Connexin 43 is the most common gap junction protein within the body. A Gap junction protein allows for continuity of cytoplasm between adjacent cells. Because of their importance in intercellular communication gap junction proteins are present throughout the body, particularly within bone (1) and eye cells (2). Many Connexins are expressed in a tissue specific manner, but Connexin 43 is everywhere ( 3). Because of their placement throughout the body, connexins have many roles, such as their pivotal role in the process of healing wounds and during development (2). Because of a similar function, all 20+ connexins with the connexin superfamily share a common architecture (1). This structure entails: four hydrophobic amino acid regions that span the membrane, two extracellular loops, and three cytoplasmic components (2). A gap junction channel is composed of two end-to-end connexon molecules that originate from different connected cells, see Figure 1 (4). Since a gap junction is composed of two connexons, they can be either homo or hetero. Connexin 43 is notable, in that it will function in a hetero connexon, and can often take on the characteristics of other connexin varieties (1). Each of these connexons is made up of six connexin proteins, as shown in Figure 1 (2).
Figure 1. This figures shows a gap junction within the membrane of two adjacent cells. This cross section also shows a how the connexon is composed of 6 connexins (2).
The signal that causes the 6 connexin to form a connexon seems to originate from within the connexin polypeptide(5). The binding is head-to-head and occurs by way of non-covalent interactions between the extracellular loops of apposing connexins (5). Each of these loops possesses three conserved cystein residues that form disulphide bridges, see the Amino Acid button in Jmol with the cystein being yellowish in color(5). Studies have suggested this causes the formation of a beta structure that maybe similar to a beta barrel (5). The two hemichannels that compose a junctional channel are staggered by roughly 30 degrees relative to each other so that the alpha helices of each connexin monomer are axially aligned with the alpha helices of the two adjacent monomers in the opposing hemichannel (5).
It's the different combination of connexins that defines the specific function of the connexon (3). Its function is to allow two way movement of intercellular ions, metabolites, and secondary messengers (2). All cells can form a function gap junction with neighboring cells if connexins are present in both cells (3). It is this communication that allows for the propagation of cell death, following injury, as well as the survival-modulating signals for the surrounding cells (2). This structure allows for the transfer of small molecules such as cAMP, Ca2+, K+, and other signal molecules that are smaller than about 1kDa in size (2). Gap junction channels tend to be aggregated together in areas where the adjacent membrane is running parallel (2). The gap junction tends to get its name from the 2 nm gap between the two membranes (2).
Specifically Connexin 43
The specific role of the gap junction Cx43 is to contribute to local metabolic homeostasis and synchronization of cellular activities by allowing bidirectional, intercellular movement of ions, metabolites and second messengers (2). Connexin 43 is the predominant connexin isoform in a number of cell types, ranging from vascular cells, to neural progenitor cells, and even gastrointestinal cells (4). Connexin 43 was first found in heart muscle cells (3). Connexin 43 gap junctions are responsible for controlling the synchronous heart muscle contraction (3). It is able to do this by diffusion (5). While this doesn't undergo active transport, the rate of diffusion is estimate at 1 to 2 times greater than what would be expected from passive diffusion (5). This rate suggests a slight affinity for the channel to be occupied (5). Of all the connexin, Cx43 has the widest pore, with a minimum diameter of 15 angstroms (4). Cx43 is the most selective of anions, with a selectivity ration of 1.17 anion-to-cation (4). Connexin 43 is instilled into connexons, while inside the trans-Golgi network (2). From there it moves along the microtubule-dependent pathways to an area on the cell surface that has other gap junctions (2). From synthesis to degradation, Connexin 43 has a half-life of only 1-3 hours, before being digested (2).
Cx43's specific roles within the body:
In this section each paragraph will discuss Connexin 43's affects on one specific area within the body.
Skeleton: Connexin plays a vital role in skeletal structure because of the need for communication between cells that are changing to specific need. Gap junctions are prevalent throughout the skeletal system, especially in osteoblasts and osteocytes (1). Osteoblasts are single nucleus cells that are responsible for bone formation; while ostecytes are calcified osteoblasts whose function is sending signals for functional osteoblasts (6). Connexin 43 is the most prevalent connexin within the skeletal system. Due to its prevalence, its function is understood thanks to human and mouse models. Growing research suggests Connexin 43 contributes to the bone cells response to hormonal stimulation (1).
Skin: Connexin 43 has been identified within the epidermis and dermis. Its primary role is in wound healing and during development (2). Connexin 43 knockdown causes a reduction of swelling and inflammation (2). When applied to a wound within a gel, it caused improved healing, as well as a reduction in scar tissue after healing (2).
Eye: At least 10 different Connexins have been found within the mammalian eye (2). When located within the lens, its primary function is communication with the epithelial layer. During development, as well as adulthood, Connexin 43 plays a significant role in regulation nutrient and waste transport (2).
Central Nervous System: Connexin 43 is the most common connexin with in the central nervous system (2). Its primary role is maintaining the blood-brain barrier, as well as within astrocytes that surround chemical synapses (2).
For its prevalence and many functions that Connexin 43 helps control and regulate there is only one disease associated with its mutation, ODDD or ocudentodigital dysplasia (2). Figure 2 displays where possible mutations may disrupt the function. It is a relatively rare disorder that only affects several hundred persons worldwide (2). Persons with this disease usually have symptoms such as eye and cardiac abnormalities, thin nose, the little finger being held in a flexed position, as well as a number of others (2).
Figure 2. Shows the gapjunction from a top veiw. The connexin alpha helices are shown in yellow, with the red dots symbolizing possible connexin mutations that would impair the function (7 ).
In conclusion, Connexins are a vital transmembrane protein that help to build gap junctions. They do this by combining 6 connexins to form a connexon, or half of the cellular pathway. Since gap junctions allow for intercellular communication, they play a vital role in cellular life. As the most common Connexin, Connexin 43 has a large impact in the skeletal system, skin, eye, CNS, as well as other regions. Due to the importance of Connexin 43, it is highly conserved and thus rare.
1. Civitelli, R. (2008) Cell-cell Communication in the Osteoblast/Osteocyte Lineage, Biochem. Biophys. Acta., 473, 188-192.
2. Danesh-Meyer, H.V., and Green, C.R. (2008) Focus on Molecules: Connexin 43: Mind the gap, J. Exp. Eye Res., 20, 1-2.
3. Rodriguez-Sinovas, A., Cabestrero, A., Lopez, D., Torre, I., Morente, M., Abellan, A., Miro. E., Ruiz-Meana, M., and Garcia-Dorado, D. (2007) The Modulatory Effects of Connexin 43 on Cell Death/Survival Beyond Cell Coupling, J. Prog. Biophys. Molec. Bio., 94, 219-232.
4. Neijssen, J., Pang, B., and Neefjes, J. (2007) Gap Junction-Mediated Intercellular Communication in the Immune System, J. Prog. Biophys. Molec. Bio., 94, 207-218.
5. Herve, J., Bourmeyster, N., Sarrouilhe, D., Duffy, H. (2007) Gap Junctional Complexes: From Partners to Functions, J. Prog. Biophys. Molec. Bio., 94, 29-65.
6. Sosinsky, G.E., Nicholson, B.J. (2005) Structural Organization of Gap Junction Channels, Biochim. Biophy. Acta., 1711, 99 - 125.
7. Noble, B. (2008) The Osteocyte Lineage, Biochem. Biophys. Acta. 473, 106-111
8. Yeager, M., and Harris, A. (2007) Gap Junction Channel Structure in the Early 21st Century: Facts and Fantasies, J. Curr. Opin. Cell Bio., 19, 521-528.


Pi = 3.14159 actually extends to over ten trillion decimals/digits (infinity). In ancient times mathematicians couldn't figure out the ratio to a circumference because their world was square so to speak. They could answer questions that were easily measured like squares but circles with their rounded edges were too tricky. They created a famous math problem called the "Challenge of Circling" the square where mathematicians used a compass and a straight edge (now called a protractor) to try and figure out the problem. Pi was eventually figured out in the 18th century as the best number they could use in a formula to calculate circular space. It wasn’t a perfect number as seen in the decimal points but it was the best that could be used at the time and it certainly has stood the test of time.
Here’s where it gets really interesting even if you’re not into math. Because of the initial sequence of decimals in Pi and considering how it strings out to over ten trillion digits, it contains every number sequence we’ve ever encountered in our lives (i.e. school locker codes, all street numbers, passwords, any phone number you’ve ever seen, etc.). There’s not a single clustered sequence of numbers that doesn’t show up in this string, now finding it can be tricky but through software code it can be easily sniffed out even though we’re talking about trillions of numbers. And if you assigned each letter of the alphabet to a number there’s no word ever written that couldn’t be found in the sequence. Isn’t it amazing?
Keep in mind this amazing story is based on the initial sequence of the decimals of Pi so other numbers with decimal points wouldn’t give the random numbers necessary to cover all numerical sequences and all words ever written. For example if you take 5 and divide it by 3 you end up with 1.666667 which is an infinity number but there’s no way you’d get random sequences of numbers that would give you all the phone numbers, addresses, locker combinations, etc. in existence. The magic of Pi. Pretty cool isn’t it?


This project starts out from the vision books of Hildegard of Bingen, which present allegorical visions together with their exegesis. The project asks whether this use of allegorical creation could be explained as a tool for exegetical explanation that allows the reader to visualise, dramatize and perform the exegesis.
Because exegetical texts are strongly focused on the reader’s acquisition of knowledge and understanding, we can assume that the use of literary allegory in such works serves a direct didactic function. If we take a look at monastic practices of imaginative reading and performative exegesis, which is the lively enactment of an interpretation in the mind of the interpreter or for real, possibly with role playing and incorporation, we begin to see how allegory could have the effect of dramatizing the reader’s role in the text.
Three elements are at play in this hypothesis: the exegesis of a source text, the composition of allegory, and the performance of reading. These elements are conjoined by two subsequent processes of interpretation: the writer interprets a source text not just by translating elements but by creating new allegorical images, which in turn should not be just interpreted but incorporated or at least dramatized by the reader. This approach thus looks at how literary methods, specifically allegory, may activate in exegetical texts the latent potential for dramatization in order to contribute to the exegetical quest for understanding.


When Novices Elicit Knowledge: Question Asking in Designing, Evaluating, and Learning to Use Software
Robert Mack and Jill Burdett Robinson
This paper describes a qualitative empirical method aimed at uncovering what computer users need to know to use a computer to accomplish tasks. The method asks users to acquire information about how to use a computer by asking questions of a more experienced user (i.e., the investigator) or a "coach" (a term we prefer). The technique is both similar to and different from qualitive think-out-loud (TOL) methods for eliciting verbalizations related to thinking and problem solving. TOL verbal protocol techniques have been widely applied in cognitive psychology (see Ericsson & Simon, 1980, 1984). Although question asking may have equally wide applicability, the focus of this paper will be on its use in studying human-computer interaction issues connected with the design and evaluation of computer systems.
We begin with a brief overview of question asking and question answering in the broader context of cognitive and social psychology. We then briefly review the few accessable studies of computer user behavior that have applied question asking to the evaluation of computer software. This includes a more in-depth discussion of a software evaluation carried out in our lab using question asking. Applications of question asking have discussed the technique mostly in an anecdotal way, without grounding the method in the larger context of possible qualitative methods, or methodological and interpretive issues (but see Kato, 1986). In a general discussion we summarize and discuss in more depth methodological issues and guidelines for practitioners of the method. We also sketch possible research directions for better understanding the methodology.
Asking questions is a basic linguistic strategy people have for communicating and, in particular, acquiring knowledge about the physical or social world. Not surprisingly, question asking and question answering are basic tools of empirical inquiry in social and cognitive science for learning what someone may or may not know about some domain. More recently, question asking and answering have become topics of research in their own right in cognitive science, particularly through research of Graesser and colleagues. (For review of research in cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence see Graesser & Black, 1985.) In this paper, we focus on question-asking methods in a new domain, that of human- computer interaction (HCl), where a key focus is developing methodologies for evaluating and diagnosing problems with users' interaction with computer systems.
The HCl domain is multidisciplinary, with basic and applied goals, and its methods and professional membership draw on traditional software human factors and ergonomics, as well as cognitive psychology and computer science. Its goals are (a) to understand and


Sweetgum - 10 seeds
Sweetgum - 10 seeds
Liquidambar Styraciflua is a deciduous tree with leaves that turn splendid yellow, various shades of orange, burgundy purple and many different shades of red in the autumn. It is an attractive bonsai tree whether it has green leaves, colored leaves or no leaves. Liquidambar trees are deciduous, and the leaves put on a spectacular show each fall: Their fall colors include shades of orange, yellow, gold, wine-purple and various red shades. Liquidambar consists of four species: Liquidambar Formosiana, Liquidambar Acalcyna, Liquidambar Styraciflua and Liquidambar Orientalis. The trees from all four species are resistant to pests and diseases.
Liquidambar styraciflua, commonly called sweet gum, is a low-maintenance deciduous shade tree that is native from Connecticut to Florida and Missouri further south to Texas, Mexico and Central America. In Missouri, it typically occurs in moist low woods and along streams only in the far southeastern corner of the state (Steyermark). It typically grows to 60-80’ (less frequently to 120’) tall with a straight trunk. Habit is pyramidal in youth, but it gradually develops an oval-rounded crown as it matures. Glossy, long-stalked, deep green leaves (4-7” across) have toothed margins. Each leaf has 5-7 pointed, star-shaped lobes. Leaves are fragrant when bruised. Fall color at its best is a brilliant mixture of yellows, oranges, purples and reds. Branchlets may have distinctive corky ridges. Non-showy, monoecious, yellow-green flowers appear in spherical clusters in April-May. Female flowers give way to the infamous gum balls which are hard, spherical, bristly fruiting clusters to 1.5” diameter. Gum balls mature to dark brown and usually remain on the tree through the winter, but can create clean-up problems during the general period of December through April as the clusters fall to the ground. In pedestrian areas, fruiting clusters must be cleaned up because they not only create unsightly litter, but also create human safety problems (e.g., turning an ankle by inadvertently stepping on a cluster). Tree wood has been widely used for a number of applications including flooring, furniture and home interiors. The gum obtained from genus plants has been used in the past for a variety of purposes, including chewing gum, incense, perfumes, folk medicines and flavorings.
The tree prefers a full-sun location. It requires protection from extremely frigid conditions, especially freezing wind. Regular watering is not required: Allow the soil to become somewhat dry before giving it water
The tree can be re-potted every other year in springtime, and this should be done while it is still in its dormancy. At the time of re-potting, prune the roots heavily. A good-quality bonsai soil will get the plant off to a good start, and the soil should be kept moist while the roots become established. It is easy for a bonsai enthusiast to increase his or her collection of liquidambar trees: New trees can be grown from the strong root suckers that attach themselves to some of the roots. Another way is to grow plants from the seeds of the fruit that grows on the tree.
iquidambars are not very particular about the type of soil or amount of drainage they have and will live for a long time in one pot. In spite of this, they need good soil for bonsais which is 60 per cent aggregate and 40 per cent organic matter.
The tree can be fertilized with fertilizer that is intended for shrubs or broadleaf trees to boost vigorous growth. It should be fed every two weeks during the growing season. It should be watered when the soil gets slightly dry. If the drainage is good, it is not easily overwatered, but it should not be watered on a routine basis.
Pruning can take place throughout the growing season and should not be done during dormancy. Sharp scissors should always be used on new growth so that the new branch does not get crushed or torn.
Shoots should be pruned back to one or two pairs of leaves unless a new branch is desired at that place. Cutting should not be flush with the branch. The branch may die, and end the new growth that comes from the base of the existing leaves.
If pruned in this way, the branches will most likely die back and the wounds will not heal well. This is especially true for Asian Liquidambar.
The top growth should be carefully pruned back. If this is not done, the lower branches will become weak and die back. Liquidambar responds well to leaf pruning. The scars will heal quicker if it is pruned during the growing season.
Liquidambar trees produce buds that are delicate and are easily bumped off the tree. For this reason, wiring should only be done before the buds begin or after it is in full leaf and the new growth is beginning to harden. Pruning is the best way to shape large branches as they are difficult to bend.


Dapediidae are a characteristic group of deep-bodied Mesozoic actinopterygian fishes with a moderate diversity at genus- and species-level. Here, we add a new occurrence to their patchy fossil record and describe in detail a nearly complete dapediid specimen from the pelagic deposit of the Toarcian Úrkút Manganese Ore Formation in the Transdanubian Range of Hungary. The preserved characters represent nearly all anatomically important body parts and allow assignment to Dapedium and comparison with other dapediid genera. This is the first reported occurrence of the order in Hungary and the Carpathian Basin that extends the known geographical range of the genus to the Mediterranean (western Tethyan) Jurassic. A review of the temporal distribution of published occurrences of dapediids permits speculation that the disappearance of exclusively Late Triassic genera, coincident with the end-Triassic extinction event, was likely related to their specialised feeding strategies and light or incomplete squamation. Multiple environmental crises (warming, acidification and anoxia) severely affected reefal habitats and favoured the survival of the generalist-durophagous Dapedium. The Úrkút specimen adds important data to the Early Jurassic, particularly Toarcian Lagerstätte-dominated fossil record of dapediids. In contrast to the end-Triassic, the Toarcian oceanic anoxic event did not lead to genus extinction among dapediids, possibly prevented by adaptations evolved during the preceding and similarly multi-stressor event. Continuing studies of Mesozoic fish specimens in Hungarian collections may provide new records and insights into other groups as well.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Global and Planetary Change
- Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics


With the outbreak of World War II, the entire Canadian Pacific network was put at the disposal of the war effort. On land, CPR moved 307 million tons of freight and 86 million passengers, including 280,000 military personnel. At sea 22 CPR ships went to war where 12 of them were sunk. In the air, CPR pioneered the "Atlantic Bridge" – a massive undertaking that saw the transatlantic ferrying of bombers from Canada to Britain.
Read the History of CP and War6 MB
Quebec Conference (WAR110)
During the Second World War, the Chateau Frontenac served as headquarters for meetings between U.S. President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill of the U.K. to discuss Allied strategy. Canada's Prime Minister Mackenzie King (centre) was host.
Air raid unit (WAR75-2)
Members of one of Canadian Pacific's Air Raid Precaution units stage a mobile display of their contribution to civil defence.
Railway Corps (A4342)
Shortly after the beginning of WW1, CPR organized the first battalion of Canadian Overseas Railway Construction Corps volunteers. This wrecked railway bridge in France was replaced in only 20 hours by the CORCC.
National Defence (NS5477)
The inaugural meeting of the Special Committee on War and National Defence, the predecessor of the Railway Association of Canada, was held in the CPR boardroom at Windsor Station, Montreal.
Tank production (NS3004)
During WW II, CPR's Angus Shops in Montreal produced 1,400 of these "Valentine" army tanks for shipment to Russia to assist in their drive to force the German Army out of eastern Europe.
Troops depart (A15503)
During WW1, in a scene repeated hundreds of times at railway stations throughout Canada, soldiers prepare to depart from Windsor Station, Montreal, on their way to Europe and the "war to end all wars."
The Princess Marguerite of the CP Steamship Service sank in the Mediterranean, after being struck by a German torpedo while transporting troops from Port Said to Cyprus.
Churchill's Train (NS4646)
This train of CPR business cars and coaches was placed at the disposal of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the 1943 Quebec Conference to discuss Allied strategy during the Second World War.
War memorial (A17411)
In the 1940s, a group of Canadian soldiers gathered beneath the war memorial statue at CPR's Windsor Station in Montreal.


So what are the cat allergy symptoms – how does a cat show it is allergic to something?
Usually, when we think about allergy symptoms, runny noses and eyes come to mind, as well as sneezing and asthma.
In cats, however, allergy symptoms usually show in their skin. So, if you notice your cat begins to groom itself excessively, pay attention. If it starts to scratch itself, you should really be alert before the cat causes skin damage to itself.
Diagnosing the allergy can take a while because a symptom can be a sign of many allergies. Some symptoms are of course typical of a specific allergy.
Obviously these symptoms may cause a cat to lose its energy and have behavioral changes. That is quite logical – if you had a horrible itch all the time, you would certainly behave differently from normal.
There are three main ways allergy symptoms show in a cat.
Allergy may cause the cat to vomit. It may also have diarrhea and flatulence. Its stools may become very hard or very loose. There may be hair in the feces, caused by the excessive grooming. It is normal for a cat to vomit some fur balls, but if this begins to happen more frequently, you should observe your cat more closely. Also if the cat begins to vomit other than hair balls, she may be showing cat allergy symptoms.
Cat allergy symptoms include problems in breathing. Respiratory problems include coughing, sneezing and wheezing – and a bit surprisingly also snoring (caused by the inflammation of the throat).
Sneezing is not as common a symptom of allergies in cats as it is in humans. Usually, if it is an allergy symptom, it appears in tandem with itchy skin. If it is the only symptom of an allergy, then the cat’s allergy is a mild one.
Respiratory allergy symptoms may cause shallow breathing – and at its worst the cat’s airways close up. This is called an anaphylactic reaction – and as everyone understands, that is an emergency situation.
Respiratory allergic reactions may have associated nasal or eye discharge. Allergic nasal discharge is watery. Allergic eye discharge is either milky white, yellowish or green.
The most common cat allergy symptoms are skin reactions.
The cat may chew itself, loose hair, have increased pigmentation and pustules on its skin. It clearly itches and the skin is irritated from all the grooming, chewing and licking. There can be scabs, lesions and scaly skin, as well as bumps when the cat’s autoimmune system attacks the skin. The skin may thicken too and be twitchy.
The coat can be dull, and the skin either excessively dry or oily.
The symptoms can be lozalized or all over the cat’s body. Often redness and itching is localized at the base of the cat’s tail.
The cat may scratch itself to the stage where it begins to bleed and this can cause even worse infections and inflammations. It may chew its paws which can become swollen.
Other symptoms of allergy may include head shaking and red, swollen tissue around the cat’s eyes. (The glands may be swollen as well.) If, in the case of the eyes, the irritation is more than minor and cleaning doesn’t help, the eyes are infected.
If your cat shows any of these symptoms, you are wise to contact your vet. And as you can imagine - treating feline allergies can be costly, so be wise and take a cat insurance first thing when you adopt a new cat.
Disclaimer: This website is not intended to replace professional consultation, diagnosis, or treatment by a licensed veterinarian. If you require any veterinary related advice, contact your veterinarian promptly. Information at cat-breeds-info.com is exclusively of a general reference nature. Do not disregard veterinary advice or delay treatment as a result of accessing information at this site.


10 Oct How sleep improves your memory
The mechanics of sleep and the process by which we store and retrieve memories has from ancient times been approached through many myths and theories, but it is only recently that hard science is seriously uncovering these mysteries of the mind.
A study in Nature Neuroscience, by German researchers at the University of Lubeck, proved that the brain stores recent memories better during sleep than during wakefulness.
The study mentions that earlier research showed that new memories are stored temporarily in the hippocampus and don’t gel until they are put into permanent storage in the “hard drive” of the neocortex. Early studies proved that if a memory is reactivated after learning it helps the transfer to the brain’s hard drive. The researchers retriggered the memories with a scent.
But, what they didn’t know and these researchers proved was that even if you retrigger the memory and move on to learn something else, the state of wakefulness makes the memories fragile and the transfer to deep memory difficult.
Their findings proved:
“Much to the surprise of the researchers, the sleep group performed significantly better, retaining on average 85 percent of the patterns, compared to 60 percent for those who had remained awake.”
“Reactivation of memories had completely different effects on the state of wakefulness and sleep,” said lead author Susanne Diekelmann, also from the University of Lubeck.
Based on brain imaging data…during the first few minutes of sleep, the transfer from hippocampus to neocortex has been initiated.
After only 40 minutes of shuteye, significant chunks of memory were already “downloaded” and stored where they “could no longer be disrupted by new information that is encoded in the hippocampus.”
Why did the researchers use a scent to retrigger the memory?
Because the olfactory bulb is part of the brain’s limbic system, an area so closely associated with memory and feeling… it’s sometimes called the “emotional brain”.
The olfactory bulb has intimate access to the amygdala, which processes emotion, and the hippocampus, which is responsible for associative learning.
Seems strange they were surprised. There are dozens of earlier studies.
“Retention was significantly better for the immediate sleep group, consistent with the notion that consolidation is enhanced by the interpolation of sleep shortly after learning.” Recognition memory, sleep and circadian rhythms, Nesca M, Koulack D.
And in 2008, among many others:
“Immediate as well as delayed post learning sleep but not wakefulness enhances declarative memory consolidation in children.” Reactivation and Consolidation of Memory During Sleep, Backhaus J, Hoeckesfeld R, Born J, Hohagen F, Junghanns K.
But, this “discovery” goes even further back. Shockingly, in Plato’s Theaetetus, Socrates says:
“Can he [man] learn one thing after another?“
“ . . . Please assume, then, for the sake of argument, that there is in our souls a block of wax, in one case larger, in another smaller, in one case the wax is purer, in another more impure and harder, in some cases softer, and in some of proper quality . . . Let us, then, say that this is the gift of Mnemosyne (Memory), the mother of the Mousai (Muses), and that whenever we wish to remember anything we see or hear or think of in our own minds, we hold this wax under the perceptions and thoughts and imprint them upon it, just as we make impressions from seal rings; and whatever is imprinted we remember and know as long as its image lasts, but whatever is rubbed out or cannot be imprinted we forget and do not know.”
This “discovery” was in 400 B.C.
The goddess Mnemosyne was the personification of memory in Greek mythology. And the ancient Greeks invoked sleep by appealing to the god of sleep, Hypnos, from where the terms hypnotic and hypnotism are derived. The Romans had a similar god named Somnus.
Actually in ancient times, sleep was also used as vehicle for healing.
In ancient Greece, sleep temples were built in honor of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine (though there is proof he was actually a real aristocratic personage and later made into a god because of his great healing abilities).
The Greek treatment was referred to as incubation, and focused on prayers to Asclepius for healing. The ill would fall asleep in the temple and be visited by Asclepius during the sleep state and there be given healings or instruction on how to heal themselves.
“A similar Hebrew treatment was referred to as Kavanah, and involved focusing on letters of the Hebrew alphabet spelling the name of God.”
If you want to remember all this, it might be a good time to go take a nap!
Hypnos and his half brother Thanatos
John William Waterhouse (1849–1917)


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The india-china war of 1962 is one of the defining events in independent india’s history cementing the conflict of india-china defence cooperation and. Significant groups in both china and the united states claim that a contest for supremacy between the two countries is inevitable and perhaps already under way they. This essay examines the increasing in order to manage conflict in cyberspace, china and the united russia and the rise of china and india china.Download


|View of the Moon just before Sunrise.|
The rapid rotation would also mean a different circadian rhythm as the 24-hour day becomes close to a 6-hour day. A rapidly rotating terrestrial planet is also highly unstable without an anchor such as our Moon. The significant wobbling would cause enormous stress on the surface of Earth. This would result in large magnitude earthquakes, high volcanic activity, catastrophic tsunamis, an unstable atmosphere, and drastic magnetic field changes. The evolution of both Earth and life on it are not just the result of the perfect distance from the Sun, but also the stabilization that the Moon has given our planet.
This week I've decided to just continue with an astronomy theme.


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Check out these books in print and/or online for further reading on your topic once you've gotten started.
Black and Blue by John HobermanBlack & Blue is the first systematic description of how American doctors think about racial differences and how this kind of thinking affects the treatment of their black patients. The standard studies of medical racism examine past medical abuses of black people and do not address the racially motivated thinking and behaviors of physicians practicing medicine today. Black & Blue penetrates the physician's private sphere where racial fantasies and misinformation distort diagnoses and treatments. Doctors have always absorbed the racial stereotypes and folkloric beliefs about racial differences that permeate the general population. Within the world of medicine this racial folklore has infiltrated all of the medical sub-disciplines, from cardiology to gynecology to psychiatry. Doctors have thus imposed white or black racial identities upon every organ system of the human body, along with racial interpretations of black children, the black elderly, the black athlete, black musicality, black pain thresholds, and other aspects of black minds and bodies. The American medical establishment does not readily absorb either historical or current information about medical racism. For this reason, racial enlightenment will not reach medical schools until the current race-aversive curricula include new historical and sociological perspectives.
Call Number: eBook
Publication Date: 2012-04-03
The Chicano Generation by Mario T. García; Mario T. GarcíaIn The Chicano Generation, veteran Chicano civil rights scholar Mario T. García provides a rare look inside the struggles of the 1960s and 1970s as they unfolded in Los Angeles. Based on in-depth interviews conducted with three key activists, this book illuminates the lives of Raul Ruiz, Gloria Arellanes, and Rosalio Muñoz--their family histories and widely divergent backgrounds; the events surrounding their growing consciousness as Chicanos; the sexism encountered by Arellanes; and the aftermath of their political histories. In his substantial introduction, García situates the Chicano movement in Los Angeles and contextualizes activism within the largest civil rights and empowerment struggle by Mexican Americans in US history--a struggle that featured César Chávez and the farm workers, the student movement highlighted by the 1968 LA school blowouts, the Chicano antiwar movement, the organization of La Raza Unida Party, the Chicana feminist movement, the organizing of undocumented workers, and the Chicano Renaissance. Weaving this revolution against a backdrop of historic Mexican American activism from the 1930s to the 1960s and the contemporary black power and black civil rights movements, García gives readers the best representations of the Chicano generation in Los Angeles.
Long Before Stonewall by Thomas A. Foster (Editor)2007 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Although the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City symbolically mark the start of the gay rights movement, individuals came together long before the modern era to express their same-sex romantic and sexual attraction toward one another, and in a myriad of ways. Some reflected on their desires in quiet solitude, while others endured verbal, physical, and legal harassment for publicly expressing homosexual interest through words or actions. Long Before Stonewall seeks to uncover the many iterations of same-sex desire in colonial America and the early Republic, as well as to expand the scope of how we define and recognize homosocial behavior. Thomas A. Foster has assembled a pathbreaking, interdisciplinary collection of original and classic essays that explore topics ranging from homoerotic imagery of black men to prison reform to the development of sexual orientations. This collection spans a regional and temporal breadth that stretches from the colonial Southwest to Quaker communities in New England. It also includes a challenge to commonly accepted understandings of the Native American berdache. Throughout, connections of race, class, status, and gender are emphasized, exposing the deep foundations on which modern sexual political movements and identities are built.
The Other Movement by Denise E. BatesThe Other Movement: Indian Rights and Civil Rights in the Deep South examines the most visible outcome of the Southern Indian Rights Movement: state Indian affairs commissions. In recalling political activism in the post-World War II South, rarely does one consider the political activities of American Indians as they responded to desegregation, the passing of the Civil Rights Acts, and the restructuring of the American political party system. Native leaders and activists across the South created a social and political movement all their own, which drew public attention to the problems of discrimination, poverty, unemployment, low educational attainment, and poor living conditions in tribal communities. While tribal-state relationships have historically been characterized as tense, most southern tribes--particularly non-federally recognized ones--found that Indian affairs commissions offered them a unique position in which to negotiate power. Although individual tribal leaders experienced isolated victories and generated some support through the 1950s and 1960s, the creation of the intertribal state commissions in the 1970s and 1980s elevated the movement to a more prominent political level. Through the formalization of tribal-state relationships, Indian communities forged strong networks with local, state, and national agencies while advocating for cultural preservation and revitalization, economic development, and the implementation of community services. This book looks specifically at Alabama and Louisiana, places of intensive political activity during the civil rights era and increasing Indian visibility and tribal reorganization in the decades that followed. Between 1960 and 1990, U.S. census records show that Alabama's Indian population swelled by a factor of twelve and Louisiana's by a factor of five. Thus, in addition to serving as excellent examples of the national trend of a rising Indian population, the two states make interesting case studies because their Indian commissions brought formerly disconnected groups, each with different goals and needs, together for the first time, creating an assortment of alliances and divisions.
Call Number: eBook
Publication Date: 2012-02-01
Poison in the Ivy by W. Carson ByrdThe world of elite campuses is one of rarified social circles, as well as prestigious educational opportunities. W. Carson Byrd studied twenty-eight of the most selective colleges and universities in the United States to see whether elite students' social interactions with each other might influence their racial beliefs in a positive way, since many of these graduates will eventually hold leadership positions in society. He found that students at these universities believed in the success of the 'best and the brightest,' leading them to situate differences in race and status around issues of merit and individual effort. Poison in the Ivy challenges popular beliefs about the importance of cross-racial interactions as an antidote to racism in the increasingly diverse United States. He shows that it is the context and framing of such interactions on college campuses that plays an important role in shaping students' beliefs about race and inequality in everyday life for the future political and professional leaders of the nation. Poison in the Ivy is an eye-opening look at race on elite college campuses, and offers lessons for anyone involved in modern American higher education.
Call Number: eBook
Publication Date: 2017-11-24
Mapping and Background Info -- Civil Rights Movement
Communications and Mass Media CompleteProvides articles in areas related to communication and mass media. CMMC offers cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts for more than 500 journals, and selected coverage of nearly 200 more, for a combined coverage of more than 690 titles. Furthermore, this database includes full text for over 380 journals.
ERIC Contains more than 2,200 digests along with references for additional information and citations and abstracts from over 980 educational and education-related journals.
PsycArticlesPsycARTICLES®, from the American Psychological Association (APA), is a definitive source of full text, peer-reviewed scholarly and scientific articles in psychology. It contains more than 153,000 articles from nearly 80 journals published by the American Psychological Association (APA), its imprint the Educational Publishing Foundation (EPF), and from allied organizations including the Canadian Psychological Association and the Hogrefe Publishing Group. It includes all journal articles, book reviews, letters to the editor, and errata from each journal. Coverage spans 1894 to the present and nearly all APA journals go back to Volume 1, Issue 1.
Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection A comprehensive database covering topics in emotional and behavioral characteristics, psychiatry & psychology, mental processes, anthropology, and observational & experimental methods. This is the world’s largest full text psychology database offering full text coverage for over 560 journals.
PsycINFOAmerican Psychological Association’s (APA) renowned resource for abstracts of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations, is the largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health. It contains over 2.5 million citations and summaries dating as far back as the early 1800s. Journal coverage, which spans from 1887 to present, includes international material selected from more than 2,400 periodicals in more than 27 languages.
Sociological CollectionAccess to more than 500 full text journals, including nearly 500 peer-reviewed titles. Sociological Collection offers information in all areas of sociology, including social behavior, human tendencies, interaction, relationships, community development, culture and social structure.
Medline Provides authoritative medical information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and much more.
PubMed CentralPubMed Central is a free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).
CINAHL with Fulltext Comprehensive source of full text for nursing & allied health journals, providing full text for nearly 600 journals indexed in CINAHL. This authoritative file contains full text for many of the most used journals in the CINAHL index – with no embargo. Full-text coverage dates back to 1981.
Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. WashingtonFrom the era of slavery to the present day, the first full history of black America’s shocking mistreatment as unwilling and unwitting experimental subjects at the hands of the medical establishment. Medical Apartheidis the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation on African Americans. Starting with the earliest encounters between black Americans and Western medical researchers and the racist pseudoscience that resulted, it details the ways both slaves and freedmen were used in hospitals for experiments conducted without their knowledge—a tradition that continues today within some black populations. It reveals how blacks have historically been prey to grave-robbing as well as unauthorized autopsies and dissections. Moving into the twentieth century, it shows how the pseudoscience of eugenics and social Darwinism was used to justify experimental exploitation and shoddy medical treatment of blacks, and the view that they were biologically inferior, oversexed, and unfit for adult responsibilities. Shocking new details about the government’s notorious Tuskegee experiment are revealed, as are similar, less-well-known medical atrocities conducted by the government, the armed forces, prisons, and private institutions. The product of years of prodigious research into medical journals and experimental reports long undisturbed,Medical Apartheidreveals the hidden underbelly of scientific research and makes possible, for the first time, an understanding of the roots of the African American health deficit. At last, it provides the fullest possible context for comprehending the behavioral fallout that has caused black Americans to view researchers—and indeed the whole medical establishment—with such deep distrust. No one concerned with issues of public health and racial justice can afford not to readMedical Apartheid, a masterful book that will stir up both controversy and long-needed debate.
Call Number: R 853.H8 W37 2006
Publication Date: 2007-01-09
LGBTQ Social Movements by Lisa M. StulbergIn recent years, there has been substantial progress on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) civil rights in the United States. We are now, though, in a time of incredible political uncertainty for queer people. LGBTQ Social Movements provides an accessible introduction to mainstream LGBTQ movements in the US, illustrating the many forms that LGBTQ activism has taken since the mid-twentieth century. Covering a range of topics, including the Stonewall uprising and gay liberation, AIDS politics, queer activism, marriage equality fights, youth action, and bisexual and transgender justice, Lisa M. Stulberg explores how marginalized people and communities have used a wide range of political and cultural tools to demand and create change. The five key themes that guide the book are assimilationism and liberationism as complex strategies for equality, the limits and possibilities of legal change, the role of art and popular culture in social change, the interconnectedness of social movements, and the role of privilege in movement organizing. This book is an important tool for understanding current LGBTQ politics and will be essential reading for students and scholars of sexuality, LGBTQ studies, and social movements, as well as anyone new to thinking about these issues.
Alt-Press WatchAlt-PressWatch is a full text database comprised of the newspapers, magazines and journals of the alternative and independent press. Alternative newsweeklies, available in most cities, give readers alternative perspectives on politics, government, policy and culture; report on issues of government.
Black Thought and CultureBlack Thought and Culture contains about 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by over 1,000 American black leaders—teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures—covering 250 years of history. The collection includes letters, speeches, prefatory essays, political leaflets, interviews, periodicals, and trial transcripts.
Civil Rights and Social JusticeContaining publications from the Commission on Civil Rights, legislative histories on landmark legislation, briefs from relevant U.S. Supreme Court cases, and more, this database covers civil rights in the United States as their legal protections and definitions are expanded to cover more and more Americans.


Four popular songs about moonlight are presented, including their origins and as sing-a-longs. In 1909, songwriter Edward Madden worked as an undercover government agent in New York's rough and tumble Tenderloin District, which is in stark contrast to his lyrics for "By the Light of the Silvery Moon", the lyrics which were set to music by Gus Edwards. Three years later, Madden would pen the lyrics to what is now the popular barbershop standard "Moonlight Bay". Southerner James Allen Bland wrote many songs depicting the simple life of the south, including "In the Evening By the Moonlight". And an already popular 1908 penned song was made even more famous and popular with the movie of the same name, Shine on Harvest Moon (1944), the title song which was sung by Ann Sheridan and Dennis Morgan portraying the song's writers, Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth. Written by
Did You Know?
Nora Bayes in Film Clip from 'Shine On, Harvest Moon'
Shine on, shine on, Harvest Moon, up in the sky / I ain't had no loving since January, February, March, April, May, June or July / Snow time, ain't no time to stay outdoors and spoon / So, shine on, shine on, Harvest Moon, for me and my pal.
Features Shine on Harvest Moon
By the Light of the Silvery Moon
Music by Gus Edwards
Lyrics by Edward Madden
Sung by The Melody Makers See more


The Triassic reptile Trilophosaurus looks very much like a modern iguana, but has a completely different ancestry. The similarities between Trilophosaurus and iguanas are an example of convergent evolution. Their shared characteristics derive from both organisms evolving to survive in similar enviroments, not from shared ancestry. Trilophosaurus became extinct during the Triassic.
See a reconstruction of Trilophosaurus here.


|Assessment Type||Assessment length / details||Proportion|
|Semester Assessment||Open examination Open examination 1000 Words||50%|
|Semester Assessment||Essay (2,000 words)||50%|
|Supplementary Assessment||Open examination Open examination 1000 Words||50%|
|Supplementary Assessment||Essay (2,000 words)||50%|
On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
Demonstrate a familiarity with a body of historical knowledge relating to the Modern World, c. 1789 to the present day.
Demonstrate an understanding of the concept of ‘modernity’ and how it has been interpreted.
Demonstrate a familiarity with the range of primary and secondary sources which may be utilised by historians to study Modern World History.
With the concept of modernity at its centre, this module addresses the Modern World, its shaping, and the historical understanding of it. Taking a global, rather than Euro-centric perspective and addressing themes rather than a narrative, aspects of modernity and the development of the modern world are considered in the period c. 1789 to the present day. Themes addressed include: Towns and Cities; Work and Leisure; Travel and Movement; Nation-States and Borders; Industrialisation; War and Violence; Ideologies and Social Movements; and Class, Race, and Gender.
Towns and Cities
Work and Leisure
Travel and Movement
Nation-States and Borders
War and Violence
Ideologies and Social Movements
Class, Race, and Gender.
The five seminars will be based on a selection of these broad themes.
|Skills Type||Skills details|
|Application of Number||Through occasional discussion of relevant numerical data, e.g. figures, graphs, tables.|
|Communication||Written communication skills will be developed through the coursework and written examination; skills in oral presentation will be developed in seminars but are not formally assessed.|
|Improving own Learning and Performance||Students will be advised on how to improve research and communication skills through the individual tutorial providing feedback on submitted coursework.|
|Information Technology||Students will be encouraged to locate suitable material on the web and to apply it appropriately to their own work. Students will also be expected to word-process their work and make use of Blackboard. These skills will not be formally assessed.|
|Personal Development and Career planning||Students will develop a range of transferable skills, including time management and communication skills, which may help them identify their personal strengths as they consider potential career paths.|
|Problem solving||Students are expected to note and respond to historical problems which arise as part of the study of this subject area and to undertake suitable research for seminars and essays.|
|Research skills||Students will develop their research skills by reading a range of texts and evaluating their usefulness in preparation for the coursework and the written examination.|
|Subject Specific Skills|
|Team work||Students will be expected to play an active part in group activities (e.g. short group presentations in seminars) and to learn to evaluate their own contribution to such activities.|
This module is at CQFW Level 4


About colour blindness
Colour blindness is when you can’t see some colours normally.
Red-green colour blindness is the most common type. This is when you have trouble telling the difference between greens, browns, reds and oranges.
Blue-yellow colour blindness is rare. People with this type of colour blindness have trouble telling the difference between blues and yellows.
Nearly all children with colour blindness are boys. And about 8% of boys have red-green colour blindness. Boys usually inherit colour blindness from their mother’s side of the family.
Causes of colour blindness
Cone cells in our retinas help us see differences between colours.
There are three types of cone cells. Each type responds to a different colour – red, green and blue.
In a person who is colour blind, only two out of three of these types of cones work normally.
Symptoms of colour blindness
If your child has colour blindness, he might have trouble telling the difference between reds, greens, browns and oranges after about the age of four. He might say that two different colours are the same or struggle to separate things according to colour.
Colour blindness might become obvious at preschool or school, especially when your child is doing activities like sorting blocks, colouring or copying different coloured text.
Although children with colour blindness confuse some colours, their vision should be clear.
Colour blindness stays the same over time. It doesn’t get worse or better.
Does your child need to see a doctor about colour blindness?
If there are other people in the family with colour blindness, you might also wish to have your child tested.
Treatment for colour blindness
There’s no cure for colour blindness. But it isn’t a serious condition, because children learn colours by association.
It’s a good idea to let your child’s teachers know that your child has colour vision problems, so the teachers can choose teaching activities that don’t involve spotting colour differences.
As children with severe colour blindness get older, it might be unsafe or hard for them to do jobs where colour identification is important – for example, handling electrical wires or telling warning lights apart.


Acting Head of Learning Enrichment
Executive Function: Think, Plan, Do, Check
The mental processes that help us connect past experiences with present action are collectively termed executive functions. We use them daily to plan, organise, strategise, attend to and remember details, as well as manage time and space. These skills develop gradually and at different rates in all of us, they are not an inherent automatic skill. For some students with learning and attentional difficulties, these skills almost always need to be specifically supported and explicitly taught.
As students progress through middle school and into high school they are required to master a wide range of skills relying on their executive functioning capabilities. Their success depends on their ability to plan, organise and prioritise tasks, materials and information, separate main ideas from details, think flexibly, memorise content and monitor progress.
Deficits in executive functioning can be observed in various contexts.
Impulse control is one area where students lack the ability to stop and think before acting. This is observable in their school tasks when they might speed through their work, sacrificing accuracy and completeness. They may prefer to choose other activities without considering obligations or commitments. Students demonstrating inflexibility when routines or tasks become complicated become frustrated. They find it difficult to initiate a task and organise and maintain their systems to keep track of information and materials. This is also evident when they easily give up on complex tasks. Weak working memory is observable with multi-step tasks, a series of directions or remembering and applying important information. Planning and prioritising assignments is overwhelming, and the ability to create steps to reach goals and to make decisions about what to focus on is compromised. Procrastination and avoidance may become coping mechanisms. The ability to self-monitor and evaluate their own performance is not easily reflective by the student. These students are often not receptive to constructive feedback and are surprised by low grades. Finally, students with weak executive functioning skills become distressed as managing their emotions is a constant battle. Compensating for these skills is exhausting and the resulting feelings of helplessness, insecurity and anxiety become daily experiences. Self-esteem is often severely compromised.
Given reassurance, support, guidance and skills, these challenges can be minimised. Extra time and practise will be needed to help develop these skills but once these habits are established the success will be rewarded and the intrinsic motivation will generate a sense of pride and accomplishment. It is imperative that the suggestions below are modelled and guided first before independently being executed. Here is how you can help at home:
Organizing and Prioritising
- Model good planning and organisational strategies.
- Visual planners are imperative, select paper or electronic calendars to schedule important task dates allocating time to complete them. Use shared bulletin boards, digital flashcards or sticky notes as reminders.
- Set meeting requests for conversations or appointments.
- Make lists of tasks to complete. The satisfaction experienced when checked off is empowering!
- Use timers to schedule breaks and off task periods.
- Create comfortable routines and habits.
- Break tasks down into achievable chunks using flowcharts, scaffolds or sequenced steps. Prioritise the tasks based on due dates, level of stress or difficulty level.
- Have a place where commonly used items are stored and are easily accessible.
- Collect the materials needed before starting the task.
- Ensure that online learning platforms such as emails, One Note and Google Classroom are regularly cleared, updated and sorted.
- Regularly check the assessment calendar.
- Schedule weekly clearing and organising of backpacks and lockers.
- Brightly colour coded files and work books also help lessen the cognitive load.
- Shifting thinking routines encourage the understanding that tasks can be accomplished differently.
- Activities that build inferential meaning such as puzzles and jokes add to the perception of different points of view.
- Finding patterns in maths such as inverse operations and connections between topics assist with understanding of new concepts.
- Assisting students to recognise that different subjects require different study skills and strategies extends their flexibility.
- Work with their strengths by drawing on that to support weaker areas.
- Break up or chunk information by using visual and auditory cues and prompts to work as reminders, such as checklists, tip sheets, summaries, timetables and even alarm notifications on the phone.
- Reinforce what works for them by identifying successful strategies and repeating them to create success.
- Discourage multi-tasking and focus on completing one activity at a time.
- Use self-talk by talking through your own checklists, reviewing and revising plans and discussing how to avoid errors.
- Tracking completed tasks by editing and reviewing should be built into the process.
- Chunk information using graphic organiser or anchor charts and checklists.
- Colour coding and highlighting assists with quick visual support of processing what needs to be connected and focused on.
- Create a personalised list of errors when editing written work or checking math problems.
- Use text-to-speech technology to assist with grammar and sentence structure.
- Use silly songs, acronyms or mnemonics to remind them of important information or items.
- Use timers to keep on track of time spent on tasks and incorporate rest breaks that encourage outdoor activity into their schedules.
Behaviour and Emotions:
- Simplify and condense tasks and instructions to make them more concrete.
- Ensure they have the skill and ability to accomplish the task.
- Use cues or prompts to get them started.
- Offer choices about what and how to do something.
- Offer rewards that are personally motivating – autonomy is very motivating.
- Praise effort and be specific about what aspect has been accomplished well.
For further reading please click here.
Mrs Simonetta Cesamolo
Acting Head of Learning Enrichment


The difference between hazard (something with the potential to cause you harm) and risk (the actual chance of harm occurring) is a key issue for the crop protection industry. Critics often call for bans on crop protection products based only on their hazardous properties, even though the actual risk of harm is low or non existent.
That's why as an industry we support risk-based, rather than hazard based regulation.
Our colleagues at Croplife International have made these handy animations to help explain the important difference between hazard and risk.
A shark is a hazard. Swimming with a shark is a risk! That's the difference.
Bleach is a hazard. Drinking it is a risk! That's the difference.


Wałęsa then began work as an electrician in the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk. In December 1970, following government announcement of price increases, Wałęsa was one of the leaders in a strike at the shipyard. Arrested, he was convicted of antisocialist behavior and sentenced to a year in prison. On his release, he was elected to the new workers' council and acted as a voluntary work inspector. He also participated in various labor demonstrations and rallies.
In 1976, Wałęsa was fired from his job at the shipyard for collecting signatures on a petition to build a memorial to commemorate the 1970 casualties. He supported his family by taking temporary jobs. In 1978, together with Andrzej Gwiazda, Aleksander Hall, and other activists, Wałęsa took the lead in the organization of free, independent, noncommunist trade unions in the Baltic region. The security forces closely observed this activity. Wałęsa was often detained and arrested and could not find a permanent job.
In August 1980 Poland was struck by yet another wave of strikes. When this agitation reached Gdańsk, Wałęsa became the leader of the strike committee. As a result of the wave of strikes and negotiations with the communist government of Poland, he and the strike committee reached an agreement with the government on 31 August that allowed workers to organize their own independent, noncommunist trade unions.
This was the beginning of the Solidarność (Solidarity) trade union. One year later, in 1981, Wałęsa became president of Solidarity, which was joined by some 10 million Polish wage earners, about 70 percent of the employed population. Solidarity became a vast movement that sought sweeping social and economic changes. Although there were voices raised against the Soviet Union and Poland's membership in the Warsaw Pact, Wałęsa and the Solidarity leadership never let the union drift fully into the political arena.
On 13 December 1981, with the Soviet Union threatening military invasion, Polish General Wojciech Jaruzelski proclaimed martial law, whereupon Wałęsa and other Solidarity leaders were arrested. Released in November 1982, Wałęsa returned to work at the Gdańsk shipyard and maintained contact with underground Solidarity leaders.
Although martial law ended in July 1983, not much had changed. With many of the legal restrictions continuing in place, Wałęsa refused to collaborate with the government. In October 1983, at the time virtually under house arrest, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1989, faced with no economic improvement and a steadily worsening political climate in Poland, Jaruzelski agreed to talks with Wałęsa and his colleagues. These occurred during February–April 1989, with Wałęsa leading the opposition side. The two sides reached agreement allowing semifree national elections to be held in June 1989 that resulted in a new government under noncommunist Premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Wałęsa's choice.
With the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War, Wałęsa, still head of the now-legal Solidarity labor union, traveled widely abroad and met with world leaders. In November 1989 he addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress.
In national elections in December 1990, Wałęsa was elected president. His tenure as president was a mixed one, and his effort to make that office a strong one was only partially successful, bringing with it frequent clashes with premiers and parliament. He lost his bid for reelection in 1995. Wałęsa nonetheless remains one of the most important figures in twentieth-century Poland.
Craig, Mary. Lech Walesa and His Poland. New York: Continuum, 1987.; Kurski, Jaroslaw. Lech Walesa: Democrat or Dictator. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993.; Paczkowski, Andrzej. The Spring Will Be Ours: Poland and the Poles from Occupation to Freedom. State College: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003.; Wałęsa, Lech. The Struggle and the Triumph. New York: Arcade, 1992.


The SIFT program is an introductory field skills training program at Shaw Nature Reserve designed to engage teenagers in scientific exploration of the natural world.
Training activities emphasize collaboration, field skills acquisition, and scientific knowledge gain. SIFTers are exposed to a variety of field projects and career field scientists over all four seasons. Participation includes learning and paid fieldwork during the summer and the following school year. Transportation from the St. Louis area is provided.
The Student Experience
During a one-week training session in June, teens are introduced to a variety of Missouri ecosystems and gain skills necessary to conduct field research, including plant and animal identifications, biotic sampling and census techniques, testing of abiotic factors, and training in the use of maps, compass and GPS.
During the rest of the summer and school year, teens are involved in important research and restoration activities at Shaw, Tyson Research Center and other field research sites in the St. Louis area. Fieldwork opportunities may include invasive species management, prairie reconstruction, plant and animal inventories, and prescribed burns. Teens are paid a stipend for their fieldwork.
SIFT Participation Timeline
- December: SIFT application becomes available
- March: application deadline
- May: orientation meeting for accepted SIFT participants and parents
- June: five-day summer training session with overnight Thursday to Friday at the Dana Brown Overnight Center
- June, July, early August: weekday work opportunities on field research projects
- August-March: weekend work opportunities on field research projects
- September: full-day Saturday session
- January: winter weekend with overnight
- March: full-day Saturday session
Application information for Summer 2018
There are limited spaces available in the SIFT program. While we strive for a mix of teens from across the St. Louis metropolitan area, we are particularly interested in receiving applications from teens who live in North St. Louis City and County. Participants are selected based on two teacher recommendations, personal interests, and education/career interests.
- Application will become available in December 2017.
- Application deadline is Monday, March 26, 2018.
- Recommending teachers must submit on-line form by Monday, April 2, 2018.
- Notification of selection or wait list status will be via email by Friday, April 13, 2018.
- Mandatory orientation for selected and wait listed participants is Sunday, May 6, 2018 from 1:00-2:30 pm at Shaw Nature Reserve.
- SIFT Training Week is June 18-22, 2018 (with overnight from Thursday to Friday) at Shaw Nature Reserve.
- St. Louis Green Teen Alliance Career Summit is Wednesday, July 25, 2018 at the Missouri Botanical Garden.
- SIFT Fall Saturday is September 29, 2018 at Shaw Nature Reserve.
- SIFT Winter Weekend (with overnight) is January 19-20, 2019 at Shaw Nature Reserve and Tyson Research Center.
- SIFT Spring Saturday is March 2, 2019 at Shaw Nature Reserve.
Questions may be directed to Aileen Abbott.


Almost every area of manufacturing, maintenance, and construction uses welding technology to join two surfaces together. Welding is an art, it is a science, and it is a precise, reliable, cost-effective, and high-tech method for joining materials. Most of the objects around us, from buildings to bridges, to vehicles, computers and medical devices, are welded, brazed, or soldered.
Welding technology programs are becoming more comprehensive and scientific as new technologies (lasers, plasma arcs, etc.) and new materials are being refined.
Welding provides students with an opportunity to explore a wide variety of welding processes for entry-level employment settings, as well as the knowledge, skills, safety, and professional behaviors necessary for competent performance as a welder or welding technician.
Students will master basic skills by working on state-of-the-art equipment, including robotic welding. The curriculum covers most common welding and cutting processes, including:
- Gas Metal, Shielded Metal, Gas Tungsten, and Flux Cored Arc Welding
- Oxy-Fuel Welding, Cutting and Brazing
- Manual Plasma Arc and Computer
- Numerical Control (CNC) Cutting
The class is presented in modules that include a working knowledge of metals, metalworking tools, blueprint reading, welding symbols, and CNC processes. Academic class work and hands-on welding projects are part of each day. Students may work with other Career Center classes to coordinate projects or produce parts.
Career Credentials & Certifications
- American Welding Society/School Excelling Through National Skills Standards Education (SENSE)
- AWS Safety
- CareerSafe - OSHA
Students in this program will be eligible to apply for the JAC3 E/MC program. Click the JAC link for more information.


In Western science, the study and treatment of emotion belongs to the fields of psychology and psychiatry. As far as I know emotion in current medical science is still largely a subjective matter. If someone is in grief, it is mainly a subjective feeling. It is difficult to have an objective quantitative criteria of the amount of grief that a person suffers.
The direction of current medical science is to investigate the role of the brain in the control of a person's emotion. We wish to take an alternative route. In Chinese medicine, emotion is not a subjective matter, but has a material basis. Five emotions are associated with five meridians (There is some ambiguity if the five emotions are associated with five organs or five meridians. Also, the heart is associated with two meridians: the Heart and the Pericardium):
Fear is associated with the Kidney meridian.
Grief is associated with the Lung meridian.
Joy is associated with the Pericardium meridian
Worry is associated with the Spleen meridian.
Practitioners of Chinese medicine could diagnose the emotional states of a patient by feeling the pulse on the wrist. The feelings of these practitioners comes from personal experiences in practice. It is difficult to quantify these personal subjective experiences. Despite a great deal of research effort in the last 50 years, there is not a universally accepted measuring device on strength of pulses on the wrist that genuinely reflects the experiences of thousands of years of Chinese medicine.
We instead are attempting a different route. Qi circulating along these five meridians should represent the state of the five emotions within a person. The more qi, the more intense the emotion. From the explanation of qi based on quantum field theory, it is measurable and can be quantified. Theoretically these five emotions could be quantified. Infrared imaging may provide a quantitative means of measuring the state of emotions by detecting hot spots or lines along the body surfaces corresponding to the five meridians.
For someone in grief, the Lung meridian may be the place to look for hot spots on the body surface temperature. Infrared (IR) images of a woman in her 50s were taken. The images showed hot spots on her left and right LU2 acupoints near her left and right shoulder, as shown in Fig 1a. The woman drank meridian water, which contains stable water clusters that we believe will repair the meridian (April 2009 Acupuncture Today for details). Thirty minutes after drinking the water, another IR picture was taken. In Fig. 1a, the two hottest spots around the left and right LU2 region were shown in white. In Fig 1b, they cooled down, and nearly all the white color was gone as it turned to red. The maximum temperatures at two hot spots at LU2 were considerably reduced.
Fig 1a: Surface temperature distribution of a grieving woman before drinking meridian water that contains stable water clusters as revealed by infrared images. The color code is: white as the hottest, then red, yellow, green, blue and black as the coldest.
Fig 1b: Surface temperature distribution 30 minutes after drinking the meridian water.
The maximum temperature in the region LU2 may be an objective indicator of the amount of the woman's grief. The relative quantitative reduction of the hottest region may be regarded as a measure of treatment effectiveness. The method may be from acupuncture needles, herbs, medications, nutritional supplements, exercises or healing from external qi. The larger the reduction, the more effective the method. In this case, we may infer that the water is effective in reducing temperature around the two regions surrounding the left and right LU2 acupoints.
In the second example, a young woman found out that a young man she liked was going to marry another woman. Before she drank the meridian water, we took an IR picture of her arms, as was shown in Fig 2a. There were two broad red bands running along the anterior surface of both left and right arms. Thirty minutes after she drank the meridian water, we took another IR picture of the same area. The broad red regions along her arms were considerably reduced.
We might interpret this result according to Chinese meridian theory. Her sadness was shown as a hot band along the pericardium meridian. Her sadness was reduced after drinking the meridian water. We may attribute the reduction of this region to the water's effectiveness.
Infrared images before (Fig 2a) and 30 minutes after drinking meridian water (Fig 2b).
These two cases and other similar ones suggest that there is a way to substantiate the claim of Chinese medicine that emotions are related to meridian system. By quantitatively measuring the properties of the meridian system with modern instruments such as IR, it may be possible to establish a quantitative medical science for emotions.
Although we used meridian water in these examples, the same method of taking infrared images before and immediately after a treatment can be applied to see the effectiveness of other modalities in Chinese medicine on a person's emotional state.
The infrared imaging system we use does not emit any radiation and is noninvasive. It can be taken as many times as possible without causing any harm to patients. It is relatively low in cost compared to other modern instruments such as functional MRIs, PET scans or CT scans that are now regularly used to study the brain. We urge more acupuncturists and researchers to advance our knowledge of human emotion from the viewpoint of Chinese medicine by using the simple method outlined here.


Did you know...
A regular consumption of yoghurt and probiotics, at least five times a week, contributes to control blood pressure according to a study by Justin Buendia from the Boston University School of Medicine, which was presented in a conference of the American Heart Association.
Data relating to three wide studies, two out of 240000 women between the age of 22 and 55, one out of 55000 men between the age of 40 and 75, were taken into consideration.
In the followed subjects from the age of 18 to 30, 74000 cases of high blood pressure were recorded and the research, excluding other factors, has noted that women who had five or more yoghurt portion a week in comparison to the ones who had just a portion a month, had a reduced risk of about 20% to develop hypertension.
On the contrary, the data were not so important for men who usually consume less yoghurt: the risk decreased even of 31% if fruit, vegetables, nuts, beans and cereals were added to the normal consumption of yoghurt; the addition of yoghurt in an healthy diet seems to help reducing the long term risk of high blood pressure.
Finally it resulted that the consumption of probiotics helps to slow down systolic blood pressure of 3,56 mm Hg and the diastolic blood pressure of 2,83 mm Hg.


Functions of Forests
Forests are the most natural biological formation, closely tied with the Polish landscape (MAP illustrating the forests in Poland). They serve many functions. Firstly, forests protect and form other natural resources. Thanks to the processes of photosynthesis, they renew the oxygen stock in the atmosphere by fixing atmospheric carbon dioxide and moderating the so-called greenhouse effect. Forests also allow for the existence of many species of plants and animals, thus protecting diversity of nature and its gene stock. Forests clean the environment by muffling noises, lowering the wind strength as well as stopping dust and gases. They have a regulatory influence on surface water runoff, they moderate high and low temperatures and prevent soil erosion. By performing all of the above listed functions forests stabilize the climate and shape the landscape. Forests create conditions for relaxation, recreation and improvement of health.
Forests are a renewable source of resource (mainly timber) and other products, which cannot be eliminated from the everyday life of human beings or from the national economy. Timber is one of the elements of the environment of man ñ warm and friendly products made out of wood are found all around us. Forests are live, open, natural systems, that react to all external influences. The course and extent of these reactions allow us to treat forests as an indicator of change in nature (the condition of forests serves as evidence of the factors which endanger the natural environment).
Only now is the awareness of spiritual and material values of forests becoming more prevalent. This being after forests have undergone serious deformation and their values are highly tHReatened. This is the case for both tro../pical forests of the Amazon basin and European forests. Degradation of Polish forests was noticed a long time ago. The changes that occurred in the last decade were very serious and in some areas tHReaten the existence of forests.


Here’s a free template to make your own felt set based on Eric Carle’s popular children’s book, The Mixed Up Chameleon! The felt pieces are super easy to make and perfect to use for retelling the story.
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Recently we read the story, The Mixed Up Chameleon by Eric Carle. We even made a simple fine motor and counting game to go with it! Because the kids enjoyed the story so much, I decided to create a Mixed Up Chameleon felt set for the kids to use on our felt board. (If you don’t have a felt board, be sure to check out my simple tutorial for making your own!)
How to Make The Mixed Up Chameleon Felt Set
Use your printer to print out the pattern pieces onto paper. Cut them out.
Playing with the Felt Set
Often the kids start out by using the felt set to retell the story. They’ll usually have the book nearby as a reference as they’re playing.
As play progresses, the pieces usually become involved in a new story the kids make up all on their own!


History of Football
Association football, commonly referred to as just football or soccer, is basically a team sport played between two teams of eleven players each. It’s played throughout the world by about 250 million players in more than 200 different countries and dependencies. In the United States, the game is primarily played by the North American Soccer League, also known as the N.A.S.L., which is responsible for the scheduling and championship tournaments. The game has an interesting history and is commonly referred to as American football, although many people outside the country have come to view it as “football” because it has some aspects of both.
The game of soccer or football can be played either as a full contact sport or with less contact. The ball itself is referred to as the ball, and it’s used in the game by both men playing the game and women playing the game. The object of the game is for the team to score more points (“teams”) than the opposition. Each team is assigned a certain number of “goals” or points, depending on the nature of the game. Goals are scored when the ball enters the “goalmouth” or other goalmouth area, or when it is put into play by a teammate.
So, what is FOOTBALL? In its most basic form, FOOTBALL is the game played between teams in a football-like association environment. The word football can mean any of the following: the game of soccer; the sport of football; the ball; or the game of “rugby,” which features two teams wearing the same colored and shaped equipment. The word football can also indicate any of the following: the American football association (American football confederacy), rugby, hockey, or the Australian football league (adium league).
The game of football has developed many different variations over time. One of the most notable versions of the game that has caught on in the United States is soccer, better known as “futebol.” Soccer is a game played between two groups of players that are set up in a square field with goals located at the corners of the field. Unlike rugby union football, soccer does not feature a center stripe, which would occur if the ball was played in a rectangular or L shape. The reason for this is that soccer is not a traditional ball game; rather, the ball is generally either played with an oblong shaped object (the soccer ball) or with a flat-tipped object (a soccer ball used in place of a golf club ball).
Association football is played between teams of varying sizes and using different codes. Most commonly, football is played between men’s professional leagues such as the NFL, while college programs and recreational soccer fields may play the game as well. The game of soccer is played internationally, with the United States and Canada leading the way, but other countries such as Mexico, Brazil, and South Africa have become major players in the sport.
As previously mentioned, there are many different codes for football; therefore, the rules for each game will vary from one league to another. Some basic differences among the different codes include the number of players allowed on the field, the maximum allowed scores that may be scored, and even the time limits for games. There are also significant differences in the level of skill or “level” of play for each code. Thus, in order to be fair to all leagues, it is important to be familiar with all the various rules and regulations for the game of football. As a result, learning about the history of the game of football, how it is regulated, and how it may affect you professionally or personally as a fan, is very beneficial.


Easter: Part Three
What does Easter mean?
Easter means that God vindicates love.
Easter means that God vindicates nonviolence in the face of violence, defiant forgiveness in the face of hostility, courage in the face of despair, aggressive and abiding peace in times of war.
Easter means that there is no need for anyone to “pay the price” of sin or guilt or shame; there is no outstanding balance on our account. God has paid the price, cancelled the debt, wiped the slate clean. As Jesus puts it: “Go in peace, and sin no more.”
Easter means that God has turned one of the worst things in the world – the Roman imperial cross, an instrument of torture, shame, death, and intimidation – into a beautiful sign of salvation, peace, forgiveness, and love. And if such a dreadful thing is turned into such a beautiful thing, think of what else this God will do.
Easter means God is just getting started. Easter is the dove returning to Noah’s ark with a fresh olive leaf. Though water is all we can see for miles around, the leaf is decisive evidence that the flood is over, that the tides have turned.
Easter means joy. Easter means, "Yes!" Easter means the first crocus, fragile and indomitable, has just broken through.
So, that's what Easter means to us - let us know what it means to you!