modified ingredients. According to the Washington Post, the FDA has sent a "flurry of enforcement letters" to companies that have advertised GMO-free products on their labels. The warnings come on top of existing policy not to require food makers to disclose if their products do contain GMOs. Congress member Dennis Kucinich said, "This, to me, raises questions about whose interest the FDA is protecting. They are clearly protecting industry, and not the public." GMO crops threaten livelihood of organic farmers CBS News - May 28, 2011 The USDA approved the unregulated release of genetically modified alfalfa, which poses a threat of contamination from one farmer's land to another's. And, as Seth Doane reports, the release has organic farmers concerned for their livelihood. Although The Future of Food is five years old, this excellent film is more relevant now than ever. If you haven't watched it, please set aside some time to see it. It's required viewing for anyone who wants to understand what they're putting into their belly. If it's been awhile since you saw it, you may want to refresh your memory. "This is a Flash based video and may not be viewable on mobile devices."

Lower panel: the observed (irrotational) component of the horizontal eddy sensible heat flux at 850mb in Northern Hemisphere in January along with the mean temperature field at this level. Middle panel: a diffusive approximation to that flux. Upper panel: the spatially varying kinematic diffusivity (in units of ) used to generate the middle panel. From Held (1999) based on Kushner and Held (1998). Let’s consider the simplest atmospheric model with diffusive horizontal transport on a sphere: Here is the energy input into the atmosphere as a function of latitude , is the outgoing infrared flux linearized about some reference temperature , is the heat capacity of a tropospheric column per unit horizontal area , and is a kinematic diffusivity with units of (length)2/time. Think of the energy input as independent of time and, for the moment, think of as just a constant. We can choose to be the steady state global mean temperature in some control climate and reinterpret the temperature as the departure from this reference so that (Corrected sign errors — Aug 2013). If we are using this equation to model the time averaged north-south temperature gradients we can think of as the absorbed solar flux with its global mean removed. But the equation is linear and we can also think of it as modeling the temperature response to some perturbation in the energy input, for example that due to aerosol forcing or changes in ocean heat uptake or ocean heat redistribution. We can talk about an atmospheric radiative relaxation time scale, — which might be 45 days or so if we choose for example — and a diffusive time scale for temperature variations on the length scale of . For a diffusivity of , which we’ll see is the order of magnitude of interest, the two time scales would be equal for , or about degrees of latitude. Let’s call this length scale . The atmospheric response to perturbations on scales smaller than would be spread over the distance in this model. If the ocean redistributes heat from latitude A to latitude B, and if A and B are within of each other, we might expect the atmospheric transport to closely compensate for this oceanic transport; if the heating and cooling are more widely separated than , the heating/cooling will be balanced more by radiation to space with atmospheric transport playing less of a role. The bottom panel in the figure at the top is the eddy sensible heat flux, , in January at 850 hPa, in the lower troposphere but above the planetary boundary layer, where is the horizontal wind and a prime denotes the deviation from the mean seasonal cycle — computed from 4 times daily NCEP-NCAR reanalysis. The overline is a time average over all Januarys. Most of this flux is associated with midlatitude storms. Also shown by the contours is the mean temperature field for that month. The black splotches are where the surface protrudes above this pressure surface. (Actually, before plotting the flux, we decompose it into a a part that has zero divergence on this surface and a part that has zero curl –this Helmholtz decomposition is unique on the sphere– and retain only the latter part, since we are only interested in the divergence of the flux here. If you don’t do this, the flux is not as cleanly directed downgradient.) The fluxes in the middle panel are generated with the same mean gradients and with the spatially varying diffusivity shown in the upper panel. The result is evidently in the right ballpark. The kinematic diffusivity has the dimensions of (length)2/(time), or velocity times length. One could try to develop a theory for the relevant length and time scales or one could estimate them from observations in different ways. Here we do the latter, and take the shortcut of just looking at the streamfunction of the flow. The atmospheric flow is approximately non-divergent in the horizontal, so can be described by a streamfunction . (Ignoring spherical geometry, the rotational zonal (eastward) component of the wind and meridional (poleward) component are related to by .) So has units of velocity times length, the same as kinematic diffusivity. We compute the standard deviation of the eddy streamfunction, and allow ourselves a single constant of proportionality that provides the best fit of the form where is uniform in space. (The plot uses .) This may seem a bit arcane, but it is just a way to avoid having to estimate length and time scales separately. This approach was motivated by Holloway 1986, who used this same procedure with satellite data of sea level fluctuations (sea level is proportional to the streamfunction of a geostrophic current) to estimate horizontal transport due to ocean eddies. A fascinating question for me, ever since I entered the field, is how the magnitude and structure of this diffusivity is determined. (In Held 1999, I discuss why turbulent diffusion might actually be a better approximation for the atmosphere, at least for the transport of sensible heat in the lower troposphere, than for typical shear or convectively driven turbulence studied in the laboratory.) We expect this effective diffusivity to change as the climate changes, since the diffusivity must be determined by some aspect of the large-scale environment giving rise to these storms. In particular, most theories have this diffusivity increasing with the magnitude of the north-south temperature gradient, making it harder to change this gradient than one might otherwise guess. The values of the diffusivity in the middle of the oceanic storm tracks rise above . It is the large value in midlatitudes, where north-south temperature gradients are strongest, that are most important for understanding the mean equator-to-pole temperature difference on Earth. A value of is more or less what you need in this simple diffusive model to get reasonable north-south temperature profiles (see North et al 1981), depending on the vertical level at which you think it’s most appropriate to diffuse the temperature field. From the previous discussion, we get the sense from this simple diffusive picture that north-south heat transport couples different latitudes within the same hemisphere rather strongly. In addition to the effective turbulent diffusivity, which is a key to north-south transport, there are strong zonal winds mixing even more strongly in longitude within a hemisphere. Too local a perspective is a common mistake when first being exposed to the climate change problem — ie, expecting the temperature response to reflect the spatial structure of the CO2 radiative forcing or of the water vapor feedback.. But my motivation in bringing up this topic is a concern about the opposite tendency to ignore the difficulty that the atmosphere has in communicating temperature responses from extratropical latitudes of one hemisphere to extratropical latitudes of the other. A diffusivity of 2-3 x 106 m2/s, if uniform over the sphere, is not large enough to mix from pole to pole in an atmospheric radiative relaxation time. The effective diffusivity gets small as one enters the tropics — one can see a bit of this reduction in the figure — seemingly making it harder still to communicate between hemispheres, but this is potentially misleading because the large scale overturning (the “Hadley Cell”) is very efficient at destroying temperature contrasts across the tropics. This effect is sometimes mimicked in diffusive models by using a large diffusivity in the tropics, which can be confusing since this diffusivity would not be relevant for passive tracers. In addition the strong tendency for the tropical circulation to wipe out horizontal temperature gradients applies to deep temperature perturbations in the free troposphere, from which the surface can be protected by structure in the atmospheric boundary layer. In any case, the signal still has to move through the tropics, which provide a large area to radiate it away to space, so the difficulty in getting much of a signal to reach extratropical latitudes in the opposite hemisphere remains. GCMs provide an essential tool for navigating this complexity. (But uncertain cloud feedbacks, the familiar wild card when discussing global sensitivity, can also come into play in this problem.) When thinking about aerosol forcing, which is heavily tilted to the Northern Hemisphere, no one is surprised if the response is strongly tilted to the Northern Hemisphere as well. But consider the concept of (global mean) transient climate response (TCR), discussed in several earlier posts. The TCR is dependent on the efficiency of heat uptake by the oceans. Much of this heat uptake occurs in the North Atlantic and in the Southern Ocean. Consider two models, identical except for the Southern Ocean heat uptake. The one that warms more slowly in the Southern Ocean will have a smaller TCR, which is fine, but would the warming in the extratropical Northern hemisphere be substantially smaller? I don’t think so. I am not aware of a simulation addressing this specific question in the literature. A paper by Stouffer 2004 (Fig 5 in particular) is informative. This paper describes very long simulations of the response to doubling and halving of CO2 in a coupled atmosphere-ocean model (5,000 years — long enough for this model to approach its new equilibrium quite closely ). In the 2 x CO2 case at year 200 the Southern Hemisphere (SH) as a whole, held back in large part by the Southern Ocean, has reached about 40% of its final temperature response. Meanwhile the Northern Hemisphere (NH) has achieved over 80% of its equilibrium response. Even if all of the NH disequilibrium is due to the lack of warming in the Southern Hemisphere, which is unlikely, there is little room left for the rest of the SH warming to affect the NH — implying that a change in the SH relaxation time would have only a small effect on the NH in this model. Thinking in terms of the global mean temperature in isolation can be valuable and it can also be misleading. I tried to argue in Post #7 that neither of the usual arguments for focusing on the global mean — reduction in noise and the connection to the global mean energy balance – is very compelling. (To think about one way in which the energy balance can get divorced from the mean temperature, just make in this simple diffusive model a function of latitude.) It is seductive to focus on the global mean temperature response; whenever I do I have to continually remind myself not to be misled into thinking that the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, in particular, are more strongly coupled than they actually are. (Thanks to Sarah Kang, Paulo Ceppi, Yen-Ting Hwang and Dargan Frierson for discussions on closely related topics.) [The views expressed on this blog are in no sense official positions of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or the Department of Commerce.]

Barnegat Bay Restoration The Barnegat Bay/Little Egg Harbor (BB/LEH) estuary is suffering from eutrophication due to the over-enrichment of nutrients from watershed sources as well as atmospheric sources. Impacts to BB/LEH include reduced submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV), algae blooms, infestations by parasitic epiphytes, loss or drastic deterioration of shellfish populations, and alteration of the Bay’s fish communities. [+ ZOOM] Barnegat Bay salt marsh at Cattus Island Park © PPA The number one cause of pollution in New Jersey's waterways is phosphorus and nitrogen, two substances found in inorganic fertilizers that run off lawns with stormwater. Fertilizer runoff is not only destroying important water resources, right now it is literally killing Barnegat Bay, one of the state's most important estuaries, ecosystems, and watersheds. This comes at tremendous public health, environmental and economic costs from loss of shellfish, jellyfish and algae explosions, fish kills, and increased water treatment and rates - all of which damage New Jersey's multi-billion dollar tourism and fishing industries. This Star-Ledger article and video have more information about this issue and these possible legislative initiatives. PPA, American Littoral Society, Clean Ocean Action, and Save Barnegat Bay developed a petition to push the Governor and NJDEP to declare the Bay impaired (sick) from the non-point pollution. This is a critical step for restoring the Bay to health. Please share with others and sign here. Barnegat Bay Legislation Barnegat Bay succeeded in winning passage of four bills in 2010. The primary sponsors, Senator Bob Smith and Assemblyman John McKeon, crafted bills proposed by the conservationcommunity that will provide a new measure of protection for the waters of Barnegat Bay and throughout the State.Learn More How To Protect Barnegat Bay The Barnegat Bay Watershed is a 660 square mile area encompassing all of the land and water in Ocean County, as well as parts of Monmouth County.Learn More Governor Christie's Barnegat Bay Plan Governor Chris Christie issued a 10 point plan for restoring Barnegat Bay in January 2011. After over three years, the Governor and NJDEP have made little progress on a number of these strategies. PPA, American Littoral Society, Save Barnegat Bay, and Clean Ocean Action developed a score card so the public can better understand what has happened since the release of the plan in 2011. You can also read comments by the groups in our press release.Learn More

Opsins are light-sensitive proteins that have been put to great use in the field of optogenetics-the control and monitoring of neurons in various cells through exposure to specific wavelengths of light. For optogenetic studies, neurons are modified by scientists and engineered to express opsins that alter voltage via ion transport across cell membranes. When these opsins are exposed to light, they change the voltage and either halt a neuron's firing (through lower voltage) or stimulate it to fire (through higher voltage). Optogenetics is often used to study brain cells to determine the functions of different cell types, because the effect of the opsins is reversible and extremely fast-the response time is in the millisecond range, allowing for real-time feedback. The downside of opsins is that they all tend to work in the same lower wavelength blue-green light ranges, and thus only one population of cells can be studied at any one time. Opsins that responded to other wavelengths of light also responded to blue light, and that lack of selectivity ruled out simultaneous use. However, thanks to work by a diverse research team, at least one opsin has been identified that is sensitive to longer wavelength red light without blue overlap-allowing for independent activation of two different populations of cells and real-time study of interactions between cell populations. The team, whose work was published in a recent online edition of Nature Methods, included members from MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Alberta, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Beijing Genomics Institute and the University of Cologne. Opsins are typically found in varieties of bacteria and algae, and earlier attempts at improvement focused on modifying naturally occurring opsins to expand their utility. These attempts did not succeed, because attempts to strengthen one property generally weakened other useful properties. Rather than search for further modifications, the research team took a different approach and undertook a massive search for other natural opsins with high efficiency and sensitivity to different wavelengths of light. The search began with sequencing of transcriptomes (genes expressed by cells) from 1,000 plants, including multiple algae strains. Any sequences that were thought to contain code for opsins were subjected to further testing in brain tissue for the ability to respond to light at various wavelengths. This search yielded an effective red opsin that responds to 735 nm (nanometer) wavelengths, and a new opsin that is sensitive to blue light but has a greater speed and around 5-6 times higher sensitivity to dim light than existing blue-sensitive opsins. These new discoveries, known as Chrimson and Chronos respectively, can lead to major advances in the understanding of brain function through more effective use of optogenetics. Aside from the ability to simultaneously study two cell populations and their interactions, there may be other avenues of study enabled by these new opsins. For example, scientists can move beyond manipulation of a particular cell population to secreting neurotransmitters, controlling upstream cells that can have a separate effect on the population under study. Also, since red light is typically gentler on tissues than blue light, opsins may be able to assist in future therapeutic uses, such as partial restoration of vision from lost photoreceptor cells. Research is likely to continue in both areas-finding new, more selective and sensitive opsins, and using them to expand knowledge in biosystems, leading to practical applications.

From the early French settlers through Mark Twain and the riverboats until today, the Mississippi river flows with commerce and trade providing raw materials and goods for an entire continent. The nation depends on the strategic waterway for the transportation of vital goods and materials. In 2015 alone St. Bernard Port owned terminals handled 7.3 million tons of cargo. Metallic ores and minerals, ferro alloys, barite, petroleum coke, zinc concentrates, fertilizers and steel are just some of the important materials handled here from ocean going vessels. Then by barge fleets, rail and trucks, these cargos are shipped to plants and facilities throughout the U.S. Their destinations are Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Saint Paul, Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, Little Rock, Houston, Birmingham, Georgia, Kentucky, Florida, Oklahoma an all points in between.

Dr. Joel Kastner, professor of imaging science and astronomical sciences and technology, and a team of astronomers from around the world are exploring a new corner of the galaxy, staring at a star about 20,000 light years away in the constellation Monoceros that exploded in 2002. The event has created a peculiar and spectacular flare—not quite as bright as a supernova, but more explosive than a nova. Kastner and his colleague Dr. Noam Soker at the Israel Institute for Technology believe the object is a coalescence of two stars, one that is about 10 times the mass of the sun and the other about the same mass as the sun. According to a theory developed in part by Soker, the more massive star consumed the smaller star, releasing a huge amount of energy and causing it to spin rapidly, which over time—years—will create a strong magnetic field and generate significant X-rays. While immediately following the event X-rays were not visible, in 2008 a long exposure by the European Space Agency's orbiting XMM-Newton X-ray Observatory detected the presence of X-rays. However, by the end of the 28-hour exposure the X-ray brightness already appeared to be dropping off. And to Kastner's team's surprise, in a recent follow-up exposure with NASA's orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory in January 2010, the object had completely disappeared from view. "It may be that the remnant from the stellar merger is very unstable, closely resembling extremely young stars, which are known to show huge spikes of X-rays. We hope to continue tracking the X-rays coming from the remnant star with Chandra and XMM, since this may be one of the few cases where we can prove stellar cannibalism actually happens," explains Kastner. A paper on Kastner's team's discovery of X-rays from the possible stellar merger in Monoceros, lead-authored by astronomical sciences and technology graduate students Fabio Antonini and Rudy Montez, has been submitted to the Astrophysical Journal.

This has been reported before in other studies. Studies of different racial & ethnic genomes revealed minimal differences. Washington Post article here "Scientists have long known that regardless of ancestral home or ethnic group, everyone's genes are pretty much alike. We're all Homo sapiens. Everything else is pretty much details.. Genetic geography here . The greatest genetic diversity occured in mankind's orginal homeland, Africa. The populations that migrated the greatest distance from Africa, had the less genetic diversity

What is Plasmapheresis? It is the name given to a process that purifies blood in the human body. The process is performed for treating various autoimmune disorders. This procedure is also known as Therapeutic Plasma Exchange. In a typical session involving this procedure, a venous catheter is implanted into the body of a patient. It is then attached to a plasmapheresis machine. As the blood is drawn out, an anti-coagulating (anti-clotting) agent is used to keep it from clotting outside the human body. Once the red blood cells are spun, they are returned. In certain cases, the plasma is treated and returned afterwards whereas they may be discarded in other cases and substituted with fresh plasma. If the plasma is being gathered up for donation, it is drawn and stored into sterile package. Replacement or reinfusion with human plasma can give rise to a dangerous allergic reaction known as Anaphylaxis. All procedures may give rise to rashes, chills, fever and even a mild allergic reaction. The patient also has the risk of getting a bacterial infection, particularly when a central venous catheter is introduced. In some individuals, the citrate anticoagulant may give rise to reactions like numbness and cramps. However, this generally resolves on its own. Individuals with impaired function of kidneys may require medical treatment to avert the negative effects of citrate metabolism. Plasma consists of coagulating agents or chemicals that let the blood coalesce to form a solid clot. Exchange of plasma removes these. It is only rarely that bleeding complications follow Plasmapheresis. These may need replacement of clotting agents. Plasmapheresis is used for effective cure of certain conditions on a temporary basis. These disorders include: - Myasthenia Gravis – It is an autoimmune disease that results in weakness of the muscles. - Guillain-Barré Syndrome – It is an acute neurological disease that is often followed by a viral infection which gives rise to progressive muscular fatigue and even paralysis. Read more on Guillain-Barre Syndrome.. - Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy – This is a chronic neurological condition resulting from a destruction of the myelin sheath (medullary sheath) of peripheral nerves that gives rise to symptoms similar to Guillain-Barré Syndrome. - Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura – It is a rare blood disease that affects only a few people. - Hyperviscosity – This condition is characterized by extreme thickness of blood. - Paraproteinemic Peripheral Neuropathies – This is a neurological syndrome that affects the peripheral nerves of the human body. Plasmapheresis also has beneficial effects on other conditions. The positive effects of this procedure are generally noticed within a few days. Usually, effects can last up to a few months and not for a longer period. However, this process can make changes last for a longer period, possibly by causing changes in response of the immune system. It is the machine used to carry out this procedure. The plasma of a person can be removed with the aid of this equipment. The machine uses a device known as a Cell Separator that divides plasma from the fluid part of the human blood. The white and red blood cells are returned. The plasma is disposed off and substituted with other fluids. This machine can successfully perform procedures like Continuous Flow Centrifugation, Plasma Filtration and Discontinuous Flow Centrifugation. It is a process by which constituents of plasma that are supposed to cause or aggravate disorders are selectively removed. The remaining components of blood are then mixed with plasma substitute or an inert replacement and given back to the patient. Blood components that are removed may include immune complexes, lipids, antibodies, toxins, mediators of complement activation or inflammation. Molecules, that are supposed to be potentially harmful, are also removed. This procedure is used for treating many autoimmune diseases with different success rates. Typically, the process is used to rapidly lessen immune complexes or circulating antibodies during autoimmune conditions. The method is frequently used along with other immunosuppressive therapies that help to enhance its beneficial effects or make them more long-lasting. Therapeutic Plasmapheresis Indications The presence of any of these conditions must indicate doctors that TPE must be chosen as a logical therapeutic choice. The substance that is to be taken out must have a long enough half-life. This will make extracorporeal removal much more rapid than endogenic clearance tracts. The matter that is to be withdrawn should be large enough to be difficult to remove easily by less costly purification methods such as high-flux hemodialysis or hemofiltration. The molecule weight should be higher than 15,000. The materials that require to be dispatched must be severely toxic and resistant to mainstream therapy. This will indicate rapid removal by TPE from the extracellular fluid. Plasmapheresis and Multiple Sclerosis The purpose of this procedure is to eliminate antibodies from human blood and preventing them from assaulting their intended targets. In people with multiple sclerosis, the antibodies target the own body cells of the person. Plasmapheresis does not alter the behavior of antibodies but only removes them. It thus serves as a temporary solution to a permanent problem. It is due to this reason that Plasmapheresis is usually the best method for treating chronic disorders in which the symptoms become highly acute and the process is supposed to be life-saving. 90% of the disorders that can benefit from Plasmapheresis are neurological. The treatment can be highly effective and beneficial to individuals suffering from a recurring case of Multiple Sclerosis, generally after intravenous steroids have been found to be unsuccessful in bringing about any improvement. Plasmapheresis and Myasthenia Gravis This method is found to bring about a therapeutic effect in sufferers of Myasthenia Gravis, an acquired autoimmune syndrome that is clinically marked by symptoms like fatigue of skeletal muscles and tiredness on exertion. The cost of Plasmapheresis is quite high. Per session of this method can cost anywhere between five thousand and ten thousand dollars in the United States. In some cases, this process may be required to be carried out repeatedly. It will help if you have a medical insurance to take care of the costs.

Shopping for a hearing aid Hearing loss is one of society's most common ailments. It can occur from a combination of factors: hereditary, aging, disease and exposure to high levels of noise over the course of a lifetime. Hearing loss may range from the mild, such as a ringing in the ears, known as tinnitus, to severe cases of near or complete deafness. This can make it difficult for someone with a hearing disability to understand others, distinguish sounds in their everyday environment or follow a conversation. Typically those who fail to address their hearing-loss issues can end up frustrated with daily life or even depressed. Seniors represent one of the largest populations to incur hearing impairment, with 40 to 50 percent of those over the age of 65 experiencing hearing loss, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communicative Diseases (NIDCD). They're put in the position to try and cease further hearing damage while finding ways to cope with the hearing loss that may have already occurred. This largely involves taking steps to have a hearing exam and purchasing a quality hearing aid. "Many people just don't have the information and have no idea where to begin," said Doug Hudson, founder of HearingPlanet.com. "With so many hearing aid options available, consumers can be overwhelmed and not fully understand what they can do to help their hearing." Here is how to find a hearing aid that is right. Overcome the stigma of hearing aids. Many people fail to act because they are embarrassed to wear hearing aids. In fact, only one out of five people who could benefit from a hearing aid actually wears one. Hearing aids do not indicate a weakness or a handicap, and today's models are so small that it's likely many people won't even realize one is wearing one. Having hearing tested. Testing is usually covered by insurance plans. Speak with a general practitioner to learn where testing takes place in the local area. Be sure to request a written copy of the test results, which is known as an audiogram. Know the options. Inquire about the different options and brands of hearing aids available. Hearing-care professionals should be able to answer all the questions. Also, see if a portion or all of the cost of a hearing aid is covered by a medical insurance plan. Write down the different brands, models and prices discussed. This will be a comparison between products. Don't make any rash decisions; hearing health is important and purchases should be made wisely. Compare pricing and plans. Look for plans that involve battery replacement, warranties and service to the hearing aid. Call around for prices from reputable companies and seek out recommendations from friends and family members. Also, use Internet resources to make sure that prices are in line. Beware of mail-order hearing aids however. Most of these do not provide local service, which is necessary for proper fit and programing.

Symmetries of Culture Mathematicians have teamed up with archaeologists and anthropologists to investigate patterns and designs from around the world. By dividing the patterns into groups, these scientists can study the patterns unique to a culture and gain insight into a group's cultural identity and whether nearby groups influenced each other's work. They have found that people from very early times used highly sophisticated symmetry. Clearly mathematics did not begin in Greece in 500 BC. The Egyptians used patterns with complicated symmetries a thousand years earlier, and people all over the world could recognize the symmetries their own culture accepted, and those they did not. The study of crystals led to most of the mathematical information we have on the symmetry of repeated patterns. In 1891, E.S. Federov completed a list of the 230 three-dimensional repeated patterns. In 1944, Edith Muller first used the 17 classes of two-dimensional repeated patterns in an analysis of material culture when she studied the Islamic art of the Alhambra in Spain. Through her pioneering work in 1944, she identified 11 of the 17 classes, and it was not until 1987 that mathematicians were able to document all 17 in the incredibly beautiful artistry achieved by the builders of the Alhambra. In 1948, Ann O. Shepard used symmetry analysis in the study of designs from the American Southwest, the Anasazi, Mimbres, and Rio Grande Pueblos. This important work is only now being fully appreciated. Mathematicians, cognitive scientists, and anthropologists are working together to unravel the mysteries of the patterns. This study of symmetries from around the world may be able to provide us with a deeper understanding and appreciation of our human heritage. - Kay Gilliland, EQUALS (back to main page) | Bibliography Mathematics found in Seminole Patchwork There are four rigid motions of the plane, a rigid motion is a motion that does not alter the size or shape of the object being moved. The four rigid motions are reflection, rotation, translation, and glide reflection. These four motions, or symmetries, are used to describe the geometry of repetition found in repeated decorative patterns. Seminole patchwork designs are strip patterns, also called border or freize patterns. The repeated design of strip patterns only occurs in one linear direction; this distinguishes them from other repeated patterns where the recurring pattern appears in more than one linear direction or may just rotate or reflect. There are only 7 combinations of symmetries that can exist in strip patterns. Every strip pattern has a translation of the design since it occurs in a linear direction. Reflections in strip patterns can exist in two ways, in the direction of the pattern, parallel to the pattern, or perpendicular to the direction of the pattern. Rotations are limited to 180° (half-turn) since the pattern must retain its original orientation. Glide reflections can only occur in the direction of the pattern. The seven combinations of symmetries, pattern types, are listed below with an example of each. |Parallel & Perpendicular Reflections| |Half Turn Rotation| |Perpendicular Reflection & Half Turn Rotation| Strip patterns that have the same rigid motions, the same combinations of symmetries, are classified as one pattern type. Two designs can look vastly different but be of the same pattern type. A classification system was established to distinguish between pattern types without having to write down all the symmetries. This classification system was first introduced by crystallographers. The notation has a symbol in each of four positions, each position describing characteristics of the pattern. The symbol in the first position describes the basic unit found in the pattern. Strip patterns have several basic units that might occur, but all are considered "primitive", so the first symbol in all strip pattern classifications is a p. The second position indicates whether the pattern has a reflection perpendicular to the direction of the pattern. If there is a perpendicular reflection the symbol m, for mirror, is used; if not, a 1 is used. The third position in the notation denotes whether there is a reflection parallel to the direction of the pattern or a glide reflection. These two symmetries will not occur together so the third position is either an m or a g, for glide reflection. The fourth position indicates whether there is a half-turn rotation; 2 if there is, 1 if not. The classification of each of the seven strip patterns, including a list of symmetries that exist, is given in the table below. A "distinct" symmetry is one that occurs in a specific location of the design. Strip patterns can have one symmetry occuring in more than one location of the design. |Pattern||Classification||Translation||Perpendicular Reflection||Parallel Reflection||Glide Reflection||Half-Turn Rotation| |Perpendicular Reflection||pm11||Yes||Yes, 2 distinct lines of reflection| |Parallel Reflection||p1m1||Yes||Yes, 1 distinct line of reflection| |Parallel & Perpendicular Reflections||pmm2||Yes||Yes, 2 distinct lines of reflection||Yes, 1 distinct line of reflection||Yes, 2 distinct centers of rotation (where the reflection lines cross)| |Half-Turn Rotation||p112||Yes||Yes, 2 distinct centers of rotation| |Perpendicular Reflection & Half-Turn Rotation||pmg2||Yes||Yes, 1 distinct line of reflection||Yes||Yes, 1 distinct center of rotation| It is an interesting exercise to verify why certain combinations of symmetries exist together; for example, if both parallel and perpendicular reflections occur, rotation must also occur. Looking for symmetries in design is an engaging activity that sometimes yields surprising results! (back to the main page) | Bibliography The Tradition of Storytelling Many cultures throughout the world maintain their history through oral traditions of storytelling. In some cultures, certain members of the society have the responsibility to maintain the oral history. Storytelling is an important aspect of community gatherings for many American Indian tribes. Everyone sits in a circle listening to the stories which are told by a variety of people. Many of the stories explain natural events or the presence of living beings. For example, there are stories to explain why leaves change colors in the fall and the existence of the woodpecker. Other stories are lessons; stories which teach how to live within the culture. These stories reflect the society's values, explaining that members need to help each other and get along. The Seminole tribe has a Creek ancestry. The Creek Nation was composed of many tribes. The Creek Nation, in turn, has elements of its culture that can be traced to the Mayan Indians of South America. This ancestral tie is evidenced both in the traditional stories of the Creek Nation and the similarity of designs found in both cultures. (back to the main page) | Bibliography The Origins of Seminole Clans In the beginning, the Muscogee people were born out of the earth itself. They crawled up out of the ground through a hole like ants. In these days, they lived in a far western land beside the tall mountains that reached the sky. They called the mountains the backbone of the earth. Then a thick fog descended upon the earth, sent by the Master of Breath, Esakitaummesee. The Muscogee people could not see. They wandered around blindly, calling out to one another in fear. They drifted apart and became lost. The whole people were separated into small groups, and these groups stayed close to one another in fear of being entirely alone. Finally, the Master had mercy on them. From the eastern edge of the world, where the sun rises, he began to blow away the fog. He blew and blew until the fog was completely gone. The people were joyful and sang a hymn of thanksgiving to the Master of Breath. And in each of the groups, the people turned to one another and swore eternal brotherhood. They said that from then on these groups would be like large families. The members of each group would be as close to each other as brother and sister, father and son. The group that was farthest east and first to see the sum, praised the wind that had blown the fog away. They called themselves the Wind Family, or Wind Clan. As the fog moved away from the other groups, they, too, gave themselves names. Each group chose the name of the first animal it saw. So they became the Bear, Deer, Alligator, Raccoon, and Bird Clans. But the Wind Clan remained the most important clan of all. The Seminole Clans are Alligator, Bear, Beaver, Bird, Deer, Otter, Tiger, Raccoon, Snake, Sweet Potato, Wolf, and Wind. Clans are named for animals and manifestations of nature. Descendancy and inheritance comes through the mother's side of the family. - Cultural Curriculum for Communities (back to the main page) | Bibliography Crowe, Donald. 1986. Symmetry, Rigid Motions, and Patterns. COMAP: Arlington, MA. Cultural Curriculum for Communities. Gilliland, Kay. 1994. Rafter Patterns of New Zealand Maori: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Symmetry. A presentation at the Southern Regional Conference of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 13-15 October 1994. Grünbaum, Branko and G.C. Shepard. 1989. Tilings and Patterns: An Introduction. Freeman: New York. Schattschneider, Doris. 1978. The Plane Symmetry Groups: Their Recognition and Notation. American Mathematical Monthly, 85(6) 439-450. Tannenbaum, Peter and Robert Arnold. 1992. Excursions in Modern Mathematics. Prentice Hall: Englewood Cliffs, NJ. ©1998 Vera Preston & Mary Hannigan Austin Community College

Search Nursery Rhyme Lyrics & Childrens Songs What A Great Sea If all the seas were one sea, What a Great sea that would be! If all the trees were one tree, What a Great tree that would be! And if all the axes were one axe, What a Great axe that would be! And if all the men were one man, What a Great man that would be! And if the Great man took the GREAT axe, And cut down the Great tree, And let it fall into the Great sea, What a splish-splash that would be! Some more nursery rhymes to enjoy Bat, Bat, Come Under My Hat Bat, bat, come under my hat, And I'll give you a slice of bacon; And when I bake I'll give you a cake, If I am not mistaken. Origins of Nursery Rhyme Lyrics and Words Nursery Rhyme lyrics have many different origins and meanings. In most cases the meanings behind nursery rhyme lyrics cannot be verified. A few examples of some more well know nursery rhyme lyrics and their possible meanings are; ‘Baa, Baa, Black sheep’ was thought to originate from the medieval taxes, ‘Humpty Dumpty’ was thought to be a cannon used in the English civil war and ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’ was thought to be related to the burial of children in foundations or Vikings burning wooden bridges. Whatever the meaning behind Nursery Rhyme Lyrics we have enjoyed them in our own childhood along with sharing them with our own children (and it is amazing after many years how quickly the Lyrics to nursery rhymes can still be remembered).

We often get the question, what is the difference between a proxy and a VPN and when should I use either one of them? The primary difference is that a VPN routes all your network traffic through the machine that you are connected to, unless you specifically tell it to do otherwise. A proxy on the other hand routes only traffic within the specific application where you set up the proxy. It should be noted that VPNs are typically inherently using encryption, whereas proxies do not. A proxy relies on SSL for encryption(HTTPS). Because a proxy is not necessarily sending encrypted data, it can technically be vulnerable to a man in the middle attack. With a VPN a man in the middle attack will rarely yield any results for an attack because the traffic is inherently encrypted. In that sense one could say that a VPN can in fact be somewhat more secure than a proxy. Fear not however, we at hyperproxies do not store any logs of any of your traffic so with us you are completely safe and anonymous. Furthermore, if you visit HTTPS website then your traffic will also be encrypted. Other differences are that you can't send UDP traffic with a proxy(unless it's a SOCKS proxy). A VPN supports all sorts of network traffic. Altogether a VPN is simply a little more advances than a proxy but that does not mean that it's better. It is simply used for different scenarios. A proxy is excellent for webbrowsing and automated webbrowsing because you can use many different IP addresses at the same time. With a VPN on the other hand, you can use only the IP address of the current VPN connection. If you intend to change your IP, you need to disconnect and setup a new connection. The conclusion is that both techniques have their own use and neither is better than one another, they can simply be used for different purposes.

To understand Mennonites, one needs to understand the stories by which they order their lives. Sixteenth century Anabaptist martyr Dirk Willems saved his pursuer from drowning only to be returned to prison and later burned at the stake. It’s as close to an icon that the iconoclastic sect gets. Berated and harassed for their pacifism during wartimes they are often coddled during peacetime for their thrift, industriousness and hard work. Arriving as immigrants from Europe in the late 1600s, Mennonites refused to jump headlong into America’s melting pot. They rather preferred keeping their distinctive cultural and religious practices intact. Many still insist on using horse drawn transportation, severely limiting the use of technology and retaining old-world costume. Others, while accepting modernism, foster a certain simplicity in their lifestyles. Their insistence in the 1500s that the European state had no business meddling in the affairs of the church popularized the notion of separation of church and state. A century later this principle found its way into this nation’s founding documents. In America their emphasis on peaceful living and compassion contributes significantly to society. During WWII their exposure of brutal care given to patients in “insane asylums” changed the way the nation thought about mental illness. More recently their application of peace principles spawned the fair trade and restorative justice movements. This documentary will afford the public a first look into the often hidden world of what it means to be Mennonite in America.

Pazyryk Carpet. New insights. The Pazyryk Carpet (fig.1) has frequently been the object of thorough studies. It is the oldest known knotted carpet, preserved in a Scythe tomb (kurgan) from the 4th -3th century B.C. Valuable information is in the book of Sergey I. Rudenko (in English translation: “The Most Ancient Carpets and Textiles of the World”, Moskau 1968), and an article by Ludmilla Barkova (HALI, issue 107,1999, pp. 64-69): “The Pazyryk—Fifty Years on"). As is appears, no one so far has given notice to the fact, that the pattern on the coat of the 24 broad-antlered spotted fallow deers, forming a procession in the second outward wide border, has an anatomical meaning (fig.2). Lecturing on Oriental carpets in the city of Thun (Switzerland), I was puzzled by the remark of a medical doctor in the audience. He, a passionate hunter, said, that these extra figures are depicting the inwards and the vertebra of the deer, all parts in real positions with nearly clinical precision (fig.3): 1. The heart, just above the, front legs (a yellow framed red sphere, black contoured). 2. The aorta (a long red protuberance on the heart). 3. The maw, on the right hand side of the sphere (a large yellow area with a widening upwards on the end). 4. The intestine, in the rear end (a yellow square surrounded by a light blue and a yellow bow). 5. Possibly the urethra, on the upper part of the right hind leg (a yellow line with a black point), better to see on some others deer on the border. 6. The vertebra, directly below the brown back contour (an alternating black-white chain). The most common species of a fallow deer in Asia nowadays is known as "Mesopotamian deer" [E. Ueckermann, Das Damwild, (Hamburg, Berlin, 1983) pp.14/15]. Ueckermann also mentions a stone relief (fig.4) from the palace of Dareios in Persepolis (p. 15) showing a feudal servant who offers such a deer for the king. One may think that deer were highly valuated; they may have been also connected with ritual procedures. Since Mesopotamia was part of Dareios' empire, one may think of similar rituals there. From Siberia, where Pazyryk is located, we have many representations of deer by Scythian craftsmen. But the character of the Pazyryk carpet is not Scythian. The experts suppose Mesopotamia as its origin. The clue for this supposition is the stony so called threshold carpet from Ninive, now exhibited in the British Museum. It has a very similar pattern as compared with the field of the Pazyryk carpet. Therefore, the name "Mesopotamian deer" and the relief in Persepolis are additional indications for Mesopotamia as origin of the Pazyryk carpet.

1. “Stepping on Snakes” is set in South Africa in the early 1960s. What elements of the setting coincided with what you already knew about South Africa during that era? What elements surprised you? 2. The author chose not to focus on apartheid and the status of the black and so-called colored people of South Africa, which is what most Americans associate most readily with South Africa. Why do you think she might have done this? How do you feel about her choice to focus on other aspects of South African life? 3. Bobbie is seven years old. Were you aware of this as you read the story? Did you find Bobbie’s characterization convincing, given her stated age? If not, what age do you think the author might have made her more effectively? 4. The naive and well-behaved Celeste is a foil for Bobbie. Did you find the use of this device satisfying in “Stepping on Snakes”? In general, do you think it is an effective way to develop character and conflict in a story? How else might the author have shown Bobbie’s independence and curiosity? 5. In the climactic scene in the story, a man outside the schoolyard fence exposes himself to Bobbie and her classmates. What elements of this scene could have happened in any time and place? Which do you think were particular to that era and setting? What do you think of the reaction of Bobbie’s teacher? Why do you think Bobbie never told anyone what happened?

The literary insight essay invites you to specific your individual feelings and ideas about a literary work (a short story, a novel, or a play). Whereas the This Shows That” Technique for writing commentary is a wonderful software for avoiding plot abstract, it still relies upon college students knowing how to clarify the evidence. In this way, the This Reveals That” Method is limited, so I have developed a secondary technique known as the LET” Technique for writing commentary. This method helps guide students by giving them choices for what to write down about in their commentary sentences. Basically, LET” stands for Literary Elements and Methods,” and the mini-lesson takes college students step-by-step by means of writing commentary primarily based upon literary units. When students are able to recognize that each single citation comprises hidden messages about theme and that those messages come by way of literary devices, they can find the pathway to writing effective commentary. Examining Practical literature essay Plans Your objective in literary evaluation is not merely to clarify the occasions described in the text, but to analyze the writing itself and focus on how the text works on a deeper degree. Primarily, you’re searching for literary devices – textual elements that writers use to convey that means and create results. In case you’re evaluating and contrasting a number of texts, you may also look for connections between totally different texts. Multiple Technique of Engagement (MME): College students who need further support with writing could have destructive associations with writing tasks based on previous experiences. Help them feel profitable with writing by allowing them to create possible objectives and have a good time when these goals are met. For example, place a sticker or a star at a specific level on the web page (e.g., two pages) that gives a visible writing goal for the day. Also, construct goals for sustained writing by chunking the 25-minute writing block into smaller items. Present alternative for a break activity at specific time factors when students have demonstrated writing progress. Celebrate students who meet their writing targets, whether or not it is the length of the text or sustained writing time. If you’re writing the literature evaluate as part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate your central problem or analysis question and provides a short abstract of the scholarly context. You’ll be able to emphasise the timeliness of the subject (many current studies have focused on the issue of x”) or spotlight a spot in the literature (whereas there has been much analysis on x, few researchers have taken y into consideration”). Restate your thesis utilizing different phrases. It must convey all the principle statements you made in the previous elements of your literary evaluation, but also touch on the implied provisions of your arguments. The principle concepts or messages of the work—usually abstract concepts about people, society, or life generally. A work could have many themes, which may be in stress with each other. No matter which kind of research you’re doing and for what objective, a very powerful thing in your analysis is that you respect the data and try to symbolize your interview as truthfully as potential. When you share your results with others, you should be clear about every part in your research course of, from how you recruited contributors to how you performed the evaluation. It will make it simpler for folks to trust in the validity of your results. Individuals who do not agree together with your conclusion is likely to be essential of your analysis outcomes, but when you realize that you’ve got executed everything doable to symbolize your contributors and your research course of honestly, you should have no problem defending your results. Wikipedia is a good place to begin analysis, but it’s not at all times dependable or accurate. After studying a Wikipedia article, it’s best to look at its sources and read those articles. In this lesson, college students will evaluate literary parts and use this data to research a children’s story. If they ask me if I am ready to advocate this author, I’ll answer surely: Sure! That is the best expertise of my life. We’ve got turn out to be true buddies. The writer is at all times in contact, offers new inventive ideas to be able to make the paper even better. Content material evaluation is a analysis software used to find out the presence of sure words, themes, or ideas within some given qualitative knowledge (i.e. text). Utilizing content material analysis, researchers can quantify and analyze the presence, meanings and relationships of such sure phrases, themes, or ideas. Researchers can then make inferences about the messages inside the texts, the writer(s), the audience, and even the culture and time of surrounding the text. Clear-Cut Methods For essay samples For 2019 Do not confuse the creator with the speaker. Often, significantly when you find yourself analyzing a poem, it’s tempting to assume that the writer can be the narrator. That is often not the case. Poetry, like the novel or brief story, is a creative genre by which authors are free to inhabit the voice(s) of any character(s) they like. Most poems do not determine a narrator by title, but the fact that the speaker is unnamed doesn’t essentially tovalds cave imply that she or he stands in for the creator. Keep in mind, the individual doing the writing is the writer, and the individual doing the talking is the speaker. In some instances, it’s possible you’ll select to treat the speaker as a stand-in for the writer. In these cases, be sure to have a cause for doing so—and take into account mentioning that cause someplace in your paper. Convenient Programs For essay sample Simplified Educational literary criticism prior to the rise of New Criticism” within the United States tended to observe traditional literary history: tracking affect, establishing the canon of major writers within the literary durations, and clarifying historic context and allusions within the textual content. Literary biography was and nonetheless is a crucial interpretive technique out and in of the academy; versions of moral criticism, not in contrast to the Leavis Faculty in Britain, and aesthetic (e.g. genre research) criticism were additionally generally influential literary practices. Maybe the important thing unifying characteristic of conventional literary criticism was the consensus throughout the academy as to the each the literary canon (that’s, the books all educated persons ought to learn) and the aims and purposes of literature. What literature was, and why we learn literature, and what we learn, were questions that subsequent movements in literary theory had been to raise.

Nearly 8 million YouTube viewers have had. In the video, a man suffers a heart attack during rush hour in a crowded city. His life is saved by the timely arrival of a futuristic “ambulance drone,” summoned when his companion calls an emergency number. Via streaming video and two-way audio, emergency responders miles away guide the stricken man’s companion on how to use the defibrillator carried by the drone. It all happens before an emergency vehicle can make its way through traffic. The video was created by Alec Momont, a design graduate at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, who is now working in Milan. “Instead of centralizing everything into one area, where ambulances are, [the drone] creates a network across the country to decrease these response times,” Momont said in a. Proof of concept Drones already have delivered packages successfully from online retailers to customers in the United States and other countries. So it's not far-fetched that they could also be used to deliver medical devices, medications, and other forms of medical assistance, especially to remote or underserved areas in the United States. Of course, medical material often requires more delicate handling than consumer goods. But test drones launched by U.S. companies, international groups such as Doctors Without Borders, and other organizations have delivered aid packages in Rwanda, flown contraceptives and oxytocin in Ghana, and carried blood and biological samples to labs from remote locations in Papua New Guinea and Madagascar. “These small vehicles have the same name as some military weapons, [but] they’re not the same thing at all,” said Timothy K. Amukele, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pathology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In 2015, when a student came to Amukele with the idea of using drones to fly blood samples from clinic to lab, the physician was skeptical until he learned that drones were shrinking in size and price. Since then—“a million years in technology,” he said—the demand for drones led his student to found a drone-making company, one of several in the country. Still, when Amukele applied for institutional review board (IRB) permission, “they thought it was a joke,” he said. Amukele initially had his doubts about drones’ capabilities, too. For example, he thought that in-flight vibrations might rupture blood cells, which happens to samples on bad roads. Drone Transport of Blood Products from Medical Drones on Vimeo. But Amukele and his team have shown that drones can transport blood samples and products, and blood and sputum culture specimens undamaged. Now the group is working to see if samples in secure packaging can survive a crash intact. The off-the-shelf drones cost $2,000 to $3,000 after the team modifies them—a camera may be removed to make room for a snug cargo bay, for example. The team uses both airplane-like fixed-wing drones and helicopter-like multirotor vehicles. The future of specimen transport An American of Nigerian descent, Amukele wants to improve the delivery of medical care in remote locales in the United States and sub-Saharan Africa. Drones might someday be part of the health care delivery system in that part of the world, he said. “One of the factors that worsened the West African Ebola outbreak were the poor roads that hindered the transport of biological samples. [Drones are] now a relatively inexpensive solution with a relatively low barrier to implementation,” Amukele and team wrote in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology last year. “Drones are now a relatively inexpensive solution with a relatively low barrier to implementation.” Timothy K. Amukele, MD, PhD Johns Hopkins School of Medicine “There’s a large potential for a reworking of how we do specimen transport employing that technology,” agreed Geoffrey S. Baird, MD, PhD, medical director at Seattle’s Northwest Hospital Clinical Laboratory. Lab specimens—small packages with a high value—are ideal candidates for drone transport, he said. He is working on flying blood products by drone between sites that are a few miles apart in the University of Washington (UW) medical system. He has longer flights in mind, but for now must obey regulations that require drones to stay in the pilot’s line of sight. Drone-traffic rules are works in progress, said Baird, also an associate professor at the department of laboratory medicine at the UW School of Medicine. “There’s a big regulatory hump to get over.” Cornelius A. Thiels, DO, surgery resident at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., is looking even further ahead. “Drones could also be used to deliver tourniquets and combat gauze to the scene of a trauma or mass casualty event,” he said. They could enhance telemedicine as well: “It is not unrealistic to think that drones may one day provide home visits for patients, thus maximizing the care physicians can provide.” When speed, payload capacity, and cooling systems improve, it’s even possible that drones could rush organs for transplant to remote locations. “It is important to distinguish the ‘wow’ factor of such innovations from the ultimate value they add to patient care,” said Scott Shipman, MD, MPH, director of primary care initiatives and workforce analysis at AAMC. The benefits of drones to patient outcomes and cost savings still need to be demonstrated, he said. “Time will tell if drones in medicine will meet these criteria.” If so, drones could even become a topic for medical educators. “I don’t think medical students are going to have to take Drones 101 [but] we have to bring different people to the table,” Baird said, forecasting a need for physicians who appreciate software, and industrial and mechanical engineering. Such doctors might out-invent the engineers, suggested Thiels. “My mom always taught me that it takes three bad ideas to come up with one good one,” he said. “If every trainee would be encouraged to come up with three innovations, I think we could revolutionize the delivery of health care in the United States.”

Foods in focus should be all wholegrain, high fiber, plant based fats, fruits and vegetables - all in their most natural form with minimal processing. Ideally, you would want to focus on live and raw foods to achieve the maximum beneficial effect. It’s still unknown scientifically what are the best supplements to ward off against the COVID-19 virus. However, the following are common most effective supplements that have proven extremely beneficial to fight common cold and flu symptoms. This vitamin can be found in a variety of fruits and vegetables, for e.g. sweet peppers, kiwi, oranges, lemon and broccoli. At times where vitamin C-rich foods are scarce, you can obtain in from a supplement. The recommended daily intake of 200mg to assist in fighting colds. This dosage may positively affect the duration and severity of cold symptoms. For athletes, the intake of vitamin-C may reduce the incidence of colds as much as by 50%. There’s absolutely no benefit from taking in a higher dose orally (1-8 g/day) once you’re already impacted by the virus and can be compared to the effect of placebo. This mineral is found in rich quantities in beef, oysters, fish and other seafood. Vegetarians and vegans will find ample quantities of Zinc in pumpkin seeds and baked beans. There are also sync lozenges, syrup and other supplements available as a substitute. Taking a Zinc supplement within 24 hour period of being infected may reduce the severity of the symptoms. There’s no recommended dose as it is unknown and depends on individual nutrient absorption level. However, make sure not to take more than 40mg per day as this may cause toxicity and have both acute and chronic effects. It is recommended to avoid usage of zinc nasal spray as this affects and may cause a loss of smell. Since a whopping 70% of your immune system is in your gut, probiotics which have good gut bacteria can play a major role in keeping your immune system in check. In order to ward off colds, your body will need about 10 billion active probiotic cultures per day. This amount can be reached through supplements or fermented foods like yogurt, sour cabbage and other pickled vegetables. In order to be effective to help fight the respiratory viruses and diseases you must take the probiotics every day for at least three months before the cold and flu season begins. How does sugar impact on your immunity? Albeit the lack of evidence that sugar impacts on our immunity, it’s proven that obese people have been found to be more prone to infection due to impaired immunity. By and large, foods that are packed with energy but poor in nutrients (i.e. deep fries, confectionery and fizzy drinks) should be avoided to prevent from malnutrition and excessive weight gain. Active morning yoga, cold shower and breathing flows Movement is life. When moving through the yoga flows we do both Work out and Work in. Yoga encompasses both muscle work and mental work. This morning yoga flow by Alo Yoga has been my favourite since staying home from the end of March 2020. You can get a free 10-45 minutes class from YouTube by Alo Yoga One of the best routines I have discovered in 2018 is Wim Hof breathing technique. This man claims he can exercise control over his immune system to defeat illness. When you practice the breathing method you would completely oxygenates your cells and alkalie your entire body. This of course increases your immune system defense levels. Another one of the methods of this 22 world record holder is standing under a cold shower! As Wim says, “the cold is the greatest teacher.” This cold shower flow and many others could be found from his free app! I do these in a morning flow cycle of 5 days on, 2 days off starting with a yoga workout, followed by the Wim Hof breathing and finishing off with his cold shower exercise. In spite of a high saturation published media promoting specific foods and supplements that make a claim to help you prevent/protect from COVID-19/Coronavirus, beware of misinformation when specific products are claimed to “cure” or “treat” the virus. In these uncertain times there are people all over the world trying to ride the profit wave on this pandemic through influence of fear tactics. For factual information, look for the official health authority bodies of your government or university research papers and information for tested, evidence based solutions. Focus on the factors you can control like your personal nutrition, supplements and always remember to maintain a regular exercise and breathing flows.

Peritoneal dialysis: Technique that uses the patient's own body tissues inside of the belly (abdominal cavity) to act as a filter. The intestines lie in the abdominal cavity, the space between the abdominal wall and the spine. A plastic tube called a “dialysis catheter” is placed through the abdominal wall into the abdominal cavity. A special fluid is then flushed into the abdominal cavity and washes around the intestines. The intestinal walls act as a filter between this fluid and the bloodstream. By using different types of solutions, waste products and excess water can be removed from the body through this process.

Friends Learn about Tobin and Tobin Learns to Make Friends by Diane Murrell These books use a train theme that is appealing to lots of little guys on the spectrum. Friends Learn... is a help for introducing classmates to some of the traits of ASD. Tobin Learns... goes from the perspective of the child with ASD learning about making friends. Both books are pretty simple and appropriate for using with little kids. If your little one tends to be somewhat aloof and doesn't do much in the area of reciprocal play, you might want to look at Giggle Time by Susan Aud Sonders. This is a good book for establishing play routines. You will find lots of fun ideas for activities. It has a major focus on social communication skills. For children with sensory issues that might be impacting social skills, you might want to look at The Out-of-Sync Child by Carol Kranowitz. Sometimes little ones have problems with the proximity of others, with the sensory overload of the environmnent, or with sensory issues involved with play materials. This book can help you pinpoint some issues and gives you ideas for helping a child learn to cope so he/she can enjoy childhood experiences more fully. Learning to play appropriately with toys is so important to early development of social play. A good book with lots of great background information about teaching playskills combined with ideas for teaching about specific types of toys would be the book Teaching Playskills by Melinda J. Smith. Another book along the same lines is Playing, Laughing and Learning with Children on the Autism Spectrum by Julia Moor. This book looks at learning to play table top games, physical activity games, outdoor games, water play and more. Again, kids have a hard time socially connecting unless they can play games and use toys like other kids do. Even as adults, we connect with others with similar interests. With little kids, those interests naturally revolve around toys. Imitation and initiation skills are usually difficult skills to pick up for children on the Autism Spectrum. The book Pivotal Response Treatments for Autism by Robert and Lynn Koegel has some great , somewhat scholarly, information on these topics. Some early learners need visual supports to learn play routines. Great Prairie Area Education Agency has a link to a resource called Play Routines. Here you will find a free download of hundreds of visual play routines and planning guides. http://www.gpaea.k12.ia.us/media/31825/play%20routines.pdf I hope you will find some ideas to get the little ones off to a good start. Play away!

DTSC's Mission Statement and Strategic Plan The mission of DTSC is to protect California's people and environment from harmful effects of toxic substances through the restoration of contaminated resources, enforcement, regulation and pollution prevention. - Californians enjoy a clean and healthy environment, and as a result of our efforts - Communities are confident that we protect them from toxic harm - Businesses are confident that we engage them with consistency and integrity - Consumers are confident that we stimulate innovation in the development of safer products 2011-2016 Strategic Plan | How We Are Organized | The Department of Toxic Substances Control, or DTSC, protects California and Californians from exposures to hazardous wastes. DTSC operates programs to: - deal with the aftermath of improper hazardous waste management by overseeing site cleanups; - prevent releases of hazardous waste by ensuring that those who generate, handle, transport, store and dispose of wastes do so properly; - take enforcement actions against those who fail to manage hazardous wastes appropriately; - explore and promote means of preventing pollution and encourage reuse and recycling; - evaluate soil, water and air samples taken at sites and develop new analytical methods; - practice other environmental sciences, including toxicology, risk assessment, and technology development; and - involve the public in DTSC's decision-making. | Overview of DTSC | Each year, Californians generate two million tons of hazardous waste. One hundred thousand privately- and publicly-owned facilities generate one or more of the 800-plus wastes considered hazardous under California law. Properly handling these wastes avoids threats to public health and degradation of the environment. The Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) regulates hazardous waste, cleans-up existing contamination, and looks for ways to reduce the hazardous waste produced in California. Approximately 1,000 scientists, engineers, and specialized support staff make sure that companies and individuals handle, transport, store, treat, dispose of, and clean-up hazardous wastes appropriately. Through these measures, DTSC contributes to greater safety for all Californians, and less hazardous waste reaches the environment. What follows are brief descriptions of the various functions and activities that DTSC's dedicated staff perform on behalf of Californians and their environment. | Toxics Questions | DTSC maintains open communication with the diverse publics it serves in a variety of ways. The Public Participation program is nationally recognized as the most proactive example of its type for citizen involvement. Statute and policy mandate a community involvement program that creates a dialogue with stakeholders when DTSC is cleaning-up a site, reviewing a permit application or engaging in other regulatory activities. Moreover, DTSC recognizes that public involvement in its decision-making process ultimately results in better environmental risk management decisions. DTSC's 30 Public Participation Specialists hold more than 350 meetings, hearings, briefings and panel discussions each year, and produce at least 350 public notices and fact sheets to keep residents informed of their opportunities to get involved. Regulatory Assistance Officers, Hazardous Substances Scientists with a combined total of 45 years experience in DTSC, provide a critical service to the public. Their full-time job is to respond to inquiries from the regulated community, environmental firms, other agencies, and the public. They receive hundreds of calls and e-mails per week requesting information that runs the gamut from navigating DTSC's Web site to assistance in classifying waste. They report to the Regional Coordinator who works with the management teams in the four major regional offices and two satellite offices to ensure that the tools and policies of DTSC are in place so that the Department's work is carried out effectively. They also serve as liaisons to the public by representing DTSC through presentations, task force representation, and ombudsman functions. Being accessible, accountable, and relevant is crucial to public service. DTSC works toward those goals by communicating with individuals, regulated businesses, community groups, media and other government agencies. Each year, DTSC staff members grant an average of 750 media interviews and send out 100 press releases. These actions keep the public informed of DTSC activities that may affect them such as site cleanup, enforcement, and permitting actions throughout the State. Outreach and Web site staff members provide information to community members, local governments, and environmental groups. They find or create outreach opportunities to educate target audiences affected by DTSC's activities. Also, DTSC administers environmental justice programs in cooperation with Cal/EPA, the Governor's Office of Planning and Research, and civil rights organizations throughout the State. As an element of outreach, DTSC proudly supports the Governor's School Mentor Program. The Mentor Program offers staff an opportunity to mentor at-risk youth. This program contributes to the Governor's goal of recruiting, training, and matching quality mentors to reach one million California youth. The web coordinators work with DTSC program staff to present current and relevant information on the world wide web, and work with the Web site programmers to ensure that information is presented in the most accessible manner possible. | Laws, Regulations & Policies | DTSC regulates hazardous waste in California primarily under the authority of the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, and the California Health and Safety Code. Other laws that affect hazardous waste are specific to handling, storage, transportation, disposal, treatment, reduction, cleanup and emergency planning. In addition, DTSC reviews and monitors legislation, as many as 200 bills each legislative session, to ensure that the position reflects the Department's goals. Staff legislative specialists coordinate DTSC's response to all proposed legislation that may positively or negatively affect the Department. Other functions include developing legislation, coordinating with lawmakers, and responding to constituent complaints. From these laws, DTSC's major program areas develop regulations and consistent program policies and procedures. The regulations spell out what those who handle hazardous waste must do to comply with the laws. As is the case with environmental risk management decisions, these rulemakings are subject to public review and comment. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) was signed into law in 1970. The basic purposes of CEQA are to inform governmental decision-makers and the public about the potential, significant environmental effects of proposed activities; identify the ways that environmental damage can be avoided or significantly reduced; prevent significant, avoidable damage to the environment by requiring changes in projects through the use of alternatives or mitigation measures when the governmental agency finds the changes to be feasible; and to disclose to the public the reasons why a governmental agency approved the project in the manner the agency chose if significant environmental effects are involved. The Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) is subject to the requirements of CEQA because it is responsible for carrying-out or approving various hazardous waste-related projects having the potential to impact the environment. In fiscal year 2009/10, DTSC prepared over 140 CEQA environmental documents for public review and processed over 1800 outside agency environmental documents submitted to DTSC for its review by other agencies. More information regarding DTSC"S compliance with the requirements of CEQA can be found at: http://www.dtsc.ca.gov/LawsRegsPolicies/ceqa.cfm. Twenty-two attorneys provide legal guidance for the Department. They primarily engage in environmental advocacy and litigation ranging from prosecuting environmental violations and revoking permits, to cost recovery and collecting environmental fees. | Overseeing Site Cleanup | DTSC is committed to establishing and implementing protective and consistent cleanup programs and standards that can serve as a model for California and the nation. An estimated 90,000 properties throughout the State - including former industrial properties, school sites, military bases, small businesses and landfills - are contaminated, or believed contaminated, with some level of toxic substances. Some of these are "brownfields," sites that often sit idle or underused, contributing to both urban blight and urban sprawl. DTSC cleans-up or oversees approximately 220 hazardous substance release sites at any given time and completes an average of 125 cleanups each year. An additional 250 sites are listed on DTSC's EnviroStor database of properties that may be contaminated. Expediting cleanups is an important goal of the program, and a series of "Brownfields" initiatives support that effort. The Voluntary Cleanup Program and the California Land Reuse and Revitalization Program encourage responsible parties to clean-up contaminated properties by offering economic, liability, or efficiency incentives. DTSC also encourages property owners to investigate and clean-up contamination if found, through a combination of low-interest loans. The Investigating Site Contamination and Cleanup Loans and Environmental Assistance to Neighborhoods (CLEAN Loans) Programs provide loans to investigate and clean-up urban properties. At present, funding for the Loan Program is extremely limited, but in 2001, DTSC received 11 loan applications for $7.9 million. The State Superfund covers sites for which there are no cleanup options through the responsible party and which threaten the people or the environment of California. Additionally, DTSC works to ensure that all new, existing, and proposed school sites are environmentally safe. State laws require all proposed school sites that will receive state funding for purchase or construction to go through DTSC's environmental review. This process ensures that new school sites are uncontaminated, or if previously contaminated, that they have been cleaned-up to a safe level. Last year, DTSC assessed, investigated, or cleaned up more than 450 different school sites in California to ensure that the State's need for new schools is met and children are fully protected. California has one-third of the closing military bases in the country and more than 1,000 former defense sites. DTSC is currently investigating, cleaning-up, or providing technical assistance at more than 160 current or former military installations statewide. This task presents some unique challenges including addressing residual unexploded ordinance, chemical and biological munitions, and otherwise toxic substances that remain on the property. DTSC's Emergency Response Program provides immediate assistance during sudden or threatened releases of hazardous materials. Trained responders clean-up illegal drug labs, working with law enforcement agencies to remove toxic chemicals at roughly 2,000 labs per year. They have participated at more than 10,000 labs since 1995. They also clean-up hazardous substance spills related to off-highway transportation and natural disasters. DTSC crews are ready to go into an illegal drug lab, a train derailment site, or an earthquake-damaged area to remove dangerous substances before people are injured. In addition, DTSC continues to have lead responsibility for cleanup and enforcement at several high profile federal Superfund sites including Casmalia Resources and Stringfellow. DTSC provides day-to-day operation at these sites from the Stringfellow on-site Pre-Treatment Plant, groundwater extraction wells and other containment systems to the monitoring and treatment systems. | Regulating Those Who Manage Hazardous Waste | The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) authorizes DTSC to carry out the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) program in California. Permitting, inspection, compliance, and corrective action programs ensure that people who manage hazardous waste follow state and federal requirements. DTSC has permitted more than 130 major commercial facilities to treat, store, and dispose of hazardous waste in California. The Department uses a streamlined tiered permitting process to regulate the 5,000 businesses that perform lower-risk treatment and different permits cover hazardous waste generation, transportation, and recycling. In addition, DTSC tracks and monitors hazardous waste from its generation to ultimate disposal. Ensuring compliance through inspection and enforcement is an important part of effectively regulating hazardous waste. DTSC conducts roughly 200 inspections a year, resulting in as many as 30 new enforcement cases. The investigators also provide technical and investigative support to federal prosecutors and district attorneys prosecuting environmental crimes. Also, DTSC investigators and inspectors respond to nearly 1,000 citizen complaints about hazardous waste each year. They refer most of these complaints to local government. DTSC's Criminal Investigations Branch has the only law enforcement officers in the California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA). These peace officers, with the powers of arrest, and search and seizure, investigate alleged criminal violations of the Hazardous Waste Control Law. They work closely with district attorneys' offices, the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and law enforcement personnel in other states. DTSC also oversees the implementation of the hazardous waste generator and onsite treatment program, one of the six environmental programs at the local level consolidated within the Unified Program. Seventy-two Certified Unified Program Agencies (CUPAs), which are generally part of the local Fire Department or Environmental Health Department, have authority to enforce regulations, conduct inspections, administer penalties, and hold hearings. DTSC participates in the triennial review of the CUPA's to ensure their programs are consistent statewide, conform to standards, and deliver quality environmental protection at the local level. This includes working closely with the CUPAs, and providing technical assistance and training. Other innovative strategies DTSC uses to minimize negative environmental and public health effects from past, present and future generations include hazardous waste recycling and resource recovery. These efforts facilitate recycling and reuse of hazardous waste. The waste evaluation program assists in waste determinations to identify what substances and in what concentrations are harmful. The household hazardous waste and agricultural chemical collection programs focus on removing dangerous substances from homes and preventing their release into the environment through landfills, sewer systems and illegal dumping. DTSC also conducts a corrective action oversight program that assures any releases of hazardous constituents at generator facilities that conduct onsite treatment of hazardous waste are safely and effectively remediated. Ensuring that the State has sufficient hazardous waste storage, treatment and landfill capacity is part of this process. DTSC collects and analyzes information about current and future waste generation to determine what the needs are and the most effective ways to address them. | Encouraging Pollution Prevention | Pollution Prevention (P2) focuses on source reduction - eliminating or reducing the toxicity of a hazardous pollutant. Source reduction is preferable to recycling and treatment options because it avoids waste costs and management liability. It also provides the best protection for public health and the environment. The Hazardous Waste Source Reduction and Management Review Act requires hazardous waste generators to seriously consider source reduction as the preferred method of managing hazardous waste. DTSC uses this and other tools to motivate generators to consider and implement pollution prevention options. For pollution prevention to be successful, everyone has to participate, so DTSC works to educate businesses and individuals. Teams create informative publications to help people use fewer hazardous substances. Speakers travel throughout the state, and DTSC's Web site now makes a vast store of knowledge available in moments. Recent efforts have included targeting education and outreach efforts toward specific industries that generate hazardous waste such as vehicle service and repair and petroleum refineries. Cooperation between DTSC and other agencies or organizations such as CUPAs, trade associations, and local government programs is essential to reaching source reduction goals. DTSC representatives participate with local committees, boards, and agencies to ensure ongoing communication. DTSC also actively supports the Bay Area Green Business program that promotes P2 by recognizing "green" businesses, and many other local initiatives. At the annual Pollution Prevention Conference, 150 members of the pollution prevention community across California meet to discuss methods and progress. In addition, each September local agencies and organizations participate in Pollution Prevention Week by sponsoring more than 100 educational events throughout the State to make businesses and citizens more aware of opportunities to prevent pollution. DTSC works to integrate pollution prevention strategies throughout its programs, in the regulatory and operational sense, and through each individual. From inspectors in the regional offices and scientists at the lab, to clerical staff in the headquarters, everyone works toward reducing hazardous substances, limiting waste, and preserving the environment. Capitalizing on innovative technologies has made California a national leader in developing better solutions for managing hazardous wastes. | Science and Technology | Scientific accuracy is the cornerstone of DTSC's efforts from classifying waste to assessing risk. DTSC's scientists are experts at identifying concentrations of toxic chemicals in air, water, soil, sludge, hazardous waste streams, and biological and human tissues. They regularly provide cutting-edge information about the composition and risks of toxic substances, helping to avoid exposure that may be dangerous to children and adults. At the same time, developing new analysis and treatment methods for hazardous substances contributes to fewer exposures in the future. DTSC's experts provide consultation and support worldwide in toxicology, industrial hygiene, and human and ecological risk assessment. The CalTox spreadsheet model, which was developed by DTSC staff, computes site-specific health-based soil cleanup concentrations, and LeadSpread is a tool for evaluating lead exposure. These scientists also research and prepare guidance documents, departmental policy, and legislation governing hazardous wastes. Other science staff responsibilities include supporting other DTSC programs by analyzing site samples, classifying and defining wastes, and testing cleaner technologies. The industrial hygiene staff deal with protecting workers from chemical and hazard exposures by monitoring, setting exposure limits and developing worker safety guidelines. DTSC concentrates scientific operations at the Environmental Chemistry Laboratory, an analytical chemistry laboratory with facilities in Berkeley and Los Angeles. Chemists provide sample analysis, data validation, data interpretation, and review sampling analysis plans and quality assurance program plans. Finally, staff members conduct basic and advanced training courses encompassing sampling plans and techniques, analytical procedures, and data interpretation. DTSC's Environmental Technology Certification Program, winner of the 1996 Innovations in Government Award, fosters development of emerging technologies to improve environmental quality. This unique program helps developers bring their ideas to market and eases the regulatory burden by taking advantage of DTSC's tiered permitting system. Since the program began in 1994, DTSC has certified 25 hazardous waste environmental technologies. They include a more efficient oil filter; improved hazardous waste containment technology, two formaldehyde treatment methods for hospitals, an ozone generation and treatment system, and faster or less-expensive monitoring technologies for detecting contaminants in soil and water. Forming interstate and international partnerships has enhanced acceptance of these technologies beyond our borders, resulting in major economic and environmental benefits. | Infrastructure | What began as a small unit within the California Department of Health Services has grown to a 1,000-person Department meeting many of California's environmental challenges. DTSC now has regional offices in Sacramento, Berkeley, Glendale, and Cypress and satellite offices in Clovis and San Diego. With this expansion, a support structure has developed to meet the Department's unique needs. As the problem of hazardous substances in our communities continues to grow and change, DTSC must match it with skilled and qualified personnel. DTSC has very specific talent requirements. The Department's staff includes roughly 189 Hazardous Substance Scientists, 110 Engineers, 41 Geologists, 20 Toxicologists, 10 Industrial Hygienists, and 30 Public Participation Specialists. The remainder of DTSC's staff provide various types of technical administrative support. DTSC supports a healthy working environment free of discrimination and ensures equality in all aspects of personnel management practices and policies for department employees and applicants. The Department provides employee training on EEO issues such as Preventing Sexual Harassment classes, management training on the Americans with Disabilities Act and Reasonable Accommodations. When necessary, staff members conduct investigations in response to complaints and provide consultation on how to handle discrimination or harassment. Training of all types is essential to enhance organizational effectiveness and foster continued improvement. DTSC arranges or conducts training on a range of subject areas including technical, general and management classes that are responsive to new and existing staff needs, program changes and innovations. Taking care of employees is a critical element to maintaining a high-performing staff, therefore, DTSC operates an effective Employee Recognition Program, which is reviewed periodically to ensure that it is meaningful to the staff. DTSC's financial support comes from State funds, special funds and from federal and other reimbursements. The special funds include hazardous waste activity fees established in the Health and Safety Code, such as permit fees. In addition, the Department makes every effort to recover State funds used in oversight or remediation of contaminated sites from the parties who are legally responsible for the contamination. This important process supports much of DTSC's work and developing a fee policy that promotes stability, revenue neutrality, and flexibility is essential. DTSC has the authority to recover its costs for overseeing corrective action done by owner/operators of permitted hazardous waste facilities. Cost Recovery has averaged $11 million per year in recent years, including reimbursement costs from Voluntary Cleanups. These efforts are successful due to a commitment by all DTSC staff members to carefully track and report all costs and time by site or project. Budgeting, fiscal systems, accounting, and overseeing revenue projections are traditional functions in a government agency of monitoring and reporting expenditures to ensure consistency with state and federal requirements. Other needs include finding and buying goods and services. These functions are all critical to program effectiveness and DTSC's ability to execute its mission of protecting public health and the environment. Increasingly, the backbone of any organization is its information management function. DTSC is no exception. A staff of 55 Information Systems Analysts and Programmer Analysts conduct applications programming and development, manage local and wide area networks, troubleshoot desktop computers and maintain the Department's office automation system. In addition, they ensure that DTSC's Web site is technically sound and compliant with the Governor's E-Government Initiative. | DTSC’s External Advisory Group | This group is comprised of representatives of various communities of interest served by the DTSC. (A community of interest is not geographic body, but is instead based upon the interest stakeholders have in a site or issue). These include Environmental Groups, representatives from Industry, individuals from local communities, and others who want to share their thoughts and ideas on how DTSC operates. More info: http://www.dtsc.ca.gov/InformationResources/external_advisory_group.cfm

This first edition was written for Lua 5.0. While still largely relevant for later versions, there are some differences. The third edition targets Lua 5.2 and is available at Amazon and other bookstores. By buying the book, you also help to support the Lua project. |Programming in Lua| |Part IV. The C API Chapter 28. User-Defined Types in C| 28.5 – Light Userdata The userdata that we have been using until now is called full userdata. Lua offers another kind of userdata, called light userdata. A light userdatum is a value that represents a C pointer (that is, a void * value). Because it is a value, we do not create them (in the same way that we do not create numbers). To put a light userdatum into the stack, void lua_pushlightuserdata (lua_State *L, void *p); Despite their common name, light userdata are quite different from full userdata. Light userdata are not buffers, but single pointers. They have no metatables. Like numbers, light userdata do not need to be managed by the garbage collector (and are not). Some people use light userdata as a cheap alternative to full userdata. This is not a typical use, however. First, with light userdata you have to manage memory by yourself, because they are not subject to garbage collection. Second, despite the name, full userdata are inexpensive, too. They add little overhead compared to a for the given memory size. The real use of light userdata comes from equality. As a full userdata is an object, it is only equal to itself. A light userdata, on the other hand, represents a C pointer value. As such, it is equal to any userdata that represents the same pointer. Therefore, we can use light userdata to find C objects inside Lua. As a typical example, suppose we are implementing a binding between Lua and a Window system. In this binding, we use full userdata to represent windows. (Each userdatum may contain the whole window structure or only a pointer to a window created by the system.) When there is an event inside a window (e.g., a mouse click), the system calls a specific callback, identifying the window by its address. To pass the callback to Lua, we must find the userdata that represents the given window. To find this userdata, we can keep a table where the indices are light userdata with the window addresses and the values are the full userdata that represent the windows in Lua. Once we have a window address, we push it into the API stack as a light userdata and use the userdata as an index into that table. (Note that the table should have weak values. Otherwise, those full userdata would never be collected.) |Copyright © 2003–2004 Roberto Ierusalimschy. All rights reserved.|

This subject will review arithmetic and algebra skills that are prerequisite knowledge in the study of a calculus based mathematics subject. It is intended to provide you with the necessary skills to successfully attempt subjects such as Computer Aided Mathematics with Applications 1 (MTH101) and Introductory Mathematics (MTH105). Topics that you will cover include calculator skills, fractions, signed numbers, algebra, concepts of functions and introductory calculus. On successful completion of this subject, you should: - be able to use a calculator confidently and correctly, - be able to understand and work with arithmetic, - be able to understand and work with algebraic expressions and, - be able to understand concepts of functions, variables and graphs. If you studied a high school calculus maths subject more recently but did not do as well as you'd hoped, you will also benefit from reviewing the topics in Study Link SSS009, prior to studying MTH101. Please note that there is a new Study Link subject that covers basic numeracy skills – ‘Basic Mathematics Skills’ (SSS027) |Session||CRN||Subject code||Subject name||Mode||Campus/Location||Term begins||Application closing date||Term ends| |201945||202||SSS009||Mathematics for Calculus||Online||Orange||18/02/2019||7/06/2019||16/08/2019| |201975||289||SSS009||Mathematics for Calculus||Online||Orange||24/06/2019||20/09/2019||20/12/2019| Please note: You can start any time to suit you between Term start date and the close of applications. Study material: 26 hrs Subject Coordinator: Colin Glanville This subject will be useful if you're studying: - Agricultural and Wine Sciences - Allied Health and Pharmacy - Animal and Veterinary Sciences - Exercise and Sports Sciences - Information Technology, Computing and Mathematics - Medical Science and Dentistry - Nursing, Midwifery and Indigenous Health - Teaching and Education

10 minutes read December 26, 2022 1st Grade Diagnostic Math Test Many exciting mathematical concepts are introduced to students in the first grade. The ideal math test for 1st grade covers a wide range of topics, including counting, addition, subtraction, measurement, shapes, and size. Teachers use the first-grade math test to check students’ understanding of their lessons. Most of the time, these tests contain multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions that cover first-grade math concepts. The Importance of the Diagnostic Test When it comes to determining the strengths and weaknesses of students in math, diagnostic tests are essential tools. These tests determine how well first-graders understand important math concepts. The tests can also help teachers determine where students might need more help or instruction. One of the main advantages of diagnostic tests is that they show how well students master necessary math skills. Thus, teachers can identify the concepts students need to review or learn for the first time by administering a diagnostic test at the beginning of the school year. Teachers may improve students’ math skills after getting the test results by tailoring instruction and providing specific support. For instance, if a diagnostic test reveals that a student struggles with fundamental addition and subtraction, the instructor can give that student extra attention to assist them in mastering these skills. Additionally, diagnostic tests can assist educators in identifying gaps in students’ learning that may have emerged over the summer or the previous school year. By administering the test, teachers can identify areas where students may require additional assistance to catch up with their peers. Diagnostic tests can allow educators to monitor student progress over time. Teachers can observe how students’ math comprehension and skills have improved by administering the same diagnostic test at the start and end of the school year. The teachers can adjust instructions, and additional support can be provided using this information. The diagnostic math test 1st grade students take helps determine their math strengths and weaknesses and provides instructions to support their success. Teachers can ensure that students get the help they need to do well in first grade math by giving them a diagnostic test at the start of the school year. First Grade Math Test A student’s comprehension of fundamental math concepts and skills, such as number recognition, counting, addition and subtraction, measurement, and geometry, is evaluated in 1st grade math test worksheets. Typically, these tests are given to first-graders to assess their progress and pinpoint areas for improvement in their math education. A primary objective of a first-grade math test is to assess students’ ability to apply fundamental mathematical concepts. Additionally, it assists teachers in determining areas in which students may require additional instruction or support. Below are first grade math test activities to work on. Before you begin working, print the first grade math test. After that, attempt each question. Find a solution to the following: Which number comes after these in the sequence? 14, 15, 16, 17, ____ - How many cents are there in a dime? - 15 cents - 10 cents - 12 cents - 25 cents - Take a look at the clock below. What time is it right now? - Luke had twelve pencils, but he gave five to his closest friends. How many pencils does Luke currently have? Please fill in the two omitted numbers. 34, 36,____, 40, ____ - What is the amount of cents in a quarter? How many nickels are there? - 20 cents and 5 nickels - 25 cents and 4 nickels - 25 cents and 5 nickels - 20 cents and 4 nickels - John ate five pizza slices and gave his friend Anna four. How many pieces did the pizza come with? - Take a look at the image below. Which rectangle sits above number 40? - Perform the subtraction that follows: Determine whether the numbers on the left-hand side are lower or higher than the ones on the right. You should replace the question mark (?) with the greater than or less than symbol. 4 ? 2 5 ? 7 a) Color one-quarter or one-fourth of the shapes on the right and half of the shapes on the left: b) Color the triangle red, the rectangles yellow, the circle orange, and the other figures any color you like. - Which digit is in the tens place for the number 56? What is their location? - Make the additions and subtractions listed below. - What time is shown below? - In words, write the following numbers: 2 _____________, 7 _____________, 14 _____________, and 24 _____________. a) What is the name of a geometric figure that looks like a ball? A can of soda? _______________ b) Which well-known figure can be found in Egypt? Something you serve with your ice cream? _________________ - Please fill in the blanks for the missing number 65, 60, ____, 50, 45, and ____________ - What is the length of the line in red below? - In fifty cents, how many dimes are there? Math Challenges: Who am I? 5 + 5 is less than I am. 5 + 8 is greater than I am. I am an odd number; if you subtract 10 from me, you get a number greater than 1. Printable 1st Grade Math Tests Numerous educational websites and publishers provide the ideal 1st grade math assessment test in printable format for students in the first grade. They may incorporate good tips, like articles about estimating or tackling word problems. Multiple-choice, matching, and fill-in-the-blank questions are examples of questions included in first-grade math assessment tests. - 1st Grade Diagnostic Math Test 1 (Printable version) - 1st Grade Diagnostic Math Test 2 (Printable version) What Math Skills Are Tested in the 1st Grade? Students learn a lot of new essential math concepts in the first grade, which makes this period an exciting time for kids. 1st grade math test free resources cover various topics and skills, including counting, essential addition and subtraction, geometry, and measurement. Number sense is one of the crucial math skills tested in the first grade. It requires students to be able to count, compare, and arrange numbers as well as comprehend and use numbers in various settings. Students may, for instance, be required to calculate a set of objects or determine which number comes first or last. Essential addition and subtraction are other necessary math skills tested in the first grade. The ability to solve addition and subtraction problems, such as 1 + 2 = 3 or 4 – 2 = 2, are expected of students. They should also be able to solve these problems with manipulatives like blocks or counters. Students in the first grade are expected to have a fundamental understanding of geometry and measurement in addition to basic math skills. It includes identifying and describing common shapes like squares, triangles, and circles as well as measuring length, height, and weight in basic units like inches and centimeters. How to Prepare for the 1st Grade Math Test? Taking a math test can be nerve-wracking for some students, but parents and teachers can help them feel more confident and prepared for their first grade math test by taking a few simple steps. First, go over the math skills and concepts that are tested. You can utilize cheat sheets, games, or other intelligent apparatuses to help understudies practice and survey the material. Review the resources with your child or students before the test to help them become more familiar with them. Then, encourage your child or student to practice solving math problems similar to those given at the exam. This way, they can learn the skills and methods they need to solve problems quickly and accurately. You can use materials like math workbooks, online materials, and other resources as additional practice opportunities. In addition, create a welcoming and encouraging learning environment. Students can feel more confident and less anxious about taking a math test if the classroom is calm and supportive. To help students correctly solve problems, encourage them to take their time and use strategies like rereading questions or checking their work. Lastly, make it clear to students that making mistakes is a normal part of learning and that they can improve their understanding of math concepts by learning from mistakes. Please encourage them to see difficulties and failures as opportunities for development and education. Look Online for More Math Help If your child is having trouble with this diagnostic testing, make sure to apply for the Brighterly’s evaluation lesson. Brighterly’s lessons are based on generally-accepted 1st grade math test online standards that guarantee positive learning outcomes. This user-friendly interactive educational platform with engaging mechanics appeals to first grade students and prepares them to ace any 1st grade math test. Children score higher on the knowledge evaluation test administered by Brighterly than on the placement test. These results show that kids learn in a fun way when they play games, learn from experienced teachers, and learn online one-on-one. Book 1 to 1 Math Lesson - Specify your child’s math level - Get practice worksheets for self-paced learning - Your teacher sets up a personalized math learning plan for your child Book 1 to 1 Math LessonGet a free lesson

NICK SANDIFER | THE DAILY EVERGREEN Halloween has evolved as a day when anyone can be anything, as opposed to the ritual Celtic festival it used to be. However, unlimited creativity can lead to controversial Halloween costumes that raise arguments every year. A recurring subject of discussion is the issue of Halloween costumes and cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation is defined as “the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect the culture,” according to the Cambridge Dictionary. In a country such as America, which is known as a melting pot of different cultures, it can be difficult for some people to understand why cultural appropriation is perceived negatively or even exists as a concept. In a country famous for its diversity, it seems antithetical to America’s core values to discourage citizens from sharing their culture. Michael Jaramillo, the Children of Aztlan Sharing Higher Education co-chair of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, said sometimes it is difficult to understand the difference between appreciating a culture and appropriating it. “When you take the time to appreciate someone’s culture, you take time to acknowledge their history and know why people wear or celebrate certain things,” Jaramillo said. “When you appreciate [a culture], you’re being invited in to celebrate and participate in the culture.” Jaramillo said that by reducing a culture’s clothing and traditions to nothing more than a fun costume for Halloween, it ignores the historical significance behind an activity or clothing item and becomes a costume for a holiday. Shana Lombard, a WSU senior and a public relations officer for the Native American group Ku-Ah-Mah, said the impact cultural appropriation has on the Native American community is bigger than people think. “Where people go wrong trying to dress as a Native American is that there was one point in time where dressing as an authentic Native American was illegal,” Lombard said. “There were times when we could not sing our songs, speak our languages and do our dances because it was literally outlawed by the government.” The misrepresentation of a culture through costumes can be harmful because it perpetuates stereotypes and mocks the culture. Lombard said people of the culture being incorrectly portrayed get upset because they had to fight for their identity. “I’ve come from a people who’ve been killed or hurt trying to do these things, and you’re just having fun with it over here for one day,” she said. As for “sexy” cultural costumes, Lombard said they only succeeded in making her want to roll her eyes. Cultural appropriation was and will probably remain a controversial topic. In America, where race issues still reign supreme, Jaramillo said it is a good idea to avoid costumes about a race or culture.

Nursing is a tough profession. Many nurses deal with the trials of life and the horrors of death on a daily basis. While facing these types of events can be a daily occurrence, it doesn’t make them any easier to deal with. As such, it’s not uncommon for nurses to suffer from depression. Many nurses might feel uneasy about making the fact that they suffer from this condition public. However, they shouldn’t have to, because depression is likely covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Employer notification might be a good idea It is likely a good idea to notify your employer if you are suffering from depression that requires you to take medication. While this might not impact your ability to do your job, letting the employer know can help to cover you in case something does happen that calls your medication or mental health into the question. Letting your employer know might also help you out if there is a reason why the depression would prevent you from doing your job. Under the ADA, the employer might have to make accommodations for you. If this isn’t possible, you might be able to file for disability. Get the help you need Some nurses don’t get the help they need, which can be a very serious problem. Failing to get the help they need can lead to even more serious issues. Suicide is a tragedy but some nurses feel like everything going on is just too much and there is no other way out. One thing that might help nurses who are suffering from depression is going to support groups or seeking help from counselors. This might help you to learn about different options for coping with the effects of your job. It might also help if you try to focus on your personal life instead of on the things that happen at work. Pay close attention at work There is a chance that employers might hold the depression against you. If you feel like there are issues happening at work that are the result of your notification regarding the depression, you might be able to take action to get the situation rectified. For example, if they start to reduce your hours just because you noted that you are depressed or if you feel like you are being harassed. Make sure that you think carefully about these situations.

The World's Oldest Rug: The Pazyryk Rug The oldest hand-knotted oriental rug known was excavated from the Altai Mountains in Siberia in 1948. It was discovered in the grave of the prince of Altai near Pazyryk, 5400 feet above sea level, and clearly shows how well hand-knotted rugs were produced thousands of years ago. Radiocarbon testing revealed that the Pazyryk carpet was woven in the 5th century B.C., thus approximately 2500 years old. The advanced weaving techniques and the sophisticated design and construction, used in this rug, suggest the art of carpet weaving to go back much further than the 5th century B.C.. to be at least 4000 years old. Today the rug is in the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad, Russia. When the prince of Altai died, he was buried in a grave mound with many of his prized possessions, including the Pazryk Carpet. Unfortunately, soon after, the grave mound was robbed of its prized possessions, with the exception of the rug. The rug was semi-frozen because the thieves did not bother to cover up the hole they had dug to retrieve the items, rendering the hole exposed to the elements within the tomb. The combination of low temperature and precipitation within the tomb subsequently froze the carpet, and preserved it in a thick sheet of ice, protecting it for twenty-five centuries. This somewhat ironic story is the reason that the Pazyryk rug still exists today. Although it was found in a Scjythian burial-mound, most experts attribute the Pazyryk rug to Persia. Its design is in the same style as the sculptures of Persepolis, The outer of the two principal border bands is decorated with a line of horsemen: seven on each side, twenty-eight in number -- a figure which corresponds to the number of males who carried the throne of Xerxes to Perspolis. Some are mounted, while others walk beside their horses. In the inner principal band there is a line of six elks on each side. The extra figures inside the elks are depicting the inwards and the vertebra of the elk, all parts in real positions with nearly clinical precision: 1. The heart, just above the, front legs (a yellow framed red sphere, black contoured). 2. The aorta (a long red protuberance on the heart). 3. The maw, on the right hand side of the sphere (a large yellow area with a widening upwards on the end). 4. The intestine, in the rear end (a yellow square surrounded by a light blue and a yellow bow). 5. Possibly the urethra, on the upper part of the right hind leg (a yellow line with a black point), better to see on some others deer on the border. 6. The vertebra, directly below the brown back contour (an alternating black-white chain). You cart is empty. Shop now

What is FAP Syndrome? Familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) is an inherited disorder sometimes found in people with colon or rectal cancer. People with the classic type of FAP may develop noncancerous (benign) colon growths (polyps) as early as their teenage years (screening usually begins at 8 to 10 years old). The type of polyp most often seen in FAP syndrome, called an adenoma, is precancerous and has the potential to develop into cancer. Unless the growths are removed, these polyps may become malignant (cancerous). The average age at which an individual with class FAP develops colorectal cancer is 39 years old. Some people have a variation of the disorder, called attenuated familial adenomatous polyposis (AFAP), with fewer polyps. The average age of colon cancer onset for those with AFAP is 55 years. In people with classic FAP, the number of polyps increases with age, and hundreds to thousands of polyps can develop in the colon. They could also develop noncancerous growths called desmoid tumors. These fibrous tumors usually occur in the tissue covering the intestines and may be provoked by colon removal surgery. Desmoid tumors tend to recur after they are surgically removed. In both classic FAP and AFAP, benign and malignant tumors are sometimes found in other places in the body, including the duodenum (a section of the small intestine), stomach, bones, skin, and other tissues. People who have colon polyps as well as growths outside the colon are sometimes described as having Gardner syndrome. Approximately 2% of all colon cancer could be caused by a hereditary adenomatous polyposis condition. They can be categorized into three conditions: Familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) Attenuated familial adenomatous polyposis (AFAP) MYH-associated polyposis (MAP) Classic familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) and attenuated familial adenomatous polyposis (AFAP) are due to mutations in the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) gene. MYH-associated polyposis (MAP) is caused by mutations in the mutY homolog (MYH) gene. Individuals with MAP have mutations in both of their MYH genes (one from each parent, often referred to as “biallelic MYH mutations”). Patients often have no family history of colon cancer or polyps in parents (although siblings may be affected). When assessing hereditary cancer risk, a patient’s personal and family history is collected to understand risk for a polyposis syndrome. Once it is thought that a patient might have one of these syndromes, genetic test results are the most accurate way to assess risk of cancer. Approximately 20% to 30% of FAP cases are caused by new mutations, meaning that an individual could have an APC mutation even if both parents don’t. Also, because MAP has an autosomal recessive inheritance pattern,many affected patients have no relatives with polyps or cancer. Genetic testing is the only way to identify at-risk family members. Finding out if you are at risk for adenomatous polyposis syndromes and following up is the most critical step.

Quantum wormhole theory In physics wormhole is defined as a theoretical topological element of space-time that would be, basically, a shortcut via space time. The wormhole are very common is science fiction but no evidence had been found to show that they exist. For an easy visual clarification of a wormhole, reflect on space-time imagined as 2D (a two-dimensional) surface Over the year no observational confirmation for wormholes, and, even though wormholes are suitable solutions in universal relativity, this is only evidence and truth if exotic substance can be utilized to steady them. Even though the wormhole is known to be stabilized, the least fluctuation in gap would make it subside. If there are such exotic matters that do not survive, all wormhole-comprising explanation to Einstein's field equations are known as vacuum answers and normally necessitate an unfeasible vacuum that are free of all substance and power. There is no confirmation or investigational proposing that wormholes do survive, apart from as forecast of several physical replicas (exotic). Wormholes permitted by present physical hypothesis may arise unexpectedly, but would disappear nearly immediately, and would probable be unnoticeable. The John Archibald is an American hypothetical physicist and coined the word wormhole in 1958. Nevertheless, in 1922, Herman Wely the German mathematician had already projected the wormhole hypothesis, in association with mass analysis of electromagnetic field power. According to Anthony “Where there is a net flux of lines of force, through what topologists would call "a handle" of the multiply-connected space, and what physicists might perhaps be excused for more vividly terming a "wormhole". On the one hand, substances entering a wormhole put in positive energy which then falls down the wormhole into a black hole, a super enormous area with a gravitational attraction adequately powerful to stop any light escaping The essential idea of an intra-universe wormhole is that it is a packed in area of space-time whose border is topologically unimportant but whose internal is not attached. Formalizing this thought normally direct us to the meaning for instance, came from “Matt Lorentzian Visser's Wormholes”. Given that Minkowski space-time comprises a solid region Ω, and given that the topology of Ω is the same appearance Ω ~ R x Σ, where Σ has three various nontrivial topology, and their border has topology of the another shape dΣ ~ S2, additionally, the Σ (hyper surfaces) are all space like, subsequently the region Ω comprises a quasi unending intra- universe wormhole. Illustrating inter-universe wormholes is very tricky. For instance, one can visualize an infant universe attached to its 'parent' by a slender umbilical cord. One may like to consider the umbilicus as the gullet of a wormhole, but the space-time is basically linked. Generally there is more than one variety of wormholes, initial I will discuss the kind connected with Schwarzschild black holes. The second one will be those that are connected with Kerr-Newman black holes and thirdly I will discuss the Morris-Thorne wormhole. In conclusion I will discuss the fourth type of wormhole geometry. Schwarzschild wormholes are typically viaducts between areas of space that can be simulated as blankness clarifications to the Einstein ground equations by uniting models of a black hole and a white opening. This explanation was revealed by Albert Einstein and his friend Nathan Rosen, who first published the result in 1934. Nevertheless, in 1963.Robert Fuller published a document showing that this kind of wormhole is uneven, and that it will touch off directly as soon as it forms, stopping even light from building it through. Previous to the steadiness problems of Schwarzschild wormholes were obvious, it was projected that quasars were white holes appearance the ends of wormholes of this type. While Schwarzschild wormholes are not passable, their continuation stimulated Kip Thorne to picture traversable wormholes shaped by holding the gullet of a Schwarzschild wormhole unlock with exotic substance (material that has unenthusiastic mass/power). The Schwarzschild space-time’s gap articulated in an isolated observer's spherical organize system have the following form. The equation has a synchronized singularity and the dr2/ (1 - 2GM/rc2) word turn out to be endless at r = 2GM/c2. This infinity difficulty can be eliminated by an alteration a disparate choice of space-time coordinate. Generally there are several transformations that behave in this manner. There is a particular option of transformation known as the Kruskal-Szekeres transformation exposed something new that no one knew about the black hole space-time geometry. For our exterior area of space the Kruskal-Szekeres organize transformation is Lorentzian traversable wormholes only permitted pass through from one destination of the universe to another destination of the same universe extremely rapidly or would permit travel from one destination of the universe to another. Kip Thorn and his fellow graduate were the first men to demonstrate the possibility of traversable wormholes in general relativity in 1989. They proposed a traversable wormhole which held open by a sphere-shaped shell of exotic substances and was known as Morris-Thorne wormhole. Afterward, additional traversable wormholes were exposed as permissible answers to the equations of common relativity, as well as a diversity examined in a 1988 paper by a man known asMatt Visser. Nevertheless in the pure Gauss-Bonnet hypothesis exotic substance is not required in order for wormholes to survive- they can survive even if there is no matter. Wormholes attach two ends in space-time; this means that they would in theory permit travel in time, in addition to in space. In 1989, Thorne, Morris, and Yurtsever Thorne toiled out openly how to change a wormhole navigating space into one traversing occasion. Nevertheless, it has always been thought a time traversing wormhole cannot obtain a person back to before it was made but this is doubted by various theories (Macman 212). Extraordinary relativity is only applied locally (minga 122). Wormholes permit superluminal travel by making sure that the momentum of light does go beyond locally at any time. While traveling via a wormhole, subluminal speed are always said to be utilized and are slower than light. If two ends are linked by a wormhole, it is known that lesser time will be used to traverse light beam to make the trip if it took a trail via the space exterior the wormhole. Nevertheless, a light beam traveling via the wormhole would everlastingly hit the traveler. As an analogy, in use around to the contradictory side of a mount at greatest speed may take longer than walking from side to side a tunnel journey it. A wormhole could permit travel. This can be accomplished by increasing the speed at one end of the wormhole to a high speed relative to the other, and sometime later conveying it back; relative session dilation would effect in the accelerated wormhole entrance aging less than the fixed one as seen by an exterior observer, similar to what is observed in the twin paradox. Nevertheless, time connects in a different way through the wormhole than outside it, so that coordinated clocks at each mouth will remain coordinated to someone traveling through the wormhole, no matter how the mouths move about. This means that no matter which entered the accelerated wormhole entrance would get its way out the stationary one at a point in time prior to its entry. For example, reflect on two clocks at both mouths both viewing the date as 2001. After being taken on a trip at relativistic speed, the increase speed mouth is brought back to the same area as the fixed mouth with the accelerated mouth's timepiece reading 2004 while the fixed mouth's clock read 2010. A tourist who entered the accelerated entrance at this moment would exit the fixed mouth when its clock also read 2004, in the same area but now five years in the past. Such an arrangement of wormholes would permit for a particle's global line to form a blocked loop in space-time, known as a blocked time like curve It is considered that it may not be possible to translate a wormhole into a time machine in this way; some investigation using the semi standard approach to incorporate quantum results into general relativity signify that a feedback loop of practical particles would circulate through the wormhole with rising intensity, destroying it prior to any information could be passed through it, in keeping with the chronology defense conjecture This has been called into subject by the proposal that radiation would scatter after traveling through the wormhole, therefore preventing infinite buildup. The debate on this matter is explained by Kip S. Thorne in the book called ‘Black Holes and Time Warps.’ The ‘Roman ring’ is also a configuration of more than one wormhole. This ring appears to allow a blocked time loop with steady wormholes when analyzed using partial classical gravity, although without a complete theory of quantum gravity it is doubtful whether the There are various theories of wormhole metrics and usually explains the space-time geometry of a wormhole and acts as a theoretical replica for time travel. A good example of a (traversable) wormhole has been shown below. Schwarzschild solution is another type of non-traversable wormhole metric Wormholes in fiction; Wormholes are usually features of science fiction and they normally permits interstellar and travel within human being timescales. According to Johor’s, 2009 "It is common for the creators of a fictional universe to decide that faster-than-light travel is either impossible or that the technology does not yet exist, but to use wormholes as a means of allowing humans to travel long distances in short periods”. Wormholes as well play essential functions in science fiction where faster-than-light travel is probable though incomplete; permitting associations between areas that would be or else inaccessible within conventional timelines. A number of examples show in the Star Trek franchise, as well as the Bajoran wormhole in the Deep gap nine sequences. In 1978’s the movement Picture the endeavor was ensnared in an artificial wormhole that was caused by an inequity in the calibration of the vessel distort drive engines when it initially attained faster-than-light pace. In the Star hike: traveler sequence, the cybernetic class the Borg use what, in the Star Trek creation, are known to as transwarp mediums, permitting ships to shift immediately to any division of the galaxy in which an outlet aperture subsists. Even though these conduits are by no means explained as "wormholes", they emerge to share numerous behaviors in common with them. Wormholes play a main role in the TV sequence Farscape, and they are the main cause of John Crichton attendance in the far accomplish of our galaxy and the center of a limb race of dissimilar unfamiliar species efforts to get hold of Crichton's apparent aptitude to manage them. Crichton's mind was surreptitiously entrenched with knowledge of wormhole acquaintance by one of the final members of an antique unfamiliar species. Afterward, an unfamiliar interrogator find out the survival of the secreted information and therefore Crichton turn out to be embroiled in interstellar government and fighting while being followed by all sides (as they desire the aptitude to use wormholes as armaments). powerless to straight entry the information, Crichton is talented to subconsciously predict when and where wormholes will shape and is capable of safely take a trip through them (while all challenges by others are lethal). By the ending point of the series, he ultimately works out a number of of the science and is talented to generate his individual wormholes (and illustrate his followers the consequences of a wormhole bludgeon). Wormholes are the foundation for the Stargate franchise, stargate procedure generate a steady artificial wormhole where substance is dematerialized, rehabilitated into power, and is send through to be rematerialized to the other surface. A huge system of stargazes was build by unfamiliar acknowledged as the traditional or the Alterans, and subsequently came to be used by other foreigners In physics wormhole is defined as a theoretical topological element of space-time that would be, basically, a shortcut via space time. The essential idea of an intra-universe wormhole is that it is a packed in area of space-time whose border is topologically unimportant but whose internal is not attached. Formalizing this thought normally direct us to the meaning for instance, came from “Matt Lorentzian Visser's Wormholes”. Generally there is more than one variety of wormholes, there is the kind connected with Schwarzschild black holes. The second is those that are connected with Kerr-Newman black holes and thirdly the Morris-Thorne wormhole. In the fourth type of wormhole geometry

Access to energy is central to reducing poverty and hunger, improving health, increasing literacy, supporting small business development and income generation and improving the lives of women and children. The Department of Energy is mandated to provide universal basic access to energy. Yet in Africa's largest economy, and largest polluter, poverty remains widespread and four million households do not use electricity for cooking. Women are more likely to be poor and unemployed. When they work, they earn less than men. In many households, energy is a woman's responsibility. She needs energy to cook and heat water, and she is responsible for fetching wood or buying prepaid electricity. This gendered aspect of energy policy has too often been inadequately addressed by South African policy makers. A gendered energy policy would consider the likely effect of its recommendations on residential consumers, and how these effects may be improved. Type of publication:

1498 - Christopher Columbus sights the coast of Surinam. 1593 - Spanish explorers visit the area and name it Surinam, after the country's earliest inhabitants, the Surinen. 1602 - Dutch establish settlements. 1651 - British planters and their slaves set up the first European settlement in Surinam. 1667 - British cede their part of Surinam to the Netherlands in exchange for New Amsterdam (later called New York City). 1682 - Coffee and sugar cane plantations established and worked by African slaves. 1799-1802, 1804-16 - British rule reimposed. 1863 - Slavery abolished; indentured labourers brought in from India, Java and China to work on plantations. 1916 - Aluminium Company of America (Alcoa) begins mining bauxite - the principal ore of aluminium - which gradually becomes Surinam's main export. 1954 - Surinam given full autonomy, with the Netherlands retaining control over its defence and foreign affairs. 1975 - Surinam becomes independent with Johan Ferrier as president and Henck Arron, of the Surinam National Party (NPS), as prime minister; more than a third of the population emigrate to the Netherlands. 1980 - Arron's government ousted in military coup, but President Ferrier refuses to recognise the military regime and appoints Henk Chin A Sen of the Nationalist Republican Party (PNR) to lead a civilian administration; army replaces Ferrier with Chin-A-Sen. 1985 - Ban on political parties lifted. 1986 - Surinamese Liberation Army (SLA), composed mostly of descendants of escaped African slaves, begins guerrilla war with the aim of restoring constitutional order; within months principal bauxite mines and refineries forced to shut down. 1987 - Some 97% of electorate approve new civilian constitution. 1988 - Ramsewak Shankar, a former agriculture minister, elected president. 1989 - Bouterse rejects accord reached by President Shankar with SLA and pledges to continue fighting. 1990 - Shankar ousted in military coup masterminded by Bouterse. 1991 - Johan Kraag (NPS) becomes interim president; alliance of opposition parties—the New Front for Democracy and Development—wins majority of seats in parliamentary elections; Ronald Venetiaan elected president. 1992 - Peace accord reached with SLA. 1997 - Dutch government issues international arrest warrant for Bouterse, claiming that he had smuggled more than two tonnes of cocaine into the Netherlands during 1989-97, but Surinam refuses to extradite him. 1999 - Dutch court convicts Bouterse for drug smuggling after trying him in absentia. 2000 - Venetiaan becomes president, replacing Wijdenbosch, after winning elections that were held one year early in the wake of widespread protests against the former government's handling of the economy.

Build an Adjustable 2-30 volt power supply with the LM317 The LM317 is an adjustable three-terminal positive-voltage regulator capable of supplying more than 1.5 A over an output-voltage range of 1.25 V to 32 V. It is exceptionally easy to use and requires only two external resistors to set the output voltage. Furthermore, both line and load regulation are better than standard fixed regulators. By using a heat-sinked pass transistor such as a 2N3055 (Q1) we can produce several amps of current far above the 1.5 amps of the LM317. Please note that at low output voltages at high current Q1 can get very hot. L1 is a 120 to 24 volt transformer. The one I used was rated for 25.2 volts RMS at 3 amps from Radio Shack. Diode bridge D1 should also be rated at 3 amps or greater and at least 50 PIV or greater. D1 could also be four 3 amp diodes. C2 is a 2200 uF 50 volt electrolytic that will charge up to almost 40 volts with a 25.2 volts. (1.414 * 24.5 volts RMS) R1 is a 180 ohm half watt and R2 is a 5K ohm potentiometer. This is used to set the output voltage of the LM317. C1 is a 10-47 uF electrolytic while Q1 can be a TIP41 (TO-220 case) or 2N3055 (TO-3 case). This LM338T voltage regulator chip (aka LM338) works in exactly the same way as the LM317T voltage regulator, the only difference being it can deal with higher currents. The LM338T is rated at 5 Amps continuous current. Used with a suitable heat sink the LM338 will produce continuous currents of up to 8 Amps. In all cases VOUT = 1.25 * ( 1 + R2/R1 ) General transistor pin connections. - Main Listing of Electronics Projects: - General Electronics Projects - My YouTube Channel on Electronics - Raspberry Pi & Linux - Arduino Micro-controller Projects - Microchip PIC18F2550 in C++ - Microchip PIC16F628A in Assembly - PICAXE Micro-controller Projects - How I got into Electronics - Using Hall Effect Switches - How to connect batteries in Series/Parallel - 12AV6 Vacuum Tube AM Radio - Tutorial: Transistor-Zener Diode Regulator Circuits - Tricks and Tips for the LM78XX Series Voltage Regulators - Bi-Polar Power Supplies - Build a Thermocouple Amplifier - Build a Potato battery - Build an Adjustable 0-34 volt power supply with the Lm317 - Testing a Diac - Basic Triacs and SCRs - Solid State AC Relays with Triacs - Light Activated Silicon Controlled Rectifier (LASCR) - Basic Transistor Driver Circuits for Micro-Controllers - Opto-Isolated Transistor Drivers for Micro-Controllers - Build a H-Bridge Motor Control with Power MOSFETS - Series/Parallel batteries - Using a CdS Photocells - Voltage Comparator Information And Circuits - Resistive Humidity Sensors - Reed Switches - Basic Power Transformers - Power Supply Rectification - Diodes and Rectifiers

If you have young kids at home, how often do you play outside with them? Well, on a average day, half of all preschoolers in America don't spend any time playing outdoors. This despite the fact that playing outdoors has been tied to a bunch of health benefits. According to research published in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, fewer than half of mothers and only a quarter of fathers take their child for a walk or play with them in the yard or park once a day. The new study was reported in Reuters Health, and the story provides parents with guidelines from the National Association for Sport and Physical Education. They suggest that kids get at least an hour of physical activity a day for long-term health benefits, such as preventing childhood obesity. Preschoolers should also get a few hours of unstructured playtime each day. But while some parents may assume their kids are getting outdoor time in childcare or preschool, that may not always be the case. The researchers did find that kids with a few regular playmates were more likely to get daily time outside, perhaps because their parents traded off, taking a few children to the park at a time. So if you’re the parent of young children, make sure they are getting enough physical exercise each day. And if it’s too hot to play outside, you could always put on a Richard Simmons exercise video. Or on second thought, maybe a Jillian Michaels video would be a better choice. ;-] I’m Bill Maier for family-friendly, commercial free, WBCL.

After studying data from a lunar orbiter mission but also results from lab tests on Apolo-era moon rocks, scientists have confirmed what others have been suggesting for the last decade: the moon’s interior is rich in water. The new study suggests that quantity of water encased in the moon’s mantle is actually far greater than previously believed. Questions remain, however, regarding what processes enabled the retention of all that water since the moon formed billions of years ago. A wet moon The water was detected in volcanic glass beads in OH/H2O (hydroxyl/water) form. These beads were formed eons ago during a time when the moon was dotted with explosive eruptions of magma, the kind we can still witness today on Earth in such places as Hawaii. These glass beads are found embedded across the numerous volcanic deposits that litter the moon’s surface. During the Apollo 15 and 17 missions retrieved such beads ranging in size from only 20 to 45 microns and brought them back to Earth. Upon inspection, scientists found trace amounts of water but everyone just thought it must have been some kind of contamination which occurred during atmospheric reentry. Since the Apollo missions, however, scientists have changed stance from a ‘dry moon theory’ as more and more evidence piled up that indicated the contrary. In 2008, researchers used a new technique to re-examine Apollo rocks and found that although there wasn’t that much water encased in the beads, it was estimated all the lunar beads hold a volume of water equivalent to the Caribbean Sea. Then in 2010, another group found water bound to phosphate minerals within volcanic lunar rocks. Steadily, other studies have pointed towards various locations on the moon high in concentration of hydrogen atoms, strongly suggesting the presence of water. In this latest research published by Ralph Milliken from Brown University and colleagues, the scientists used data from an imaging spectrometer on India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft that was in lunar orbit from 2008-2009. This instrument can detect minerals on the moon’s surface from high above and can also read temperature differences. The data revealed that unusually high amounts of water is trapped in volcanic deposits when compared to the surroundings. “The water that we observe in the glass beads in these ancient fire fountain deposits came from the interior of the moon,” Milliken said. “This tells us that there is water in the moon’s mantle, and because the magma for these eruptions comes from very deep (several hundreds of kilometers down), there must be water in the deep interior of the moon.” All of this water is, of course, not liquid but rather embedded in the rocky material akin to the water trapped within Earth’s mantle. This, however, brings up a vital question: how did all that water end up on the moon in the first place? The current leading theory is that the moon formed following proto-Earth’s impact with another planetary-sized body. The impact completely vaporized both bodies and from all the debris today’s Earth and its moon formed. Some believe the energy involved was so great that all of the water must have vaporized and escaped into space. This traditional view is becoming more and more difficult to defend in light of multiple lines of evidence that show for a fact that water is present in the lunar deep interior. So, either some water survived the impact or it was later delivered by meteor impacts. “By looking at the orbital data, we can examine the large pyroclastic deposits on the moon that were never sampled by the Apollo or Luna missions,” Milliken said in a press release. “The fact that nearly all of them exhibit signatures of water suggests that the Apollo samples are not anomalous, so it may be that the bulk interior of the moon is wet.” Milliken and colleagues now plan to map the pyroclastic deposits in greater detail so that they can better understand how water concentrations vary among different deposits on the lunar surface. Enjoyed this article? Join 40,000+ subscribers to the ZME Science newsletter. Subscribe now!

Disability Rates Among Children Continue To Rise, Especially in One Category Between 2001 and 2011 there was a 21 percent increase in disabilities classified as neurodevelopmental or mental health-related in nature in children. That’s according to an analysis from the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC. This is in contrast to physical health-related disabilities in children – that rate dropped 12 percent over the same time period. “Over the 10 year study period, what we found was a nearly 16 percent increase in the prevalence of disability among children, so that equates to about a million more children having disabilities than about 10 years ago,” said Dr. Amy Houtrow, lead author of the study and chief of the Division of Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine at Children’s. Neurodevelopmental disabilities include autism, learning disabilities, intellectual impairment, ADHD and epilepsy. The increases were seen, particularly, among children in more socially advantaged households. Statistically, children living in poverty have the highest rates of disability. Over the last decade there has been a 28.4 percent increase in disability diagnosis among children living in families at or above 400 percent of the federal poverty level. “We think one of the reasons that rise happened is, in part, because those children and their families have better access to achieving diagnosis and then treatment, so they have better access to health services," Houtrow said. Other reasons could be a shift in diagnostic criteria, overall increases in rates of certain problems including autism, increased awareness of conditions and the need for a specific diagnosis to receive services such as early intervention. Researchers tracked trends by studying data from the National Health Interview Survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention between 2001 and 2011, and also by interviewing parents. “We need to be more aware that more and more children are experiencing disabilities, and these disabilities have shifted over time to include more neurodevelopmental and mental health problems,” Houtrow said. “That means that as a healthcare system, we need to be poised to give services, provide information and recommend treatment to help children be as successful as possible.” The study was funded by the National Institutes of Heal and the Department of Health and Human Services and appears in the September issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Physical forces like blood pressure and the shear stress of flowing blood are important parameters for the tension of blood vessels. Scientists have been looking for a measurement sensor for many years that enables the translation of mechanical stimuli into a molecular response, which then regulates the tension in blood vessels. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim have now discovered just such a sensor in the inner layer of the blood vessel wall: the molecule in question, known as PIEZO1, is a cation channel and could one day provide a starting point for the treatment of high blood pressure. Unlike water pipes, which are often used as a model for explaining the functioning of blood vessels, the latter are anything but rigid and lifeless. Instead, they consist of an elastic vessel wall comprising different layers of highly sensitive tissue. This tissue is able to respond to the changing requirements of the body by increasing the vessel diameter and intensifying the blood flow as a result. The blood vessel receives the information necessary for this process from the blood stream itself: "One of the most important control mechanisms is the physical forces exerted by the blood on the interior of the blood vessels," says Stefan Offermanns, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim. "The blood vessel interior is lined with endothelial cells. These register the intensity of the blood flow using molecular antennae." In response to this stimulus, the endothelial cells release nitric oxide, among other things. This causes the vessel musculature to relax and the blood vessel expands. PIEZO1 translates physical stimulus into molecules In addition to the level of the blood pressure, the mechanical shear forces are the main factor that affects the endothelium via the bloodstream and are crucial for the regulation of blood flow. "Previously, we knew very little about how endothelial cells register the mechanical forces of the flowing blood at molecular level. With PIEZO1, we have now discovered a cation channel that forms the interface that transposes the physical stimulus into a molecular reaction. This, in turn, controls the tension of the blood vessel wall," explains Shengpeng Wang, first author of the study. The Max Planck researchers initially observed in cultivated endothelial cells that PIEZO1 triggers a signalling cascade when it is exposed to shear stress: "PIEZO1 is activated by the mechanical stimulus. It causes calcium cations to flow through the channel into the endothelial cells and thereby trigger a chain reaction," says Wang. This signalling cascade culminates in the release of nitric oxide and the expansion of the blood vessel. High blood pressure without PIEZO1 The Max Planck researchers were able to confirm what they had observed in the laboratory in the living organism using genetically modified mice. Mice with an inactive PIEZO1 gene had higher blood pressure than the control animals. "Due to the lack of the PIEZO1 molecular sensor, the shear forces were not correctly perceived by the endothelial cells and the entire signalling cascade was scarcely activated at all," explains Wang. The cells then released less nitric oxide and the blood vessel musculature remained tense. This, in turn, caused permanently raised blood pressure in the animals. If PIEZO1 proves to be the long-sought sensor with which the endothelial cells register the mechanical forces of the flowing blood column so as to regulate the tension of blood vessels, it could be of therapeutic importance. "We would be able to activate PIEZO1 pharmacologically using a specific active ingredient. The cells would react to it in exactly the same way as they would to shear stress," says Offermanns. "For this reason, active ingredients that stimulate PIEZO1 could offer a promising option for the treatment of different forms of high blood pressure." PIEZO1 could also provide the therapeutic starting point in the case of diseases, in which the spasmodic narrowing of the blood vessels plays a role.

In 1942, at the New York mansion of the American industrialist John Pierpont Morgan, crowds filed past a large mural titled “Automatic Hitler-Kicking Machine,” which depicted a complex and satisfying contraption involving a cat, a mouse, a stripteaser, and the Führer. It was the first solo exhibition of the inventor and cartoonist Reuben Lucius “Rube” Goldberg, who was, by then, already famous for designing overly complicated machines that fixed everyday problems with wit and madness. A decade earlier, in 1931, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary had listed “Rube Goldberg” as an adjective, defining it as “accomplishing by complex means what seemingly could be done simply.” Goldberg’s carefully designed machines employed birds, monkeys, springs, pulleys, feathers, fingers, rockets, and other animate or inanimate tools to create intricate chain reactions that completed basic tasks like hiding a gravy stain, lighting a cigar while driving fifty miles an hour, or fishing an olive out of a long-necked bottle. As Goldberg himself put it, his cartoon inventions were a “symbol of man’s capacity for exerting maximum effort to accomplish minimal results.” Born in San Francisco on July 4, 1883, Goldberg’s only formal art training was with a sign painter as an adolescent. But as much as he loved to draw, he took his father’s advice and earned a degree in mining engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. There, Frederick Slate, a professor of physics and analytic mechanics, gave students six months to calculate the weight of the earth using the “Barodik,” a peculiar invention of his own design, assembled with pipes, wires, springs, and other odds and ends. For Goldberg, this was a valuable lesson in how comedy ensues when one combines the deadly serious and the ridiculous. A terrifying summer shovelling tunnels in a mine two thousand feet underground followed by six aromatic months of mapping sewer pipes and water mains ended Goldberg’s interest in mining engineering. But his schooling directly contributed to the precision with which he designed his convoluted fictional machines and crafted their deadpan descriptions. As Peter C. Marzio noted in his biography of Goldberg, “Rube labored through thousands of tiresome calculations to determine the deadweight load for make-believe buildings and mines. It was close, tedious work, with complex diagrams showing vectors of force, stress polygons, and partial loads of stress.” Not long after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, following some early success penning drawings for San Francisco papers, the twenty-four-year-old Goldberg headed to New York with two hundred dollars and a diamond ring in his pocket—a gift from his father, in case he needed to pawn it to buy a train ticket back home. According to Maynard Frank Wolfe’s “Rube Goldberg: Inventions!,” he was on the verge of selling it when he landed a job at New York’s Evening Mail. In addition to daily sports cartoons, he soon scored a national hit with a series called “Foolish Questions.” (“Son, are you smoking that pipe again?” “No, Dad, this is a portable kitchenette and I’m frying a smelt for dinner.”) The first of his invention series, involving a seriously corpulent man and an “Automatic Weight Reducing Machine,” was inked in 1914. The inventions, which appeared once or twice a month over the next half century, quickly ensnared the public’s interest. Within a year, his various cartoons, which appealed both to the masses and the upper echelons of the art world, were earning him more than a hundred thousand dollars a year (about $2.3 million in today’s dollars). His strips were syndicated in hundreds of newspapers, and could even be found in the pages of New York Dada, published in 1921 by Marcel Duchamp. The Museum of Modern Art also displayed his designs, including a “bait-digger for fishing; an automatic lather brush for barbers; [and] a device for keeping buttonhole flowers fresh,” according to a review of an exhibition in The Literary Digest. Goldberg eventually landed in Hollywood, in 1930. Contracted by Twentieth Century Fox, his feature script “Soup to Nuts” introduced a trio of comics who would later be known as the Three Stooges. The film’s lead character, Otto Schmidt, was a stand-in for Rube, whipping up inventions such as a self-tipping hat and an anti-burglar device that hits intruders on the head, kicks them outside and down a chute, and eventually triggers a cat, which pulls a string and pours water on the home’s inhabitants to wake them. Goldberg died in 1970, shortly after the début of a retrospective by the Smithsonian’s Museum of History and Technology (now the National Museum of American History) aptly titled “Do It the Hard Way.” It featured more than a hundred drawings, song recordings, sculptures, and several bigger-than-life Rube Goldberg machines. In 1995, a U.S. postage stamp honored “Rube Goldberg Inventions” and depicted his iconic self-operating napkin. More recently, an OK Go music video with more than forty million views offered a nearly four-minute master class in the world of Rube Goldberg machining; it involved a circuitous series of ramps, tunnels, wheels, and swinging objects that trigger a crashing piano, flying umbrellas, and other minor disasters, before finally firing paint in the band members’ faces. In annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contests, groups compete to make the most creative and elaborate contraptions. For instance, a Purdue University team won eight years ago with a hundred-and-twenty-five-step machine that turned on a flashlight by way of a toy rocket, a tiny simulated meteor, and a mock fire. Goldberg might wonder what all the excitement is about. “People coming into my studio expect me to be hanging from the chandelier,” he once wrote. “It is always a disappointment to them and me, too, that I am a perfectly normal human being.” Photograph by Charles Tasnadi/AP. Steven Beschloss is a writer and filmmaker.

Extinct vs Bandjalang - What's the difference? (dated) Extinguished, no longer alight (of fire, candles etc.) No longer used; obsolete, discontinued. * Luckily, such ideas about race are extinct in current sociological theory. - Poor Edward's cigarillo was already extinct . No longer in existence; having died out. - Indeed the very fact that the English spelling system writes in there'' as two words but ''therein'' as one word might be taken as suggest- ing that only the former is a productive syntactic construction in Modern English, the latter being a now extinct construction which has left behind a few fossil remnants in the form of compound words such as ''thereby . (vulcanology) No longer actively erupting. - The dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years. - Most of the volcanos on this island are now extinct . * (no longer alight) burning * (having died out) extant * active, dormant (en proper noun A nearly extinct aboriginal language of New South Wales.

VADODARA: Dying rivers of the country can be rejuvenated with the help of butterflies. In fact, their flow too can be stabilized through butterflies. This is what Peter Smetacek, who has country's largest private collection of butterflies, opined on Friday. Smetacek, whose family runs the Butterfly Research Centre at Bhimtal in Uttarakhand, has a collection of over 2,000 species of butterflies. The centre was started by his grandfather Viktor Smetacek in 1947. An authority on Indian butterflies and moths, Smetacek, who has published several papers and books on butterflies, was in the city to deliver a lecture on 'World of Butterflies' at Department of Botany of M S University's Faculty of Science. "Butterflies are not just beautiful insects but are crucial bio-indicators. They are barometers of biodiversity and water," said Smetacek, adding that there is enough information now to guide the re-establishment of forests with an emphasis on rejuvenating underground water systems throughout our country. According to Smetacek, much of the water budget of a forest is underground. "When the underground water regime changes, it is reflected in the plants comprising the forest. Lots of water during summer will mean healthy and varied herb, bush and tree layers. If the underground water reduces during summer, the herbs will begin to die out, so butterflies dependent on herbs will also die out. Next, the bushes will die out and eventually, the evergreen trees might be replaced by deciduous or coniferous trees. Such changes will naturally be reflected on the butterfly community. So butterflies continually indicate the status of plants and by proxy, underground water in an area," he said. With his studies, Smetacek suggests that while jungles can be rejuvenated by studying the scientific parameters known through butterflies, water bodies can be revived. "The good thing about our country is that except Brahmaputra most of our rivers flow within the country and the good news is that none of the species of butterflies are extinct in the country," he said.

Motivation is a strange thing. It is the inner drive towards a particular goal and is the very thing that keeps you persisting and pushing through. In many ways, motivation is what gets us out of bed in the morning as we are motivated to succeed at our jobs, receive a salary and pay our bills. Motivation carries with it energy and drive and is one of the most important factors in achieving success. However, motivation is not just a simple concept – there are different types or levels of motivation that are driven by different factors. For example the man who has recently found out he has heart disease will be motivated to stop smoking in a different way and intensity than the man whose wife has asked him to stop. Similarly, the single mother may be motivated in a different way and intensity to land a promotion than the mother who doesn’t really need to work. Nonetheless, we all need motivation to get us up and moving and achieving our goals, whatever those may be. Losing motivation can be a devastating experience and means losing enthusiasm, drive and ambition. There are a variety of reasons for lack in motivation and one needs to explore the recent events that have led to the loss in motivation, including the use of alcohol and drugs as these can result in apathy (the nemesis of motivation). One also needs to look at how long this loss of motivation has been going as lack of motivation is often a clear symptom of depression and anxiety, which would need to be treated. Seeking help in the form of counselling from a psychologist in this area can be very beneficial to identify the contributing factors to the lack of motivation. Working at getting your motivation back is not a simple task and, if there is an underlying issue such as depression or drug abuse then those issues will need to be addressed. However, having said that, we sometimes feel demotivated when the going gets tough, when we feel stressed or overwhelmed by a particular task or goal or when we are simply burnt out. Addressing these factors can help you regain your motivation. Self-care is probably the best fuel for motivation. Making sure you are rested and well nourished, as well as having some fun and good rewards for your hard work are important elements to keep you going when the going gets tough. If the task or goal seems overwhelming and unachievable, get a bit more realistic about what you are setting yourself up for. Break the goal down into smaller achievable parts that can keep you feeling like you are progressing and getting somewhere. Often we just need a little taste of success to keep motivated, so setting smaller goals will help this along. Remind yourself of where you want to be and create a “vision board” to keep your sights on the goal. Knowing where you want to be will also re-ignite the motivation to get there. If you need support, feel free to contact our psychologists today for assistance! Delaney is a senior registered psychologist working with people of all backgrounds and with a special interest in LGBTI+ people, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and Indigenous people.

Who poops? Everyone poops! Where do we poop? On the potty! Sly, funny illustrations teach kids how every creature, big and small, poops—even grown-ups! Kids learn about how pets, animals in the wild, and animals underwater, poop. Whimsical illustrations raise the question of how unicorns, dragons, and aliens poop, too! Each page emphasizes that wherever animals may poop, humans poop on the potty. Have more fun with the free bonus app, which includes games and fun facts! The perfect book to make parents and kids laugh during potty training! Is this your Product Page? Improve it! Login now to update your information.

COAMPS: The Naval Research Laboratory's Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS®) 2 times per day, from 10:00 and 23:00 UTC Greenwich Mean Time: 12:00 UTC = 13:00 BST The Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS®) has been developed by the Marine Meteorology Division (MMD) of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). The atmospheric components of COAMPS®, described below, are used operationally by the U.S. Navy for short-term numerical weather prediction for various regions around the world. The atmospheric portion of COAMPS® represents a complete three-dimensional data assimilation system comprised of data quality control, analysis, initialization, and forecast model components. Features include a globally relocatable grid, user-defined grid resolutions and dimensions, nested grids, an option for idealized or real-time simulations, and code that allows for portability between mainframes and workstations. The nonhydrostatic atmospheric model includes predictive equations for the momentum, the non-dimensional pressure perturbation, the potential temperature, the turbulent kinetic energy, and the mixing ratios of water vapor, clouds, rain, ice, grauple, and snow, and contains advanced parameterizations for boundary layer processes, precipitation, and radiation. Numerical weather prediction uses current weather conditions as input into mathematical models of the atmosphere to predict the weather. Although the first efforts to accomplish this were done in the 1920s, it wasn't until the advent of the computer and computer simulation that it was feasible to do in real-time. Manipulating the huge datasets and performing the complex calculations necessary to do this on a resolution fine enough to make the results useful requires the use of some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. A number of forecast models, both global and regional in scale, are run to help create forecasts for nations worldwide. Use of model ensemble forecasts helps to define the forecast uncertainty and extend weather forecasting farther into the future than would otherwise be possible. Wikipedia, Numerical weather prediction, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_weather_prediction (as of Feb. 9, 2010, 20:50 UTC).

Turnips are one of the oldest known crops, with indication that people have been eating them for four thousand years. Beyond being eaten for much of history, turnips also have cultural significance. Irish legend says that the first jack-o-lantern was carved from a turnip. It wasn’t until the tradition was brought to America that pumpkins replaced turnips. Turnips (Brassica rapa) are very nutritious; they are high in dietary fiber, vitamins C and B6, folic acid, calcium, and potassium. This vegetable is also great if you are looking to cut down on vegetable food waste. Some people consider turnips a great source of greens, while others favor the roots, but the truth is that with some varieties the tops and the roots are equally delightful. Turnips are a quick-growing, cool weather crop. Leaves are fuzzy and green with succulent stems that often show purple coloration. They're similar to mustard greens but are usually not as curly. Turnip roots are rounded and white or white with a purple top; inside the flesh is smooth, crisp, and white. These easy-to-grow plants are a member of the Brassica family which includes broccoli, Brussels sprouts, mustard, and cauliflower. Sometimes they are confused with rutabagas but they are two different vegetables, if not similar in appearance. For both roots and tops, 'Purple Top White Globe' is a popular variety. Some varieties such as 'Shogoin' don't form large tuberous roots, so they are better suited if you are only after the greens. Planting and Care Turnips can be planted from August to February in North Florida, September to February in Central Florida, and September to January in South Florida. Turnips are relatively cold hardy; they are able to tolerate frosts and some freezing temperatures. As with most vegetables, they need 8 hours of sunlight, regular watering, and rich, well-drained soil that has been deeply tilled. Plant turnip seeds a half-inch deep in rows with 18 inches between each row. You can try to space your seeds 2 to 3 inches apart, or you can sow liberally and thin the seedlings to the appropriate spacing. As is the case for most plants grown for their roots, turnips grow best when seeds are sown directly into the garden. Once seeds have sprouted and reached about 3 inches tall, you can thin them out to where there are 3 inches between the turnips in each row. Don’t discard those seedlings — they're great in a salad or on a sandwich as microgreens. If you are only growing turnips for the green tops, you can plant them closer together. Seeds take about 5 days to germinate. Keep your growing area weed-free to help your turnips thrive. Greens can be harvested continuously through the growing season, but be sure not to over-harvest. Turnip roots take between 40 and 60 days to be mature; they should be harvested when they are 3 inches in diameter or less — any larger and they become pungent, pithy, and stringy. For more information on growing turnips, contact your county Extension office.

If you have used the POSIX shell (“bash”) on VOS, then you know that you can run various POSIX commands and use all of the nifty tricks that bash provides, such as input and output redirection. But did you know that you can use these same features with many VOS commands? For example, if you would like to combine the VOS “list” command with the POSIX “more” command, type the following command line into bash: list | more If you want to run the output of the list command into a file, say: This works because both VOS and POSIX use the same underling VOS port to write output to the terminal or batch file. The VOS “default_output” port is equivalent to the POSIX “stdout” file. And the VOS “default_input” port is the same as the POSIX “stdin” file. Finally, the VOS “terminal_output” port, which is where VOS writes is error messages, is the same as the POSIX “stderr” file. Here’s a (contrived) example of using bash input redirection on a VOS command. Create a file named “line_edit.txt” with the following 2 lines in it: print * quit You can then run these line_edit requests against your abbreviations file as follows: line_edit abbreviations <line_edit.txt Note that bash runs every command in a new child process. The child process inherits all I/O attachments and all state from the parent process, so this is not a problem for most commands. However, any VOS command that modifies the process environment won’t do what you expect. For example, running the set_library_paths command from within bash will change the library paths of the child process; and this process is destroyed as soon as the command terminates. If you want to change the paths that are searched by bash, you must make the change using the POSIX method, which is to change the PATH environment variable. I hope you find these techniques useful.

Today Americans commemorate the adoption of Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. Unfortunately, they can’t agree on what independence meant back in 1776. “Four score and seven years” later, Abraham Lincoln claimed the Declaration created a nation. Lincoln was wrong. At Gettysburg in 1863 Lincoln tied the Declaration to his Civil War. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, ...” Well, not quite. One has to do the math, but he obviously was referring to 1776 and the decision by the Continental Congress to leave the British empire. The congress, however, did not create a nation. Instead, the delegates recognized the existence of 13 independent states, not the independence of a nation known as “The United States of America.” If one of the attributes of a nation is a central government with laws recognized by its citizens and with the power to enforce those laws, Americans were still some years away from creation of Lincoln’s “nation.” Lincoln. in his Gettysburg Address, implied that by approving Jefferson’s Declaration “our fathers” created the American nation. But had he argued that point back in 1776 he would have found that many of those founding fathers disagreed with him. The Declaration of Independence did not create a single nation. While many printings of Jefferson’s Declaration refer in the title to “The United States of America,” the official engrossed copy signed by Lincoln’s fathers referred in the title to “the thirteen united States of America.” Spelling “united” in lower-case letters was no accident. A committee on style went over the entire Declaration before it was ready for signatures. The wording agreed to by the committee reflected the desire of the congress to recognize the separate status of each independent state. The action clause of the Declaration, found in a paragraph at the end, states precisely what power each state possessed. The document declared “That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States.” Furthermore, “that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.” There is a difference between a single nation known as the United States of America and an association comprised of 13 separate, independent States of America. Jefferson’s Declaration brought forth 13 nations, not one. Five years elapsed before those independent states agreed to a national government, under the Articles of Confederation. Each of those independent states had the right to refrain from joining the confederation, but all did. When the government under the Articles proved ineffective and a new constitution was drawn up in 1787, none of the states was obligated to join the new union, In fact, the government under the constitution was in effect for several months before Rhode Island agreed to join. Lincoln’s opening sentence in the Gettysburg Address twisted the Declaration so that Lincoln’s war to preserve the union was in keeping with the wishes of his founding fathers. Southerners didn’t read the Declaration that way. They assumed that Jefferson’s Declaration and its recognition of the right to overthrow an unacceptable government meant that a once-independent state, or even the younger states that didn’t exist in 1776, had the right to leave the union when it was in their interest to do so. The Civil War kept the South in the union by military force but it did not resolve the question of the right to secede. Keep all this in mind today as one speaker after another refers to the Declaration of Independece as the document that created the United States of America. Ralph E. Shaffer is professor emeritus of history at Cal Poly Pomona. firstname.lastname@example.org

On March 23, 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Patient Protection Act) was signed into law by President Barack Obama. One week later, the President signed into law the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (Reconciliation Act), completing reform of the nation’s health insurance and delivery systems. Under the Patient Protection Act, as amended by the Reconciliation Act, starting in 2014, all U.S. citizens and legal residents not covered by employer-provided insurance or Federal programs will be required to obtain health care coverage or pay a penalty, unless they are exempt from the personal responsibility mandate. Families and individuals with incomes below specified levels will be offered premium assistance starting in 2014, and states may create health insurance exchanges through which individuals and small businesses can purchase qualified coverage. While a government-provided “public option” was not included in the final bill, the insurance coverage options through these exchanges will be offered by government agencies or nonprofit organizations. No penalty will be imposed on businesses that fail to provide insurance to workers, but companies that employ 50 or more workers will be subject to so-called “pay or play” rules after 2013. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the health care reform package will cost the Federal government $938 billion over 10 years, but will reduce the Federal deficit by $143 billion over the same period, largely due to savings in Medicare and new taxes and fees levied in the bill. The CBO estimates that the legislation will provide coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans, but still leave 23 million people uninsured in 2019, one-third of whom will be illegal immigrants. Effective for 2010 While many of the core provisions of the Patient Protection Act do not go into effect until 2014, others will be effective immediately, or within the next several years. Starting in 2010, small businesses with fewer than 25 employees that pay at least 50% of the health care premiums for their employees qualify for a tax credit up to 35% of their premiums. This credit will increase to 50% after 2014 if insurance is purchased through an exchange. The amount of the credit for a specific business depends on the number of its employees and the average wage. Starting in June 2010, individuals who have been unable to obtain insurance due to a pre-existing condition can join a high-risk insurance pool. Beginning this year, insurance providers may no longer deny coverage to children due to pre-existing conditions. This provision is expanded to include adults with pre-existing conditions beginning in 2014. Also starting in 2010, uninsured adult children may remain on their parents’ health care plans until the age of 26. Beginning in September 2010, insurance companies are prohibited from imposing lifetime maximum limits on policies and from rescinding policies, except in cases of fraud. Under the new law, the so-called “doughnut hole” in Medicare prescription drug coverage will be closed over the next several years, and beneficiaries who fall through this coverage gap qualify for a $250 rebate in 2010. Individual Coverage Mandate Starting in 2014, all U.S. citizens and legal residents who are uninsured will be required to obtain health care coverage, or pay a penalty. Those who already have insurance, individually or through their employers, will not need to make any changes, provided the coverage meets certain minimal requirements. Individuals who fail to purchase and maintain coverage will be required to pay tax penalties that will be phased in over time. An adult who fails to obtain health insurance by 2014 will be penalized $95 or 1% of income, whichever is greater, provided the amount does not exceed the cost of a health care plan with basic coverage. In 2015, the penalty for not having insurance increases to $325 or 2% of income, and by 2016, the penalty rises to $695 for an adult or 2.5% of income, whichever is greater. A family’s total penalty generally cannot exceed 300% of the adult flat-dollar penalty ($285 for 2014, $975 for 2015, or $2,085 in 2015) or the cost of a basic health care plan. Exemptions to the penalty will be granted to individuals whose income is below the Federal income tax filing threshold; to individuals whose contributions to an employer-sponsored or basic plan through an insurance exchange would exceed 8% of household income; and to members of certain groups, including religious objectors, undocumented immigrants, incarcerated individuals, qualified members of Native American tribes, and certain hardship cases. To assist those who cannot afford the full cost of premiums, the Federal government will expand the Medicaid program to enroll uninsured individuals with incomes below 133% of the Federal poverty level (FPL). Starting in 2014, subsidies will be provided on a sliding scale to individuals with lower to mid-level incomes who do not qualify for Medicaid. Families and individuals with incomes up to 400% of the FPL may be eligible for a premium assistance tax credit to help them purchase basic coverage through an exchange. These subsidies will not be applicable to individuals who are covered by employer-provided insurance, unless the workplace plan covers less than 60% of total allowed costs or the individual’s contribution to the premium exceeds 9.5% of his or her income. Employer Coverage Requirements While employers will not be required to offer health care plans, starting in 2014, a business with 50 or more full-time employees (defined as working 30 or more hours per week) will have to pay $2,000 per worker per year for all workers if even one of the company’s employees qualifies for and accepts a Federal health insurance premium subsidy. The first 30 employees are subtracted from the payment calculation. In addition, employers face a potential tax penalty of $3,000 per full-time worker per year for every full-time worker who qualifies for a health insurance coverage premium subsidy. Employers that offer health care coverage may in some cases be required to provide “free choice vouchers” to employees with incomes less than 400% of FPL whose share of the premium exceeds 8%, but is less than 9.8%, of their income and who choose to enroll in a plan in the exchange. Starting in 2011, employers and other entities providing minimum health coverage will be required to report the value of health benefits to the IRS, and this value will appear on employee W-2 forms. Revenue Raising Provisions To help raise revenue to cover the costs of providing subsidies to the uninsured, the new law will broaden the Medicare tax base for higher-income taxpayers starting in 2013. This includes levying an additional Hospital Insurance tax rate of 0.9% on earned income in excess of $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly, as well as a 3.8% unearned income Medicare contributions tax on higher-income taxpayers on the lesser of net investment income or the excess of modified adjusted gross income (AGI) over the same threshold amounts. Some trusts and estates will also be liable for this 3.8% tax. An excise tax on high-cost, or “Cadillac,” health plans, which was designed to raise revenues and reduce waste, will go into effect in 2018, which allows insurers time to adjust to the requirements. Starting in 2018, a 40% nondeductible excise tax will be imposed on health insurance providers or plan administrators for any health insurance plan with annual premiums in excess of $10,200 for individual and $27,500 for family coverage, with both amounts adjusted for inflation. For employees in certain high-risk professions and non-Medicare retirees age 55 and older, the thresholds increase to $11,850 for individual coverage and $30,950 for family coverage. Insurance providers and plan administrators are permitted to pass along the excise tax to consumers through higher premiums, as an alternative to or in combination with cost-cutting measures. For taxpayers claiming the itemized medical expense deduction, the new law will increase the threshold to 10% of adjusted gross income (AGI), from the previous 7.5%, starting in 2013. Taxpayers age 65 and older and their spouses will be exempt from the higher threshold until 2017. The new law does not, however, adjust the allowable medical expense deduction floor for AMT purposes, which remains at 10%. Starting in 2011, provisions of the law will modify the definitions of qualified medical expenses for flexible spending accounts (FSAs), health savings accounts (HSAs), and health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) to conform to the definition used for the medical expense itemized deduction, thereby excluding tax-free reimbursements for over-the-counter drugs not prescribed by a physician. The annual cap for contributions to FSAs will be set at $2,500 starting in 2012, with the amount indexed for inflation in subsequent years. In other revenue-raising provisions, the legislation levies a 10% tax on indoor tanning services starting in July 2010 and limits the deductibility of compensation for executives of health insurance companies if at least 25% of the insurer’s premium fails to meet minimum essential coverage requirements. In addition, annual fees will be imposed on pharmaceutical manufacturers and importers starting in 2011 and health insurance providers starting in 2014. An excise tax of 2.3% will be levied on medical devices, excluding those routinely purchased by consumers, such as eyeglasses and hearing aids. For more information on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, contact one of our qualified tax professionals.

High microorganism load in the environment and air can lead to various allergic reactions. Ambient air exposed for a long time, especially in closed areas, can cause various symptoms such as sneezing, nasal congestion, and itching on the skin. Recently, many devices that claim to clean the air with the effect of the pandemic, bacteria, fungi and viruses have been put on the market. These devices use a variety of ways to clean the air. Microorganisms in the air are tried to be removed or destroyed by many means such as UV lamps and HEPA filters. It is possible to analyze the environment, air microbiologically. With the devices that detect the number of microorganisms in the air, the number of microorganisms in the environment can be separately determined as bacteria and mold-yeast. Microbiological air quality should be at certain values, especially in indoor environments such as plaza, residence and shopping mall. Although there is no limit on this issue in our country, some countries abroad have limit values for office etc. In order to prevent the microbiological air quality in the indoor environment from microbiological pollution, the environment should be ventilated at certain times, if this is not possible, clean air should be given at a certain rate from the central ventilation. Microbiological measurement analysis of the ambient air is performed by us. © 1994 | Saniter Gıda – Çevre Bilimi Gözetim Ve Mühendislik Hiz. Tur. Tic. A.Ş.

Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch. Although Afrikaans borrowed from languages such as Malay, Portuguese, French, the Bantu languages or the Khoisan languages, an estimated 90 to 95 percent of Afrikaans vocabulary is ultimately of Dutch origin. Therefore, differences with Dutch often lie in a more regular morphology, grammar, and spelling of Afrikaans. There is a large degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages—especially in written form—although it is easier for Dutch-speakers to understand Afrikaans than the other way around. With about 6 million native speakers in South Africa, or 13.3 percent of the population, it is the third most spoken mother tongue in the country. It has the widest geographical and racial distribution of all official languages, and is widely spoken and understood as a second or third language. It is the majority language of the western half of South Africa—the provinces of the Northern Cape and Western Cape—and the primary language of the coloured and white communities. In neighbouring Namibia, Afrikaans is spoken in 11 percent of households, mainly concentrated in the capital Windhoek and the southern regions of Hardap and Karas. Widely spoken as a second language, it is a lingua franca of Namibia. While the number of total speakers of Afrikaans is unknown, estimates range between 15 and 23 million. CCJK can now offer you afrikaans language translation in the following fields: software, hardware, desktop, advertising, financial, legal, architecture, chemical, medical, automotive, user manuals, marketing, websites, manufacturing, technical, contracts, e-learning, etc. One-stop Solution for All your Needs In addition to afrikaans language translation, we can also provide translation services from and to many other languages, such as English, German, French, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Korean, Thai, Hindi, Italian, Russian and many others. Read more about our afrikaans language translation or Get a free quote right now!

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: A Friendship That Changed the World Penny Colman (Juvenile Biography) On a spring day in May of 1851—following an antislavery meeting in Seneca Falls, New York—Amelia Bloomer made a simple introduction that would alter the way that women were viewed, treated, and legally recognized. It was on a street corner where Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton met and would begin a 51-year friendship that would survive religious differences, geographical distances, legislative setbacks, societal obstacles, and personal obligations. Elizabeth, a gifted writer, and Susan, an adept organizer, were on the forefront of the women’s reform movement and would not only travel throughout the nation to end slavery, but would lead the charge in fighting for the rights of women to receive a higher education, to divorce, to own property, to earn equal pay, and to vote. Together, these women amassed ardent supporters, as well as bitter detractors. They suffered financially, physically, and emotionally but they remained as committed to their friendship as to their cause. Colman’s research is exhaustive and extensive. Rather than begin her book with Susan and Elizabeth’s initial meeting, she explores each of their childhoods and upbringing, allowing readers to get a more complete picture as to how these two very different women would eventually be drawn together through a common cause. What I enjoyed was being able to go beyond the history in order to understand each woman’s unique motivation that set them on their shared trajectory. In Elizabeth’s case, it was her desire to offer consolation to her father after the death of his son. Her desire to bring him comfort by being “all my brother was” made her realize just how limited and exclusive her options were. Also, since her father was a judge and his office adjoined their home, Elizabeth was privy to numerous conversations dealing with the law and its negative impact on women, especially married women. In Susan’s case, it was her family’s plummet into bankruptcy and watching her personal items being auctioned off that left an indelible mark on her. Her need to earn money and help pay off family debts thrust her into the world of teaching, where she immersed herself in the issues of the day: temperance, slavery, and the fate of the country. With so many personal details taken from diary entries, letters, journals, biographies, and autobiographies, Colman enables readers to not only value these women as historical figures, but to also connect with them on a personal level. Their struggle was extraordinary and their impact immeasurable. Before Elizabeth’s 87th birthday (which she would never get to celebrate), she received a letter from her dearest Susan. The letter read, “If is fifty-one years since we first met and we have been busy through every one of them, stirring up the world to recognize the right of women. . . . We little dreamed when we began this contest . . .that half a century later we would be compelled to leave the finish of the battle to another generation of women. But our hearts are filled with joy to know that they enter upon this task equipped with a college education, with business experience, with the freely admitted right to speak in public—all of which were denied to women fifty years ago. . . . These strong, courageous, capable, young women will take our place and complete our work. There is an army of them where we were but a handful.” In an age where social media influencers, fashion and beauty bloggers, and reality stars fight for the attention and devotion of our young girls, it is important to remind them that it wasn’t that long ago when women were considered “members of the state” and not recognized as citizens of the United States. Women were denied rights, choices, and privileges that were eventually given to freed male slaves. Susan and Elizabeth were trailblazers and pioneers who made it possible for women to have a seat at the table…to have a voice in the discussion. They weren’t just reformers, activists, and suffragists, they were crusaders, soldiers, and warriors. Before our young girls and women put on a soccer jersey, sit down to choose their college, or review a ballot before an upcoming election, they need to remember that these choices are possible because of an introduction between two women who were outside enjoying a pretty spring day in New York. *Book cover image attributed to www.amazon.com **Want more? Visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/thedustyjacket

As the sun sets and darkness envelops the world, some individuals experience a peculiar phenomenon known as sundowning. Sundowning, also referred to as sundown syndrome or late-day confusion, is a condition commonly observed in people with dementia, particularly those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. It is characterized by a range of behavioral and psychological symptoms that tend to worsen in the late afternoon and evening hours. Let’s delve deeper into this intriguing condition and explore its causes, symptoms, and potential management strategies. Sundowning primarily affects individuals with cognitive impairments, particularly those in the later stages of dementia. While the exact cause of this condition remains unclear, several factors may contribute to its occurrence. Disruption of the internal body clock, also known as the circadian rhythm, is thought to play a significant role. The diminishing light levels and shadows during sunset can confuse the brain’s perception of time, leading to increased restlessness and agitation. Additionally, fatigue, hunger, pain, and sensory overload accumulated throughout the day can exacerbate sundowning symptoms. The Symptoms of Sundowning The symptoms of sundowning can vary among individuals, but they often include restlessness, confusion, anxiety, irritability, aggression, wandering, hallucinations, and even delusions. These symptoms can be distressing for both the affected individuals and their caregivers, as they may disrupt sleep patterns and make it challenging to provide adequate care. While sundowning can be challenging to manage, there are strategies that caregivers can employ to alleviate its effects. Establishing a structured daily routine and maintaining consistency in daily activities can help provide stability and reduce confusion. Creating a calm and soothing environment by minimizing noise, dimming lights, and playing relaxing music may also help promote relaxation and reduce agitation. Calming activities such as reading, listening to music, or gentle exercise can be beneficial during the evening hours. It is crucial to monitor and address any physical discomfort, hunger, or thirst that the individual may be experiencing, as these factors can contribute to sundowning symptoms. In some cases, medications may be prescribed to manage the symptoms of sundowning. However, it is essential to consult a healthcare professional to determine the most appropriate course of action and to monitor the individual’s response to medication carefully. Supporting the well-being of caregivers is equally important when dealing with sundowning. Caregivers should prioritize self-care, seek assistance from support groups or respite care services, and maintain open communication with healthcare professionals to ensure they have the necessary resources and support to effectively manage the challenges associated with sundowning. Majestic Residences and Sundowning In conclusion, sundowning is a perplexing phenomenon experienced by individuals with dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s disease, during the late afternoon and evening hours. Although its exact causes remain uncertain, disruptions in the circadian rhythm and accumulated fatigue and sensory overload throughout the day are thought to contribute to its occurrence. Majestic Residences understands the symptoms and implements appropriate management strategies which significantly improve the quality of life for individuals who suffer from Sundowning. We create a structured routine, provide a calm environment, and address physical and emotional needs to help minimize the impact of sundowning and promote a sense of well-being.

From Forensic Magazine It could be the year 1850, or 1950, or 2008 … take your pick. It was a few days since the family dinner that the husband took ill. The nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea had been relentless. And that garlic taste in his mouth, it just wouldn’t go away. And finally, almost as a relief, he died. Whether as a relatively new bio-analytical science in 1850, or a discipline with remarkable, state-of-the-art equipment today, forensic toxicology has been asked to address concerns with such cases, to speak for the victimized husband, to tell the story of what caused his illness and death, and to provide the “smoking gun,” the identification of the arsenic that led to the wife’s conviction. Truth be told, however, things are never so clear. Forensic toxicology is a scientific discipline with a split personality. While toxicology can be defined as the study of the adverse effects of chemicals on living things, the forensic component also mandates an analytical component. Understanding the modern development of this duality sheds light on the impact of forensic toxicology on our criminal and civil justice systems and society. The origin of modern analytical toxicology, and for that matter forensic toxicology, is often attributed to a Spanish physician named M.J.B. Orfila who actually practiced his vocation in France during the early to mid-1800s. Despite the establishment of laws against poisoning dating back to 81 B.C.E., it was his analysis of autopsy materials to identify poisons, and the subsequent accounting of such, that represented the first systematic approach to the identification of poisons. It was this approach that led to the first courtroom toxicological testimony by Orfila in 1840 during the trial of Marie Lafarge in France for poisoning her husband to death with arsenic. If one focuses solely on arsenic , the evolution of bio-analytical forensic toxicology is easily made clear. Even prior to Orfila, a number of chemists worked on the identification of this widely used poison during that time period. Most of the developed tests surrounded the precipitation of arsenic through oxidative and reductive processes. Unfortunately, none of these tests proved sensitive enough for forensic toxicological purposes. However, in 1836, James Marsh, a British chemist, published an improved, sensitive method for the detection of arsenic. This method allowed for the physical presentation of the arsenic finding in a courtroom, and in fact, was the test used by Orfila in the Lafarge case. In 1842, Hugo Reinsch developed the namesake test that “plates” arsenic onto copper wire, turning it black. This was followed by Max Gutzheit’s semiquantitative test in 1879, again ultimately involving precipitation of arsenic. This latter test remained a hallmark in arsenic testing for almost 100 years. In the mid-1950s, Alan Walsh developed atomic absorption spectrometry. Within a decade or so after that, this instrumental technique was being readily used for a variety of elemental analyses, including arsenic. In the mid-1980s, ICP-MS (inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry) was made routinely available, a method recognized as the current standard in arsenic testing. What the future holds for bio-analytical toxicology is anyone’s guess. If history holds true, and since mass spectrometric and other techniques are still maturing, it may be a little while before the next major fundamental analytical breakthroughs occur. Toxicology is a biomedical science. The three main areas of toxicology – descriptive, mechanistic, and regulatory toxicology all advance our knowledge of basic biochemical and physiological processes, health and safety, and risk assessment. The descriptive branch of toxicology involves, as its name implies, the description of some phenomenon related to toxicology, whereas the mechanistic area attempts to determine what is at the root of the toxicological process, generally at the macro- and microlevels. The regulatory discipline applies the data from the descriptive and mechanistic arenas to develop various risk assessments for the sake of public safety. Forensic toxicology is considered a specialty field within toxicology. Basic sub-disciplines within pharmacology and toxicology employed daily by the forensic toxicologist include pharmaco/toxicokinetics and pharmaco/toxicodynamics. Simply put, the former is what the body does to a drug or chemical, whereas the latter is what the drug or chemical does to the body. Included in pharmaco/toxicokinetics is what is monikered, ADME, aka, Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, and Elimination. These actions represent what the body can do to a drug or chemical once exposure has taken place. Pharmco/toxicodynamics describes drug or chemical actions that occur in the body once exposure takes place, and such actions range from no observable effect to death, and everything in-between. In particular respect to forensic toxicology, the crux of the matter is always, “What do a set of analytical toxicological findings mean?” The answer to this, and other questions of forensic toxicological interest, cannot usually be based solely on analytical findings. It is the holistic nature of a case that allows for interpretation, with the accent on holistic. The more information that is available about a case or individual, the better the chance a forensic toxicologist can provide assistance. However, even when armed with knowledge about the case or individual, this does not guarantee forensic toxicological assistance in any given case. Today, the forensic toxicologist has to consider several ante- and postmortem phenomena, e.g., postmortem, or site-dependent, redistribution of substances after death, whereby drugs and chemicals can “move” from one site to another within the body after death; drug or chemical interactions, a phenomenon where one substance can interfere with the metabolism and elimination of another substance, thus leading to accumulation of the latter compound, and an increased risk of toxicity; pharmaco/toxicogenomics, where the same enzyme in the body responsible for metabolizing a particular compound may function too well or too poorly in any given person; etc. All of these, and other factors, sometimes make toxicological interpretation difficult, perilous, or impossible. Undoubtedly, the future may provide greater and greater toxicological information, but it is not a certainty that this will add interpretive clarity for the forensic toxicologist. Pragmatically, since individual response, both kinetically and dynamically, will never be able to be fully accounted for, toxicological findings will always have some difference in interpretive value based on the practitioner. SPECIFIC CHALLENGES IN FORENSIC TOXICOLOGY First and foremost is being qualified to be a forensic toxicologist. The dual nature of the field make this particular challenge a long and arduous journey, certainly not meant for individuals seeking instant gratification. While there are many ways to become a practicing forensic toxicologist, there seems to be some basic commonality amongst such professionals. That is, basic educational requirements consisting of some combination of analytical chemistry and toxicology, often as separate educational endeavors, followed by mentoring and experience. Today, there are Board Certification programs for both the individual practitioner and the forensic toxicology laboratory. While offering no strict guarantees, appropriate certification generally demonstrates satisfactory compliance with the knowledge and principles necessary to function as both a forensic toxicologist and forensic toxicology laboratory. As the challenges confronting the toxicological interpretation of findings have been previously discussed, a focus on the analytical challenges is also warranted. Forensic toxicologists don’t get a whole lot of say in the specimens they are asked to analyze, especially in the postmortem world. Specimens ranging from blood to urine to liver to brain to bone to hair all come with significant challenges based on the matrix composition. Add to that the state of the specimen, i.e., badly decomposed, covered with maggots, etc., and the challenges become even greater. While “tricks of the trade” are available to tackle such daunting specimens, sometimes such challenges cannot be overcome. Further taxing the forensic toxicologist are the varied substances that may be of significance in any given case. Literally, forensic toxicologists must be able and capable to handle any of the forms of matter – solid, liquid, and gas. There are approximately 35 million or so chemical entities with registered names and probably multi-millions more in nature that have not been identified. The last significant challenge for the forensic toxicologist, like all forensic scientists, is the courtroom. It is a world that, no matter how long one has practiced, remains foreign. Unlike many other forensic disciplines, the analytical findings are not the sine qua non of the testimony. Most commonly, it is the opinion of the forensic toxicologist that is sought, the very thing that elicits the best in the adversarial nature of attorneys.

Intensification of farming practices is still a major driver of biodiversity loss in Europe, despite the implementation of policies that aim to reverse this trend. A conceptual framework called MIRABEL was previously developed that enabled a qualitative and expert-based assessment of the impact of agricultural intensification on ecologically valuable habitats. We present a quantitative update of the previous assessment that uses newly available pan-European spatially explicit data on pressures and habitats at risk. This quantitative assessment shows that the number of calcareous grasslands potentially at risk of eutrophication and overgrazing is rapidly increasing in Europe. Decreases in nitrogen surpluses and stocking densities that occurred between 1990 and 2000 have rarely led to values that were below the ecological thresholds. At the same time, a substantial proportion of calcareous grassland that has so far experienced low values for indicators of farming intensification has faced increases between 1990 and 2000 and could well become at high risk from farming intensification in the near future. As such, this assessment is an early warning signal, especially for habitats located in areas that have traditionally been farmed extensively. When comparing the outcome of this assessment with the previous qualitative MIRABEL assessment, it appears that if pan-European data are useful to assess the intensity of the pressures, more work is needed to identify regional variations in the response of biodiversity to such pressures. This is where a qualitative approach based on regional expertise should be used to complement data-driven assessments. You have requested a machine translation of selected content from our databases. This functionality is provided solely for your convenience and is in no way intended to replace human translation. Neither BioOne nor the owners and publishers of the content make, and they explicitly disclaim, any express or implied representations or warranties of any kind, including, without limitation, representations and warranties as to the functionality of the translation feature or the accuracy or completeness of the translations. Translations are not retained in our system. Your use of this feature and the translations is subject to all use restrictions contained in the Terms and Conditions of Use of the BioOne website. Vol. 35 • No. 6

本文以實驗及數值計算分析超臨界流況下，橋墩受水流沖擊所造成的墩前湧波，探討橋墩尺度對振幅、頻率的影響；實驗於亞臨界流況下，利用超音波速度剖面儀(UVP)量測墩前速度場分佈，進一步探討墩前射流之分離位置及流場中頻率的特性，並透過數值模Truchas分析墩前射流位置及渦流分佈。實驗結果顯示，沖擊高度與上游福祿數呈正比之關係；UVP 能有效量測邊界層厚度及墩前渦流尺寸；透過數值模式，能進一步分析細部流場變化，如：渦度分佈、底床剪應力。本研究之結果可幫助於瞭解亞、超臨界流況中墩前沖擊高度與上游福祿數的關係，可供相關工程設計之參考。 Bow waves in front of cylindrical piers under different flow conditions, especially supercritical flows, are explored in this study by employing both flume experiments and 3D numerical simulation. An ultrasonic velocity profiler (UVP) is used to measure the downward/upward flow right in front of the pier, and the downward flow and the stagnation point along the profile are also measured. The magnitudes and the frequencies of bow waves are analyzed by image analysis. The vortex sizes are mainly determined by pier diameter alone. The dimensionless amplitude of bow waves is proportional to the square of upstream Froude numbers. The numerical simulations for piers in shallow water show that the shear stresses on the floor exhibit maximum value at the downstream sides, which is due to pier-induced surface drawdown and wake separation.

Information graphics (infographics) have gotten a bad rep lately because of a sudden wave of badly designed, uninformative graphics. But when they are done right, infographics can be both highly informative and enjoyable to look at and discover. Here are a few recent examples to demonstrate that. Putting Things in Perspective Perhaps the most obvious use of infographics is giving readers a sense of scale. This is a very typical use in magazine and newspaper articles, where the purpose of the infographic is to provide some perspective on the numbers mentioned in an article. This is also interesting when it gives people a way to verify claims, like in this example about Virgin Galactic’s commercial space flights. Where exactly space begins is a matter of definition, but the comparison to many other types of objects provides a perspective that makes it easier to understand something that is way outside our normal experience. The additional bar on the far rights also shows just how far away geosynchronous satellites really are, much farther away than the International Space Station or even GPS satellites. Most infographics contain some numeric data, but their focus is never pure visualization. The example above is essentially a bar chart. But would be nearly as interesting and informative if it were just a bunch of bars? Knowing What You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know What do you know about potatoes? Most of us eat them every day, yet we haven’t the slightest idea about when and how they grow, etc. A good infographic can explain something you never even bothered asking about, and makes you want to know more. Potatoes, right? You didn’t expect that you’d want to learn more about them when you started reading this. The best use, though, is explanation. The combination of graphics and text can make complicated facts easy to understand, and at the same time be visually compelling enough to attract and hold the reader’s attention. A well-designed infographic will lead you through its contents without much effort, and keep you interested until you’ve read the entire thing. The thumbnail above is only a small part of a much larger infographic that explains how cell networks work, how calls are routed, what the difference between TDMA and CDMA is, etc. It’s quite impressive how much they have packed into this one graphic without it being overwhelming. Infographics About Bad Infographics The recent flood of bad infographics is interesting because I think it shows what happens when people get access to tools they don’t know how to use, and start imitating what they have seen elsewhere without understanding. This leads to a kind of cargo cult that uses the same language but that does not make any sense. These infographics and visualizations are easy to recognize, though: - They throw together random facts without a story and without much of a connection between them. - They use pie and bar charts to cheaply get the nice graphics real designers draw by hand. - They leave you feeling empty and clueless about the purpose of the graphic. Of course, there are infographics that makes these points much better than I could in writing. Click for larger versions, especially of the one below.

There are three types of Siamese cats. There is the Applehead or Traditonal Siamese, the Old Style or Classic Siamese, and the Modern, Wedgehead or Extreme Siamese. Physical characteristics distinguish each category of cat and breeders classify each cat by its body shape.Continue Reading The Applehead or Traditional Siamese cats were the first Siamese cats imported from Siam. Traditional Siamese cats are characterized by their round, muscular bodies and round faces. Like Traditional Siamese, Old Style or Classic Siamese cats have large bones, but their bodies are longer and slimmer. The face shape is also more triangular. Modern Siamese or Wedgeheads are the most common type found in cat shows. They have smaller bones than the Traditional and Classic cats and are generally longer and thinner. The muzzle is longer, and the nose is straighter. Variations of the Siamese cat morphology have been achieved through breeding. This practice is not always healthy and may result in serious medical complications for the cat. In some cases, the offspring do not survive. Health problems are more common in the Modern or Wedgehead, and the trend to make the body smaller is thought to be responsible for most of these issues. These cats are more likely to experience organ failure, immune system defects and shorter life spans.Learn more about Cats

In a blog post today, Elon Musk revealed plans for an alpha version of his much-anticipated Hyperloop, an innovative transportation system that would move passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than 30 minutes. According to the plans (PDF), the Hyperloop would transport passengers in aluminum pods traveling up to 800mph, mostly following the route of California's I-5. The estimated cost would be $6 billion for the passenger-only model, or $7.5 billion for a larger model capable of transporting cars. On a following conference call, Musk said he expected a prototype unit might take only three or four years to complete given the right project leader, including a couple years to acclimate themselves to the project. "If it was my top priority, I could probably get it done in one or two years." The biggest puzzle was how Musk's low-power loop would maintain such high speeds without tremendous power losses to friction. According to a Businessweek article, published with the post, the solution is keeping the interior of the Hyperloop at low pressures, which lowers friction without risking the dangers of a full vacuum. "I think a lot of people tended to gravitate to one idea or the other as opposed to thinking about lower pressure," Musk told Businessweek. "I have never seen that idea anywhere." The system would also reduce friction by mounting compressor fans on the front and rear of each pod, actively transferring air from the front of the pod to the back. In addition to following existing highways, the Hyperloop would minimize its physical footprint by elevating the tubes on columns 50 to 100 yards apart. Much of the route could be constructed on the median of California's I-5, but where the hyperloops path diverges, the pillar system would allow tubes to be built over private land with minimal disruption to existing structures. Musk encourages observers to weigh in with ideas The crafts would travel over air bearings, which Musk described as "the same basic principle as an air hockey table, which would allow them to travel at supersonic speeds with extremely low friction. For acceleration, the Hyperloop would use a linear accelerator — essentially the railgun promised in Musk's initial descriptions of the system, accelerating the pod through a traveling electromagnetic pulse. As the pod nears its destination, the process will be reversed, slowing the pod through the same electromagnets and absorbing the kinetic energy back into the system. It's not a coincidence that Musk chose Los Angeles and San Francisco as a test route; the Hyperloop is apparently designed for city pairs that are roughly 900 miles apart. Shorter distances don't allow enough acceleration time, while over longer spans, the document speculates that supersonic planes may end up being both faster and cheaper. The result would be impossible to crash or derail, and the internal pod would be immune to outside weather conditions like fog and snow. As a result, the only safety concern is maintaining the integrity of the track itself. The plans called for many expansion joints to deal with thermal shifts, and tube thickness of nearly a full inch to prevent buckling. On the call, Musk acknowledged the design isn't indestructible, especially given southern California's potential for earthquakes. "If all of LA falls down [in an earthquake], then I guess the Hyperloop would too." Musk had announced earlier that he has no immediate plans to build the device, citing commitments to his Tesla and SpaceX businesses, but on today's call said he was considering building a prototype model. "What happens is, you start building a prototype and you encounter a whole series of ideas you have to work around. It happened with SpaceX and it happened with Tesla."

DPFs require routine cleaning to remove ash that accumulates over time. The accumulation of ash is an important factor limiting the filter's service life and increasing its pressure drop, and has an adverse effect on fuel economy. This magnified view of a DPF shows ash content plugging the filter cells. FSX's TrapBlaster Pneumatic DPF Cleaner uses upper and lower air jets to clean from both ends of the filter and pulls the ash and soot from the lower cabinet into the dust collector. You may recall when the EPA mandated that, starting in 2007, all new on-highway diesel engines must limit the emission of particulate matter. To comply with this regulation, equipment makers incorporated diesel particulate filters (DPFs) as part of a comprehensive emissions control system. DPFs trap diesel particulates (soot) in the engine’s exhaust through an extensive filtering process. The particulate matter collected is then oxidized to remove it from the DPF. At the same time, ultra-low sulfur fuel (ULSD) was introduced for use in 2007 or later model-year diesel vehicles. A cleaner-burning diesel fuel that contains 97% percent less sulfur than low-sulfur diesel, ULSD was developed to allow the use of the pollution-control devices that reduce diesel emissions more effectively but can be damaged by sulfur. There were record sales of 2006-model heavy-duty trucks to avoid the 2007s because mandated exhaust aftertreatment increased their cost. Low-mileage 2006 models would be the hot commodity in the used-truck market for years to come. Today, a look in the rear view mirror can teach us a lot that we didn’t know then about DPFs. The 2006 truck models have now mostly disappeared from use. Those few remaining in service are tired and spent, having racked up millions of miles. DPF trucks are now the norm. Effective if Properly Maintained DPF technology is performing its job well when given proper care. No longer do big rigs belch black smoke, leaving the smell of diesel fuel in their wake. DPF-equipped trucks run quieter. And many fleets report fuel efficiency gains from 3% to as high as 5% when DPFs are cleaned regularly. “Engineers have worked very hard over a long period of time to reduce emissions while preserving the efficiencies and advantages of the diesel engine,” says John Wall, vice president and chief technical officer for Cummins. Problems initially experienced by many fleets were due mainly to failing to properly care for the filters. When you add a DPF and diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC) to a diesel engine, the only thing you can depend on is unscheduled downtime if you don’t clean the DPF on a regular, proactive schedule. Experience has shown that without proper cleaning, the DPF works fine until it cracks, sinters, melts or just plain gets plugged with soot or hardened ash. In general, for heavy-duty trucks using low-ash oil, the DPF should be cleaned once annually or every 150,000 miles (less for severe-service applications). For medium-duty trucks using low ash oil, cleaning should be every 75,000 miles. These intervals can vary depending on application. (Check the service manual for specific recommendations for your vehicles or equipment.) Ash left longer in the DPF begins to set up and harden, making cleaning difficult. DPFs should be “inspected and verified suitable for re-use,” advises David McNeill, parts and service manager at Cummins Service Solutions. DPFs that are improperly cleaned or not cleaned at regular intervals are most likely to require replacement. “[Filters cleaned at proper intervals] result in improved DPF reliability and durability, as well as reduce the likelihood of frequent regenerations (combustion at high temperatures of the particulate matter within the filter) and associated downtime,” McNeill notes. Does It Pay to Clean In-House? Prices charged for DPF cleaning range between $350 and $500, depending on location and the cleaning method used. Some manufacturers offer exchange programs in lieu of cleaning, which usually run between $600 and $800 per filter. It’s been our experience at FSX that it is more cost-effective to own a DPF cleaner rather than contract with a DPF cleaning service when a fleet has at least 100 DPF-equipped units. Such a fleet would pay for the equipment in about one year. The return on investment goes up from there. DPF cleaning systems have been in use for years now and there are a variety to choose from. Do your homework before purchasing one. Key things to keep in mind include: - Is the DPF cleaner OEM tested or recommended? - What is the method of cleaning? - What are the air compressor size and cubic feet per minute (cfm)/psi rating? (The more powerful the compressor, the more effective and thorough the cleaning.) - Is the DPF cleaning process visible to the technician? This allows a technician to spot any possible failures, such as cracking. - Remember, you get what you pay for. Careful attention needs to be paid to choosing a DPF cleaning service, as well. What the Future Holds It’s doubtful that DPF technology will become obsolete anytime soon, as many improvements are being made to diesel emission control systems. Developments include: - thinner ceramic substrate walls for backpressure reduction; - changes in microstructure and porosity of the ceramic media to improve filtration efficiency; - increased ash storage capacity with the use of asymmetrical cell technology; - and further reduction of nitrogen oxides through the use of NH3 (ammonia) from urea for selective catalytic reduction (SCR) emissions control technologies. This technology can now be incorporated as a coating on the DPF itself to perform the same function as the more traditional separate DOC. But even with such technological advances, DPFs will only function as designed if they are well maintained. Make sure you follow service recommendations to get maximum performance from your vehicle and equipment fleet. Drew Taylor is vice president of global marketing for FSX Equipment (www.fsxinc.com). FSX provides filter cleaning systems and services for cleaning diesel particulate filters (DPFs) and industrial filter cartridges utilized in the trucking, transit, off-road, railroad and power generation industries.

Budget - Andhra Pradesh Legislature The Annual Financial Statement or the Statement of the estimated receipts and expenditure of the State in respect of every financial year is popularly known as Budget. The Budget is presented to the House on such day as the Governor may appoint. On the day the Budget is presented, discussion of the Budget takes place. There should be an interval of 48 hours between the presentation of the Budget and General Discussion of the Budget. The Budget is dealt with by the Legislative Assembly in two stages namely; General Discussion of the Budget and Voting of Demands for Grants. Six days are allotted for General Discussion of the Budget and 18 days for Voting of Demands for Grants. During the General Discussion of the Budget, the Assembly is at liberty to discuss the Budget as a whole or any question of policy involved therein. No motion is moved nor is the Budget submitted to vote. At the end of the General Discussion, the Finance Minister gives reply. The second stage of Budget involves Voting of Demands for Grants. A separate demand is ordinarily made in respect of grant proposed for each department of the Government. Each demand contains a statement of the total grant proposed and statement of demand estimated under each grant divided into items. - BAC Report - Final Allocation of Employees of Legislature Secretariat to the State Legislatures of AP & TS - Final Allocation of Vacant Single/Solitary posts between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana States - Legislative Procedures - Council of Ministers - Parliament of India - A.P. State Budget - CAG Reports - RTI Act - Interesting Facts - Constitution of India - Media Advisory Committee - Important Links - Related Links - The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act 2014 - Visit the Legislature - Salary & Allowance to the Hon'ble Members Act - Salary & Allowance to the Hon'ble Members - 13th Legislative Assembly - Statistics of APLC - Council Elections 2019

Interactive storytelling, however, involves a whole new set of best practices. In addition to coming up with a great content strategy and crafting compelling copy for your story, you also have to carefully design how you’re going to deliver your story to your audience. Interactivity opens up a lot of creative possibilities for digital storytellers, but it also creates a lot of additional complexities around user experience and information architecture. To help you get started with interactive design, I’ve compiled some best practices around user experience, information architecture, and visual pedagogy. This interactive graphic provides a high-level overview; you can dive into the details below. Applying UX Principles to Interactive Storytelling When you hear about user experience (UX), it’s generally in the context of website or app design. But the same principles hold true for designing an interactive story. Here are a few key UX ideas that you can apply to your interactive content creation process. Design your user experience around the story you’re telling and the device being used to interact with that story. For shorter, more straightforward stories, a linear flow of ideas works well. However, for larger content pieces, it’s usually better to let viewers jump around based on their interests. It’s important to develop a consistent, flexible navigation system that helps your end users get where they want to go quickly. Clear Action Cues If you decide to tell your story using layers of information (which we’ll explore more in the next section), you’ll need to include clear action cues telling the viewer how to interact with your design. These cues can be: - Animation effects that draw attention to clickable elements - Arrows pointing to objects that can be clicked or rolled over - Written instructions telling the user where to click or hover - Icons that represent actions you want the user to take If your story includes quiz questions, branching logic chains, or calls-to-action, it’s important to provide your audience with real-time feedback as they interact with your content. For example, if you design a quiz section within your story, you’ll want the answers that users select to trigger immediate feedback about the choice that they’ve made. Designing Information Architecture for Interactive Stories Telling a story out loud, the words flow and the structure just sort of happens. With interactive stories, however, you need to provide a clear information architecture to support your ideas. If you don’t, you risk losing your audience to confusion, frustration, or boredom. Many of the concepts from traditional website information architecture apply to interactivity as well. There are 3 key areas to keep in mind when designing your content: 1. Long-Form vs. Multi-Page Design Will the story you want to tell work better as one long-form scrolling page? Or does it make more sense to break up your story into multiple pages and sections? How you answer these questions really depend on the nature of the information you want to convey and the complexity of the ideas you’re trying to get across. For example, if you have a fairly streamlined narrative supported by a few simple examples, a long-form design probably makes the most sense. If you have a complex topic that involves multiple subtopics, supporting ideas, data, and examples, it’s better to break this information up over multiple pages and give people the flexibility to engage with the bits they’re interested in. 2. Linear vs. Fluid Architecture If you opt for a multipage framework, the next consideration is narrative architecture. Will you design your story in such a way that the user must explore it in a linear pathway? Or will you build each section as a standalone concept that works logically and narratively on its own? 3. Layered Approach to Storytelling In a traditional article or eBook, you present your story as a single layer of information. You may use sections or pages to break things up, but all of the content is exposed to the end-users from the time they land on your webpage or document. With an interactive story, however, the possibilities are endless when it comes to presenting your content. You can create different layers within your story to provide a more flexible experience to users with varying levels of attention span, interest, and expertise. Layering information also provides additional opportunities to engage your viewer with a moment of suspense as they click down to the next level of content. Using Visual Pedagogy in Interactive Storytelling Plays, movies, and operas are all examples of visual storytelling in the real world. The visuals in each of these art forms are carefully considered in tandem with the words being spoken or sung. Unfortunately, writers tend to be less than stellar at pairing visuals and words. Our focus tends to be on the written side of things; we leave the visuals to designers as an afterthought rather than relying on images to help us fully communicate our story. This topic has provided fodder for tons of research by people way smarter than I am, including Edward Tufte, often referred to as “the Galileo of graphics.” Tufte’s research on visual pedagogy is widely used in education and publishing circles, but many of his ideas apply just as strongly to Web content. Here are three visual information best practices I’ve found to be useful in the interactivity process. 1. Proximity of Text and Visuals The closer your text is to your supporting visuals, the better your viewer will retain your information. 2. Large vs. Small Text Blocks Smaller nuggets of text that relate to specific portions of a visual are better than having a long-form paragraph that covers points relevant to multiple portions of a graphic. 3. Simplicity of Information Instead of cramming a bunch of information into a single visual, it’s better to create a visual that shows different stages, steps, or datasets in a series. With interactivity, you have even more flexibility in how you show these individual pieces of information than you do in print or static Web content. The Bottom Line Having a great idea and writing compelling copy are both vital to interactive storytelling. Providing a clear structure for your information and considering your end-users’ experience is just as critical, especially if you’re conveying complex or nuanced ideas. These UX and information architecture best practices will help you tell your story in a way that has a high impact on your audience. Interested in more advice to make your content interactive? Look out for the fourth and final installment of this series Thursday on the Content Standard. And check out part one, Interactive Storytelling—Where it Fits in Your 2016 Content Strategy, and part two, How to Adjust Your Writing Approach for Interactive Design.

By Paul Rincon BBC News science reporter A project spanning five continents is aiming to map the history of human migration via DNA. Scientists aim to trace ancient human migratory routes (Image: Chris Johns/National Geographic) The Genographic Project will collect DNA samples from over 100,000 people worldwide to help piece together a picture of how the Earth was colonised. Samples gathered from indigenous people and the general public will be subjected to lab and computer analysis to extract the valuable genetic data. Team leader Dr Spencer Wells calls the plan "the Moon shot of anthropology". The $40m (£21m) privately funded initiative is a collaboration between National Geographic, IBM and the Waitt Family Foundation charity. Participating in the five-year study are some of the world's top population geneticists, as well as leading experts in the fields of ancient DNA, linguistics and archaeology. "We see this as a resource for humanity going into the future. It could potentially become the largest genetic database ever created," Dr Wells told the BBC News website. Members of the public will be able to buy a kit that contains all the material needed to add their genetic information to the database. Already, evidence from genetics and archaeology places the origin of modern humans (Homo sapiens) in Africa roughly 200,000 years ago. It is thought, the first moderns to leave the continent set off around 60,000 years ago. By studying the Y (or male) chromosome and mitochondrial DNA (which is passed down exclusively on the maternal line), scientists have pieced together a broad-brush picture of which populations moved where in the world - and when. What is lacking, says Wells, is the fine detail, which could be filled in by this large-scale project. "We know which markers on the Y chromosome to focus on; we know our way around the mitochondrial genome fairly well. We just haven't had the large sample sizes to apply these technologies properly," Dr Wells explained. "There are still many questions we haven't answered. Was there any interbreeding with Neanderthals as modern humans moved into Europe? Did any of the migrations to the Americas come across the Pacific - or even the Atlantic?" These and other unanswered questions form the research goals of the project. They include: A total of 10 DNA collection centres located around the world will focus on obtaining samples from indigenous peoples. The genetic markers in the blood of these groups have remained relatively unchanged for generations. - Who are the oldest populations in Africa - and therefore the world? - Did Alexander the Great's armies leave a genetic trail? - Who were the first people to colonise India? - Is it possible to obtain intact DNA from the remains of Homo erectus and other extinct hominids? - How has colonialism affected genetic patterns in Africa? - Was there any admixture with Homo erectus as modern humans spread throughout South-East Asia? - Is there any relationship between Australian Aboriginal genetic patterns and their oral histories? - What are the origins of differences between human groups? "Sub-Saharan Africa harbours the spectrum of variation that will allow us to trace the very origin of our species as well as more recent incursions," said Himla Soodyall, principal project investigator for that region. But some researchers said experience on other projects suggested this one could run into trouble with indigenous groups - particularly those, such as Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians, with a history of exploitation. "I don't know how they'll deal with getting samples from more sensitive places," commented François Balloux, a population geneticist at the University of Cambridge, UK. "Amongst Australian Aborigines and Native Americans, the cultural resistance to co-operating with scientists is very strong. Spencer Wells aims to build the world's largest genetic database ( Image: Mark Read) "For example, many Native American communities are strongly advised by their elders not to give samples." Ajay Royyuru, IBM's lead scientist on the Genographic Project was optimistic on the issue. "We want to attract their participation by being extremely clear about what we do and do not do. For example, we are very clear about not trying to exploit their genetic diversity for medical uses," he told the BBC News website. Project directors said they had already sought advice from indigenous leaders about their participation. IBM says it will use sophisticated analytical techniques to interpret the information in the biobank and find patterns in the genetic data. The IT giant will also provide the computing infrastructure for the project. The project will shed light on the origins of human diversity (Image: Jodi Cobb/National Geographic) Kits sold to the public contain cheek swabs used to scrape the inside of the mouth for a DNA sample. The swabs can then be mailed to a central laboratory for analysis. After four to six weeks, the results of the analysis will appear on the website behind an anonymous password contained in the kit. The exact budget available for the study will depend on how many test kits are sold to the public. The net proceeds will go back into the research and into a "legacy project" to support indigenous peoples. The Genographic Project's directors emphasise that the information in the database will be made accessible to scientists studying human migrations. "We see this as part of the commons of our species. We're not going to be patenting anything - the information will all be in the public domain," said Dr Wells. HUMAN MIGRATION ROUTES Map shows first migratory routes taken by humans, based on surveys of different types of the male Y chromosome. "Adam" represents the common ancestor from which all Y chromosomes descended Research based on DNA testing of 10,000 people from indigenous populations around the world Source: The Genographic Project

Cover Crop Research and Education Summaries 1994-1996 San Benito County cover crop trials Non-leguminous cover crops in cool-season vegetable crop systems Louise Jackson and Lisa Wyland In-field insectaries for vegetable crops Suppression of yellow starthistle by subterranean clover, mowing and grazing Craig Thomsen et al. Changes in soil water depletion in winter-fallowed and clover-cropped soils Jeff Mitchell et al. Cover crops for saline soils Nonleguminous cover crops to reduce nitrate leaching in vegetable cropping systems Louise Jackson et al. Straw and cover crop management in rice production Stuart Pettygrove et al. Summer and fall cover crops for annual rotations Mark Van Horn Cover cropping in Ontario John W. Potter Cover crops for weed control in vineyards Clyde Elmore et al. The effects of cover crops and compost on grapevine nutrition and growth Donna Hirschfelt et al. Influence of ground covers on vineyard predators and leafhoppers Michael Costello and Kent Daane Effects of orchard-floor management on stink bug pests of pistachio Paul da Silva and Kent Daane Leguminous cover-crop residues in orchard soils: Decomposition and fate of nitrogen Alison M. Berry et al. Evaluation of Medicago species as self reseeding cover crops for vineyards Peter Christensen and Walter Graves Orchard floor management to optimize pear fruit finish Soil-building with cover crops in California almond orchards Apple tree nutrition as related to cover crop and fertilization management Roland Meyer and Paul Vossen Economic consideration for cover crops Cover crop education project Ann Mayse and David Chaney Grower comments from citrus cover crop field meeting Nick Sakovich and Ben Faber Cover crop biology: A mini-review

Oxford [England] ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2012. xiv, 303 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm. "The Earth is a dynamic planet of shifting tectonic plates that is responsive to change, particularly when there is a dramatic climate transition. We know that at the end of the last Ice Age, as the great glaciers disappeared, the release in pressure allowed the crust beneath to bounce back. At the same time, staggering volumes of melt water poured into the ocean basins, warping and bending the crust around their margins. The resulting tossing and turning provoked a huge resurgence in volcanic activity, seismic shocks, and monstrous landslides -- the last both above the waves and below. The frightening truth is that temperature rises expected this century are in line with those at the end of the Ice Age. All the signs, warns geophysical hazard specialist Bill McGuire, are that unmitigated climate change due to human activities could bring about a comparable response. Using evidence accumulated from studies of the recent history of our planet, and gleaned from current observations and modeling, he argues convincingly that we ignore at our peril the threats that presented by climate change and the waking giant beneath our feet."--Cover. The storm after the calm -- Once and future climate -- Nice day for an eruption -- Bouncing back -- Earth in motion -- Water, water, everywhere -- Reawakening the giant. Includes bibliographical references (p. 271-282) and index. How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes

22 Jan What good leaders can learn from rules, consequences and reason Most people recognise the need for everyone to adhere to basic standards of behaviour in all aspects of life whether in the workplace, the home or out and about. We call these basic standards rules and if someone breaks the rules there is usually some form of retribution – from a mild disapproval or rebuke to more significant outcomes such as a fine or even imprisonment for really serious breaches. Provided these rules are based on sound judgement and/or risk assessment we tend not to have much of a problem with limits being placed on our personal choice. If, for instance, a certain building on our site is said to require eye protection or a construction compound requires a hard hat we tend to comply. Not just for our own protection but also to set a good example to others so that they too follow the rules. If we contravene these rules we should all be prepared to accept the consequences. Or should we? On the one hand we can look at this as being black or white – you are either wearing your glasses or not. Yet surely we would want to understand the causes of the misdemeanour. If someone has a history of blatantly flaunting the rules, chooses not to follow the rules for their own personal benefit (save time, be more comfortable, enjoy the thrill of the increased risk) then most people would probably agree that they deserve to face the full penalty of the law. Yet what if they’re a good worker with a good record who normally follows the rules diligently yet on this one occasion they were displaying the aberrant behaviour? Maybe they walked into the eye protection zone, had already realised their error and were about to take remedial action i.e. step back out or put on the glasses. If this was you, how would you feel if you were treated in the same way as the repeat offender? To an outside observer, both of these people’s actions look the same. In order to distinguish between the two situations we need to look further. We might call this an investigation into the incident or in the first instance at least we might call it a conversation with the person involved. This difference in actions, based on the circumstances forms the basis of what James Reason called a just culture. This doesn’t only apply to work-related safety issues but to any comparable situation: our children at home or with citizens in society. You, like many others might have been caught breaking the speed limit whilst driving. You may be a serial speeder who regularly exceeds the given limit whether on a quiet motorway at night or in a built-up area at the end of the school day. If this is the case, whilst you might not be pleased to have your inappropriate behaviour brought into the spotlight – you can hardly complain. On the other had you might be someone who drives 30,000 miles per year and makes a specific point of not exceeding the given limit, whatever the situation – often putting up with comments from family and friends; yet on one occasion due to a short-term lapse in concentration, a fleeting distraction, a failure to recognise the limit or a failure to recognise your current speed, you broke the rules. None of these reasons justify breaking those rules, but they may help to explain why it happened on this occasion. The equivalent may be that time you walked into the factory and quite out of character you didn’t put the safety glasses on. This deviation from the norm does not make you a bad person – just a person – with the human fallibilities that we are all prone to from time to time. One of the problems with a fixed speed camera is that it cannot engage with you to understand the cause of your errant behaviour let alone being able to recognise all the exemplary behaviour of the past hundreds or thousands of miles of driving. Isn’t it a good job that we have insightful and understanding managers, supervisors and safety professionals who can engage with staff and understand their behaviour rather than automatons that simply jump on wayward behaviour and take the same action regardless of the reason or history!

People are often scared to be around bees, but the truth is actually the opposite: we should all be scared to NOT be around bees! What do we mean? Well… it turns out that bees are very important bugs. Believe it or not they help to make plants grow including plants that make fruits and vegetables. So without bees, there might not be tasty and healthy food to eat. Teaching About Bees & Flowers & Plants It is a multi-stage process, but don’t fear, we have broken it all down in the Bee Song video! But basically: bees collect pollen from the center of the flowers of plants in order to make honey. That very same pollen is also needed by other plants so that they can grow fruit and make it’s own seeds for future plants, through processes called pollination and fertilization. BUT pollen can’t move on it’s own, so bees help it to move essentially by accident! Bees spend so much time moving from flower to flower that can’t help but spread the pollen as they travel! This is the basic information you need when you are teaching the life cycle of plants and flowers. A plant starts as a seed in the ground, which then grows into a plant. The plant produces beautiful flowers that attract bees. When pollination and fertilization occur, fruit with seeds can grow. The seeds will often fall back into the grow which of course brings us all the way back to the beginning! And did we mention… bees make honey! Scratch Garden’s Bee Song uses the classic nursery rhyme ‘Bringing Home My Baby Bumble Bee’ but with alternate lyrics that teach about the importance of bees and the importance protecting bees. Learn About Bees with the Baby Bumble Bee Song! Did you know that Scratch Garden has a 2nd Channel? It's true! We have created a whole other channel on Patreon! Patreon allows creators like Scratch Garden to offer a kind of membership for special fans like you. In exchange for your support, you can access monthly patron-only content like behind-the-scenes videos as well as more hilarious Blooper Videos! For as little as $2/month you can watch all these videos AND help support Scratch Garden to keep making great fun educational content.

What’s in a Name? For centuries, the United States Navy has participated in the tradition of naming their ships. Although the naming conventions have evolved throughout the years, the names usually fall into one of four categories: - Service members who have been honored for their heroism in war or achievement of peace (such as Medal of Honor recipients) - U.S. Navy leaders - National leaders such as American presidents and members of Congress - Famous ship designers or builders - Explorers and pioneers - Famous battles - Historic sites - States of the union - Cities, towns or counties - Rivers, capes, mountains and islands - Ships that have distinguished themselves in service - Ships lost in wartime On April 14, 2018, Littoral Combat Ship 17, the future USS INDIANAPOLIS, will be christened in Marinette, Wisconsin. Then, the following week, the ship will be launched into the Menominee River. Next up, the ship will undergo additional outfitting and testing. LCS 17 will be the fourth ship to bear the name Indianapolis. It’s not only named for an American midsized city, but also honors the extraordinary legacy of service that the name holds. The ship will serve as a reminder of the incredible bravery and sense of duty with which our men and women in uniform serve. One of the previous USS Indianapolis ships, CA-35, is best known for its role in World War II. It was trusted with significant and risky missions such as escorting convoys and attacking enemy submarines. Indianapolis even delivered parts and nuclear material for atomic bombs at the end of World War II. The ship’s service ended when it was sunk by a Japanese torpedo minutes after midnight July 30, 1945. Only 316 of the 1,195 sailors serving aboard the ship survived after five days afloat in the Pacific Ocean. Indianapolis earned an impressive 10 battle stars for the ship’s distinguished World War II service.

A trip to the beach means seeing a seagull or two, but look out! These birds can be tricky, and they're always hungry. Students will read the poem and answer questions about character traits, the rhyme, and other story elements. Reading Comprehension Passage by Elizabeth Trach Reading Comprehension Questions Each of the vocabulary words below are used in the reading passage. As you read the passage, pay attention to context clues that suggest the word’s meaning. Using context clues from the sentences in the passage, underline the correct meaning of the word in boldface. 1) “The seagull lives along the shore…” a. path of shells b. forest’s edge c. ocean’s edge d. mountains 2) “His body gleams in gray and white…” a. shines b. hides c. flies d. grows fur 3) “The seagull skims the sea for fish,” a. swims under b. travels on c. splashes in d. circles around 4) “…when yet he finds a yummy treat. a. expired b. fishy c. dirty d. tasty 5) “Instead, he makes a lonely cry that echoes out across the sky.” a. makes clouds b. repeats c. disappears d. grows louder 6) “…And dives to grab what food he can directly from an open hand.” a. straight b. immediately c. especially d. except for

View site #952 > ScoreCard for survey #1 > Issue Introduction | Identification | Impacts | Causes | Actions | More Info |Why does poison fishing occur? | The international trade in live reef food fish and aquarium fish is growing in both the demand for reef fish and the profits being made. Hong Kong is the biggest importer of live fish for food, while the United States is the biggest importer of aquarium fish. Both industries are able to pay a premium to enable exporters to search for new reefs once a particular area has been overfished. The use of cyanide is very effective in stunning targeted reef species, is relatively inexpensive, and decreases the time spent capturing fish. Activities associated with poison fishing are often linked to other issues that affect the health of local coral reefs. To better understand how poison fishing is related to, but different from, other issues, refer to this Flowchart Diagram. |This butterflyfish, Chaetodon adiergastos, is one of many fish species targeted by the marine ornamental trade. Location: Pulau Aur, Johor, Malaysia Photo by: Yusri bin Yusuf (from ReefBase: http://www.reefbase.org)|

This is where you will find Dark Matter (which basically just means "Unknown Matter". This is my sense of why Scientists are having trouble finding this part of the universe because they are still looking for something that contains both time and space. Dark matter doesn't contain time or space at all in it's present form. Time is a construct that ONLY appears when you are creating a matter galaxy and even then ONLY on the matter side of the balance between the matter and anti-matter Galaxies (you need both to have either). So, from my point of view there are three types of basic things in the universe: 1. matter and time (or time and space) 2. Anti-matter (not sure what goes along with Anti-matter galaxies) 3. Dark or unknown matter. So, if you are looking for dark matter where only time and space is (matter and time) you are not going to find it. If you are looking for anti-matter Galaxies where Galaxies are made of matter and time you aren't going to find them either. My conception of matter and anti-matter galaxies goes something like this. To build a galaxy from scratch out of dark matter the first thing you have to do is to separate it into both a matter galaxy and an anti-matter galaxy at the same time. So, first you build a black hole to get the anti-matter and matter galaxies to stay in balance with each other. Once you build your black hole out of dark matter then you can start building the balance between the matter galaxy on one side of the black hole like our milky way galaxy and the balance of all this which is somehow at the other end (dimensionally somehow) of the anti-matter galaxy. Because within dark matter (unknown matter is both matter and anti-matter and the seeds of time and space which are found likely ONLY in the matter side of a galaxy. But in it's natural state time does not exist yet until you create your matter galaxy and likely it's alternate dimension and Anti-matter galaxy to balance the matter galaxy. So, it could be thought that the natural state of the Galaxy (96% of it) IS the Dark matter or presently unknown matter and the rest of the universe is composed of Galaxies and their dimensional opposites anti-matter galaxies. How you find an anti-matter galaxy on the other end of a black hole in the center of each matter galaxy is not available through me at least at this time. Top 10 Posts This Month - The ultra-lethal drones of the future | New York Post 2014 article - reprint of: Drones very small to large - Russia’s Strength Is Its Weakness - The Tesla Model 3 Makes Me Wonder About the Future: Sam Smith: road and Track - Hydrogen supply shortage leaves fuel cell cars gasping in California (Updated) - Take your pets. Time to go, fire department tells town - My father and his older brother were electricians building Liberty Ships during World War II - As you can see I ran into some problems compiling articles on the latest drones - To Soul Travel is to fly with the angels through the Universe!

Plant of the Month – July 2020 |Common name:||African Lily| |Soil type:||Well-drained/ fertile| Agapanthus are summer-flowering plants, grown for their showy flowers which are commonly in shades of blue and purple, but also white and pink. They thrive in any well-drained, sunny position in the garden, as well as in containers and can be seen in all of Falmouth’s parks and gardens, as well as along the seafront. The name Agapanthus is derived from the Greek for love (agape) and flower (anthos). These herbaceous perennials are native to Southern Africa, but have become naturalized in places around the world such as UK, Australia, Mexico, Ethiopia and Jamaica. Commonly known as African Lily or Lily of the Nile, they are not a member of the Lily family. Avoid planting in shade, as plants will either grow poorly or develop a mass of lush foliage at the expense of flowers. Article by Jacqui Owen, follow her at @cornishcountrytreasure on Instagram for more Cornish nature info and photos.

The energy of the universe (as contained within the elements) is declining as it ages, some of which is being stored as potential energy by converting to mass within the existing elements and the rest to an entropy that heats the elemental mass: E (energy) <===> m (mass) or E ----> ɛ (entropy - heat and temperature). Energy and mass can neither be created nor destroyed but are interconvertible. The flow of heat is from warmer to cooler and irreversible. In an open system, heat flows toward the empty space of the colder universe. Heat, unable to reverse flow, indicates it is not reverting to energy but causing the entropy of the universe to increase. The temperature of the universe (~2.7 Kelvin) appears low because space is expanding much faster than the heat produced by the stars and elsewhere. Space is the container of entropy. Time is non-linear when space is expanding. On Earth, the declining energy of eight elements (O, Fe, Si, Mg, S, Al, Ni and Ca) as exemplified by their ionization properties, is responsible for accumulating sufficient mass to double Earth\'s radius at least twice in the past billion years. Before that time, the energy converting to entropy from the same elements internally heated a near absolute zero planet for several billion years, cooling to a core, mantle, and crust. Afterwards, it provided sufficient heat to maintain a temperate environment to support life while exponentially growing to its present size. Ionization is responsible for oxygen becoming water and doubling in volume several times to incrementally fill the expanding ocean beds shown on the NOAA map, Age of the Ocean Floors. Ionization is presented as a feasible mechanism for expanding and heating Earth and the other planets in the universe.

The Great Schism Explained What Happened In 1054? That was the year that Christianity split into two branches -- Orthodox and Catholic. The split was formalized when the spiritual leaders of the two competing branches excommunicated each other and their respective churches. What Led To The Split? The move followed centuries of worsening ties. Things went downhill in 800 when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne, who was king of the Franks, as holy Roman emperor. That angered the Byzantine Empire because it made their emperor redundant. Moreover, the move was a slight to the Byzantine Empire, which after Rome fell in 476 had withstood barbarian invasions and upheld the faith for centuries. The Great Schism split Christianity into two competing branches, one in the east, based in Byzantium, and the other in the west, based in Rome. For this reason it is also often referred to as the East-West Schism. So What Are The Differences? Many of the differences between the eastern and western branches of Christianity can be traced to their origins. Eastern theology is rooted in Greek philosophy, while much of Western theology was based on Roman law. The result was theological disputes, for example, over the use of unleavened bread for the ceremony of communion. For the east, using leavened bread symbolized the Risen Christ, but for the Latins in the west unleavened bread was used just as Jesus had at the Last Supper. There were also disputes over whether the authority of the pope, the spiritual leader in Rome, extended to the patriarchs, religious leaders in the east. Chances Of Reconciliation Mutual excommunications had happened before, but had never ended in permanent schisms. Early hopes to mend the rift faded as time went on. In particular, the Greeks were outraged by the Latin capture of Constantinople in 1204. Western pleas for reunion (on western terms), such as those at the Council of Lyon (1274) or the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1439), were rejected by the Byzantines. More than 900 years later, in 1965, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople removed the mutual excommunications, but the two branches of Christianity remain split today. Where The Two Branches Stand Today Catholicism is the single largest Christian denomination, with more than a billion followers around the world, most of them Roman Catholic. The Eastern Rite Catholics, who follow eastern rites but are under the Holy See, include the Byzantine and Ukrainian Greek Catholics. Among others there are Maronite, Coptic, or Chaldean Catholic Churches. Eastern Orthodoxy is the second-largest Christian denomination, with more than 200 million followers, most of them under the Moscow Patriarchate. Aside from the Russian Church, other Eastern Orthodox branches include the Ruthenian, Ukrainian, Melkite, Romanian, and Italo-Albanian Byzantine Churches. -- Written by Tony Wesolowsky

When looking at medieval art, such as "The Notary of Perugia Writing a Document" it is quite obvious that very little attention to detail is included. There is no depth to the painting, the writing on the parchment bares no resemblance to actual text, and everyone in the picture has the same face. In contrast, when looking at a renaissance painting, like Christ the Redeemer by Titian quite a bit more attention is given to detail, even though the scene does not encompass nearly as much. It is possible to see shadowing in the painting, as well as to the behavior of fabrics. There is also a good feel of depth with much attention paid not only to making a nice background, but separating it from the foreground as well. There are many similarities in the two styles; they are, after all, separated by a short period in history. One similarity might be a choice of colors, as the most visually appealing color combinations had yet to be discovered. Another similarity would be the lack of understanding of how to accurately represent the human body, as this was considered sinful by the church; Leonardo di Vinci did began to change this with some of his works though. The short period in time left similarities between the styles of art, but they were few, far between, and diminished fast. Renaissance artists put forth much greater effort into these works and it really shows in the quality, rather then the quantity produced.

|Photo by Graham Searll (Bird Photos)| olive woodpecker (en); pica-pau-de-cabeça-cinzenta (pt); pic olive (fr); pito oliváceo (es); goldrückenspecht (de) This species occurs in two disjunct areas in Africa. They are found from Angola, east through southern D.R. Congo and Zambia, and into Tanzania and southern Uganda. Also from southern Mozambique and southern Zimbabwe to eastern and southern South Africa. These birds are 20 cm long and weigh 35-50 g. The olive woodpecker is mostly found in moist tropical forests and moist scrublands, particularly along rivers and streams. They also use dry forests and dry scrublands. This species occurs at altitudes of 450-3.700 m. They probe and peck the branches of trees and scrubs in search of wood-boring beetle larvae and pupae, ants, moths and other insects. Olive woodpeckers breed in February-November, varying among different parts of their range. The nest is a hole excavated by both sexes in the trunk of a tree, where the female lays 2-3 eggs. The eggs are incubated by both sexes for 15-16 days. The chicks are fed by both parents and fledge 24-26 days after hatching, but only become fully independent about 3 months later. IUCN status - LC (Least Concern) This species has a very large breeding range and is reported to be common to uncommon, being local to scarce in Tanzania, uncommon in Angola and generally common in South Africa. The population is suspected to be stable in the absence of evidence for any declines or substantial threats.

By: Carmen Stephens CHATTANOOGA (UTC) — For many, Black History month is a time when you simply write an essay and make a presentation on an influential member of the civil rights movement or from Black History. Others sing Negro spirituals, and some treat it like another month of the year. However, now that a African American is president, people seem to take more pride in the price that was paid for our freedom. Martin Luther King Jr. would be thrilled at the progress that has been made thus far. Nearly 46 years ago, he spoke the words, “One day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal….Little black boys and girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.” Today not only have people come together as brothers and sisters but we have the first African American President. Some may feel that over the years the dream has been forgotten or delayed. Some may even feel that Black History month has somewhat lost its impact. Cathrine McElhinny said “It’s not more important but since the recent inauguration, it has made people more involved and pay more attention.” Black voices.com has interactive section on their website that allows visitors to quiz themselves, view galleries and gain knowledge on new information. Rap icon MC Lyte recently gave her opinions on the new president and its effect on the community. She said, “all the excuses are out the window.” There is no reason why we as a people can’t succeed. Anything can be as long as the time and effort are put forth. The phrase “anything is possible” is more believable and in arm’s reach now more than ever. In my personal opinion, I feel that Black History has allowed those individuals who were always told that they wouldn’t make it or they couldn’t make it because of ethnicity now believe that they can be anything. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and many others; this is what they and all of our forefathers fought and died for. And just as our President stated, “we are the keepers of this legacy.” Their legacy must live through us. So what exactly does having a Black President mean? Well, it means hard work and daring to be different pays off. It means that dreams really can come true.

This is the first of a series of posts to follow. I will describe my attempts to build an ultrasonic wind meter (anemometer) based on an Arduino Uno. By the time of writing, I have a working prototype but it will take me a while to catch up in this blog. So this is just the first post – more will follow soon. Click here for an overview over this series of posts on the anemometer project: https://soldernerd.com/arduino-ultrasonic-anemometer/. Let me quickly outline the project: My aim is to build an ultrasonic anemometer based on a Arduino Uno board. Now what’s an anemometer? That’s just a fancy name for a wind meter. I want to be able to measure both wind speed and wind direction with high accuracy. Most wind meters are of the cup or vane variety. They turn wind into mechanical motion and then measure that motion to calculate wind speed and possibly direction. An ultrasonic anemometer on the other hand sends and receives ultrasonic pulses and measures the time-of-flight. From the time-of-flight (or the time difference, depending on your approach) you can then calculate the wind speed in a given direction. Add a second pair of senders and receivers at a 90-degree angle and you get both wind speed and direction. As so often, wikipedia gives a nice overview/introduction to the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anemometer Surprisingly, there seem to be very few people out there who have done this before. Basically, there is this one brave guy named Carl who has built such an anemometer from scratch and put all the relevant infomation online.His project was published on hackaday.com and this is where I found it: http://hackaday.com/2013/08/21/ultrasonic-anemometer-for-an-absurdly-accurate-weather-station/. All of his documentation can be found here: https://mysudoku.googlecode.com/files/UltrasonicAnemometer.zip. This material makes for an excellent starting point if you want to build your own. I’ve looked carefully at Carl’s schematics and have copied many of his ideas. I did end up changing quite a few things and will explain my reasons for doing so but the general approach is very much the same. Many thanks for sharing this with us, Carl. The basic idea is simple: You send a ultrasonic pulse and measure the time until it arrives at a receiver located in some distance. Ultrasonic transducers often operate at 40kHz and so do mine. A transducer is a device capable of both sending and receiving a signal. It’s the kind of thing cars uses for their parking aids, telling you if there is an obstacle and at what distance. In a 2-dimensional anemometer such as here, you will have 2 pairs of transducers for a total of 4. Let’s call them North, South, East and West for simplicity. You need to be able to send and receive pulses in all 4 directions: N->S, S->N, E->W and W->E. Not all at the same time but one after the other. So you will need some kind of circuit to route your signals from and to any of the transducers. For example you want to send from the West transducers and receive from your East transducer or vice versa. Let’s call it the digital part even though the received signal is analog in nature. The PCB without components just above is the basis for this digital part. If you wonder who or what Jingling Ding is: That’s the name of my step daughter who helped me drawing and laying out this PCB in Eagle. You will then need some more circuitry to process the received signal. This circuit is shared among the 4 transducers so only one can be listening at any point in time. That’s why the digital part needs to route the signal from the correct transducer to this signal processing circuit. The received signal is analog in nature and will be very weak compared to the transmitted one. So you will need quite a bit of amplification first. But this analog signal cannot directly be used by your arduino to measure the time of flight. You need some digital signal(s) that you can measure using the timer(s) on the arduino’s Atmega328 chip (in case of the Arduino Uno). Let’s call this the analog part. That’s what’s shown on the photo at the top of this page. In my next post I will go through the details of the two circuits. Click here for the second post: https://soldernerd.com/2014/11/15/arduino-ultrasonic-anemometer-part-2-digital-circuit/