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Russenorsk (Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈrʉsəˌnɔʂk]; Russian: Руссено́рск, [rʊsʲɪˈnorsk]) is an extinct dual-source pidgin language formerly used in the Arctic, which combined elements of Russian and Norwegian, and which was created by Russian traders and Norwegian fishermen from northern Norway and the Russian Kola peninsula. It was used extensively in Northern Norway for about 150 years in the Pomor trade. Russenorsk is important as a test case for theories concerning pidgin languages since it was used far away from most of the other documented pidgins of the world.
As is common in the development of pidgins and trade languages, the interaction of fishermen and traders with no common language necessitated the creation of some minimal form of communication. Like all pidgins, Russenorsk had a rudimentary grammar and a restricted vocabulary, mostly composed of words essential to Arctic fishing and trade (fish, weather, etc.) and did not particularly deal with unrelated issues (music, politics, etc.).
Barter existed between Russians and Norwegians for 150 years in the Troms and Finnmark counties. This barter was supported by the Norwegian government, and King Christian VII conferred city status to several settlements, such as Tromsø, to facilitate it. Norwegians mainly traded fish for flour and wheat from Russians. The trading went on throughout the sunny months of the year and was beneficial to both sides; Norwegians had access to cheap fish in the summer, whilst Russians had surplus wheat. Traders came from the areas near Murmansk and the White Sea, most often to Vardø, Hammerfest, and Tromsø, sometimes reaching as far as Lofoten.
The earliest recorded instance of Russenorsk was in 1785. It is one of the most studied northern pidgins; many linguists, for example, Olaf Broch, studied it. Unlike equatorial pidgins, it was formed from only two languages: Norwegian and Russian. Furthermore, these languages are not from the same branch of Indo-European languages. Also unlike equatorial pidgins, Russenorsk was formed from one social class.
Until 1850, Russenorsk was socially acceptable for all social classes. In 1850, Russenorsk became more limited to Norwegian fishermen, whereas Norwegian traders spent more time in Russia, often formally studying the language to the extent that they could communicate in rudimentary Russian. This caused Russenorsk to lose some of its prestige.
In 1917, Finland's declaration of independence from the Russia caused the Russian-Norwegian border to decrease significantly. In 1919, the border disappeared completely. Furthermore, the Soviet Union limited international contact significantly, decreasing the need for the common language between Norwegians and Russians. The last such Norwegian-Russian trade occurred in 1923.
One of the characteristics differentiating the pidgin from jargon is its grammar. Russenorsk is mainly influenced by Norwegian grammar, leading some to conclude that it is a variant of Norwegian with some Russian influence.
There are no clear verb conjugations. The main indication of a verb is the suffix -om, for example, kapitan på kajuta slipom (the captain is asleep in his cabin). Nominative nouns usually end with -a. Conjunctions used to make compound sentences or dependent clauses are ja, i, and jes. Kak is used as an interrogative word. The general word order is SVO, with some alterations for questions and sentences with adverbs.
På is used as the only preposition for the oblique case:
- For possession: klokka på ju (your watch)
- For location: mala penge på lamma (little money in the pocket), and principal på sjib? (Is the captain aboard the ship?)
- For temporal relation: på morradag (tomorrow), på gammel ras (last year).
- For direction: moja tvoja på vater kasstom (I will throw you in the water), nogoli dag tvoja reisa på Arkangel otsuda? (How many days did you travel from Arkhangelsk [to get] here?), på Arkangel reisom (go to Arkhangelsk).
- /h/, absent in Russian, became /g/: hav (sea) → gav.
- /x/, absent in Norwegian, became /k/: хорошо (khorosho, good) → korosho.
- /mn/, absent in Norwegian, became /n/: много ли (mnogo li, many?) → nogoli.
Corpora of Russenorsk consist of lists of individual words and phrases as well as records of dialogues compiled by linguists such as Just Knut Qvigstad. The corpora include c. 400 words, of which about half are hapax legomena.
Many words in Russenorsk have a synonym from the other primary language.
- Balduska, kvejta (halibut)
- Musik, man (man)
- Eta, den (this)
- Njet, ikke (not)
Some words can be etymologically traced to both Norwegian and Russian, for example, vin (Norwegian) and вино (Russian). Some words have an unclear etymology, for example, tovara or vara can come from Russian, Swedish, or Finnish.
- kralle (Russenorsk: krallom, Russian: красть, tr. krast', to steal)
- klæba (Russian: хлеб, tr. khleb, bread)
Russenorsk does not have extensive morphology, but has some unique characteristics. The ending -om does not come from Russian nor Norwegian, but it may come from Solombala English. The ending -mann, from Norwegian, is used to indicate nationality or profession, for example russmann (Russian), burmann (Norwegian), or kukmann (trader). Other morphological features are reduplication, such as morra-morradag (after tomorrow), and compounding, such as kua (cow) and sjorta (shirt) to kuasjorta (cowhide).
One characteristic syntactical attribute of Russenorsk is the tendency to move the verb to the final position when the sentence has adverbs. This is neither found in Russian nor Norwegian. Another is that the negator (ikke, njet) precedes the verb, but can be separated from the verb. This is unlike negation in either Russian or Norwegian, but it may have come from Finnish, in which this syntax was probable.
A lack of metalinguistic awareness amongst Russenorsk speakers may have led them to believe they were speaking the language of their interlocutor; that is, that Russians believed they were speaking Norwegian and vice versa.
R marks Russian origin, N marks Norwegian.
Kak sprek? Moja njet forsto. какR språkN моя́R нетR forståN how speak? my no understand What are you saying? I don't understand.
- Moja på tvoja. - I'm talking in your language.
- Kak sprek? Moje niet forsto. - What are you talking about? I don't understand.
- å råbbåte - work
- klæba - bread
- Ju spræk på moja kantor kom - You said that you would come to my office.
- Tvoja fisk kopom? - Will you buy fish?
- Saika kopom i på Arkangelsk på gaf spaserom - I'll buy pollack and we'll swim in Arkhangelsk.
- Kak pris? Mangeli kosta? - What is the price? How much?
- Eta grot dyr. Værsegod, på minder prodaj! - It is very expensive. Please lower the price!
Notes and references
- /po/ in both languages happens to mean 'in' when referring to speaking in a language, though they are pronounced slightly differently.
- Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Russenorsk". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- "Port of Tromso". Retrieved 2014-11-08.
- Bandle, Oskar; Braunmüller, Kurt; Jahr, Ernst Håkon; Naumann, Allan Karker Hans-Peter; Teleman, Ulf (2005). The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH. p. 1538. ISBN 3 11 017149 X.
- "Pomor trade". Retrieved 2011-11-01.
- "Russenorsk – A Language Sketch" (PDF). Retrieved 2011-11-02.
- Broch, Ingvild; Jahr, Ernst Håkon. "Russenorsk". Retrieved 2011-11-02.
- Serk-Hansen, Karoline. "Руссенорск". Retrieved 2011-11-01.
- Kortlandt, Frederik. "On Russenorsk" (PDF). Retrieved 2011-11-01.
- Belikov, Vladimir. "Some Fragments of Russenorsk Grammar". Retrieved 2011-11-01.
- "Pidgin – Russisch – Am Beispiel von Russenorsk". Retrieved 2011-11-01.
- Atlas języków: Pochodzenie i rozwój języków świata. Poznań: Oficyna Wydawnicza Atena. 1998. p. 146. ISBN 83-85414-31-2.
- Broch, I. & Jahr, E. H. 1984. Russenorsk: Et pidginspråk i Norge (2. utgave), Oslo: Novus.
- Broch, I. & Jahr, E. H. 1984. "Russenorsk: a new look at the Russo-Norwegian pidgin in northern Norway." In: P. Sture Ureland & I. Clarkson (eds.): Scandinavian Language Contacts, Cambridge: C.U.P., pp. 21–65.
- Jahr, E. H. 1996. "On the pidgin status of Russenorsk", in: E. H. Jahr and I. Broch (eds.): Language contact in the Arctic: Northern pidgins and contact languages, Berlin-New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 107-122.
- Lunden, S. S. 1978. Tracing the ancestry of Russenorsk. Slavia Orientalis 27/2, 213–217.


When teaching acting to high school and college students one of the things you are trying to get them to do is to make their performance real in terms of it being genuine and believable. This is not an easy thing to do as too often those who are training to be actors are more interested in performing, being funny, and creating a big moment on stage. One way to help actors understand and discover the power of staying in the moment and making their acting real is through the Silent Encounter. Here’s how it works.
Silent Acting Encounter Set Up
The silent acting encounter involves two or three actors with each playing a character that they have been given by the acting teacher or the class. Each actor in a scene is given three basic character elements which are described by answering the following questions:
- Who am I?
- What just happened?
- What do I want?
The “who am I” can be described by a job, relationship, or types. You might be a mechanic, banker, football player, etc. The “what just happened” question is answered by giving the character a situation that just occurred such as “I lost my wallet,” “my spouse just died,” or “I was told I have a week to live.” The “what do I want” is what we call the characters objective and it has to be expressed in an active manner. Examples include, “I want to feel safe,” “I want to die,” “I want to feel secure.”
To give actors a specific character you would answer the three questions, putting the elements on an index card. Thus a card might read, “Cab driver, found a million dollars, to hide it.” Another card might read, “Police officer, lost my partner in a shootout, to be comforted.” You need 20 to 30 of these for a class.
Two actors blindly pick index cards that contain their characters. They go off to opposite sides of the room, read their cards, and prep their characters quickly without discussing any aspect of their character with their scene partner. Usually a fairly neutral set such as a park bench works well for silent encounters.
The actors enter into the neutral setting as their character whenever they are ready and they then interact with the environment. They must:
- Not speak, these are silent
- Not mime
- Interact in an appropriate manner with their scene partner
- Keep their character real
- Play each moment genuinely (no over acting, mugging, etc.)
- Leave the environment when their character would
- Not worry about “performing.”
After each scene is over you should discuss the scene in terms of when it was real, when it was not genuine, what the class understood about each character (who they were, what just happened and what they wanted) and what the outcome of the scene was. Have the class talk about what they saw and the actors eventually discuss the scene and how it played out. Ask them if they were able to stay in the moment occasionally, a lot, or rarely and what that was like. Finally, talk about what they learned and then go on to the next scene.


This STD develops in four stages. Symptoms in the first two can be so mild that you might not notice them. One stage -- latent syphilis -- doesn’t have symptoms.
The other three phases have distinct symptoms. They develop as follows:
- Painless sores appear at the site of infection (mouth, anus, rectum, vagina, or penis). These are called chancres.
- The sores heal on their own after 3 to 6 weeks, but you can still spread syphilis.
- It’s easily treated and cured with medicine.
- Rough red or reddish brown rash on palms of hands and soles of feet
- Swollen lymph nodes
- Sore throat
- Patchy hair loss
- Headaches and body aches
- Extreme tiredness (fatigue)
These symptoms will go away, even if you don’t get treated. But if you’re not treated, your infection will get worse.
During this phase, the syphilis bacteria are still alive in your body, but you have no signs or symptoms of the infection. You’re not contagious during this stage, but syphilis may still affect your heart, brain, nerves, bones, and other parts of your body. This phase can last for years.
Not everyone who has syphilis will enter this phase of the infection. Some people will go into the tertiary stage.
This stage begins when symptoms from the secondary stage disappear. Syphilis isn’t contagious at this point, but the infection has started to affect your organs. This can lead to death. Symptoms of tertiary syphilis may include:
When Is It Contagious?
If you have syphilis, you can spread it during the first two stages and the early latent stage to someone you have sex with. If your partner touches a chancre or your rash, they can get the infection. It can enter the body through the genitals, mouth or broken skin. Pregnant women infected with syphilis can pass it on to their baby.
Even if the chancre is hidden inside your vagina or rectum, you can still spread syphilis. To lower your risk of catching this STD, always use condoms during sex. If you think there’s a chance you or your partner has it, get tested and treated.


Several definitions exist for content curation but recurring phrase in all the definitions suggest that it is a process of collecting, organizing and displaying information relevant to a particular topic or area of interest. Some definitions qualify this by specifying the content is digital in nature or that it is content found on the World Wide Web.
For me, content curation should not be restricted to digital content. If the content that is curated is digital, then the term digital curation may be more aptly suited to describe a particular type of content curation. Therefore, the mounting of a display in a museum which contains several artifacts of a Civilisation or the Independence of a country, or a Disc jockey selecting songs which have the theme of love, or a set of digital resources on a particular topic are examples of content curation.
As an instructor, the ubiquity of the Internet has led to a plethora of content being made available to everyone. Some of this content is of high academic quality especially if it is peer-reviewed material and unfortunately some of the content is opinionated, unevidenced and of lesser academic quality.
Content curation for the purpose of academic research can therefore significantly reduce the time spent by both instructors and students on wading through endless articles. Only recently, I came across an interesting article entitled “More Content Doesn’t Equal More Learning” where the author suggested teachers move away from being “content experts” and instead become “content curators”.
To facilitate content curation, several apps can be used. For my curated content on the specific topic of blended learning which is catered to an academic audience, I employed the use of the Storify app which has easy-to-use drag and drop features.
I have been using Evernote app to ‘grab’ or “curate” any useful material I happen to “stumble upon” on the Internet. After doing research for this assignment, I realized I have actually been doing content curation all along with Evernote but I am nonetheless excited by the features available in Storify.


Safe Disposal of Garden Chemicals
A practical guide from the Crop Protection Association
- Protect your environment, safeguard our environment
- Gardening contributes to the biodiversity found in your garden.
- Your actions influence our environment.
USE PESTICIDES SAFELY. ALWAYS READ THE LABEL. NEVER DISPOSE OF UNWANTED PRODUCT IN DRAINS, SINKS, LAVATORIES, WATERCOURSES OR DITCHES.
When stored, used and disposed of safely chemical products pose little risk to people or the wider environment. This document gives advice to gardeners on how to reduce the need for disposal and how to do it safely when the need occurs.
Disposal of Unwanted Product
THE BEST WAY TO MINIMISE DISPOSAL OF GARDEN CARE CHEMICAL PRODUCT IS TO USE IT IN THE GARDEN AS RECOMMENDED ON THE LABEL.
However from time to time, unwanted product will be produced and incorrect disposal can lead to a risk of pollution to ground and surface waters and possibly have an adverse impact on the wildlife around us all.
Garden care chemical products requiring disposal generally come from three sources:
- Surplus spray solution after treating a weed, pest or disease problem in the garden.
- Old or unwanted product that has been stored in the garden shed and is now not required.
- Garden care chemical products that have had their official approval for use withdrawn
(information about revoked garden products can be found on our website www.garden-care.org.uk and at
Avoiding the need for disposal
BEFORE USING A GARDEN CARE PRODUCT ALWAYS ASK
THE QUESTION - do I need to use a garden care chemical product? Some garden problems may be resolved using cultural or integrated approaches that do not require the use of garden care chemical products.
- Check what garden care chemicals you already have before buying any new product. Do not stockpile old product.
- Do not buy more then you need for the job. Only buying what is required avoids unnecessary storage and keeps your home tidy.
- Consider Ready-to-Use (RTU) products where available:
- RTUs are ready-mixed and avoid any contact with the chemical concentrate.
- They can be stored after partial use and re-used until empty, thus avoiding waste.
- Always use a suitable ready-to-use product if you are only treating a small area.
- When diluting a concentrated product always read the label carefully and aim to make up slightly too little of the spray solution rather than too much.
- Always store product safely and aim to use up within 2 years of purchase to ensure effectiveness.
I have surplus spray solution to get rid of - what can I do?
Never store surplus diluted spray solution between jobs. Products diluted with water are not always stable after storage. They can lose their effectiveness and become harmful to plants. Diluted products stored in unlabelled containers can pose a real danger to children and pets.
Instead, use up the surplus diluted product by applying on areas covered by the approved use given on the product label. Ensure the recommended application rate of the product is not exceeded.
Do not apply surplus product onto hard surfaces where it can be washed into drains and consider any risk to neighbouring property and wildlife habits. Note any precautions on the label relevant to pets and wildlife.
- Do not dispose of near ponds, streams, marshy areas, ditches or wildlife habitats.
- When using residual (long lasting) weedkiller products, note that there may be a lengthy period of time when re-sowing or planting is not advisible. ALWAYS READ THE LABEL.
- If in doubt contact your local waste disposal site for advice on disposal through your local waste disposal centre.
IT IS ILLEGAL to dispose of dilute surplus spray solution down drains, sinks or lavatories. Even a small amount of product disposed in this way can find its way into rivers and other surface waters.
I have revoked or other unwanted garden care chemical products to get rid of. What shall I do?
These products need to be disposed of through the local waste disposal
authority (County Council or Unitary Council).
Your Local Council can advise you which household waste sites take unwanted Garden care chemical products. Your Local Council will also advise you of any special arrangements for collection and disposal of hazardous household waste.
- Ensure that containers are clearly labelled to assist the waste disposal operator.
- Never mix different products together – they may react.
- Ensure waste product for transportation to the household waste site is kept in the original container. Check the container can be properly sealed for safe transport.
- Further advice can be obtained from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA)
NEVER DISPOSE OF CHEMICAL CONCENTRATE IN THE HOUSEHOLD WASTE OR DOWN THE HOUSEHOLD DRAINAGE
What about empty containers?
Containers that have held concentrated product (i.e. requiring dilution for use) properly rinsed, can be placed in household waste. The container should be rinsed three times adding the washings to the final spray solution.
Empty Ready-to-Use trigger sprayers can often be disposed directly into the household waste - Read the product label to check.
Improper disposal of containers can be a hazard to pets, wildlife and the environment.
NOTE: Garden care chemical product containers are not suitable for recycling.
ALWAYS THINK ABOUT HOW YOU WILL STORE, USE AND DISPOSE OF GARDEN CARE CHEMICAL PRODUCTS SAFELY. ALWAYS READ THE LABEL. USE PESTICIDES SAFELY
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#MORE ON ABOUT
San Jose, years before it became a town was a wilderness, a veritable hunting ground for wild animals by the inhabitants of its neighboring towns. The earliest inhabitants were known as Negritos (Baluga) headed by Kapitan Danding, a Negrito convert residing in Pinagcuartelan. These early inhabitants depended mostly on hunting and fishing for their livelihood. Some hunters from the neighboring towns found San Jose as a good place for settlers due to its wide and uncleared agricultural land. The first group of settlers made some clearings (kaingin) in the outskirts of the present town.
Important Facts and Events that Took Place
At the early part of the American regime, peace and order were enjoyed by the inhabitants of the town for a short period of time. In 1902, there was an uprising by an organization named "Sta. Iglesia" headed by a notorious bandit, "Apo Ipe" (Felipe Salvador) who hid in the environs of San Jose. The aim of this organization was the nightmare of the town until Sgt. Gregorio Cadhit of the constabulary detachment of San Jose killed the notorious bandit leader.
Period of Increased Responsibility
San Jose reared many persistent leaders; each adapted to his time, from Kapitan Municipal Don Canuto Ramos to the current First Lady City Mayor, Marivic V. Belena. These men and women who filled more than a century of exciting and eventful administration during their terms of office are worthy and deserving to be mentioned.
List of municipal executives of San Jose City from the Spanish period up to the present.
Political, Cultural and Sports Luminaries
The city is subdivided to the urban and rural district political areas. The urban subdivision comprises the five barangays or districts in the Poblacion (R. Rueda Sr., F. E. Marcos, C. Ramos, R. Eugenio and C. Sanchez) and the five barangays adjacent to the city proper (Abar 1st, Calaocan, Malasin, Sto. Niño 1st and Sibut). Although the area covered by the urban subdivision only consists of 10 barangays, the urban area has a total population of 58,342 or 42.26% of the total population of the city, which is 138,063 based on the 2014 update of population from the City Population Office.
The Official Seal of San Jose City
In resolution No. 69, series of 1969 of the First Municipal Board, the Official Seal of San Jose City (Figure 2) was adopted.


Artificial intelligence and cognitive computing is being heralded as the brave new frontier of clinical IT, Kim Thomas reports on how it is already beginning to reshape radiology imaging and diagnostics
IBM chose December’s annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America to showcase the ability of its Watson supercomputer to rapidly analyse medical images and suggest a diagnosis. Mark Griffiths, a clinical radiologist at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, who attended RSNA, says he saw some “stunning demonstrations” of the technology, including chest X-rays being “reported in milliseconds.”
Watson is an example of a technology that IBM refers to as “cognitive computing”. Using a form of artificial intelligence known as natural language processing, Watson, a cloud-based system, is able to analyse vast stores of scholarly articles, patient records and medical images. (When IBM acquired Merge Healthcare in 2015, it gained access to the company’s database of 30 billion images.) This ability to interpret written language is what marks Watson out as different from other computer-based tools used to aid diagnosis.
Not enough radiologists to meet demand
In England, the volume of radiology images taken has increased at the rate of 3.6% a year for 20 years, and there are not enough radiologists to meet demand. Could Watson – and other AI tools – provide a solution to the problem of overstretched radiology departments? And – as some fear – could it replace radiologists altogether?
Many radiologists are already comfortable with the idea of using computer-aided diagnosis. Neelam Dugar, consultant radiologist at Doncaster & Bassetlaw Hospital NHS Trust, has used Siemens’s CAD tool for detecting lung nodules, finding its detecting abilities “far superior to radiologists”, though she adds that, while its sensitivity is high, its specificity is low, so that it also “picks up a lot of rubbish”.
The UK firm Blackford Analysis has had success in the US market with Smart Localizer, a tool that enables radiologists to compare multiple imaging studies simultaneously. CEO Ben Panter says: “It lines up scans to allow radiologists to read them more quickly. We do that by being able to link lesion locations of any sort between current and prior scans or across modalities. If a radiologist has to track the change in five or six different lesions there’s a huge amount of scrolling they have to do and we eliminate that time.”
AI tools ‘taught’ like a medical student and continually learn
But solutions such as Watson, and other similar AI tools being developed by Enlitic and Sectra, seem to offer a radical departure, mimicking the processes used by the human brain. Watson has been “taught” by experts how to interpret the reams of data it stores. Steve Tolle, global VP of imaging strategy at IBM Watson Health, explains: “We train this platform as if we’re training a medical student, through repetitive learning.”
As it acquires new information, Watson is able to improve its diagnostic capabilities. “What will evolve over time will be the medical literature,” says Tolle. “There’s going to be a new therapy, there’s going to be a new published article on different techniques or risk scoring for a specific disease. Watson will be able to surface those changes in the medical literature, and that’s where you’ll see the evolution of our technology. You will see accuracy and specificity of some of these algorithms improve.”
Dugar can certainly see the opportunities offered by cognitive computing. In radiology, she says, two of the most common errors are missed lung cancer and missed fractures: “I can see huge potential for improving patient care. Missed fractures and missed lung cancers will reduce substantially, and it will reduce the cost to the NHS from litigation.”
Misinterpretation remains key challenge
But she is also mindful of the technology’s limitations. While she believes CAD tools can reduce one kind of radiological error (“not being able to perceive something”), she is less sure that they can help with the problem of misinterpretation – spotting something on an image but failing to identify it correctly. “We do develop visual fatigue,” she says. “There are too many images there. But what we are good at is putting together clinical history, blood results, histopathology reports and giving a diagnosis, and I think that’s a very long way away for computers.” She also notes that the use of free text in an EPR might cause problems for an algorithm – in a phrase such as “no evidence of lung cancer”, the computer might only pick up “lung cancer”.
AI access to large validated imaging datasets vital
While optimistic about the potential of cognitive computing, Griffiths points to the importance of technologies such as Watson having access to validated datasets, so that they learn when a diagnosis has been correct.
In the UK, he notes, large imaging datasets have been accumulated in the 12 years since PACS systems were rolled out throughout the NHS: “If we can link that properly to our electronic medical records or even with the Cancer Registry, that’s where we’re going to get to win with these powerful tools.” He sees potential in the decision by NHS Scotland to hand over 30m studies (more than two billion images) from its national Carestream PACS to the Farr Institute, a research collaboration between academic institutions and health organisations that is analysing data analytics to improve patient care.
AI diagnosis only as good as algorithms used
The effectiveness of AI tools in making diagnoses can only be as good as the algorithms used to inform them. It’s an issue that Sectra, also working on an AI solution for radiology, understands all too well, says Claes Lundstrom, the company’s research director: “How we can be sure that this algorithm is still going to work when we put in a new version of the CT scanner? Or when we try to apply it to another department down the street? And that’s the very fundamental problem, and that’s where the work lies ahead. We have good core algorithms but we have to find out how to put them into a workflow context and organise the quality assurance measures that make sure we don’t arrive at these horrible mistakes.”
We may find out quite soon how successful Watson is when used in the real world. This year, IBM will launch two Watson-based imaging applications: a retrospective peer review tool and a patient summarisation tool. Other applications will follow in 2018. In the longer term, IBM’s plans for the technology are ambitious: Tolle says that when the imaging tool has helped diagnose a patient’s cancer, the Watson oncology tool can then identify the best treatment – and data on the effectiveness of the treatment will then be used to refine the diagnostic and treatment applications further.
For the present, at least, the consensus is that AI will aid radiologists, but not replace them. As Lundstrom says: “The role of the radiologist will change but it will be more like a Formula One driver kind of role. You have this extremely powerful machine but you need a very competent driver to know where to go and how to get there in the most effective and efficient way.”


Organize, Imagine, and Act: How a Student Movement Can Become a Revolution
And so it seems that the student strike in Quebec is slowing down and nearing an end, as the college – CEGEPs – in Quebec have voted to return to class, with roughly 10,000 students having voted to continue the strike, a far reduction from the 175,000 students that were on strike in late April and early May. The strike began in February of 2012 in opposition to a planned 75% increase in the cost of tuition. The students mobilized massive numbers, held mass protests, undertook picket lines at schools, expanded the issue into a wider social movement, and were consistently met with state violence in the form of riot police, pepper spray, tear gas, beatings with batons, being shot with rubber bullets, even being trampled by horses and driven into by police cars. The government enacted Bill 78, assaulting the rights to freely assemble and speak, and put a ‘pause’ on the school semester to end picket actions. Now that the school semester is starting back up again, and an election looms in the coming weeks, the students are being led away from the streets and into voting booths. The ‘Maple Spring’ has become the ‘Fall Election’.
Meanwhile, in Chile, where a student movement that began in May and June of 2011, mobilized against a highly privatized education system, is continuing with renewed energy. There had been ups and downs of actions and mobilizations within Chile over the past 15 months, but in mid-August of 2012, the resurgence was seen as students began occupying high schools, blocking streets, and undertaking mass protests. Students who took part in the occupations were threatened with having their scholarships removed. In over a year of protesting, the students have not seen any meaningful changes to their educational system, or even inclinations that those in power were listening to their demands with anything other than disdain and contempt. The students have long been met with state violence, from the oppressive apparatus of a former military dictatorship, fighting an educational system which was established near the end of the military dictatorship. Riot police would meet students with tear gas, water cannons, batons, mass arrests, and other forms of assault. Police have subsequently stormed the high schools and arrested over a hundred students participating in the occupations. This caused the university students to get more involved, and they occupied the Universidad de Chile, which had not been occupied since the beginning of the movement the previous year (often known as the Chilean Winter).
In Chile, as in Quebec, protests and marches and even the right to demonstrate are frequently declared to be illegal. In both Chile and Quebec, when protests erupted into violence (which is more often than not incited by the police themselves), these are called “riots,” and they are used in the media and public discourse to portray the movements as violent, extremist, trouble-makers, vandals, and criminals. This is designed to reduce public support for the protests (which was far more successful in Quebec than Chile), and to subsequently dismiss the demands of the students. There are, in fact, a wider variety of similarities and interesting comparisons between the Chilean Winter and the Maple Spring. Chilean students and academics have even expressed solidarity with the Quebec student movement.
We face an issue here. The student movements don’t seem to be getting anywhere substantial in terms of establishing some sort of meaningful change. This is not to say they have not achieved anything; quite the opposite, in fact. The student movements have been successful at mobilization large numbers of people, organizing protests and indeed, in politicizing a generation, which is their most sincere and important success to date. Students have suffered under propaganda campaigns, violent repression, legal intimidation, and, most of all, the determination of an elite who view any and every minor concession as the ultimate unthinkable sacrifice which would ruin all of society. In short, elites are more stubborn than students could ever seem to be, and they have the means to hold their position and tire the students out if they can’t simply scare them away or crush them down. So, while symbolic actions and political radicalization are necessary achievements, the will to continue taking actions and the hope to manifest radical ideas becomes worn down, demoralized, and sapped of its strength. This is incredibly challenging to revive if the circumstances and courses of action do not change.
So perhaps it is time for a new tactic. Instead of having radicalization follow mobilization, students could begin to have radicalization guide mobilization. For any social movement to advance, grow, and become something not simply demanding reforms, or demanding something from power, it needs to provide something to the students, to the communities, and the public at large; it needs to create. This is the difference between a reformist movement and a revolutionary movement. In this context, the word ‘revolutionary’ is not used to imply a usurping of state power and violent overthrow of authority, but rather to transform on a radical scale our conception and participation in specific or all sectors of society. Thus, it is essential to provide new ideas for action, rather than discussing and debating the new terms of capitulation. It can make all the difference between a question of how little students will get from their demands, to a question of how much we can get from a new educational structure itself. A discussion of new ideas must replace – or coincide with – the articulation of ignored demands.
How is this possible? What might this look like?
For students, the fundamental issue is education. For the student movements, growth came from expanding the issue into a wider social one, and linking up with other organizations and causes. This expands the scope, and thus, the base of support for a student movement. However, established unions played a large role in guiding (or attempting to guide), fund, and organize in cooperation with student movements. While the cause of workers is an issue that must be engaged with, the established unions that have survived to this point, roughly thirty years into the global neoliberal era, have survived only because they function on a basis of cooperating with the established powers of society, the state and corporations. They are corporatist institutions.
Over one hundred years ago, unions were extremely radical, organized, massive, and revolutionary. The actions and ideas of radically organized labour were the impetus for 8-hour work days, weekends, pensions, job security, benefits, an end to child labour, and much more. Unions subsequently faced roughly a century of battering, violence, co-optation, and destruction. Those which remain are not radical, but only slightly reformist. I say ‘slightly’ because they do not mobilize to fight for new ideas or issues, but only to protect and preserve the reforms previously implemented as a result of radical labour agitation. Thus, union representative serve as a buffer for the blunt force of the state and organized capital and corporate interests which consistently seek to undermine and exploit labour. The major unions typically serve to soften the blow against workers as the elite bring down the hammer. Under this system, all rights, benefits, security and protections are slowly and inevitably worn down and thrown away. When the established unions provide funds and direction for the student movements, they tend to steer them away from radical or revolutionary paths, and promote a highly reformist direction, and which can only be undertaken through negotiation with and capitulation to the state and corporate interests. This gets us to where we are.
When it comes to engagement and interaction, solidarity, and cooperation with labour, it should, in fact, be the more radical – and radically organized – students who lead the unions back to a more radical direction, to take them back to their origins when they achieved successes instead of softened failures. If they refuse to follow a radical direction, then students should encourage and attempt to find means of supporting the organization of new labour organizations: provide assistance, direction, ideas and physical and moral support. Students could be mobilized into the streets for workers’ rights as well as educational rights.
The main point here is that for a movement to radicalize and become revolutionary, it must cooperate with, support, and be supported by other radical and revolutionary organizations and movements. If the more dominant force is reformist, established, and corporatist (by which I mean its functioning ideology is accepting of the state and corporate dominated society), then these organizations will attempt to co-opt, direct, and steer your movement into an area ‘safe’ for the elites, if not altogether undermined and eliminated. It is not necessarily done out of an insidious desire to destroy your student movements, but rather the result of an insidious ideology embedded within the very functions of their organizations. Thus, integration, mutual support, dependency and interaction with other social movements must take place at a radical and revolutionary level if you are to sustain that potential and desire within your own movement. It’s unfortunate, because it’s more difficult; but it’s true, all the same.
Therefore, what is required are radical ideas of organization: for the student associations and other associations they interact with to be more accountable, directly, to their constituents. Instead of elected delegates or representatives making all the decisions (which is how our governments function), the decisions must be made by the constituents, and the representatives merely carry them out and organize accordingly. The student associations in Quebec and elsewhere function more along these radical lines, while labour and other groups typically do not. If student associations do not function in this manner, that is the first issue which must be addressed: either demand the associations to change, or create new ones and thereby make the unrepresentative ones obsolete. Thus, for a student movement to become revolutionary, the first step is the radicalization of organization.
Now onto something more interesting: how to radicalize ideas and actions in education itself. This next step is about the radicalization of action. While the first step, in many instances – the radicalization of organization – had been achieved in several of the student movements, the actions themselves lacked radicalization. The actions were largely confined to mass demonstrations, picket lines, school occupations, and youth rebellion against state violence and repression. These are all important actions on their own: establishing solidarity, power in numbers, a public presence, a demonstration of will and power, the development of ‘self-esteem’ for a social movement. These are necessary, but if the actions do not evolve, the movement itself cannot evolve. Thus, what is required at this point is a discussion of new ideas of action. Typically, as is the case at the moment in Quebec, students are being told to stay out of the streets and go to the voting booth, where “real” change can be made. This is illusory and useless. Unless there is a radical party, the best that can be hoped for is to delay the inevitable assault on education, or perhaps achieve a minor concession, which would likely be more of an insult than incentive.
New ideas of action must come from the students themselves, and there are a number of initiatives that could be discussed and undertaken. Fundamentally, instead of demanding from power, create something new. If education is what you want, begin to do it yourselves. In the case of a school occupations, why should the students not simply begin to have discussions on issues, share knowledge, invite professors, academics, and others who are supportive of the movement to come talk and share their knowledge?
This does not need to only take place in occupied schools, though that would be quite symbolic, but could essentially take place in any public space. It would function as a type of grassroots educational system, designed to share and expand knowledge, not to prepare you for the workforce. Job opportunities are already vanishing everywhere for youth, and they will continue to do so as the economic crisis gets worse. These types of educational forums could potentially be designed to educate and share knowledge on issues of relevance to the student movements themselves: the history of education, protest and social movement history, political power, repression, the economic system – Capitalism, neoliberalism, etc. This could – and should – expand into much larger issues and areas of knowledge, including arts, the sciences, philosophy, etc. There are already people within society who have gained their knowledge through educational institutions, and thus, there are already people from whom to draw this knowledge from in a new forum, and in a new way.
To give an example, imagine a ‘class’ (or forum) on the history of social struggles. First, a physical space is required, so to set up in a park, public venue, rent a space, or occupy a space (such as a school lecture hall). The students should have previously discussed – likely through social media networks – which intellectuals and individuals they would like to invite to come speak to them about the issue. The invited speakers would share their knowledge on the history of social struggles, promote discussion, debate one another, and engage directly with the students. For every invited outside speaker, a student should be invited to speak also, to share their own knowledge and engage on an equal basis. The notion that students are there only to learn and not teach is an incorrect one, and it’s a misnomer that should be addressed and acted upon.
The public at large should also be accepted into these educational forums. The point should be to expand knowledge and discussion among the general population, not merely the students. But the students are the ones capable of providing this forum for the population at large. To add to this: such forums should be broadcast through social media, filmed and recorded, watched online both live and archived. Students could organize ‘subject collectives’, perhaps having a group of students organized along the lines of the larger student associations (through direct democracy), who would oversee the organization of each subject or issue: history of social movements, political economy, media studies, etc. Each ‘collective’ could establish its own website, where the wider community would be encouraged to engage, support, recommend speakers and issues and venues, watch archived or live-feed forums, debate in online forums, be notified of events and speakers, and be provided with educational material, reading sources, etc. The students could write papers which would then be posted publicly on such sites, to promote discussion and to actually use the knowledge instead of writing papers for a grade, which is a rather absurd notion. These sites could have news sections, providing relevant news and developments from around the world related to their issue. The collective itself – both within the community and online – then becomes a forum for the development and extension of knowledge to a much larger sector of society, locally and globally.
This is where the actions become even more important. For a social movement to survive and expand into a revolutionary movement, it must not isolate itself, and must engage and interact directly with the wider population. The best way to do this, and one which has the added necessary effect of increasing the movement’s support among the population, is to provide a service or need. In the case of a student movement: that need is education. Merely ‘opening up’ forums to the public may not be enough. Students or ‘subject collectives’ could individually organize smaller meetings and discussions, in neighbourhoods and venues all over the city, region, or country, where students themselves speak with and to the public on issues in which they have been getting their education.
In Quebec, where students have been consistently framed by the media and elites as “entitled brats,” this tactic would be a means to share our so-called ‘entitlements’ with the wider population, and at no cost to them. Thus, as students gain knowledge, they share knowledge with others. For example, a couple history students could hold a small forum at a cafe or in a small public location which they had promoted within the neighbourhood and on social media for people to freely come to listen and engage in a discussion about a particular history topic. Of course, knowledge in such circumstances should not simply be abstract or obtuse, but relevant to those who are engaging with it. So if the discussion is on a ‘history of social movements,’ students should share knowledge on this, but make it relevant to the current social movement, to the social conditions of the wider population, and ask questions and engage with others in the venue: to promote discussion and debate. Thus, instead of the public viewing students as ‘entitled’, they may come to view students as ’empowering.’
This type of tactic would especially have to be employed within poor communities, and oppressed communities, where students would have to be willing to listen and learn more than they would be inclined to speak and teach. This is because many student movements, simply by their position as being students, generally come from a more privileged sector of society than the really poor, minority, immigrant, or otherwise oppressed communities. These sectors largely remain in the sidelines of the student movements themselves. This must change, and for a very fundamental reason: there is a great deal to learn from these communities. Oppressed peoples have experienced and known for a much longer period of time what the majority of students are only just starting to learn and experience: the true nature and interest of power, the violent and oppressive state apparatus, the underbelly of the economic system, the reality of social existence for a great many people. In short, it would be a means through which to educate the students on deeper issues of social strife, by listening and speaking directly to and with those who exist within oppressed social spheres.
But there cannot be any taking without giving. So while oppressed communities may perhaps be willing to share their own knowledge with students and engage in discussion and debate, the students must provide something back to these communities. There is a very simple way to get this started: ask them what they need most in their communities. For example, if one community cited the cost and quality of food as a central issue, students could then leave the first meeting with the community with the intent to organize and plan around this issue. The students could hold their own discussions, meetings, debates, and share ideas on how to help resolve this specific issue within that specific community, and then propose various ideas to those community leaders. The ideas would be subject to critique, dismissal, support, etc, to go back to the drawing board with new suggestions or to get to work, putting action to the ideas.
So with the issue of food, for example, students could perhaps organize around the idea of establishing a community food garden, proposing it to the community, and, if approved and critiqued, they could find an area of land, get the support and materials they need, and work with members of that community to plant and establish such a garden, to help move toward some form of food sustainability, provided either free or cheap to those within that area. Potentially, there could be a student educational association which specialized in sharing knowledge about nutrition, horticulture, etc., and they could be brought in to share their knowledge, help in the endeavour, or even make it a staple feature of their functioning: to go to different communities to help establish food sustainability.
These are, of course, just ideas of actions, there is no reason to follow this specific outline. This is meant to merely promote the discussion of this concept: the actions, organizations, and objectives which would result from a radicalization of action are likely to be far more varied, interesting, and effective than these mere suggestions. However, I used these examples of actions and ideas to show how a student movement protesting against something (such as a tuition increase), can become a revolutionary movement for something.
These actions are revolutionary because they force people to question and reconsider their conceptions of education, its manifestation, its purpose, its institutionalization, philosophy, etc. The actions themselves engage directly with people, drawing from and providing to the population as a whole. This increases support among the population, but also greatly strengthens the ideas and actions of the students themselves. At such a conceivable point, it could not be called a ‘student movement,’ but could only be identified as a much wider social movement, which would help radicalize the wider society itself, which would in turn provide new ideas and actions to the students; solidarity in both words and actions.
These actions are revolutionary because they attempt to maneuver around power structures instead of expending all of their energy on directly battling the power structure itself. By going around the power structure – around the state, the schools, the corporations, etc. – the students would create a parallel educational structure within society, making the existing one increasingly obsolete. As this is done, the bargaining power of the state and other structures is reduced, because the students no longer rely exclusively upon them for an education. The state would most certainly attempt to repress such a movement, or perhaps even to offer much larger incentives, concessions, or even meet the previous demands of students in order to get them back in the schools and within an educational system that power controls. The state is well-established to deal with direct confrontations: that’s what police, armies, guns, badges and lawyers are for. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you’re demanding, or where you are demanding it, the state can simply tear gas you, scare you, disperse you, and wait you out. But to move around the power structure, and to create and establish something new, not under the control or direction of established institutions of power, the power structures become very nervous and insecure.
It would be foolish to think that the power structures would not respond with more state violence than they have up until present, they most certainly would. The primary difference, however, would be that the public support for the movement would have conceivably exploded, and in the case of increased violence, it would explode in anger and opposition to the state. In short, while the state would be likely to increase its tactics of intimidation and violence, the public response would likely be far more powerful than anything we have seen thus far. We saw an example of this in Quebec, when the government passed the repressive Bill 78 and a much larger segment of the population was mobilized in opposition to the government. However, this has now largely faded, and again, it’s about the difference between mobilizing against something and mobilizing for something. It’s the difference between opposition and proposition, demand and action.
The fundamental idea which I am arguing is that for a student movement to become a revolutionary movement, it must transform its demands of education into actions for education. If the issue is education, the answer is education. The inability of the student movements to have their demands met reveals a deeply-ingrained flaw in our society: that an institution does not reflect or respond to the demands of its supposed constituents. This fact makes that institution illegitimate. This flaw further manifests itself across the entire society. If the government itself, which is supposedly ‘representative’ of the people, does not reflect the intentions and interests of the population, then it is illegitimate. Most institutions do not even have a means for their constituents to have a say in who runs the institutions themselves. Some, such as governments or unions, may have elections in which people can choose candidates, but then all the other decisions are taken out of their hands. Other institutions, such as schools, corporations, banks, media, etc., do not even have a means for constituents to select leadership, let alone direction and action. University boards are populated with bankers, former government officials, corporate executives, foundation officials, and other established elites. Therefore, universities are geared toward meeting elite interests under their direction. This is flawed and wrong. Though, because most institutions function in this way across wider society, it tends to go unnoticed and is simply accepted as “the way it is.”
Students must now ask: Does it have to be this way? What other way could it be? What should change? How could that change? What is the intent of education? These questions lead to other, larger questions about the society as a whole, and, as a result, they make necessary the wider radicalization, organization, and revolution of society itself. It is a rather large idea, but I think it is also a logical one. As the economic and social circumstances for most people continue to deteriorate in the near future – and perhaps rapidly so as the global economic crisis accelerates – such ideas and actions will become all the more necessary and will generate much more support.
Since the beginning of the global economic crisis in 2007 and 2008, the world has seen a rapid acceleration of resistance movements, protests, and revolutionary struggles. The world is rumbling awake from a long lost slumber of consumption and consent as the situation of crisis reveals deep flaws in the structures, ideology, and actions of power. We are witnessing the rapid proliferation of global resistance movements, but it requires much more for them to become global revolutionary movements. It has only begun, but it requires new ideas and actions to move forward. It would potentially be very challenging to begin such actions now, but in the very least, student movements should begin to advance the discussion, to debate the direction, and to incite new ideas. These are, after all, the skills that an education is supposed to provide us with.
Perhaps it is time to put our education to use.
Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer living in Montreal, Canada. His website (www.andrewgavinmarshall.com) features a number of articles and essays focusing on an analysis of power and resistance in the political, social, and economic realms. He is Project Manager of The People’s Book Project, and is currently writing a book on the global economic crisis and resistance movements emerging around the world. To help this book come to completion, please consider donating through the website or on Indiegogo.


A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) study was carried out with data comparison to provide guidance for the control of open shock tube wave expansion to simulate field blast loadings for the conduct of biomechanical blast overpressure tests against surrogate test models. The technique involves the addition of a diffuser to the shock tube to prevent overexpansion before the shock wave impacts the test model. Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) has been identified as the signature injury for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and blast overpressure from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) has been hypothesized as a significant mTBI risk factor. Research in the understanding of the mechanism of blast induced mTBI has been very active, which requires blast testing using animal and physical models. Full scale field blast testing is expensive. The use of shock tubes is clearly a viable cost effective laboratory method with many advantages. CFD simulations with data comparison show that without a diffuser, the shock wave exiting the tube tends to over expand producing an incident waveform with a short positive duration followed by a significant negative phase that is different from a Friedlander wave. However, the overexpansion effects can be mitigated by a diffuser. Shock tube tests also support the simulation results in which a diffuser improves the waveform from the shock tube. CFD simulations were validated by shock tube tests.
Use of Shock Tubes for Blast Testing
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Whang, C, Chilton, W, & Chan, P. "Use of Shock Tubes for Blast Testing." Proceedings of the ASME 2013 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition. Volume 3A: Biomedical and Biotechnology Engineering. San Diego, California, USA. November 15–21, 2013. V03AT03A052. ASME. https://doi.org/10.1115/IMECE2013-63027
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Stoplights are everywhere. They tell us when to go, pause, or stop. But why are stoplights red, yellow, and green? Let’s find out!
Why Are Stoplights Red, Yellow, and Green?
In the 1830’s, railroads were being constructed at a rapid pace and it became apparent that traffic signals were needed. Engineers began brainstorming and came up with a three color light system: white meant go, green meant caution, and red meant stop. Due to its wavelengths, red can be seen at a farther distance than any other color on the spectrum, which is why it has historically been used to signify danger. Green is said to have been chosen because it is easily distinguished from red.
This system worked fairly well until train conductors started running into issues with the white “go” signal. In one accident, a red lens fell out, exposing the white light behind it. This led to a train running a “stop” signal, and crashing into another train.
After these incidents started piling up it was clear that a change in colors was necessary. They slightly altered the system so that green signified go and yellow meant caution, since yellow is the second most visible color on the spectrum. Interestingly, for a while, yellow was the chosen color for stop signs since red proved difficult to see in low lighting. Once reflective technology came out, however, stop signs were painted red, but yellow can still be found on school buses and warning signs.
The First Lights for Road Traffic
There were many inventions all over the world that took place before the international traffic light system that’s used today. One such invention was created in London 1865 due to concern over horse-drawn traffic interfering with pedestrians. A man named John Peake Knight sought to solve this issue with the use of a semaphore system.
A semaphore is a structure with colored arms that would be lowered or raised by a police officer to control traffic. At nighttime, the semaphore would flash either a red or green light instead of using the arms. This system was implemented in London and worked well for about a month. One day, however, one of the gas lines that supplied the lights began to leak. The policeman operating the device was unaware of the leak and was severely burned after the lamp exploded on him, ending the semaphore system.
In the U.S. during the early 20th century, there was a slightly different system in place. Watchtowers had been constructed all over the country for policeman as they used their whistles to guide the flow of traffic. In 1920, a policeman named William L. Potts sought change and invented the three color light system using red, yellow, and green. Detroit was the first city in history to use these lights to control traffic.
What Came Before the System We Have Now?
Inventors all over the country continued to create different mechanisms for road traffic since the three color light system had not yet made its way to all of the states. The majority of these designs required someone to push a button or flip a switch to change the color of the light which made them very costly.
In the late 1920’s, automatic signals were invented and allowed the lights to change at different time intervals. This meant, however, that some cars would be stopped even when there were no other cars in sight. To counter this, one inventor came up with a signal that could detect a car honking its horn. A microphone was mounted on a pole at the intersection that would change the light when a car honked. To prevent people from honking continuously, they created a ten second wait interval after each light change. This was obviously quite annoying for anyone within hearing range, and was considered one of the less favorable stoplight inventions.
Having different systems proved to be a major problem for cars traveling through multiple areas. It was possible to encounter several systems in a single drive which caused a lot of frustration. In 1935, the Federal Highway Administration created The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. This manual set a standard for all traffic signals, road signs, and pavement markings that we see today.
How the System Works Today
Today, these traffic systems sometimes use lasers or rubber tubes, but the most common is the inductive loop method. This method requires grooves to be cut in the roadway at the stop line of traffic lights. It’s a common belief that these grooves sense the weight of a vehicle, but actually there is a loop that detects change in the magnetic field. When a car enters the field the inductance rises and tells system there’s a car present.
Red, yellow, and green have become universal for stop, pause and go, and are meant to be visible in all types of weather. Today, this system helps create order and safety on increasingly busy roads.


Written By Clare Scott Via 3DPrint.com
In the Neolithic era, Japan was home to a culture of people known as the Jōmon. A race of hunter-gatherers,the Jōmon are known for their distinctive pottery, which is, according to experts, the oldest pottery in Japan. The pottery, made with unrefined clay and decorated by pressing rope into the surface of the clay before firing, has been found in numerous archaeological sites across Japan. Radiologic dating has shown fragments of the pottery to date back as far as 12700 BCE, though many researchers theorize that it was made even earlier than that time.
It’s amazing that anything that old survives today, and it’s even more amazing that some of it still remains whole. James Koyanagi, a retired architect in Burlington, Ontario, is the owner of a Jōmon vase that dates back to 4000 BCE. Such an object leaves researchers salivating, but due to its extreme age and fragility, close study of the vase hasn’t been possible without incurring damage. Until now, that is.
Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario is home to the sophisticated Additive Manufacturing Resource Centre (AMRC). Opened in 2014, it’s already established a reputation for being one of the best sources of 3D printing and additive manufacturing research and education in Ontario. Mohawk professors Reid Flock and Robert Gerritsen decided to take advantage of the facility to recreate Koyanagi’s vase in perfect detail.


Ancient DNA generally preservers in form of short fragments comparable in length with length of read made by modern sequencers. Therefore, it could be useful to merge overlapping paired-end reads of short fragment into single sequence. A special tool called BBMerge can help us with this task.
In this tutorial we will work with reads of thousand year old tuberculosis strain, which was explored during this research. You can download original files here, but in this tutorial we will work with a small subset of these reads to make processing faster. You can download smaller files using this link.
Log into InsideDNA application, navigate into Files tab and create a folder called Ancient tuberculosis.
Upload files with reads into this folder.
We will use fastqc tool to check out the quality of our raw data. To run this tool, navigate to Terminal Tab, connect virtual Terminal and enter the following command into it:
isub -t fastqc -c 4 -r 3.6 -e "/srv/dna_tools/fastqc/fastqc
/data/userXXX/Ancient_tuberculosis/R2.fastq -o /data/userXXX/Ancient_tuberculosis/"
Here and further you should replace XXX with your own userID, which you can find in the header of Terminal tab.
Press Enter to submit your task.
This task will produce fastqc reports for both files with reads and save these reports into Ancient tuberculosis folder. You can monitor progress of your task in Tasks folder.
When fastqc has done its job, you can move onto Files tab and Ancient tuberculosis folder and download files with reports – R1_fastqc.html and R2_fastc.html. Open these files in any browser and explore their content.
The main problem with these reads is the contamination with adapter sequences, which we need to discard. We will use trimmomatic tools for thispurpose. Additional use of this tool is the separation of paired reads from unpaired ones, which are often present even in files, obtained as paired-end reads. For bbmerge tool we need to have only reads with pairs.
To clean up reads from adapters we need file with Illumina TrueSeq adapters for paired-end reads. Which you can download here. Upload this file into Ancient tuberculosis folder.
Enter the following command for trimmomatic tool into Terminal:
isub -t trimmomatic -c 4 -r 3.6 -e "java -jar /srv/dna_tools/trimmomatic_0.33/trimmomatic-0.33.jar PE -threads 4 -phred33
When the task is done, you will find files with processed reads in Ancient tuberculosis folder. We will take ones with index “paired” as input for bbmerge tool.
To run bbmerge, enter the following command into Terminal:
isub -t bbmerge -c 4 -r 3.6 -e "/srv/dna_tools/bbmap-36.02/bbmerge.sh
When this task is finished, file merged.fastq in Ancient tuberculosis will contain merged reads. You can view the statistics of merging by running the following command via Terminal:
As you can see, in our case about 70% or input reads were successfully merged, which is a rather good result.
Well done, now you learned some basics of ancient reads processing!
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During World War One, Marxists thought that the brutality of the war along with the class structure of the military would cause Marxist revolutions throughout the Western World. Instead only Russia went communist. Ironically, Russia did not have an industrial economy, and was the only country that they did not think would go communist.
Perplexed, some of the top communist thinkers settled in the 1920s at Goethe University, in Frankfurt, Germany, where they studied the ‘problem’. They found several things.
First and foremost they found that the West had a highly individualistic culture that was incompatible with collectivist ideals. They also found that Western societies were far too wealthy to want to change cultures. In America even that long ago for example, almost every family had a car…
They considered the wealth of the people, rich and poor alike, a problem because they put the ideology of communism ahead of the wealth of flesh and blood people.
They also came up with what they considered a solution, which they called ‘Critical Theory’. Critical Theory says, in a nutshell, that because of the relative wealth of the west, it will be impossible to get the proletariat to rise up against the bourgeoisie, and thus class warfare is not a viable thing to press for.
They threw out the notion of the rich oppressing the poor, and instead started slicing society into ever smaller slices, each of which was turned against the German culture. Jewish people were the obvious first choice.
When Hitler came to power, largely as a counter-weight to Critical Theory, he oppressed communism. The Frankfurt School fled, primarily to the United States, where they entrenched themselves in American universities.
They made only small inroads until the Vietnam War. Then, with the turmoil of the late 60s, their teachings began to catch on. Also, a new generation of writers and theorists emerged, such as Saul Alinsky. The new generation focused more on the implementation of Critical Theory, with books such as Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.
Jewish people were not the most obvious group in America to turn against the societal culture. Rather, African Americans were, and this is where they started. The concept of ‘white privilege’ was born.
Hillary Clinton, in the meantime, who was a close friend of Alinsky (she called him her ‘mentor’), came up with the idea of flipping Rules for Radicals on its head. Alinsky’s book was about using social agitation to strangle government. Clinton came up with the idea of using government to strangle society into agitation – using Rules for Radicals ‘from the inside’.
The Reagan Revolution put a damper on Cultural Marxism, but then when Bill Clinton became President, Hillary Clinton was able to start using and honing her techniques.
When Dubya became President, we had another remission, but then Obama became President, and he was another Alinsky follower. As much as Obama and HRC hate each other, they have the same basic ideology, and after he won the Presidency, she became SecState, and the two worked on Cultural Marxist ideals.
Internally, suddenly ‘privilege based oppression’ has now spread far further than ethnicity. In addition to white people oppressing ‘people of color’, we are told that men oppress women, that straight people oppress gay people, that sys-gendered people oppress trans-gendered people (and all other supposed genders, of which there are now 54 in New York), Christians oppress non-Christians and particularly Muslims, healthy people oppress fat people, and on and on and on. Each supposedly oppressed group is told that our society and its culture are the reason they are oppressed, with the obvious goal of destroying that society and its culture.
The destabilization of the Islamic world in the meantime, leading to the largest migration of people in human history, from the Islamic world into Western Europe, may be looked at from a different light. It was intentional, and the goal to destabilize and destroy Western European culture.
America is a tougher nut to crack. We are not yet as far along as Europe is, but we are in the cross hairs too, and though a Trump Presidency might slow things down, Cultural Marxism is not going anywhere. They will be very vocal for the next four years, and will then try to put another of their leaders into the White House.
The end goal of all of this is a communist world government.
It is important to note that the ‘theory’ part of ‘Critical Theory’ is not that the majority ‘in power’ will always utilize their freedom to oppress the minority. The actual theory is that if you can get a society to BELIEVE this nonsense, then the society and its culture will collapse. The notion that any majority ‘in power’ will invariably be oppressive is a necessary underlying assumption, and this assumption makes freedom the primary cause of oppression.
Early Cultural Marxists had plenty of examples of majorities oppressing minorities, and of minorities ‘in power’ oppressing majorities (hence the need to say ‘in power’ all the time), but they also realized that there were far more examples of majorities and minorities getting along. Furthermore, they realized that oppression was almost universally grounded in law, which was a clear indicator that the people, if left alone, tended to become less oppressive over time.
The people who wrote Jim Crow laws did not write them because they thought the white people of the time were overly racist, but because they were concerned that white people were not racist enough. Jim Crow laws forced people to act more racist than they otherwise would.
Similarly with homosexuals, while most of society may have looked down on homosexuality in the past, most of the actual oppression was caused by the fact that homosexual behaviors were illegal.
The underlying nature of oppression is not in freedom, but in law. Law restricts freedom, and free people tend to become less oppressive over time. This is exactly the opposite of what Critical Theory needs people to believe, and Cultural Marxism cannot exist without Critical Theory.
Critical Theory is wrong. It cannot stand up to critical analysis, and the early Cultural Marxists knew it.
Luckily for Cultural Marxism, the early Cultural Marxists had a brilliant solution: Political Correctness.
Political correctness is the notion that only an oppressed group has the right to discuss its oppression, and that any oppressed person who questions their oppression is a traitor to their group. Critical analysis of Critical Theory is thus rendered impossible without becoming politically incorrect, and anything that is not politically correct can be dismissed out of hand.
There is a reason social justice warriors shout down their opposition rather than trying to reason with them: reason is not on the side of the social justice warrior. Political Correctness is supposed to be a replacement for factual correctness, forcing the public to believe what is ‘proper’ such that it will ignore what is true. Reason works with truth, so the Social Justice Warrior must use emotion rather than reason.
We see Political Correctness all around us, in society at large, and even in the media. How for example do we know that the Russians have dirt they can use to extort President Elect Trump? Because a ‘potentially credible source, paid by the DNC, has unverifiable allegations’, according to CNN.
I would think that people would laugh at a news story that says that ‘a potentially credible source’ has ‘unverifiable allegations’. Unfortunately few people get past the headline, and today a very large percentage of the public really does believe that Trump is a Russian plant.
And because saying that Trump is NOT a Russian plant is not ‘politically correct’, if you question the narrative you become just as bad as Trump.
He or she who controls what is ‘politically correct’ controls the discussion. Anyone who crosses the lines of political correctness is disqualified from continued discussion, and once you cross the line there is no crossing back. The politically incorrect person is viewed as vile, evil – an outcast from polite society.
If you mention Thomas Sowell or Walter Williams to someone who believes in ‘privilege’ (the modern term for Critical Theory), notice how quickly they discredit them. Followers of Political Correctness will not discuss anything Thomas Sowell or Walter Williams say; they are presumed wrong simply because of who they are. And if you quote them, you become just as bad as they are.
Similarly, the new term, ‘fake news’, is nothing more than a way to spin sources such that factual news can be dismissed out of hand.
Followers of Political Correctness change the ‘proper terminology’ constantly, such that anyone who does not devote enough time to keeping up with the current crop of politically correct phrases can quickly be exposed as being a bad person. Speak and you will offend. Offend and you will be dismissed.
Political Correctness is designed to make opponents recoil and back down, and it largely works. When someone is called a racist, the natural reaction is to go on the defensive. As such, conservatives often retreat.
A better reaction would be to force the person charging ‘racism’ or some ‘phobism’ to defend their charge. Put THEM on the defensive, and let them try to rationally defend an irrational belief.
The great irony is that the belief that white men are somehow the pinnacle of society is also by definition the belief that woman and people of color are somehow inferior – that they cannot compete in any open and honest competition. The great irony of political correctness is that if you analyze it rationally, by its own rules it is not politically correct.
Most people fighting for Cultural Marxism have no idea that communism is the end goal. They subscribe to these beliefs because they are told in our public schools and universities that they are evil if they do not. They believe for purely emotional reasons.
Just as Cultural Marxism needs Critical Theory to survive, so too Critical Theory needs Political Correctness. Political Correctness in the meantime needs the majority to recoil whenever it is charged with being evil. Political Correctness is the weak link in the chain. We need only stand our ground and turn the tables to win.


FOXG1. This is the Epilepsiome page on FOXG1, a gene for FOXG1 syndrome which was previously described as a congenital variant of Rett syndrome [OMIM#613454]. FOXG1 syndrome is an autosomal dominant condition characterized by microcephaly, intellectual disability and epilepsy. Thus far, disease-causing variants in FOXG1 have been reported in over 100 individuals.
Here are the most recent blog posts on FOXG1
- MECP2 – Rett Syndrome in the era of exome-first studies
- Three novel aspects about epilepsy gene panels
- The novel gene dilemma
In a nutshell. A de novo pathogenic variant in FOXG1 was first discovered via fluorescence in situ hybridization and southern blot hybridization in a girl with severe cognitive disability associated with complete agenesis of the corpus callosum and microcephaly in 2005. The girl was found to have a balanced translocation of chromosomes 2 and 14, along with a neighboring inversion in chromosome 14q12. The inversion breakpoint on chromosome 14 disrupted a splice site for FOXG1, knocking out function of the gene. A few years later, FOXG1 variants were identified in two girls with early-onset seizures, microcephaly, and severe intellectual disability, which was described as a congenital variant of Rett syndrome. Congenital variant of Rett syndrome is classified as the same features of classic Rett syndrome, but with an earlier onset of symptoms. Since these original reports, variants in FOXG1 have been identified in over 100 individuals, including males.
|Phenotypes||Genetics||Mechanism & Function|
|The Clinical Perspective||Community||Resources & References|
FOXG1-related epilepsy. The phenotypic spectrum of FOXG1-related epilepsy is variable depending on the type of variant underlying the patient’s condition. Individuals with whole gene duplications of FOXG1 frequently present with infantile spasms, while individuals with deletions or truncating variants have later onset of seizures. The types of seizures caused by whole gene deletions, intragenic deletions or truncating mutations can include complex partial seizures, myoclonic seizures, and tonic seizures. There is no correlation between seizure type and deletion versus intragenic variants. The variability in the presentation of seizures was shown in two sibling pairs with the same intragenic variants, but discordant epilepsy severity in both families. Brain MRI studies have revealed hypoplasia of the corpus callosum, as well as simplified gyral patterns and reduced white matter volume particularly in the frontal lobes in some patients, even though the features can be variable.
Development. The majority of patients with FOXG1 syndrome have severe to profound intellectual disability. Some of the features of FOXG1 syndrome are similar to Rett syndrome. However, FOXG1 syndrome usually presents with an earlier and more severe phenotype that includes severe developmental delay, microcephaly before 4 months of age, generalized hypotonia, and dyskinesias. Patients also frequently have sleep disturbances and bruxism. There is emerging data that the FOXG1 phenotype is more severe and can differentiate from patients with MECP2 pathogenic variants.
Mutation spectrum. Fewer than 75 unique disease-causing FOXG1 variants have been reported in the scientific literature. The variant spectrum includes intragenic and whole gene deletions and duplications, missense variants and nonsense variants. Pathogenic variants have been identified in multiple exons and do not appear to be limited to one region of the gene. To view the variants that have been reported thus far, visit ClinVar.
Genotype-Phenotype Correlation. Pathogenic variants in FOXG1 cause a phenotype of severe to profound intellectual disability with variable other neurological features. For example, the epilepsy phenotype may range from single seizures to epileptic encephalopathy and some patients do not have seizures at all. Virtually all patients have severe to profound intellectual disability and microcephaly. Infantile spasms in particular have been associated with duplications of FOXG1. Further studies are need to define the full phenotypic spectrum of other FOXG1 variants.
General Considerations for Variant interpretation. When reviewing a genetic variant to determine its significance for a given patient, it is important to weigh multiple pieces of evidence:
Considerations for gene level interpretation. First, it is important to establish the strength of the evidence showing that the gene is associated with epilepsy. Some genes may only have one variant reported in a single individual with epilepsy, while other genes may have multiple variants reported in many large families with an autosomal dominant pattern of epilepsy. For FOXG1, there is moderate evidence for its role in human epilepsy.
Considerations for variant level interpretation. When reviewing the significance of a variant, it is important to consider the impact on the gene and the presence of the variant in previously described patient and control populations. Many clinical genetic testing laboratories classify genetic variants into different categories, ranging from benign to pathogenic. Variants that are common in control populations and would not be predicted to have a major impact on the gene/protein are generally classified as benign. Variants are more likely to be classified as pathogenic if the variants are rare or not present in the control population, reported in multiple individuals or families with disease, and likely to have a higher impact on the gene/protein based on the type of mutation or functional studies. Variants with uncertain or limited available evidence may be classified as variants of uncertain significance (VUS), indicating that further information is required in order for the variant to be further defined. In some cases, testing additional family members can be helpful, as it allows the lab to determine whether or not the variant was inherited (versus de novo) and how the variant segregates with disease in the family. This is particularly true for FOXG1 variants, as most disease-causing variants would be expected to be de novo. Sometimes further classification of a VUS requires waiting for the identification of additional patients or families with similar or nearby variants.
Inheritance, Penetrance & Prevalence. FOXG1-related epilepsy is inherited in an autosomal dominant pattern and is completely penetrant, so all individuals with pathogenic variants are symptomatic if untreated. Variable expressivity can occur, even with the same variant, particularly in age of onset, seizure type and degree of developmental issues. The exact prevalence of FOXG1-related epilepsy is unknown.
Mechanism. FOXG1 makes a protein called forkhead box G1 which plays an important role in brain development before birth, particularly the telencephalon. The telencephalon develops into several critical structures, including the cerebrum, which controls most voluntary activity, language, sensory perception, learning, and memory. The disruption in normal brain development before birth, appears to underlie the structural abnormalities of the brain and severe developmental problems seen in individuals with FOXG1 syndrome.
Recurrence risk & testing of family members. The majority of FOXG1 variants reported are de novo. Germline mosaicism of FOXG1 variants have been reported in a few families, making the recurrence risk for those families higher than the general population risk. FOXG1 syndrome has not been reported to be inherited in an autosomal dominant manner.
Therapy. A specific therapy recommendation has not yet been proposed for FOXG1-related epilepsy, although individuals with FOXG1 syndrome may receive similar treatment to individuals with Rett syndrome.
The current section on therapy is a brief overview, and, from the therapeutic perspective, does not represent a comprehensive review of the literature. It should therefore not be used for clinical decision-making without input from a health care provider with relevant expertise in the field.
Research studies, patient registries, and family connections. The Epilepsiome team is happy to facilitate if you have questions or a specific interest in this gene. There are a number of groups/websites that provide relevant information and support for individuals and families with FOXG1-related conditions, including the groups listed below.
- American Epilepsy Society
- Epilepsy Foundation
- Epilepsy Action UK
- International FOXG1 Foundation
- National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD)
- Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network
GeneReviews: MECP2-Related Disorders


Feeling Chest Pain? Don’t Ignore It
Chest pain is discomfort or pain that is felt anywhere along the front of the body between the neck and upper abdomen. While many people with chest pain fear a heart attack, there are many possible causes. When in doubt, it's best to seek immediate medical attention for chest pain by calling 9-1-1.
Angina is a type of heart-related chest pain that occurs because the heart isn’t getting enough blood and oxygen and it can feel similar to the pain of a heart attack. Some chest pain causes are mildly inconvenient, while others are serious and even life-threatening.
The chest pain protocols Virtua uses with patients provide rapid identification of chest pain causes so the team can provide prompt care as needed. The cardiac catheterization labs at our hospitals are equipped with the latest technology and staffed by interventional cardiologists who can perform emergency angioplasty and stenting for patients having a heart attack.
If you or someone you know is having ongoing or severe chest pain, go to the emergency room or call 911.


Pilates exercises are a unique system for stretching and strengthening the body developed by its founder Joseph Pilates. The Pilates method consists of a repertoire of over 500 exercises that must be performed either on a mat or on one of the many machines invented by Joseph Pilates. The four most important Pilates machines are the Reformer, Cadillac, Barrel, and Wunda Chair. Since then, there have been many innovations in Pilates equipment, but all of them follow Pilates principles strictly.
Pilates exercises are usually performed at several organized levels from the beginning, from intermediate to advanced. Exercise develops strong abdominal muscles, arms, legs, back, glutes, and deep posture to support the body's skeletal system or "powerhouse". The Pilates method is also an excellent rehabilitation system for back, knee, thigh, shoulder, and stress injuries. However, there are so many online platforms that help people in learning pilates even at home. So guys have a peek at this website and join the online pilate class to do it at home anytime.
Image Source: Google
The six basic principles of the Pilates method are:
- Gentle movement
Concentration focuses on aligning the body with the mind to create a connection between body and mind. Control places emphasis on controlling the movement that allows the correct execution of each exercise.
Centering is the focus of the body. Proper breathing technique is important to clear the bloodstream and recharge the body's energy. The final principle, “Smooth Movements”, states that each Pilates exercise is performed in a fluid way to develop muscles evenly.


When it comes to anger, holding it in and letting it run out of control can be equally destructive. Our Gainesville counseling services are here to help if you find yourself experiencing anger control issues as defined by the Mayo Clinic.
Signs of Anger Management Problems
Anger can be frightening because you may not even be aware of it until the feeling becomes overwhelming. The first step in anger management is learning to recognize when the emotion is building up.
Do any of these situations sound familiar?
* Chronic irritation, impatience and hostility
* Feelings of having to restrain your anger
* Consuming focus on negative thoughts and experiences
* Frequent arguments of escalating intensity
* Threats of or actual violence involving people or property
* Excessively risky behavior, such as reckless driving
* Avoiding people or situations due to fear of outbursts
Developing Anger Management Skills
Uncontrollable anger often stems from particular stress factors ranging from heavy traffic to tensions in a relationship. Identifying your specific triggers helps you become aware of situations when anger may arise.
Anger affects you physically and emotionally, so it’s essential to develop a variety of skills addressing both aspects. Problem-solving, effective communication and good eating and sleeping habits are just some of the coping mechanisms that help you reduce stress and manage anger productively.
Learn to Defuse Anger with Gainesville Counseling Services
Faith provides a solid framework for successful anger management techniques. Contact us for caring and experienced help with your personal development.


People who are vegetarians do not consume meat or meat products. They refrain from eating red meat, poultry, sea-food and by-products of animal slaughter. Since eggs come from chicken, it is usually a question "do vegetarians eat eggs?" In this article, you will get the answer.
Types of Vegetarians
People who do not eat meat or animal flesh except fish are described as Pescatarians, which is not used very frequently. Many people are turning towards this type of diet. It acts like a stepping stone towards a completely vegetarian diet and also has health benefits because of fish inclusion.
Semi-vegetarians or "Flexitarians" are people who are flexible in the kind of food they eat. They usually restrict themselves to vegetarian diet, but on occasions have meat as well.
Most vegetarians fall in the category of lacto-ovo-vegetarians, meaning they eat egg and dairy products. However, they avoid beef, pork, poultry, sea-food and flesh of any kinds.
Lacto means milk and lacto-vegetarians are people who abstain from meat, poultry, sea-food and eggs. They consume dairy products. Most Hindu vegetarians are Lacto-vegetarians.
Vegetarians who avoid meat and dairy products, but consume eggs are termed as ovo-vegetarians. People who are lactose intolerant usually turn ovo-vegetarians. Like Lacto, the term ovo is a Latin word for egg.
Vegans are the strictest type of vegetarians who abstain from eating eggs, dairy products, any animal products and products derived from animals. They refrain from eating any products which are made using animal products or contain even traces of animal products like gelatin. There is a debate whether honey can fit into a vegan diet.
Foodists who believe that cooking foods above 115 degrees F will lose a lot of nutritive content, usually turn to raw vegan diet. For raw vegan, they consume unprocessed vegan foods which are not heated above 115 degrees F.
Do Vegetarians Eat Eggs?
Nutrition of Eggs
Eggs are nutritionally very rich while giving a small number of calories. According to the American Egg Board, one whole egg gives 70 calories, 6.29 grams of protein, 5 grams of fat, 212 mg of cholesterol and trace of carbohydrates.
The 5 grams of fat are composed of 1.55 grams of saturated fats, 1.9 grams of MUFS and 0.68 grams of PUFA. The egg yolk contains vitamin A, D and Choline. Consuming egg white eliminates the fat and reduces the calories to 17 per egg white.
However, anyone who is planning to reduce the fat or cholesterol intake, they should reduce the egg intake. The American Heart Association recommends not more than 4 eggs per week whereas the Australian Heart Foundation recommends up to 6 eggs per week. You can decide to choose which regulation to follow according to your health condition.


本研究探討16個月及20個月大的嬰幼兒，能否依語音和表情線索，來區辨他人行為的意圖。首先，透過半結構化親子互動遊戲，引發家長發出語音，企圖找出可與"there"及"woops"對應之中文的意圖性及意外性語音，前導實驗中以18個月與24個月的嬰幼兒及其家長為對象，結果發現，使用次數較多的是意圖性語音「ㄛ」和意外性語音「(特殊字元略)」。實驗一重製姜忠信與張閔翔(2008)的實驗，修正語音及降低作業難度。結果發現，20個月大的嬰幼兒大體上能依語音及表情線索找到意圖目標物，16個月的嬰幼兒則否，兩年齡組嬰幼兒在作答上，皆無明顯的左右偏好。實驗二再修正實驗一，移除打開盒蓋的動作來降低作業難度，另增加「最終反應」的計分。結果發現：20個月大的嬰幼兒能理解語音及表情的意圖線索，亦發現最終反應顯著高於第一反應，說明此月齡的嬰幼兒需較長的時間，才能做出正確反應。然而實驗二嬰幼兒的表現與實驗一20個月大的嬰幼兒無異，說明了盒蓋並非造成作業難度較高的主因。由本研究結果，推論20個月大的嬰幼兒，能夠理解他人語音及表情的意圖線索。 Recent literature has found that young children before the age of 2 can use behavioral cues to detect others' intentions. The present study used vocal and facial expression cues to investigate intentional ability in 16- to 20-monthold children. A pilot study looked at the Mandarin vocals that are synonymous with "there" and "woops" in English. In a semi-structured parent-and-child interaction context, 18- and 24-month-old children played with their parents. The parents' vocals in intentional and accidental conditions were recorded. Results showed that the intentional vocal "Ah!" and accidental vocal "Wa!" were most frequently used. In Study 1, we replicated the referential intent task (Chiang & Chang, 2008), corrected the vocal cues, and reduced the task difficulty. The examiner provided vocal and facial expression cues to indicate which container contained the toy. Results showed that 20-month-old children could differentiate between the demonstrated intentional and accidental cues. The 16-month-old children did not pass the task. The preference to choose the right or left side was not significant in either age group. Study 2 removed the lid of containers to reduce task difficulty, coding children's first response and last response. Similarly, 20-month-old children passed the referential intent task. Performance on the last response was better than performance on the first response, and these children needed longer time to process information. However, the children in Study 2 did not perform better than those in Study 1. This result explained that the lid of the container did not decrease the task demand. In conclusion, 20-month-old children can understand others' intentional cues of vocal and facial expression. However, further studies are needed to explore the components of task loading and compare the data with that in Western culture.