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GeoExchange systems utilize a constant, renewable, and free energy source – the warmth that is naturally stored within the earth – to provide efficient heating, cooling, and domestic hot water. What is GeoExchange? Safe, clean, reliable, and efficient. GeoExchange systems transfer heat, rather than create it. They produce drastically lower carbon dioxide emissions than traditional systems and are extremely energy efficient. GeoExchange harnesses natural heat stored in the ground through a network of underground pipes called a ‘ground loop.’ A water-based solution circulating though the pipes collects the heat. This ground loop solution is passed through a heat exchanger or heat pump, which replaces the traditional furnace and air conditioning system, and distributed throughout the system. Ground source heat pumps operate at 300% to 400% efficiency. Learn about the benefits of a GeoExchange system or how Corix can get you started.
Chlorine is a chemical that prevents bacteria from growing. Chlorine poisoning occurs when someone swallows or breathes in (inhales) chlorine. This article is for information only. Do NOT use it to treat or manage an actual poison exposure. If you or someone you are with has an exposure, call your local emergency number (such as 911), or your local poison center can be reached directly by calling the national toll-free Poison Help hotline (1-800-222-1222) from anywhere in the United States. Chlorine reacts with water in and out of the body to form hydrochloric acid and hypochlorous acid. Both are extremely poisonous. Chlorine is present in: - Gas released when mixing bleach with some of the powdered cleansing products and ammonia (chloramine gas) - Gas released when opening a partially filled industrial container of chlorine tablets that have been sitting for several months (for example, the first opening of a container after a pool has been closed all winter) - Mild cleaners - Some bleach products - Swimming pool water (and tablets used in swimming pool water) Note: This list may not include all uses and sources of chlorine. Chlorine poisoning can cause symptoms in many parts of the body: AIRWAYS AND LUNGS - Breathing difficulty (from breathing in the chlorine) - Throat swelling (may also cause breathing difficulty) - Water filling the lungs (pulmonary edema) - Severe change in acid level of the blood (pH balance), which leads to damage in all of the body organs EYES, EARS, NOSE, AND THROAT - Loss of vision - Severe pain in the throat - Severe pain or burning in the nose, eyes, ears, lips, or tongue HEART AND BLOOD VESSELS - Low blood pressure that develops rapidly - Holes (necrosis) in the skin or tissues underneath Seek medical help right away. Do not make a person throw up unless told to do so by the poison center or a health care professional. If the chemical is on the skin or in the eyes, flush with lots of water for at least 15 minutes. If the chemical was swallowed, immediately give the person water or milk, unless instructed otherwise by a health care provider. Do not give water or milk if the patient is having symptoms (such as vomiting, convulsions, or a decreased level of alertness) that make it hard to swallow. If the person breathed in the poison, immediately move the person to fresh air. Before Calling Emergency Get the following information: - Person's age, weight, and condition - Name of the product (and ingredients and strengths, if known) - Time it was swallowed - Amount swallowed Your local poison center can be reached directly by calling the national toll-free Poison Help hotline (1-800-222-1222) from anywhere in the United States. This national hotline number will let you talk to experts in poisoning. They will give you further instructions. This is a free and confidential service. All local poison control centers in the United States use this national number. You should call if you have any questions about poisoning or poison prevention. It does NOT need to be an emergency. You can call for any reason, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. What to Expect at the Emergency Room The health care provider will measure and monitor the person's vital signs, including temperature, pulse, breathing rate, and blood pressure. Symptoms will be treated as appropriate. The person may receive: - Activated charcoal - Breathing support, including a tube through the mouth into the lungs, and a breathing machine (ventilator) - Bronchoscopy -- camera down the throat to see burns in the airways and lungs - Chest x-ray - EKG (heart tracing) - Endoscopy -- camera down the throat to see burns in the esophagus and the stomach - Fluids through a vein (by IV) - Medicine (antidote) to reverse the effect of the poison - Surgical removal of burned skin (skin debridement) - Tube through the mouth into the stomach to empty the stomach (gastric lavage) - Washing of the skin (irrigation) -- perhaps every few hours for several days How well a person does depends on the amount of poison swallowed and how quickly treatment is received. The faster the person gets medical help, the better the chance for recovery. Swallowing such poisons can have severe effects on many parts of the body. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). 2010. Toxicological profile for chlorine. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service. www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp.asp?id=1079&tid=36. Accessed November 21, 2015. Blanc PD. Acute responses to toxic exposures. In: Broaddus VC, Mason RJ, Ernst JD, et al, eds. Murray & Nadel's Textbook of Respiratory Medicine. 6th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier Saunders; 2016:chap 75. Levine MD, Zane R. Chemical injuries. In: Marx JA, Hockberger RS, Walls RM, et al, eds. Rosen's Emergency Medicine: Concepts and Clinical Practice. 8th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier Saunders; 2014:chap 64. Review Date 11/4/2015 Updated by: Jesse Borke, MD, FACEP, FAAEM, Attending Physician at FDR Medical Services/Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital, Buffalo, NY. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Isla Ogilvie, PhD, and the A.D.A.M. Editorial team.
Big in japan: 7 ways to cross the Japanese cultural and language barriers (part 2) Be it for business or pleasure, learning Japanese is an adventure. In our second installment of this short series, we talk about four more hurdles you will need to take if you want to speak, write or translate Japanese. We’re not going to lie. Learning Japanese is hard for Europeans. Japanese is different in so many ways compared to any European language, that it might seem an impossible language to learn. However, the fact that Japanese is so exotic, might just exactly be what attracts people to it. 4. Speaking Japanese: ups and downs Let’s start with how Japanese sounds. Here’s a Japanese word that illustrates the complexity of the Japanese language: ‘kikai’. This word has no less than five meanings, all of which are pronounced the same way. So, you have to judge from the context what the correct meaning is. This is the case with a lot of Japanese words. Japanese only uses a limited number of vowels: a–i–u–e–o - ie – meaning ‘house’ - ue – meaning ‘up’ - ao – meaning ‘blue’ In European languages, word stress is often used to convey meaning. In contrast, Japanese is a pitch-based language, where alterations between a high and a low pitch can convey different meanings. Vowel length – shortening vowels or making vowels sound longer – is another Japanese way of conveying different meanings. Fun fact: you shouldn’t pronounce English loan words with an English accent. So, computer or hamburger will sound something like ‘compyuutaa’ and ‘hambaagaa’. 5. Writing Japanese: the Chinese connection The Japanese writing system uses so-called ‘kanji’ characters. These characters were adopted from the Chinese writing system around the fourth century. Kanji are logograms: written characters that represent a word or a phrase. Japanese can be written in either direction, although traditionally it is written in a format called tategaki (縦書き) - in columns from top to bottom, and from right to left. Vertical writing is still commonly used in Japan in novels, newspapers and magazines, while horizontal writing is used more often in texts, especially those containing English language references. Although the Japanese rely on Chinese characters, Japanese is as different from Chinese as it is to any other language. For example, Japanese has typical verb suffixes, which Chinese hasn’t. That is why Japanese needs additional character sets to reflect typical Japanese grammar or vocabulary elements. Japanese also has typical words and grammatical constructions that are associated either with men or women. On the other hand, the actual Japanese grammar is gender-neutral. For example, there are no masculine/feminine pronouns (cfr. his/her) or masculine/feminine nouns. To make it even more difficult, the Japanese writing system uses different character types. The hiragana character set is primarily used for native or naturalized Japanese words and grammatical elements, whereas the katakana character set is mainly used for foreign words and names, loan words, onomatopoeia, scientific names, and sometimes for emphasis. Have a look at this example: Before you decide to study the Japanese writing system, be aware that there are over 50,000 characters. However, knowing a mere 2,000 frequently used characters should already be enough to be able to read the newspaper. Maybe also interesting to know is that there is no such thing as a Japanese keyboard. Text is keyed in on Querty keyboards in romaji, which is phonetical, Romanized Japanese. 6. Translating Japanese: extra effort It is clear that the language barrier between Japanese and European languages is high. This has some serious implications for translation. - The totally different word order (some might say: total lack of word order) will require extra translation effort. - Unlike European languages, Japanese does not have pronouns or plural, making it hard to define subjects or objects. That is why translators need to carefully analyze the word context. - Word boundaries are not always clear in Japanese, making translation even more complex. - In our previous post, we discussed the different politeness levels. Translators need to be consistent and pay attention to the politeness level in use. Translators can tackle these challenges by optimizing the language source. For example, for translating from English to Japanese, the English word order can be adapted so it leans more toward the Japanese word order. When translating from Japanese to English, pre-editing could include changing honorific/humble forms to plain polite forms. In machine translation, usually an extra pre-editing step is added to the workflow. Here, having a large bi-lingual corpus of legacy data (translation memories, glossaries) is even more important. 7. Enjoying Japanese: business or pleasure? The ultimate way of crossing the cultural barrier, is by actually learning the language, and enjoying doing it. For whatever reason you do it, learning Japanese is a real adventure. And if your foreign language knowledge is limited to European languages, the road to Japanese mastery might be a long one. Still, there is plenty of motivation why you should embark on the Japanese language journey. - For Japanese business: As we mentioned in part 1, Japan is hot. The economic future for Japan seems to be bright. But Japan is also a gateway to the rest of Asia. So, from a business perspective, there are definitely good reasons to learn Japanese. - For Japanese culture: Manga, Anime, Jpop … Need we go on? If you’re a fan of Japanese popular culture, then it’s really fun the be able to follow that in the original language. But also Japan’s rich cultural and philosophical heritage is known all over the world. Learning Japanese is a way to learn more about this culture as well. - For the love of language: Some people just like the challenge. Learning Japanese might be tough for Westerners, but if you manage to do it, it is very rewarding. If you can learn Japanese, you can learn anything, right? And having mastered Japanese, maybe Chinese or Korean may look less like a chore to you. - Yamagata Europe and TXTOmedia partner up to meet growing demand for instructional video content Posted by Yamagata Europe posted on 12 november - Which variant of Chinese do you need? Posted by Yamagata Europe posted on 17 october - Happy Colleagues make Happy Clients Posted by Yamagata Europe posted on 12 september - GitHub: the ideal version control and collaboration platform Posted by Laurine Cremer on 6 december - The Finnish-Japanese connection Posted by Thomas Jefferson on 29 november - The Finnish-Japanese connection Posted by Finnish person on 27 november
Simple rhyming words are a great way to teach young children about language and how letters can fit together to make new words and fun sounds. Besides contributing to their understanding of language, rhyming words are just plain fun, and sometimes silly -- things with a natural appeal to most toddlers and preschoolers. Pick up one of Dr. Seuss's books and read it to your preschooler to expose her to the fun of rhyming language. After you've read it for the umpteenth time (you'll be hearing "I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them, Sam I am ..." in your sleep), tell your little one you're going to make your own rhyming book. Print a letter pair at the top of each page of card stock. Neatly print four or five short rhyming words, evenly spaced down the left side of the page. For example, print the letters "-AT" at the top of one page, then print "BAT," "CAT," "HAT" and "RAT" down the side. Print out small, funny clip art pictures of each rhyming word on the list. Glue the picture next to its corresponding word on the page. Or go old school and cut pictures out of magazines -- let your little one help find the right pictures and cut them out for each rhyming word list. If you're blessed with artistic talent, you can draw the pictures yourself, but if your drawing ability never got past the stick figure stage, these other sources of pictures might be your best bet. Create eight to 10 pages of rhyming words that are familiar to young children. Stick to one-syllable words with common letter pairings such as "-AN," "-IT" and "-ING." Use words you can easily illustrate: man, can, fan, pan; sit, bit, hit, lit; and sing, king, ring and bring, for example. Leave a little space at the bottom of each page for your little one to add additional words that rhyme -- encourage her to think about other words that follow the pattern on each page. Make a cover page for your book. Print the words "My Rhyming Book" on the front. Ask your tot to help you draw a few funny pictures on the front that represent some of the words in the book. Then print "By" and your names as the book's authors. He'll enjoy sharing "his" book with you and others, showing off his mastery of the rhyming words inside and feeling like a big boy because he helped you "write" a whole book. Punch two or three evenly-spaced holes in the left margin of each page. Use the binder rings to join all the pages together so they can be turned smoothly. As an alternative, use smooth decorative cording in your child's favorite color to tie the pages together on the left edges.
Good Morning! Our world is an unstable place. Nations rise and governments topple. Unbalanced people around the world torture and kill each other for the sake of religion or other groundless causes. Earthquakes, volcanoes, and wars periodically scourge our globe. Continents drift about and collide with each other, and oceans form and disappear. As it spins on its axis, the earth is not stable. Like the center peg of a toy top, the axis of the spinning earth slowly wobbles in a circle, tracing out the surface of a double cone in space. So, why do people believe in religious doctrines that has no affect on the reality? Most of the classical religious beliefs emerged in a pre-scientific era before the application of the methods of science. Unfortunately, the origins of the venerated ancient religions are often buried by the sands of historical time—though biblical critics have endeavored to reconstruct the foundations of these religions by using the best scholarly and scientific methods of inquiry. It is often difficult to engage in impartial scholarly or scientific inquiry into the origins of religious doctrines, particularly when those critically examining the foundations of the revered truths are often placed in jeopardy by their societies. The ancient religions of prophecies and revelations—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—all claim that God intervened at one time in history, spoke to Moses and the prophets, resurrected Jesus, or communicated through Gabriel to Muhammad. The narratives of alleged supernatural intervention that appear in the Bible and the Koran were at first transmitted by oral traditions after the alleged facts occurred. They were written down by second- or third-hand sources, many years and even decades later. They most likely weave into their parables dramatic renditions bordering on fiction, and written by passionate propagandists for new faiths. These sacred books promise believers another world beyond this vale of tears. Their messages of salvation were attractive to countless generations of poor and struggling souls endeavoring to overcome the blows of existential reality. Believers ever since have accepted them as gospel truth; after centuries they became deeply ingrained in the entire fabric of society. These ancient religions have persisted in part because they have ostracized or condemned heretics and disbelievers. They have gained adherents over time by policies of selective breeding: marriage could only be by members of the same clan or tribe or church, and those who married outside of the faith were disowned. They sought to inculcate and transmit the tenets of the faith to the young, so as to ensure the continuity of the tradition. The entire artistic, moral, philosophical, economic, social, and legal structure of ancient societies were rooted in religious institutions. In many new religions the historical records are abundant. In all of these religions, critics have pointed out the role of deception or self-deception, such as Joseph Smith’s writing of the Book of Mormon and his accounts of the golden plates delivered by the angel Closer still, twentieth-century skeptics have been able to witness firsthand the spinning out of New Age paranormal religions. A good illustration of this is the power of suggestion exercised by psychics and mediums, often through the use of deception or self-deception, and the receptiveness of so many believers, all too willing to accept claims of supernormal powers by abandoning rigorous standards of corroboration. Thus the question is raised anew, How do we explain the willingness of so many people—no doubt a majority of humankind—to outstrip the evidence and to weave out fantasies in which their deepest psychological longings are expressed and their national mythologies fulfilled? How explain the willingness to believe even the most bizarre tales? Skeptics have been challenged to account for the apparent extraordinary feats of their proponents. After detailed investigation their weird claims have been debunked; yet in spite of this otherwise sensible people have persisted in beliefs that are patently false. Indeed, there seems to be a bizarre kind of logic at work: belief systems for which there is entirely scanty evidence or no evidence, or indeed abundant evidence to the contrary are fervently accepted; indeed, people will devote their entire lives to a groundless creed. This has been heralded in the past as faith in things unseen or things hoped for. The will to believe in spite of negative evidence has been acclaimed as morally praiseworthy. David Hume thought it a “miracle” that people who believe in miracles are willing to subvert all of the evidence of the senses and the processes of rationality in order to accept their beliefs. There are at least two possible explanations that I wish to focus on. (There are no doubt others, such as the need for identity, ethnicity, the quest for community, the role of indoctrination, the power of tradition, etc.) In answer to the question, “Why do people believe?,” the first explanation is that believers have not been exposed to the factual critiques of their faith. These critiques apply to the cognitive basis of their belief. There are alternative naturalistic explanations of the alleged phenomena, cognitivists maintain, and if criticisms of the claims were made available to them, they would abandon their irrational beliefs. This is no doubt true of some people, who are committed to inquiry, but not of all, for processes of rationalization intervene to rescue the faith. Accordingly, a second explanation for this is that noncognitive tendencies and impulses are at work, tempting believers to accept the “unbelievable.” This disposition to believe in spite of insufficient or contrary evidence has deep roots in our biological and social nature. In the first instance, cognition performs a powerful role in human life, liberating us from false ideas. In the form of common sense, it is essential, at least up to a point, if we are to live and function in the real world. Critical thinking is the preeminent instrument of human action; it is the most effective means that we have to fulfill our purposes and solve the problems of living. From it philosophy and science have emerged, contributing to our understanding of nature and ourselves. We all know that we need to use practical reason to deal with empirical questions, such as: “Is it snowing outside?” or “How do I cope with my toothache?” And we also apply such methods within the sciences, to deal with issues such as the following: “The dinosaurs were most likely extinguished by an asteroid impact some sixty-five million years ago.” Or, “We are unable to cure people by therapeutic touch.” Each of these beliefs may be tested by the experimental evidence or by theories accepted as probable or improbable on the basis of these considerations. In addition, an open-minded inquirer may be led to accept or reject any number of propositions, which he or she previously asserted, such as, “There is no evidence that a great flood engulfed the entire globe as related in the Bible.” We may ask, “Why do many people accept unverified occult explanations when they are clothed in religious or paranormal guise?” The answer, I think, in part at least, is because such accounts arouse awe and entice the passionate imagination. The transcendental temptation is the temptation to believe in things unseen, because they satisfy felt needs and desires. The transcendental temptation has various dimensions. It was resorted to by primitive men and women, unable to cope with the intractable in nature, unmitigated disasters, unbearable pain or sorrow. It is drawn upon by humans in order to assuage the dread of death—by postulating another dimension to existence, the hope for an afterlife in which the evils and injustices of this world are overcome. The lure of the transcendental temptation appeals to the frail and forlorn. There may not be any evidence for a transcendental realm; but the emotive and intellectual desire to submit to it can provide a source of comfort and consolation. To believe that we will meet in another life those whom we have loved in this life can be immensely satisfying, or at least it can provide some saving grace. It may enable a person to get through the grievous losses that he or she suffers in this life. If I can’t be with those I cherish today, I can at least do so in my dreams and fantasies, and if I submit to and propitiate the unseen powers that govern the universe this will miraculously right the wrongs that I have endured in this vale of tears. Thus the transcendental temptation is tempting because it enables human beings to survive the often cruel trials and tribulations that are our constant companion, and it enables us to endure this life in anticipation of the next. It is the mystery and magic of religion, its incantations and rituals, that fan the passions of overbelief, and nourish illusion and unreality. There is a real and dangerous world out there that primitive and modern humans need to cope with—wild animals and marauding tribes, droughts and famine, lightning and forest fires, calamities and deprivation, accidents and contingencies. Surely, there is pleasure and satisfaction, achievement, and realization in life, but also tragedy and failure, defeat, and bitterness. Our world is a complex tapestry of joy and suffering. The transcendental temptation thus can provide a powerful palliative enabling humans to cope with the unbearable, overcome mortality, and finitude; and it does so by creating fanciful systems of religious overbelief in which priests and prophets propitiate the unseen sources of power and thus shield us from the vicissitudes of fortune. It is only in recent human history that the species has gradually been able to overcome mythological explanations. Yet there still remained a residue of unanswered questions, and it is here in the swamp of the unknowable that the transcendental temptation festers. This beguiling temptation reaches beyond the natural world by sheer force of habit and passion, and it resists all efforts to contain it. Rather than suspend judgments about those questions for which there is no evidence either way, it leaps in to fill the void and comfort the aching soul. It is the most frequent salve used to calm existential fear and trembling. Why is this so? Because I think that the temptation has its roots in a tendency, and this in a disposition. In other words, there is most likely within the human species a genetic component, which is stronger than temptation and weaker than instinct. The hypothesis that I wish to offer is that the belief in the efficacy of prayer and the submission to divine power persists because it has had some survival value in the infancy of the race; powerful psycho-sociobiological factors are thus at work, predisposing humans to submit to the temptation. The Reasons for Disbelief We need also to ask, Why do some humans disbelieve? — for there is a minority of people who remain unbelievers, agnostics, or atheists. There are a number of important research projects that I think should be undertaken. To ascertain if there is a genetic tendency — or lack of it — we should study the family trees of both believers and unbelievers. We need to examine the sociocultural contexts in which religious ideas appear and disappear. We have an excellent data pool today in Similarly, many Western European countries have seen a rather rapid decline in traditional religion since World War II, especially under the influence of liberalism and humanism. For example, in The Netherlands before the war, approximately half of the population identified with Roman Catholicism and half with Protestantism, with a small percentage of Jews and other minorities. This has changed since World War II, and there is now a higher percentage of humanists than either Protestants or Catholics. Similar processes have been observed in Atheism is a doctrine that states that nothing exists but natural phenomena (matter), that thought is a property or function of matter, and that death irreversibly and totally terminates individual organic units. This definition means that there are no forces, phenomena, or entities which exist outside of or apart from physical nature, or which transcend nature, or are “super” natural, nor can there be. Humankind is on its own. An Atheist believes that only in knowledge of himself and knowledge of his fellow man can he find the understanding that will help to a life of fulfillment. Kemo D. (a.k.a. no.7) www.beyondgenes.com
What is MTHFR? MTHFR stands for Methylene-TetraHydroFolate Reductase (MTHFR). MTHFR is a gene that helps your body make methyl folate. It converts the folate you eat, into active folate your body can use (Folate → 5-methyltetrahydrofolate). The MTHFR gene has the information needed to make this important enzyme. Why is it important that we have folate? Folate is essential for DNA repair, growth, nitric oxide production. It helps us make SAMe (this is the universal methyl donor in the body – it acts like a master ‘On/Off’ Switch for our biochemistry), it helps blood cells mature, it helps us create important brain chemicals like tyrosine, noradrenaline, serotonin and choline and it helps reduces the expression of chromosomal mutations. How do you know if you have low folate? Some symptoms that might give you a clue that your folate is too low are: - Age related hearing loss - Bronchial issues - Cervical dysplasia - Cleft lip, cleft palate - Cognitive delay - Colorectal adenomas - Chrosome breaks - Cracks on the lips - Difficulty breathing - Grey hair - Growth Impairment - Heart Palpitations - High homocysteine - Impaired special memory - Pre-term delivery - Radiation Induced DNA damage - Multiple miscarriages - Neural Tube defects - Poor placental growth - Premature rupture of membranes - Red tongue - Restless Legs - Skin Disorders What Is an MTHFR Gene Mutation? MTHFR gene mutations are one of the most studied mutations because MTHFR is one of the most relevant genes in the human body. Knowing if you have a genetic mutation in this gene may help you overcome lifelong health issues. The MTHFR enzyme is a protein made up of amino acids. Each amino acid has a specific 3-letter code within your DNA. A mutation or single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) changes one letter in the 3-letter code for a specific amino acid which slows down the enzyme. Depending on the mutation you may have up to 75% less than you should. This can be very relevant. The MTHFR gene mutation alters the chain of amino acids that make up the MTHFR enzyme changing its overall shape. It’s important to understand that an enzyme's shape gives rise to its function. So for example, the MTHFR C677T means that at place 677 on chromosome 1, the Cytosine has been changed to a Thymine. This change causes the amino acid sequence to change that makes the MTHFR enzyme.The result is a dysfunctional enzyme (it’s slower) and so it will produce less 5-methylfolate production. The overall shape of the MTHFR enzyme varies based on what MTHFR gene mutations are present. Each unique mutation has a different impact on how the MTHFR enzyme performs within the body. There are currently 34 different known MTHFR gene mutations. The two most researched mutations are C667T and A1298C. What are the types of MTHFR Gene Mutation? Depending on the mutation you have the consequences are slightly different. Each mutation follows a similar trend towards less methylation within the body or less active folate production (5-MTHF). If a mutation is present, the enzyme can have a 20% to 70% loss of function. Since everyone has two copies of each gene (one from each parent), loss of function depends on whether there are one or two copies of the MTHFR gene mutation present. - One copy of a gene = Heterozygous (C677T= ~40% loss, A1298C=~20% loss) (This means you have one copy that was mutated from mom OR dad) - Two copies of a gene = Homozygous (C677T=~70% loss, A1298C=~40% loss) (This means you have one copy mutated from both your mom AND dad) - One copy of both C667T and A129C = compound heterozygous = ~50% loss. (This means mom and dad/ Mum or Dad gave you one copy of C667T and A1298C). In general, less methylation occurs in people who have two copies of an MTHFR gene mutation. MTHFR Mutations = Less Methylation Methylation is responsible for turning multiple processes within cells “on or off”. Proper methylation (adding/removing methyl groups (CH3) from molecules) within the body ensures cells are doing their job. Think of methylation as a master switch. Any biochemical product that ends in MT is a methyltransferase. Methyls act as a switch for methyltransferases, they make them stop and go. Methyltransferases have important biochemical roles in our bodies. For example: - The breaking down of toxic oestrogens through hormone production via COMT - The health of cellular membranes and energy through choline production via PEMT - Creation of Creatine production for muscle growth - Helping to break down Noradrenaline to Adrenalin via PNMT - For a more indepth understanding of the importance of methyltransferases click here (your methyltransferase article)) When methylation is not working or down regulated, the body is not able to produce correct responses to the environment, damaging the body. Certain process within cells will be turned on or off for too long, leading to an impaired ability to: - Get rid of toxins (detoxification) - Repair and rebuild DNA/RNA - Produce and process hormones - Build immune cells - Repair cell membranes - Turn the stress response on and off - Metabolize fat - Produce energy - Recycle and build neurotransmitters When these vital cellular processes are not working correctly, adverse symptoms can arise such as: cardiovascular disease, impaired immunity, chronic inflammation, diabetes, anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue, cancer, fibromyalgia infertility and miscarriages. Problems with methylation will amplify the symptoms of existing autoimmune and psychiatric conditions. For a more in depth analysis about the symptoms of MTHFR mutations click here. (yes mthfr symptoms / conditions article It is important to know if you have a mutation in the MTHFR gene. Approximately 50-65% of the population has an MTHFR gene mutation. However, if you have a mutation, this DOES NOT mean you have a problem with your health. Your environment plays a big role in determining the outcomes of mutations, which we will go over later in this article.
In August 1833, The Slavery Abolition Act was given royal assent and became enshrined in British law. Effectively, it made ownership of slaves illegal in the British Empire. Many other countries followed suit, which ultimately led to the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, inserting an article in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, stating: “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.” Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the UN and the wider world, slavery still exists. While it may not exist in the way portrayed by books such as 12 Years a Slave, it continues to happen all over the globe, and even in the UK. Over the course of this article, we’ll explore what modern slavery is, what it means, what The Modern Slavery Act 2015 entails and what you can do to help bring this practice to an end. What is modern slavery? Whether it is women forced into prostitution; children working in sweatshops; men forced into agriculture or young girls forced to marry men; these people are being controlled by those who seek to exploit them. Modern slaves have no freedom, no choice and must do as they are told for fear of reprisal. According to data from anti-slavery, a charity seeking to end slavery in all its forms, there are an estimated 40.3 million people in modern slavery all over the world. Scrutinising the figure, you can see an approximate breakdown here: - 10 million children - 9 million people in forced labour - 4 million people in forced marriage - 8 million people in forced sexual exploitation. Unlike slavery of the past, where slavers quite literally owned other human beings as their property, modern slavery is more about being exploited and being completely controlled by another person or group of people, without being able to escape. Anti-slavery say that someone is in slavery if they are: - forced to work – through coercion, or mental or physical threat; - owned or controlled by an ’employer’, through mental or physical abuse or the threat of abuse; - dehumanised, treated as a commodity or bought and sold as ‘property’; - physically constrained or have restrictions placed on their freedom of movement. Forms of modern slavery The most common forms of slavery featured today are listed below: - Child slavery – often confused with child labour, child slavery occurs when the victim is exploited for someone else’s gain. Examples include: child trafficking, child soldiers, child marriage and domestic slavery - Debt bondage – occurs when people borrow money, can’t repay the debt and then are forced into work to pay off the debt, and in the process, losing control of the terms of their employment and debt itself. - Descent-based slavery – a hereditary type of slavery where children become slaves because their parent(s) remain captured and enslaved - Forced labour – undertaking work or services where captors are forced to do it under fear of reprisal - Forced and early marriage – when someone is married against their will and cannot leave the marriage. Most child marriages can be considered slavery. - Human trafficking – involves moving, recruiting or holding people against their will, to exploit them using violence, threats of coercion. How does slavery happen? Slavery can affect anybody. It can affect people of any age, race or gender, but there are groups of people that are vulnerable to being driven into slavery. It could be someone who’s is currently struggling to make ends meet and feels they have no chance of getting a decent job, become desperate and turn to a job offer abroad that sounds too good to be true – and often is. Alternatively, it could be a young girl who lives in a society where early marriage is acceptable but is forced to marry an older man. Or it could be someone who has built up a debt with another party, can’t afford to pay it back and is coerced into working to pay off the debt, with the repayment terms of the debt constantly changing. Slavery happens frequently where the law is weaker and corruption is widespread. It can also happen to individuals or groups of people whose rights aren’t protected, such as migrants with complex visa situations. The most common misconception with modern slavery is that it takes place almost exclusively overseas in the developing world. This isn’t true as every country in the world has modern slaves in some guise. The UK is one such example, with figures from the Home Office in 2014 stating that there are between 10,000 and 13,000 potential victims of modern slavery in the UK. However, analysts from the Global Slavery Index (GSI) estimate this figure to be much higher and report it to be in the region of 136,000 as of figures published in 2016. The UK National Crime Agency (NCA) speculates the discrepancy in these figures is because victims of modern slavery are reluctant or unable, because of fear of reprisal, to report their situation to the authorities. Modern slavery in the supply chain Supply chains, including those in Britain and all over the world, can be affected by modern slavery. Whether it is the cocoa in your chocolate bar, cotton in your clothing or the mobile phone in your pocket, many items, when considering their raw materials, could be made using slaves. Because of how complex global supply chains have become, it can be notoriously tricky to track a component of an order back to a specific manufacturer. For instance, a t-shirt must go through a long line of producers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers before you end up with the t-shirt in your hands. Also, because of the sheer number of organisations involved in the process of bringing the t-shirt to you, the further down the supply chain you go, the more difficult it is to ascertain who did what and whether slaves were used or not. Closer to home, there are cases of slavery being used in the UK supply chains for a range of purposes. One high profile case that came to light in 2015 involved the use of scores of Lithuanian migrants, lured to the UK on the promise of a better life. In this article by the Guardian, the migrants describe their experience as chicken catchers and egg collectors for DJ Houghton. In summary, the Lithuanians stated they were victims of violence, being debt-bonded on immediate arrival in the UK, deprived of food, sleep and basic accommodation. They were also forced to urinate and defecate into carrier bags as they worked. The case was settled for over £1 million in compensation after a high court ruling found them to be guilty of failing to pay the minimum wage, made unlawful deductions from wages and failed to provide adequate provision to eat, drink and rest. Many supermarkets immediately boycotted DJ Houghton because of the way the chicken catchers treated their staff. Combatting modern slavery We believe, like many other organisations, such as anti-slavery, that businesses must ensure that no slavery has been used to produce the products they sell. And while it is very difficult to identify whether slavery has been used or not, for the reasons outlined above, there are things businesses can do. Examine your supply chain in detail – take a long and hard look at your supply chain. Find out exactly where all your goods come/services come from, what organisations are responsible for doing what and how they produce the raw materials that you ultimately sell. It’s important to audit and gather all of this information to help put together a plan of action of how to combat modern slavery in your supply chain. Comply with The Modern Slavery Act 2015 – the government introduced legislation in March 2015 designed to tackle modern slavery in the UK. It obliges businesses with a turnover of £36 million to produce a slavery and human trafficking statement. In their statements, organisations should report on their: supply chains; policies on modern slavery and human trafficking; identified risks of modern slavery and steps taken to mitigate the risks; staff training and capacity to tackle modern slavery and human trafficking. Be open and transparent – if you do find that your supply chain does use slaves at some stage in your supply chain, ensure that you formulate a plan to deal with this and let your customers and prospects know what you plan to do to address the problem. Covering it up or not even addressing the issue itself shouldn’t really be considered as a solution as the ramifications of the public finding out your organisation covered up or hasn’t done anything about using slaves in the production of goods can be damaging for your organisation’s reputation. Ending modern slavery At Wax Digital, we’re committed to doing our part to ending modern slavery. As such, in 2019, we will be publishing our own slavery and human trafficking statement. We will disclose details of our own supply chain and practices on our website to demonstrate our obligation to ending modern slavery.
(For Those Who Still Don’t See What’s Happening) Once upon a time, a tribe of brown bears lived on a beautiful island. Some shores were rocky; others were sandy. Mountains stretched up to reach the sun and stars, and massive forests and sprawling fields spread all over the land. The bears kept hives of honey bees and fields of berry bushes, and they hunted salmon from the great rivers that cut their way from coast to coast – north, south, east, and west. One day, a group of polar bears arrived from across the sea and settled on the island. The brown bears welcomed their new neighbors and showed them how to live of the land because the polar bears were accustomed to a very different sort of place. But not long after, the polar bears decided they would build a truly great society where all bears would be equal. So, they poured all their energies into making their vision reality, began spreading across the island and bringing more polar bears with them. They drove the brown bears out of their caves, killing most of them when they resisted relocation, and confining the survivors into a few small, barren areas of the island. The polar bears made the island their own – covering the land with ice, erecting monumental stone structures, building farms to raise whale and sea lions to satisfy their monstrous appetites, and establishing themselves as the leaders. They set up government, a warrior class in case they were attacked by other animals, and peace keepers to enforce laws between bears. But all of these new developments demanded a lot of hard labor, much more than the polar bears were able and willing to provide for themselves. So they sent traders across the sea to buy black bears and bring them back to the island as slaves. These bears worked long hours for only enough food to survive and poor shelter, and they were routinely abused by their polar bear masters in terrible ways – beaten, tied up, muzzled, separated from their families, humiliated. Years passed. The island grew prosperous, and the polar bears became rich. Not all of the polar bears lived in luxury, but even the poor polar bears were faring much better than the black bears. Some polar bears in the government began to feel guilty, and eventually after a bitter battle, the black bears were declared free, but they were still paupers. They had no property, many polar bears still treated them with contempt and abuse, and they received more severe punishment if they were convicted of crimes. Peace keepers often treated them with extreme violence – violence they would never have used on a white bear. Secret clubs of polar bears terrorized the black bears’ dens, and the black bears weren’t allowed access to certain areas of the island that the polar bears were free to enjoy. Even when they were simply laughing loudly or arguing with their families, they were labeled threatening. Even though they were now able to begin bettering their situation, they were still struggling to survive in a world of ice, snow, and blubber. Sometimes, when the atrocities happened in greater frequency, the black bears would assemble and march into the areas where they weren’t allowed, one paw raised, closed in a fist. Some times it was peaceful. Some times polar bears would get really angry because the black bears pointed out inequalities, fights broke out, and blood ran bright red down the ice, carving tiny canyons in its surface. The black bears raised their closed paws, and eventually, rules were enacted that allowed them to enter all areas of the island where the polar bears were allowed, but not much else changed. More years passed, the black bears were still regarded with contempt, still assumed to be criminals, and still far more of them were punished for crimes and killed by peace keepers than their white counterparts. The black bears marched again, raising their voices and fists protesting injustice. Again, fights broke out, monuments were damaged, peace keepers were called in, more blood, more canyons. Some polar bears recognized that the black bears were not being treated as bears and raised a closed paw with them. Most polar bears recognized but stood silent and watched. Some polar bears raged against the black bears saying they should be grateful for the the opportunities they had been given. After all, they were now allowed all over the island, and everything had been fixed. The black bears were more hurt than ever, and being treated this way for generations, they were angry, especially when the polar bears pointed out how great their society was – the greatest in the world they would say. But it wasn’t equal, as they had claimed it would be. So how could it be great? Finally one month, two polar bears killed a black bear who was out exercising. They said he looked like a bear they thought had stolen property in their territory. The peace keepers let the perpetrators alone until other bears saw what had happened and began to roar. Peace keepers out of their uniforms raided the den of a black bear and killed her while she slept. They threw her mate in prison when he tried to fight back even though they had entered the wrong den. A black bear walking by the river asked a polar bear to control her ferret that was annoying others (it was not supposed to be loose anyway). She began crying for peace keepers to come intervene, claiming he was assaulting her. Then, a black bear, accused of a minor crime, was held down by three polar bears. One of them rested his entire weight on the black bear’s neck. And the black bear died. The black bears were furious and they roared and they marched again. This time more polar bears roared and marched and some of the brown bears and all other types of bears that had moved to the island. Birds carried the stories abroad, and bears on islands all over the earth roared and marched because of how the black bears were treated over and over again and how the polar bears refused to change their ways and rules over and over again. Bears of all types began smashing monuments and businesses – smashing what they had helped build and setting it afire. And the peace keepers came, blood ran down the ice, and fires smoldered. And even then, while the “greatest” society crumbled and burned, there were polar bears raging about how the “black bears were tearing it all down”, while they themselves punched holes in the walls of their dens and tossed bedding across their rooms all because some of their stuff was destroyed, never realizing it could have been avoided if they’d only listened and acted. But through the smolder, the ice was melting, the berry bushes were trying to sprout leaves again, and from time to time, the hum of honey bee wings wafted in on a warm wind.
Nestled among white-sand beaches and brightly colored resorts, the mangrove swamps along Mexico’s Yucatán coast are a paradise for birds and the people who enjoy watching them. The densely wooded swamps, located along a major avian migration route, offer safe haven to the millions of birds that make fraught intercontinental flights between the Americas each year. My guide to this flyway rest stop, Luis Salinas-Peba, is a soft-spoken scientist at the local campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. A botanist by training, Salinas-Peba is also a master of bird identification who can name just about every species we see and hear packed among the mangroves. The mix of long-distance migrants and local species is dazzling: Blue-winged teals from Canada cross paths with endemic Yucatán wrens. Towering pink flamingos mingle with teacup-size hummingbirds. The air pulsates with the guttural alarm cries of cormorants, which get louder and more insistent as our tiny boat glides closer to their nests. Several of the sleek black birds suddenly launch into the sky, pulling my gaze upward and my thoughts toward the past, when a visitor from space 66 million years ago turned a primeval paradise into a burning apocalypse. THE YEAR OF THE BIRD In 1918 Congress passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to protect birds from wanton killing. To celebrate the centennial, National Geographic is partnering with the National Audubon Society, BirdLife International, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to declare 2018 the Year of the Bird. Sign the pledge to find out this month's action and share your actions using #BirdYourWorld to increase your impact. Roughly 30 miles to the east of this mangrove swamp sits Chicxulub Puerto, a calm seaside village at the center of an immense impact crater that stretches into the Gulf of Mexico. The ever shifting earth has softened the crater rim, which today is only visible using advanced satellite sensing. But its footprint on the planet tells an incredible tale. On one infamous day in the late Cretaceous period, an asteroid the size of a mountain slammed into what is now the Yucatán coast, gouging the earth and setting off a series of catastrophic events. Vaporized rock and noxious gases choked the atmosphere, forests were obliterated across the globe, and temperatures fluctuated dramatically. The impact and its aftermath ended the reign of the dinosaurs, wiping out a group of creatures that had ruled the planet for 135 million years. Ask just about any paleontologist, and he or she will tell you that life found a way and that some dinosaurs survived the mass extinction. That’s because today’s birds are the last remaining twig on an otherwise demolished dinosaur family tree, grown from fierce predators and sculpted by evolution into an array of flapping, feathery fowl. “There is no doubt that birds are dinosaurs,” says Luis Chiappe, director of the Dinosaur Institute at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. “The evidence is so overwhelming, I would put it next to whether you’re going to question if humans are primates.” In the hellscape left by the asteroid, what gave the ancestors of modern birds an edge over their Cretaceous cousins? It’s a tough nut to crack, given how rare birds are in the fossil record. But some exceptional discoveries over the past dozen years, coupled with advances in genetic analysis, are starting to reveal how the Chicxulub impact shaped the modern-bird origin story. That, in turn, is offering some of the first plausible clues to how birds made it through the cataclysm and exploded into the more than 10,000 species that exist today. The oldest known root on the bird family tree is the raven-size Archaeopteryx, a 150-million-year-old animal that bore a telling mix of attributes. While all of today’s birds are toothless, Archaeopteryx had jaws bristling with sharp teeth. It sported claws on its front limbs and a long, bony tail. These traits are lost in birds and instead reveal close ties to its more reptilian cousins, such as the Velociraptors of Jurassic Park fame. But Archaeopteryx had characteristics of modern birds too. Its fossils show prominent wings covered in aerodynamic feathers and a wishbone not unlike one plucked out of a chicken dinner. Not long after its discovery in the 1860s, the species was hailed as a clear transitional step between dinosaurs and birds. But few new fossils emerged to fill in the evolutionary gaps, and details about its ancestors and descendants remained murky for decades. That finally changed in 1996, when scientists unveiled the first known fossil of a feathered dinosaur unrelated to birds. Dating back nearly 130 million years, Sinosauropteryx prima was a game changer among the dozens of spectacular species being mined from early Cretaceous rock formations in China, mainly in Liaoning Province. There, primordial lakes and active volcanoes had created all the right conditions for exquisite fossil preservation. The result is a menagerie of non-avian dinosaurs and their primitive bird contemporaries, often accompanied by feathers, scales, and skin that are sometimes so detailed they even retain traces of pigment. Like Archaeopteryx, many of these animals are surreal mash-ups between the standard notion of a modern bird and classic images of a predatory dinosaur. With feathers dark as an oil slick, the non-avian dinosaur Microraptor gui probably glided between branches using stiff feathers on all four of its limbs. Nearby, the primitive bird Longipteryx chaoyangensis was flitting along waterways, snapping up fish with its reptilian, tooth-studded jaws. And Anchiornis huxleyi, a charcoal-hued dinosaur with a crown of rusty fluff, was stalking the forest floor like a goth pheasant, unable to truly fly because of its stubby, three-clawed wings. “If you didn’t see the fossils themselves, you wouldn’t think these things existed,” says Shannon Hackett, a bird curator at the Field Museum in Chicago. Despite this bounty of finds from Liaoning, paleontologists still faced gaps in the fossil record, which they sometimes tried to fill based on patchy data from mere fragments of bone. Some DNA work put the origin of modern birds deep in the Cretaceous, with many of the avian groups that exist today springing up very early in the time line. This implied a tale of mega survivorship, with a bunch of modern bird ancestors somehow making it through the mass extinction in one giant flock. Other experts argued that all birds living before the cataclysm were of the more primitive persuasion, like the ones whose fossils were found in China. Under that theory, a few ancient species survived the impact and gave rise to a “big bang” of modern bird evolution only after the rest of the dinosaurs died. For years the debate was as contentious as asking whether cheesecake is cake or pie. But in 2005 bones from Antarctica threw an exciting new ingredient into the mix: a bird that lived just before the Chicxulub event and looked stunningly similar to a modern duck. Julia Clarke at the University of Texas at Austin first described Vegavis iaai based on a fossil dated to around 67 million years ago, just before the asteroid strike. Traditional anatomical analysis and a digital reconstruction of the bones show that Vegavis seems to bear traits in its skeleton that exist only in today’s birds, signs it is indeed part of a modern line. Clarke and her team place it in the same group that includes present-day ducks and geese. In 2016 they examined a second, more complete skeleton of Vegavis and found that the animal not only looked like a duck, it may have also quacked like a duck. The fossil contains the oldest known example of a vocal organ called a syrinx, a squawk box akin to the ones found in today’s waterfowl. “Vegavis is easily one of the most important early fossils” for understanding the spread of birds, says Daniel Field, an evolutionary paleobiologist at the University of Bath. This evidence of a modern bird group popping up just before the asteroid’s impact added to a growing need to rethink the polarizing positions on bird evolution that reigned in the 1990s. Closer looks at fragmentary bones, combined with more advanced methods of genetic backtracking, are fleshing out the story. In a study published in 2015, a team led by Yale University ornithology professor Richard Prum combed through the genes of 198 living bird species and calibrated their results against the latest fossil finds. Their detailed avian family tree suggests that only three modern groups got their start just before the asteroid strike. The picture emerging now shows animals that looked very much like modern birds, flying and diving and pecking in the shadow of the dinosaurs. A select few made it through the mass extinction, and that’s when birds as we know them really took off. Kemmerer, Wyoming, is built on bones. About a hundred miles northeast of Salt Lake City as the crow flies, the town sits among crumbling buttes packed with billions of fossils. Known for these riches since the 19th century, the land hosts about a dozen commercial quarries that supply trade shows and gift shops around the world. Whole family dynasties rise and fall and engage in understated rivalries over the discovery, preparation, and sale of animals that died some 52 million years ago. In the heart of Kemmerer, a couple of doors down from the first store opened by J.C. Penney, Lacey Adams perches on a metal stool at her prep table inside Tynsky’s fossil shop. As her safety glasses pin down parts of her spiky blond hair, Adams uses a compressed air chisel and needles to painstakingly remove the pale rock surrounding tea-brown bones. “I know offhand what species I’m looking at because of the ridges,” she says, turning a thin slice of stone under the light to reveal otherwise imperceptible bumps. “Like, that one’s obviously Knightia,” a member of the herring family commonly found in the region. This dry, rugged land is mostly known for its abundant fossil fish. After all, we’re standing in what used to be a massive lake, a subtropical everglade that would have made a South Floridian feel at home. As with the much older wetlands in China, this lake left an entire ecosystem frozen in time, including a valuable collection of ancient birds. Quarry workers and scientists here have unearthed partial bones, stray feathers, and well over a hundred complete bird skeletons. “They’re the best picture we have of how Earth’s biota was recovering after the great extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous,” says Lance Grande, a curator at the Field Museum and my host at the dig site. Black-billed scythebill (Campylorhamphus falcularius) Grande has been coming to this paleontological wonderland, prosaically known as Fossil Lake, for more than 40 years. He usually spends a few weeks each summer mining privately held land leased by the Tynskys. The most scientifically valuable finds return with him to Chicago, and the Tynsky family keeps the rest for commercial sale. For a blistering week in late June I join him up on the butte, where a cadre of enthusiastic high school students and museum volunteers teach me how to lift large slabs out of the earth and check them for signs of past life. About midmorning on one achingly bright day, Grande asks me to pause my sweaty efforts and come see something amazing: A worker from a neighboring quarry has brought us a bird. Grande has built relationships with several other local families, and they often share their most interesting finds in case he wants to make a purchase on behalf of science; some they donate. During a tour of the town, I happened to see one long-time fossil hunter affably barter his most recent discovery—a stunningly detailed ancient shrimp—for a wad of cash and a copy of Grande’s latest book, simply titled Curators. This time, though, the potential prize came to us, lovingly displayed from the back of a dusty pickup truck. The animal is only partially uncovered from its limestone tomb, but I can clearly see delicate bones and the impression of a feathered wing. Grande wants a closer look, so we wrap it for transit and race down to the local hospital to get an x-ray. The radiology techs greet us with less surprise than I would have expected—this is clearly not their first fossilized patient. It takes a couple of tries, but by the end of our impromptu visit, Grande is convinced there’s a complete bird skeleton inside the hunk of rock. He’ll later negotiate with its discoverer to buy the fossil for further study. In this way, many of the birds from the hills around Kemmerer have come to roost in Chicago, held in the display cases and storage rooms of the Field Museum. During a visit to the storied institute a few weeks after our dig, I get a closer look at an early parrot, a perching songbird, and a type of mousebird that have all been recently described by scientists. These remains show that the postimpact ecosystem was an exceptionally diverse aviary. “Every time we find a new bird specimen, one out of two times, it’s something completely new,” Grande says. “It’s pretty exciting.” The past few years have been a boon to researchers trying to capture an image of bird life recovering after planetwide disaster. In New Mexico, paleontologists recently extracted parts of a different mousebird that lived 62 million years ago. Tsidiiyazhi abini, Navajo for “little morning bird,” is now one of the oldest known avians on this side of the extinction event. It joins a 61-million-year-old giant penguin found recently in New Zealand that looks different from other penguins that lived around the same time. All these fossils seem to fit with the latest genetic puzzle pieces. A number of papers released in 2014 looked at the full genomes of 48 living bird species and concluded that modern birds saw a rapid boom in diversity soon after the asteroid impact. The 2015 genetics study came to a similar conclusion. Even if the two teams don’t agree on some of the finer details, they each support a picture of survivors making a strong comeback. “Evolution took tens of millions of years to produce a small dinosaur with wings that could fly by flapping its arms. And then that body plan proved really successful when the asteroid hit,” says Stephen Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh. “Some of those birds made it through, and then, on the other side, there was a whole new world to conquer.” Fish (Mioplosus labracoides) are the most common finds in the Kemmerer, Wyoming, lake. The tougher question is why these particular ancestors of modern birds made it through. With more fossils and faster gene sequencing, theories about survivorship abound. Examining the lifestyles of species that lived before and after the asteroid, Daniel Field and his colleagues think the widespread disappearance of forests may have had something to do with it. In the last days of the Cretaceous, the world as a whole was a warmer, wetter place than it is today. Lush forests were abuzz with all types of exotic birds, including many that might have passed for contemporary species at first glance. Field’s research is revealing that when the asteroid hit, whole forests disappeared, and the world was plunged into an impact winter. One ancient bird group that didn’t survive was the Enantiornithes. Many of these once abundant birds have feet suited for perching in trees, suggesting they were largely arboreal. So far, not a trace of them has been found beyond the Cretaceous. Instead, the surviving bird species seem to be more at home on scrubland or at sea. All of today’s birds that depend heavily on thickly wooded zones arose well after the mass extinction, around the time forests would have been bouncing back too. Another attractive notion is that certain birds were better at proliferating in a disaster zone. In 2017 a team led by Gregory Erickson at Florida State University presented evidence that egg-laying, non-avian dinosaurs took months to incubate and hatch their young. Since many modern-style birds generally reproduce quickly and mature in a matter of days or weeks, they might have had a competitive edge over their more reptile-like cousins in the grim aftermath of the asteroid strike. Depending on whom you ask, smaller bodies, polar adaptations, seed-based diets, and even nest designs may have played roles in determining who lived and who died. Solving the mystery will almost certainly require exhaustive hunts for animals that lived even closer in time to the impact. Ongoing fieldwork in places like South America, New Zealand, and the frosty deserts of Antarctica already hint at fresh discoveries in the near future. And richer genetic clues should flood the field in the coming years. At the China National GeneBank in Shenzhen, scientists are using faster, more precise techniques to churn out drafts of entire genomes for all living bird species by 2020. Their work should help researchers not only to understand living birds but also to match useful traits in fossil animals to those in the animals’ living descendants. “We’re going to see an explosion in the number of bird genomes,” Clarke says. “It’s going on right now, and it’s amazing, and I love it.” The most likely answer to the question of survivorship is that it took a suite of characteristics for certain birds to be successful. That’s why it’s important to keep adding evidence and probing each new theory. “These are global, very complex patterns that we’re trying to piece together from more than 60 million years later,” Field says. But “trying to dive into all of those related questions is gradually improving our understanding of survival across one of the most severe mass extinction events in the history of the world.” Back on the rim of the impact crater, Xavier Chiappa-Carrara, head of the academic unit of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in the Yucatán, is investigating how birds will cope with a more insidious kind of mass extinction. Mexico is home to more than a thousand bird species, and about half of them can be found in the Yucatán. Roughly 220 are migrants, spending the winter in the region or just passing through on their way between hemispheres. Today many of these birds are at risk due to habitat loss. During our visit to the mangroves, we saw a large, plastic-lined shrimp farm cutting into the coastline. Vacation homes and hotels creep around the edges of the swamp. And all across the peninsula, increasing numbers of people are drawing water from the underground aquifers that support the entire coastal ecosystem. Chiappa-Carrara and his team are now racing to understand how humans are affecting the wildlife. It’s a familiar refrain around the world. We are changing the environment so quickly, wiping out habitats and altering the climate, it’s like an invisible asteroid hit the planet. But while the ancient space rock couldn’t have cared less, people can alter the course of this catastrophe, which is why Chiappa-Carrara has hope. He and his colleagues help organize a Yucatán bird festival every year, bringing the wonders of all things feathered to the public. Every year they inspire more visitors to appreciate and protect these survivors from a fallen kingdom—the dinosaurs that still share the land and sea and sky.
This is indeed an important topic for nursing practice. It is difficult if not impossible to separate out physical injury from the psychological effects that can occur. One of the developing issues in pediatric nursing is that the constructs used in work with child psychopathology have been derived from examination of how the illness develops and affects adults. It is important, however to differentiate between the diagnostic formulation of any mental illness in adults form the situation in children. This is particularly so for PTSD as questions arise about the validity of the diagnostic formulation of PTSD in children. PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can result from exposure to events that can be physically threatening. These events can include physical or sexual abuse, torture, severe motor vehicle accidents, war exposure, being kidnapped or taken hostage, terrorist attack, natural or man-made disasters, community violence, or being diagnosed with a life-threatening illnesses (e. g. , cancer). Many of these seem to be increasing threats for children today. This study by Meiser-Stedman et al (2008) examined the diagnosis of pre-school and elementary school children exposed to motor vehicle accidents. Their emphasis was on accurate diagnosis of PTSD in children. Three main points presented were how to modify the diagnosis for young children, how psychopathology is best detected at an early stage and how to make use of multiple informants. The study was a longitudinal assessment of preschool and elementary school children who were exposed to a traumatic event. The participants were 114 children, aged 2- 10, from three emergency departments in London, England. They were all from low socioeconomic boroughs that had experienced a motor vehicle accident. The measures used included structured interviews completed by the children and their parents or caregivers at initial stage and at 6-month follow-up. The parents completed the PTSD semi-structured interview and Observational Record for Infants and Young Children. They also completed the Anxiety Disorder Interview Schedule – Child and Parent Version. The important results of the study were that the percentage of children meeting the criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD based on the alternative algorithm criteria was higher than with the DSM-IV diagnosis, and that the combined report of child (7- 10 years) and parent was more reliable in predicting post-traumatic psychopathology than the report of parent alone. The study demonstrated for the first time that a significant degree of psychopathology persists over the first six months of post trauma in young children. Secondly the results implied that when only one informant is available clinically significant cases are overlooked. The study emphasizes the growing consensus that many adult psychiatric disorders have origins in childhood and adolescence. Therefore it is becoming more important to be able to accurately diagnose psychopathology in children, even at preschool level. There is a need therefore to develop valid and reliable diagnostic criteria for these age groups. Pediatric nurses can benefit from this information. Perhaps the fundamental issue is the relationship between physical pain and psychological effects; and therefore how psychological effects follow from such physical trauma such as fractures and burns and how these psychological effects can contribute to the development of PTSD in children. Not enough is known about the normal range of acute psychological responses in children to traumatic physical injury so this research is significant. There are possibilities that aggressive pharmacological pain management during hospitalization and care of children can help to reduce the likelihood of the later development of PTSD. Nurses can assess for a history of pain and trauma and for early predictors of PTSD, even in emergency room. Nurses can also follow up after the injury to ask about behavioral symptoms that may be developing that will help with intervention and prevention of PTSD later on. Reference Meiser-Stedman, R. , Smith, P. , Glucksman, E. Yule, W. & Dalgliesh, T. (2008). The Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Diagnosis in Preschool- and Elementary School –age children exposed to motor vehicle accidents. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 165 (10) pp: 1326- 1337
Bugyals are alpine pasture lands, or meadows, in higher elevation range between 3,300 metres (10,800 ft) and 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) of the Himalayas in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, where they are called “nature’s own gardens”. The topography of the terrain is either flat or sloped. The surface of these bugyals is covered with natural green grass and seasonal flowers. They are used by tribal herdsmen to graze their cattle. During the winter season the alpine meadows remain snow-covered. During summer months, the Bugyals present a riot of beautiful flowers and grass. As bugyals constitute very fragile ecosystems, particular attention needs to be given for their conservation.
The ancestors of today’s slithery snakes once sported full-fledged arms and legs, but genetic mutations caused the reptiles to lose all four of their limbs about 150 million years ago, according to two new studies. The findings are welcome news to herpetologists, who have long wondered what genetic changes caused snakes to lose their arms and legs, the researchers said. Both studies showed that mutations in a stretch of snake DNA called ZRS (the Zone of Polarizing Activity Regulatory Sequence) were responsible for the limb-altering change. But the two research teams used different techniques to arrive at their findings. [Image Gallery: Snakes of the World] According to one study, published online Oct. 20 in the journal Cell, the snake’s ZRS anomalies became apparent to researchers after they took several mouse embryos, removed the mice’s ZRS DNA and replaced it with the ZRS section from snakes. The swap had severe consequences for the mice. Instead of developing regular limbs, the mice barely grew any limbs at all, indicating that ZRS is crucial for the development of limbs, the researchers said. “This is one of many components of the DNA instructions needed for making limbs in humans and, essentially, all other legged vertebrates. In snakes, it’s broken,” the study’s senior author Axel Visel, a geneticist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, said in a statement. Visel and his colleagues began looking at the genomes of “early” snakes that were closer to the base of the snake family tree — such as the boa and python — that have vestigial legs, or tiny bones buried within their muscles. The scientists also studied “advanced” snakes, including the viper and cobra, which do not have any limb structures. During their investigation, the researchers focused on a gene called sonic hedgehog, which is key in embryonic development, including limb formation. Sonic hedgehog’s regulators, located in the ZRS sequence of DNA, had mutated, they found. However, the researchers needed proof that the ZRS mutations were responsible for limb loss. To find out, they used a DNA-editing technique called CRISPR (short for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats”) to cut out the ZRS stretch in mice embryos and replace it with the ZRS section from other animals, including snakes. When the mice had ZRS DNA from other animals, including humans and fish, they developed limbs just like any regular mouse would. But when the researchers inserted the python and cobra ZRS into the mice, the mice’s limbs barely developed, the researchers found. Next, the researchers took an in-depth look at the snakes’ ZRS, and found that a deletion of 17 base pairs (that is, paired DNA “letters”) within the snakes’ DNA appeared to be the cause of the limb loss, they said. When they painstakingly “fixed” the mutations in the snake ZRS and inserted it into mice embryos, the mice grew normal legs, they found. [Photos: Weird 4-Legged Snake Was Transitional Creature] However, creatures usually have redundant DNA that protects against mutations such as these, so it’s likely that multiple evolutionary events led to limb loss in snakes, Visel said. “There’s likely some redundancy built in the mouse ZRS,” he said. “A few of the other mutations in the snake ZRS probably also played a role in its loss of function during evolution.” Adult snakes don’t have limbs, but extremely young snake embryos do, according to the other study, published online today in the journal Current Biology. Like the researchers of the Cell study, the scientists found that snake ZRS had disabling mutations that prevented limb development. However, they also found that during the first 24 hours of their existence, python embryos have a “pulse of sonic hedgehog transcription [the first step of gene expression] in just a few limb bud cells,” said the study’s senior author Martin Cohn, a professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at the University of Florida College of Medicine. But that transcription switches off within a day of the egg being laid, meaning that the snake cannot fully develop legs, Cohn and his co-author Francisca Leal, a doctoral student in Cohn’s lab, found. “Python ZRS proved to be very inefficient, turning on transcription for a short time in a few cells,” Cohn said. However, even during that short time, python embryos managed to begin development for leg bones such as a femur, tibia and fibula, the researchers found. “[But] those distal structures degenerate before they fully differentiate into cartilage, and python hatchlings are left with just a rudimentary femur and a claw,” Cohn said. He added, “the results tell us that pythons have retained a lot more of the leg than we appreciated, but the structures are transitory and are found only at embryonic stages.” Cohn called the Cell study, “a tour de force” and “absolutely thrilling.” “The two groups took very different approaches to the question of limb loss in snakes,” Cohn said. “Axel [Visel]’s group started with genomics, and we started with developmental biology, and the two groups converged on exactly the same discovery.” Original article on Live Science. for more features.
Refrigerator magnet pictures the most recognized king in history - Henry VIII of England. Henry ruled as king of England from April 21, 1509 until his death on January 28, 1547. He was crowned on June 24, 1509. He assumed the throne upon the death of his father and at his death passed it to his young son, Edward VI. Henry is best known for his difficulty in providing the crown with a male heir. During his thirty-eight year monarchy he had six wives, of which two were beheaded and the marriages to two others were annulled. When Pope Clement VII refused to annul the marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Henry named himself head of the Church of England, asserting that kings had divine rights. This freed him to select a new queen expected to be more fertile, Anne Boleyn. The schism with the Catholic church in Rome contributed to the Protestant Reformation.
The pH scale is something we all learn about in school. You don’t have to be a chemistry genius to know where an acid or base ends up on the scale. This infographic from Compound Chem visualizes the pH scale:Premium infographic templates Periodic table with a fun twist! Student's always ask what is so-and-so element used in? This poster shows the answer to that question, making chemistry relevant. #chemistry #periodictable #scienceisfun Types of Organic Formula Back to basics with today’s graphic, with a look at the different ways compounds in organic chemistry can be represented. Obviously, if you’re a chemist, these will all be second nature, but as was quite fairly pointed out with regards to the food chemistry graphics, if you’re not well versed in chemistry, all of those lines and letters might well be a bit perplexing. Here’s a brief explanation of what they mean.
More Focus on Reading Fluency Needed, Study Suggests A new examination of national assessment data suggests that students need more practice building reading fluency and more explicit instruction in comprehension strategies. Students who can read text passages aloud accurately and fluently at an appropriate pace are more likely to understand what they are reading, both silently and orally, says the study of 4th graders who took the 2002 National Assessment of Educational Progress in reading. Some 40 percent of the students included in the study had trouble with some aspect of an oral-reading task, however. The findings, released last month, show that while few of the students displayed difficulty in reading words accurately, many needed more instruction in advanced reading skills that enhance comprehension. Called the 2002 NAEP Oral Reading Study, the research commissioned by the assessment’s governing board found that more than half the 4th graders were able to reach high levels on three measures: accuracy, rate, and fluency. Although large proportions of students could read accurately and quickly, fewer, or 61 percent, were judged fluent. Fluency is defined as “an effortless, smooth, and coherent oral production of a given passage … in terms of phrasing, adherence to the author’s syntax, and expressiveness.” The findings correlate closely with the results of the 2005 NAEP reading test, on which 64 percent of 4th graders demonstrated at least “basic” skills. ("NAEP Gains Are Elusive in Key Areas," Oct. 26, 2005.) The results are also similar to the oral-reading study conducted as part of the national assessment in 1992, although they are not directly comparable because different passages were used. On the latest oral test, which was given to a 1,700-student subsample of the 140,000 4th graders who took the written test in 2002, the youngsters were asked to read aloud a relatively simple passage. They were first allowed two practice readings, then assessed for time and accuracy on the third reading. “The key finding obviously is that a large number of kids would benefit from fluency instruction,” said Timothy Shanahan, the director of the Center for Literacy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “It’s the simultaneous accomplishment of these three things—getting words right, doing it quickly, and sounding meaningful—and kids clearly have to be doing some interpretation; that’s important for overall comprehension,” said Mr. Shanahan. For too long, he said, teachers have given fluency instruction short shrift, assuming that once students learn to identify words they naturally become more adept at reading them quickly and accurately. More than fluency instruction, however, the results point to a need for greater attention to comprehension instruction, said Michael Kamil, a prominent researcher at Stanford University. “I’m overinterpreting it here, but it says, ‘Look folks, these kids need comprehension instruction. They don’t need a lot of word instruction,’ ” said Mr. Kamil, who has argued that comprehension instruction has suffered in a climate that has primarily encouraged more basic-skills teaching in letter sounds and word-recognition strategies. The findings also show that students’ rate of reading varies on a one-minute reading assessment compared with a lengthier task. Students were not asked to read the story quickly, but they were timed on how long it took them to read the entire passage, as well as how many words they read in the first 60 seconds. On average, students read more quickly in the first minute. Such data suggest that some current practices, such as a focus on basic skills and the widespread use of a one-minute reading assessment in schools participating in the federal Reading First program, may not be the most effective, according to Richard A. Allington, the president of the International Reading Association. Mr. Allington, a professor of education at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, has been critical of the implementation of the $1 billion-a-year federal program authorized under the No Child Left Behind Act and of the intense focus on basic-skills instruction. “One might wonder then why so much emphasis is being given to decoding in early-literacy programs and in so many reading-intervention plans. Fluency was a bigger problem,” said Mr. Allington. Vol. 25, Issue 11, Page 11
We are exposed to countless pollutants on a daily basis in our food, air, water, clothing, and homes. And while many of them are known to be toxic, the consequences of low-level exposure are largely unknown. Despite the FDA and EPA claiming safety for the small amounts of contaminants we’re exposed to, a recent study indicates that long-term, low-level exposure to food contaminants could result in an increased risk of chronic diseases associated with metabolic function like diabetes. If you eat right and exercise but are still unable to improve your health, these low-level toxins could be to blame. Researchers studied two groups of obese mice—both receiving a diet of high-fat and high-sugar content. One group also received a “cocktail” of pollutants at a low dosage from pre-conception to adulthood. Those mice experienced unforeseen health effects. Though they didn’t experience weight gain or toxicity, the female mice fed the pollutants did become glucose intolerant, suggesting possible effects on insulin signaling. In the males, results were different, with no change in glucose tolerance but negative changes in liver functioning related to cholesterol synthesis. “This report that confirms something we’ve known for a long time: pollution is bad for us,” said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., of The FASEB Journal. “But, what’s equally important, it shows that evaluating food contaminants and pollutants on an individual basis may be too simplistic. We can see that when “safe” levels of contaminants and pollutants act together, they have significant impact on public health.” The results suggest these low-level pollutants, present all around us, could be contributing to chronic diseases. “This study adds evidences for rethinking the way of addressing risk assessment especially when considering that the human population is widely exposed to low levels of thousands of chemicals, and that the health impact of realistic mixtures of pollutants will have to be tested as well,” said Brigitte Le Magueresse-Battistoni, from the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM). “Indeed, one pollutant could have a different effect when in mixture with other pollutants. Thus, our study may have strong implications in terms of recommendations for food security. Our data also bring new light to the understanding of the impact of environmental food contaminants in the development of metabolic diseases.” Unfortunately, the FDA is failing to keep our food safe. As conscientious consumers who know the government won’t step up to further regulate toxic exposure and corporations behind the pollutants in our water and food supply won’t likely be proactive, we have a duty to keep ourselves healthy in spite of the pollutants around us. This can be done by minimizing exposure through the consumption of natural organic foods and by detoxing our bodies on a regular basis through natural means. This post originally appeared at Natural Society This article was posted: Wednesday, November 27, 2013 at 6:14 am
Mars Madness Hits The Curiosity rover is sending back photos of things mission scientists are struggling to understand. It looks like there was standing water on Mars, but geologists can’t picture any circumstances where large amounts of water could have survived for long. The sun should have been cooler, for one thing, in the early years of the solar system. Another curiosity is that Curiosity (the name of the Mars Science Mission rover), has failed to find evidence of carbonates on the surface, yet those would be expected if Mars had more carbon dioxide in the past to act as a greenhouse gas to keep the surface warm enough for liquid water. These paradoxes, NASA’s Curiosity page says, make “climate modelers struggle to produce scenarios that get the surface of Mars warm enough for keeping water unfrozen.” The dilemma has been building for years, the Mars rover scientists say. From the photos, scientists see evidence of river channels and lakebeds on Mars, but chemically, the rocks don’t match. Dissolved CO2 in water helps minerals like iron and magnesium precipitate into carbonate rock. Orbiters and rovers have been unable to find carbonates above a low threshold. “We’ve been particularly struck with the absence of carbonate minerals in sedimentary rock the rover has examined,” said Thomas Bristow of NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California. “It would be really hard to get liquid water even if there were a hundred times more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than what the mineral evidence in the rock tells us.” Bristow is the principal investigator for the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument on Curiosity and lead author of the study being published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. So far, no scenario rescues the disparate observations. It doesn’t appear the liquid water was under frozen lakes, or underground. “Curiosity’s traverse through streambeds, deltas, and hundreds of vertical feet of mud deposited in ancient lakes calls out for a vigorous hydrological system supplying the water and sediment to create the rocks we’re finding,” said Curiosity Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. “Carbon dioxide, mixed with other gases like hydrogen, has been the leading candidate for the warming influence needed for such a system. This surprising result would seem to take it out of the running.“ The article leaves the dilemma unanswered. The paper is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) this week. Let the scientists explain the geology before they launch into speculations about life. Remember, too, that the scientists were baffled and discouraged by widespread evidence of life-hindering salts and perchlorates on the surface (10/02/15). Why would lakebeds persist for billions of years on a planet frequently disturbed by global duststorms? If the moyboys would cure their obsession with millions of years and billions of years, maybe it would lead to new avenues of explanation.
New Delhi: Single-use plastic is emerging to be the biggest polluter of the environment in every possible way. Post Independence Day celebrations, the tri-coloured national flag, that symbolises and represents India, either end up in the landfills or get burnt along with other waste that can cause air pollution, and even contamination of groundwater. To make this year’s Independence Day celebrations eco-friendly, Bengaluru start-up has developed flags from seed paper. Roshan Ray, founded Seed Paper India five years ago. Talking to NDTV about the idea behind the innovation, Roshan says, Every event and occasion generates truck loads of waste. For instance, before Independence Day you will see children selling flags at red lights and bus stops but after the Independence Day, you will find same flags lying unattended on the roads. It is in 2017 when I gave a thought to the amount of waste generated and decided to replace to-be-waste with a plant. The seeds paper flags made using handmade paper have Tulsi seeds embedded in them and are dyed using organic ink. While colour saffron is obtained by mixing turmeric powder with food grain colour, spinach is used for green colour and blueberries for Ashoka Chakra to get the blue colour. Seed Paper India supplied 35,000 flags on Independence Day last year and one lakh on Republic Day this year and has already received orders for five lakh flags. But the journey to five lakh flags has not been a cakewalk; Roshan says, It is a disrespect to put a national flag on the ground and many think that by putting a flag in a pot we are disregarding it. But I believe this is the highest form of respect one can give to their national flag. You are not discarding the flag but converting it into Tulsi (Basil) plant which is considered as one of the most sacred plants. Plantable flags that are supplied pan India start from as low as Rs. 5 and goes up to Rs. 12, depending on customisation like adding company’s or school’s logo or a slogan at the back side and the quantity of the flags. The seed paper used in making flags is made from 100 per cent handmade paper, which has its base in discarded cotton fibers that would have otherwise reached landfills and Tulsi seeds are embedded into the paper. The production of seed paper used in the making of flags is a five step process. The first step involves collecting waste cloth cuttings, fine chopping them into a rag chopping machine and then washing them. The cloth cutting is then taken in a beater machine which grinds it to a ﬁne pulp after 8-12 hours of beating. The Pulp is then poured in an agitation tank which mixes the pulp and then poured into a vat where the seeds are added. After this, the sheets of seed paper are formed. The seed paper sheets are then left for 5-7 days for natural drying. Once sheets are ready, they are cut into shapes and sizes and printed as per the requirement. Sharing her experience of using plantable products, Dr Sandhya from Bengaluru says, When I first heard about plantable products, I was very impressed by the novelty of the idea and how it taps every individual by adding seeds in almost every product. In the case of flags, we all use it but after I-day we don’t know what to do with it and somehow it becomes a part of the garbage. This year when one of my friends told me about seeds flags, I explored the product and placed my order. I have decided to distribute it among my younger cousins and their children so that they can have their own flag cum plant and nurture it. In the past, Dr Sandhya has used seed pencils and as per her experience, pencils did sprout into a plant. While some took more time is needed, while some sprouted within days of sowing them. It also depends on how you take care of it, says Dr Sandhya. Similar feedback was shared by Jyothi, Bengaluru based teacher, who purchased plantable flags last year and this republic day and now has a Tulsi plant at her place. Roshan is not alone in this fight against plastic. Divya Shetty and Vishnu Vardhaan, founders of Pepaa (erstwhile Plantcil), a brand dealing in plantable products too offer plantable flags under their initiative #FreedomFromPlasticFlags. With the idea of ‘what if our flag can go from use and throw to use then grow’ the duo introduced plantable flags in 2018 and in its first year they managed to sell over 50,000 flags. Sharing the reason behind giving a green and an eco-friendly spin to the national flag, Divya says, Every year crores of plastic flags are sold and we are guilty of purchasing that to showcase our patriotism. 73 crore plastic flags are discarded right after a single-use. Flags fashioned out of plantable seed paper come in like 100 flags, 500, 2000, 5000 and 10000 flags. While a pack of 100 flags will cost Rs. 600, 10,000 flags will fetch you Rs. 20,000. This year you too can make a difference by opting for seed paper flag – one that grows into a plant on sowing. NDTV – Dettol Banega Swachh India campaign lends support to the Government of India’s Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). Helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan, the campaign aims to spread awareness about hygiene and sanitation, the importance of building toilets and making India open defecation free (ODF) by October 2019, a target set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when he launched Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in 2014. Over the years, the campaign has widened its scope to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and menstrual hygiene. The campaign has also focused extensively on marine pollution, clean Ganga Project and rejuvenation of Yamuna, two of India’s major river bodies.
Children’s health highlighted at D.C. events By Virginia Guidry Children’s environmental health research was the focus of the Oct. 29-30 annual meeting of the NIEHS-U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Centers. NIEHS and EPA staff and center grantees discussed ongoing research at the Washington, D.C., event. “The children’s centers were established to increase our understanding of children’s unique vulnerability to harmful environmental exposures,” said Linda Birnbaum, Ph.D., director of NIEHS and the National Toxicology Program, in her opening talk. “This research has helped to guide the development of protective measures for children in the United States and around the world.” NIEHS and EPA have jointly funded 23 children’s centers across the country since 1998. The centers examine the effects of air pollution, metals, pesticides, and other environmental contaminants on children’s health and developmental outcomes. They also provide outreach and education to those concerned about children’s environmental health. Environmental health across the life span A common theme among attendees was the need to consider the entire life span when protecting children’s health. They stressed that exposures in early life can set a course for health outcomes later in life — a concept called early programming. Bradley Peterson, M.D., of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, explained that much of the brain’s structure is established during the prenatal period and early childhood. Exposure to common air pollutants, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, during this time can result in permanent changes to brain structure. Michael Lu, M.D., from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration, addressed the cumulative effects of environmental exposures across a lifetime. “If we want to improve children’s health, starting in childhood is not early enough. Even prenatal care is too late to reverse the accumulation of dioxins in maternal body fat, or epigenetic changes that get passed down from parents as a result of early exposures to nutrition, toxic stress, and environmental factors,” Lu said. “So we really need to take a life course approach to children’s health.” Research that informs health policy Children’s centers grantees presented new research on topics ranging from obesity, reproductive health, and neurodevelopmental disorders, to air pollution, nutrition, stress, and poverty. Grantees also discussed how to make their research findings useful for the development of health policies. A suggestion heard frequently from attendees was the need to include environmental health topics in required training for obstetricians, pediatricians, and family practice providers. “Obstetricians aren’t thinking about how exposures in pregnant mothers now are going to affect their children when they’re 10, 30, 40 years old,” said Rosalind Wright, M.D., from Mount Sinai Hospital. “If we’re going to focus on pregnant women, we have to educate obstetricians that environmental factors are important.” Gregory Diette, M.D., of Johns Hopkins University, encouraged scientists to align their research with the information regulators need to protect public health. “Linking studies so they can be implemented at the policy level is crucial,” he said. “It is not enough to show that ozone is bad — we have to show that ozone at a certain threshold is bad, so regulators can use that information.” (Virginia Guidry, Ph.D., is a technical writer and public information specialist in the NIEHS Office of Communications and Public Liaison.) NIEHS and EPA brief congressional staff A packed crowd attended a congressional briefing about children’s environmental health Oct. 28 in Washington, D.C. The offices of North Carolina Reps. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.) and G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) hosted the event. Birnbaum opened the briefing by explaining that NIEHS makes children’s health research a priority, because of the lifelong impacts it can have. She described current initiatives, including the Children’s Health Exposure Analysis Resource (CHEAR). Thomas Burke, Ph.D., Deputy Assistant Administrator of the EPA Office of Research and Development, provided a personal look at the importance of children’s health, based on his prior work as a state health director and his current position as the EPA science advisor. Three directors from NIEHS-EPA Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Centers shared the impacts of their research: - Peterson used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) pictures to show how pesticides and air pollution can alter brain development in children. - Rob McConnell, M.D., from the University of Southern California, shared growing evidence that air pollution not only worsens, but also causes, asthma. - Catherine Metayer, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of California, Berkeley, discussed how exposures to chemical mixtures, such as those used when painting, can increase the risk of developing childhood acute lymphocytic leukemia.
If you have a children’s rhyming poem, rhyming picture book text or story in verse that just won’t behave itself, send it to me and we’ll soon have it sorted out! Users of my editing service will be able to purchase a copy of ‘Rhyme Like the Experts’ for the discounted price of $5, a saving of 50% Email Jackie at jackiehosking [at] bigpond . com to find out more – ANYTIME Some Writing Tips for Writers of Rhyme and Meter Writing in verse is not as easy as it may first appear. There are three parts to writing publishable verse… - RHYTHM (meter) Your story or your theme is the most important element. Next comes the meter or the rhythm of your verse. The rhyme should be incidental, an added bonus, not the main player. I have been writing and editing rhyming poems and stories in verse for many years now and below are some of the commons mistakes that I have encountered. - Too many overused words… came, went, walk, sat etc. Poetry is an economical medium. If someone is walking, how are they walking? Replace common verbs with more vibrant ones. Eg – tripping, scurrying, scuttling, sloping, gliding etc. - Avoid too many adverbs. If someone is walking slowly, use strong verbs like, dragged or dawdled rather than the adverb slowly. It just paints a brighter more vivid picture. - Cliches are another thing to avoid. To be unique you will need to be creative. Some examples of cliches are… as black as night as white as snow as cold as ice as slow as a snail - Near rhymes are perfectly acceptable if everything else, the meter and the story is perfect. Otherwise they should be avoided. If you can’t find the perfect rhyme then I would suggest looking at changing the line around to create more options. Style is not how you write. It is how you do not write like anyone else. Charles Ghigna (Father Goose) Does meter matter? As far as I’m concerned, without meter nothing matters!!. So, what exactly is meter? Meter is the rhythm of our language. It’s the drum beat that rocks the poem along. It should be predictable and so established right from the start. This allows the reader to relax – it’s a bit like jogging. Once the rhythm is established you can jog for miles! Without this predictable rhythm, the reader will trip up which will pull them out of the story while they try to adjust to the new rhythm. Altering where the stress falls naturally to fit the meter Song writers do this quite often but it doesn’t seem as jarring when there is music to go along with the words. Poetry is different, especially poetry that is designed to be read by people other than the author. When we learn to speak a language we are taught to pronounce words according to where their stresses fall. Different accents will sometimes stress different parts of the word. Eg: the word ‘paprika’ in English is pronounced PAprika, with the stress falling on the first syllable. In the US it is pronounced paPRIka, with the stress falling on the middle syllable. If I was looking to rhyme with the word paprika, I could use either ‘Africa’ or ‘eureka’ depending on which country I was writing for. This is one of the reasons why it is difficult to translate poetry across countries even if they speak English. Here’s another eg: I tipped my hat and waved goodbye And walked away from my Bonsai What’s wrong with this couplet? Bonsai certainly rhymes with goodbye but why doesn’t it sound right? Below is an alternative – why does this read more smoothly? I tipped my hat and waved goodbye My Bonsai perched on the shelf nearby Okay – here’s the secret. In natural speech the word ‘goodbye’ is made up of two syllables, ‘good’ and ‘bye’. The stress falls on the second syllable – goodBYE. The word ‘bonsai’ on the other hand, while also made up of two syllables, has its stressed syllable falling naturally on the first one. BONsai. The pattern or meter for this couplet goes like this… I tipped my hat and waved goodbye – an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. And walked away from/my Bonsai – you’ll note also that there are two unstressed syllables between the stressed ones, not a major problem as we would tend to run the words ‘from’ and ‘my’ together anyway but the author may will stress the word ‘my’ and adjust how they pronounce the word ‘bonsai’ and put the stress on the second syllable. They will do this instinctively when they read it aloud and will miss the discrepancy. The new reader, however, will try to pronounce the words as they are spoken normally and will trip up the first time he/she reads it. A good indication of whether you have made this mistake in your own writing is to get a friend to read it aloud and note where they stumble. Or to read lines yourself but out of order. Here’s the pattern in the new couplet… I tipped my hat and waved goodbye My Bonsai perched on/the shelf nearby And will you succeed? Yes indeed, yes indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed! Iambic Pentameter says what? Could there a be a more complicated way of saying, knit one pearl one five times?. Let me explain… The English language, the one you and I speak fluently is considered a stressed language. Its words are broken up into syllables which are the raw material for meter. In tip 2 above I showed that words with more than one syllable usually have one syllable stressed more strongly than the other. Generally speaking the words that we tend NOT to stress are considered FUNCTION WORDS. These are… Determiners e.g. the, a, some, a few Auxiliary verbs e.g. don’t, am, can, were Prepositions e.g. before, next to, opposite Conjunctions e.g. but, while, a Pronouns e.g. they, she, us Now back to the knitting metaphor. In order to create the pattern below… …you have to knit one, then pearl one all along the row. Think of the knit stitch as an unstressed syllable and the pearl stitch as a stressed syllable. This is what iambic meter is. One unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. If we were to follow this pattern for ten stitches (syllables) i.e. kp\|kp\|kp\|kp\|kp\| we would have written a verse in iambic pentameter, where pentameter = 5. We would also be on our way to knitting a very lovely scarf! Here’s an example of a poem written in iambic pentameter…(where I’ve taken poetic license to pronounce it PENtaMEter rather than penTAMeter I’ve searched and searched my archives deepest files It’s taken quite substantial blocks of time And though I’ve written verse in range of styles Iambic pent-a-meter’s not my rhyme Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them. What do the publishers have to say. Just recently I was asked to sit on a panel at The Ballarat Writers’ Festival to discuss the art of writing in rhyme. To Rhyme or not to Rhyme, that was the question. Rather than give my personal opinion I thought it might be of interest to ask the powers that be, the publishers of Australian children’s books themselves. I spoke with over half a dozen publishers & editors and their answers were extremely telling. Below is what some of them had to say. Do you publish rhyming picture books? - We publish very few picture books full stop, and rhyming ones are generally treated with even more caution. We have published about three in the last four years. - We’ll publish what’s good. That said there’s a lot of bad rhyming manuscripts that come in our doo, which makes it harder to see those that really work. A rhyming picture has to be an even better book than a straight text for it to say to us ‘Publish me”. - Yes. But not a lot. Are rhyming picture books difficult to sell overseas? - Yes, they do not translate with rhyme. English speaking countries are usually fine. - Certainly selling translation rights is more difficult, for obvious reasons. - They can’t readily be translated. - Yes. They obviously don’t work well in translation. - Yes — the British and Americans speak with different rhythms, and some words sound different in American. If a translation, then it is the illustrations which are evaluated more than the stories. What are the most common difficulties that writers in rhyme encounter? - They haven’t got a sense of timing – rhythm or flow. - From a publishing point of view rhyming books do present challenges at the editing stage. - Metre metre metre! So few submissions have pleasing, easy metre. Read your poem aloud. Do you have to work hard to fit your words into your metre? Do you adjust the stress on ANY of the words (i.e. do you say them differently to the way you say them in natural speech)? Rewrite those lines!! I cannot emphasise enough how important metre is to poetry. - They think the rhyme excuses a whole lot of other flaws, including poor rhymes. Rhyming is a subtle and complex art that deserves years of study and then you have to make it work for children and then in a picture book format. You need a great story first and one that works for children, which has a proper beginning, middle and end. - Bad rhythm and forced rhyme. There should be no extra words to get the rhythm to work ‘such as the lion did say” instead of ‘said’ or reversals of words to get the rhyme, ie ‘lion blue’ to rhyme with ‘you’ instead of blue lion. In other words the rhyme has to be very natural. The other thing to bear in mind is that many people don’t have a natural sense of rhythm anyway, and read rhyme and the emphasis on the words differently. The rhyme has to be very consistent to avoid such differences. The other thing I find is that the necessity to rhyme often means that the story goes in different directions when inexperienced writers attempt to write rhyme, so there can be dead spots ion the story or extraneous material (if that makes sense). It is very difficult to get good succinct rhyme which keeps to the storyline. Rhyme that works better is when writers are not trying to write rhyming couplets, but stick to a simple repetitive couplet such as ‘I went walking. What did you see. I saw a red cow looking at me.’ Or ‘Let’s go visiting what do you say. Two black kittens are ready to play.’ - Rhythms and rhymes that are “not quite there”. Who do you think are today’s most successful rhyming picture book writers? - Mark Carthew & Janeen Brian - Mem Fox, Pamela Allen, Lucy Cousins, Julia Donaldson - Dr Seuss - Doug MacLeod is one of the best. And Graeme Base. - Julia Donaldson Do you have any favourite rhyming picture books. - No. I am neither a fan of nor a critic of such picture books. The picture book must simply strike me as unique and perfect – it has nothing to do with rhyme. - Of course the I Spy Books by Janeen Brian and The Gobbling Tree by Mark Carthew – a brilliant book for boys. My favourite classic is without a doubt My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson. The more traditional version is in A Child’s Garden of Verse, a gorgeous updated version was illustrated by Monique Felix using mice! - Anything by Dr Seuss Isabella’s Garden, by Glenda Millard Ten Little Fingers, Ten Little Toes, by Mem Fox The Gruffalo, by Julia Donaldson - I Went Walking, Lets Go Visiting, Sister Madge’s Book of Nuns, Ballroom Bonanza - Julia Donaldson’s — THE GRUFFALO So there you have it. Straight from the horses mouths. And if you’re not sure what it is we mean by meter, please do ask about my 12 page PDF booklet ‘How to Write Rhyme like the Experts’
Most pet owners are aware of the importance of vaccines for keeping their beloved creatures safe from the many infectious and contagious diseases that threaten their health and well-being. Vaccines work by triggering your pet’s body to produce antibodies designed to fight the infection that the vaccine is imitating. These antibodies are stored so that they can be released in the event that your pet comes into contact with the actual virus or disease that the vaccine was imitating. Although there have been some concerns raised about the use of vaccines, the vast majority of veterinarians and animal scientists firmly agree that the benefits of vaccines far outweigh the small risks associated with them. So, what can you do to look after your pet after he receives a vaccination? Caring for a pet after a vaccination In virtually all cases, your pet will be able to go home after he has had his vaccination appointment. Try and keep to your usual routine at home so that he doesn’t feel confused about what is happening, and the visit to the veterinarian doesn’t come across as a big deal. Nevertheless, if your furbaby has found the trip stressful, his behavior may reflect that. He may seem restless or anxious still, and he may follow you around or seek extra attention to help reassure him. Take the time to comfort your pet and ensure he feels as calm and happy as possible. Make sure your pet has access to water and food, although it is not uncommon for animals to lose some of their appetite in the days after receiving their vaccine. Unless your pet makes it obvious that he wants your attention, give him space to lie down and rest without interfering with him. One of your main responsibilities after the vaccine will be to monitor your pet for any signs of post-vaccine complications or side effects. Post-vaccine side effects As with any sort of medical procedure or process, there is some degree of risk associated with giving a pet a vaccine. It is fairly common for pets to experience some mild side effects in the hours and days after receiving a vaccine, but these are rarely any real cause for concern. Mild side effects tend to include: - Swelling or slight discomfort at the site of the injection - Mild fever - Decreased appetite - Slight lethargy Most of these symptoms abate within a few days of your pet receiving the vaccine. If your pet has received an intranasal vaccine, symptoms similar to that of a human cold - a mild cough, sneezing and blocked nose - can occur 2-5 days later. When to contact our veterinarian Although rare, it is possible for a pet to experience an allergic reaction to a vaccine. These reactions can happen minutes or hours after receiving the vaccination but can be extremely serious and require immediate medical attention from a trained veterinarian. If your pet shows any of the following symptoms, get him seen straight away: Swelling around the muzzle, face, eyes or neck Persistent vomiting or diarrhea Extreme itching and skin that seems bumpy, raised or red Severe coughing or struggling to breathe If you have any further questions or concerns about the care you should be providing your pet after he has received a vaccine, contact our Nashville, TN office today and our veterinary team at Nippers Corner Pet Medical Center will be happy to advise you.
In 1930s Europe, especially in the first half of the decade, the government sponsored fitness campaigns found in fascist regimes garnered a great deal of envy. As Charlotte MacDonald detailed in her fantastic work on […] It was only two minutes and four seconds ‘Fore Schmeling was down on his knees He looked like he was praying to the good Lord To ‘Have mercy on me, please.’ Bill Gaither, 1938 June 22, 1938 and over 70,000 fans crammed into Yankee Stadium to see the ‘Brown Bomber’ Jou Louis face off against German boxer Max Schmeling for the second time in two years. Their interest was matched by the 64% of radio-owning Americans who tuned in that night to hear the fight’s broadcast. In 1936 Schmeling had beaten Louis in the very same venue after exploiting a weakness Louis’s boxing style. It was a defeat that sent the black community in America reeling. Joe was the first black boxer to gain acceptance by the American boxing federation since the controversial Jack Johnson and his defeat was met with utter devastation in black communities. At a time when the Ku Klux Klan was enjoying a revival, Joe had been a symbol of hope that blacks could integrate in white society. His loss was about more than sport.
Ask Your Nutritionist Which Food Helps To Sleep The food we eat can have a significant impact on various aspects of our health, such as weight, cardiovascular health, and blood sugar levels. Therefore, it is advisable to speak with the best dietician before making significant changes to your diet. This can help ensure that your dietary choices support not only your sleep but also your overall It’s always advisable to follow a diet plan prepared by an expert instead of taking medicines for sleep which can be harmful in the long run. Here are a few foods that can help you sleep: It comes in both green and gold varieties, with green kiwi being more commonly produced. Kiwifruit is rich in various vitamins and minerals, such as vitamins C and E, potassium, and folate. Some research has shown that eating kiwi can improve sleep, with people who ate two kiwis before bedtime experiencing faster sleep onset, longer sleep duration, and better sleep quality. It is not fully understood why kiwis may help with sleep, but it is thought that their antioxidant properties, ability to address folate deficiencies and high concentration of serotonin may play a role. Tart Cherries and Tart Cherry Juice Tart cherries, also known as sour cherries, have a different flavor from sweet cherries and include cultivars such as Richmond, Montmorency, and English morello. They can be purchased whole or as tart cherry juice. Several studies have shown that consuming tart cherry juice can improve sleep, with people who drank two cups of it per day having longer total sleep time and higher sleep efficiency. These benefits may be due to the fact that tart cherries have higher-than-average concentrations of melatonin, a hormone that helps regulate the body’s circadian rhythm and promotes healthy sleep. Tart cherries may also have an antioxidant effect that promotes sleep. Malted Milk and Nighttime Milk Malted milk is made by combining milk and a powdered mix containing wheat flour, malted wheat, malted barley, sugar, and various vitamins. It is often referred to by the brand name Horlick’s. Some small studies in the past have found that consuming malted milk before bedtime can reduce sleep interruptions. The reason for these benefits is unclear, but it may be related to the presence of B and D vitamins in malted milk. Milk also contains melatonin, and some milk products are enriched with the hormone. Cows milked at night produce milk with higher levels of melatonin, which may be a natural source of the hormone that promotes sleep. Nuts such as almonds, walnuts, pistachios, and cashews are often considered to be beneficial for improving sleep. Nuts contain melatonin and essential minerals like magnesium and zinc, which are necessary for various bodily functions. A clinical trial using supplements found that a combination of melatonin, magnesium, and zinc helped older adults with insomnia get better sleep. The exact amounts of these substances can vary among different types of nuts. Here are some tips to fall asleep: 1. Engage in relaxation activities before bedtime, such as listening to light music, reading a book, taking a warm bath, or drinking a cup of chamomile or liquorice tea or a glass of warm milk with a pinch of nutmeg. 2. Place a few drops of lavender oil on your pillow or behind your ears. 3. Avoid consuming caffeine, such as coffee, tea, soft drinks, and chocolate, and nicotine (cigarettes and other tobacco products) close to bedtime. 4. Eat at least two hours before bedtime. Eating before sleeping can slow the body’s metabolism and make it harder to digest, which can lead to weight gain. 5. Don’t exercise too close to bedtime. Exercise increases body temperature, heart rate, and stimulates the nervous system, which can disrupt sleep for some people. 6. Practice some breathing exercises, such as alternate nostril breathing, to help with sleep. 7. Keep the room temperature at a comfortable level, around 15-20°C if possible, for optimal sleep. 8. Avoid looking at screens or gadgets before bedtime. The blue light emitted from these devices can delay the release of the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin and increase alertness, making it harder to fall asleep. It is advisable to contact the best nutritionist like Binny Choudhry for your better sleep diet and take some professional help from her.
A review of Society and Economy on an Ottoman Island: Cyprus in the Eighteenth Century, by Antonis Hadjikyriacou. This study analyses the evolution of Cyprus under Ottoman rule from a geopolitical as well as social-economic perspective. The author makes use of a Braudelian conceptualization of the islands in the Mediterranean as ‘insular’ spaces and ‘miniature continents,’ but he also endeavors to show the place of the island in Ottoman and Mediterranean history by drawing on the literature on centralization vs. decentralization in the eighteenth-century-Ottoman world and center-periphery relations. Hadjikyriacou establishes the island’s three distinct settings: Mediterranean (Part I, chs. 1, 2), Ottoman (Part II, chs. 3, 4) and local (Parts III, 5, 6, 7). Accordingly, Cyprus was a microcosm of the empire, reflecting the general trends in social-economic, administrative and fiscal developments both in the empire and the Mediterranean world. The reader is provided with a well-articulated introduction and conclusion that discuss the theoretical framework, literature and the main conclusions of the study. The table of contents reads like a summary of the work. There are six tables and three figures related to a number of themes tackled in the study: the climatic changes, Janissary pays, taxation, organization of the agrarian production and economy, and administration. Finally, the appendices include 3 maps of Cyprus as well as views and plans of some Cypriot towns. Part I focuses on the background of the transformation in the organization of production.. Following the framework offered by late Faruk Tabak in The Waning of the Mediterranean, Hadjikyriacou narrates the transition to cotton and silk after the Ottoman conquest. Transition to tree fruits (mulberry, vines, olives) was also observed in Cyprus during the ‘Mediterranean autumn.’ Cyprus stopped cultivating sugar in the face of the Caribbean competition and thus sugar and wheat cultivation gave way to cotton and silk. Notably, cotton was a cash crop cultivated by small landholders as opposed to being a plantation crop in Cyprus – a rather arid island. The author explains the pervasiveness of water-intensive agriculture, reminding us of the debates on the little Ice Age; accordingly, possible climatic changes were likely to have made cotton cultivation sustainable in Cyprus. From the 1750s onward, grain cultivation also increased due to the devastating wars with Russia and Habsburg Austria. Cyprus was now required to send grains to distant Danubian theatres of war. Another empire-wide trend that is also observable in Cyprus was the rise in the contraband trade. The geostrategic environment of the Eastern Mediterranean prior to and after the Ottoman conquest receives due attention in this part of the study. The author arrives at the conclusion that the island ceased to be important for Ottoman strategic planning in the long run once the conquerors eliminated piracy and secured the trade and pilgrim routes. Chapter 3 deals with the seventeenth-century background, which saw the consolidation of the Ottoman administration in the second half of the century. Drawing on the emergent literature on the phenomenon of ‘Ottomanization’ in the provinces, Hadjikyriacou describes how this process unfolded in Cyprus. Growing cotton and silk production led to a struggle for the concentration and export of the cash crop production between different actors such as local elites, foreign consuls, and merchant communities. Thus, assimilation of post-Venetian elites by the 1650s was intertwined with formation of the new poles of economic, social and political power. Chapter 4 analyzes the logic of imperial administration on the island in the eighteenth century. This was the time when new communication channels between ruler and subjects took shape through various experimentations in administration. It is remarkable that administrative status of the island changed 11 times in 78 years. How should we make sense of this? Hadjikyriacou argues that rapid succession of administrative models reflected the general trends in the empire: bureaucratization and grievance administration. Recently, Ottomanists have come to question the rhetorics of oppression and transgression visible in the petitions submitted by the subjects to the Sublime Porte. Hadjikyriacou also adopts this skepticism about the source material. After all, if the Cypriots were so oppressed at the hands of the local administration, then why was the Ottoman administration sustainable? While historians should not take these local grievances lightly, such complaints were probably a negotiation strategy employed by the subjects. This century was a period of fiscal experimentation; introduction of esham (shareholding) in resource utilization changes the fiscal and administrative setting in which administrative and fiscal responsibilities were separated to an extent and official functionaries were coupled with quasi-official power magnates who built their power on the taxfarming system. This required from Istanbul the regularization of the grievance administration. Hadjikyriacou noted that the Ottoman esham system actually resembles the French system and calls the indigenous character of the institution into question. Interestingly, he also detects that the Central Treasury lost money over esham; while taxes rose by 5%, the interest rate paid to the investors was 12-15%. Chapter 5 explores communal representation with the emphasis put on the non-Muslim community. This section presents a critical evaluation of the approaches and views on state-community relations. Contrary to the common wisdom, the Church was not always the natural mediator between the community and the state, at least in the case of Cyprus. The dragoman was also an important figure after the 1760s to the extent that Istanbul recognized him as the representative of the Cypriot non-Muslims (reaya vekili). Concession of fiscal authority to quasi-formal local institutions was inevitable in a system that began to rely on the lump-sum system in tax collection (maktu). The need for local knowledge, cooperation and organization for a smooth functioning of the system allowed administrative and fiscal communal bodies to flourish. Although this ran contrary to the Hanefi school of Islamic law that rejects corporate entities, the Ottomans showed flexibility and pragmatism by capitalizing on these local entities. According to the author, the surety system (kefil) of the previous century that had limited to fiscal tasks thus evolved into the representative system (vekil) that embodied administrative duties as well in the late eighteenth century. But it had to remain quasi-formal because of the legal complication mentioned above. Chapter 6 starts by asking who was able to lay his hands on cotton, silk and grains with a view toward exporting them. This is one way of examining the changing power relations within the island in connection with the growing commercialization of agriculture. One of the seminal findings of this study is the existence of forward contracts (selem/salam, advanced purchase) and in-kind payments in Cyprus. This was the prevalent means of organization of agrarian economy in the Mediterranean world, including the Ottoman Empire. Its very existence is a clear evidence of incorporation of Cyprus into the international markets, as historians usually view selem as a sign of capitalist transformation. In this system, the buyer and the producer had to negotiate the price and volume in advance. Although consular reports claimed that the forward contracts favored the Cypriot producers, the petitions sent by the Cypriot peasants to the Sublime Porte tells quite a different story. On one occasion the villagers sent their petition to Istanbul with special envoys, trespassing the traditional intermediaries, in order to voice their grievances about the system. Obviously, peasants had to take the risk of indebtedness by selling their produce in advance at cheaper prices. It should also be noted that cotton was not marketed wholesale outside but also supported the domestic textile production. Despite the lack of mechanized textile industry, textile production was developed in terms of quantity and quality. Chapter 7 is based on three case studies on three men of some consequence, an Armenian, a Turk, and a Greek. All cases encapsulate the social transformation the agrarian relations caused in this century. They were all involved in grain, cotton and silk trade. Their properties and estates were confiscated following their death – a clear indication that the state considered these quasi-bureaucrats as the servants of the Sultan. The Armenian consular dragoman-cum-merchant Sarkis began his career in the French consulate and subsequently transferred his loyalty to the British during the War of the Triple Alliance (1798-1800). When the Sublime Porte did not give its consent to his new appointment, the British embassy had to intervene in favor of Sarkis. What had to remain as a minor diplomatic nuisance turned into a matter of grave importance since Sarkis was in fact the connection for the British to the resources of Cyprus. The tax-farmer Abdülbaki, on the other hand, followed the typical career of a local Muslim magnate. He rose from the ranks of irregular soldiers from oblivion to the higher echelons of bureaucracy in Cyprus. He was involved in complicated credit mechanisms and money transfers in the form of bills of exchange. He cultivated close relationship with foreign consuls. In his capacity of tax collector (muhassıl) he was able to accumulate 16,000 purses of kuruş in 9 years. This almost amounted to the half of the annual revenue of the central treasury of the empire. In spite of recurring petitions that complained about his corruption, the Sublime Porte never really punished him; he was apparenly a protégé of the influential Grand Admiral, Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Paşa. Finally, Hadjigeorgakis Kornesios, the dragoman of the palace and the representative of the community (reaya vekili), was granted the right to collect the extraordinary taxes assigned to Cypriots including the Muslims. This was an event with no precedence, for the first time, a non-Muslim held some sort of authority over the island’s Muslims. Thus, fiscal authority that had initially been based on tax-collection gradually turned into communal representation (reaya vekili), finally resembling an institutional identity when Kornesios was appointed the representative of the province (vilayet vekili) in 1804. This thorny issue offended the Muslims and became one of the reasons for the 1804 revolt. Remarkably, the value of his belongings was higher than the taxes to be collected in the island in 1807. The Sublime Porte usually subjected the non-Muslim clerk of an executed Paşa to torture in order to confiscate every penny of the latter hidden from the state authorities. The misfortune of these non-Muslim, often Armenian, money-changers is often taken to be a sign of Muslim fanaticism on the part of the Ottoman state. In the present case, it was Kornesios’ Muslim scribe, Hasan Efendi, who had to undergo this maltreatment during the investigation of the hidden goods of his boss. In summary, this dissertation is a welcome contribution on a number of fronts. It evaluates the interplay between the economy, society, production, law, fiscal authority, and quasi-institutional structures of representation in an Ottoman province. It reflects many ongoing debates in regional studies (the issue of Ottomanization, the forward purchases), Mediterranean history (proper understanding of islands), center-periphery relations (local power-brokers, communal representation), and rural studies (capitalistic transformation in agricultural production). In this endeavor, Hadjikyriacou utilizes a vast selection of works in various languages (Greek, Turkish, English, French) and consults many archival sources that have hitherto remained unused. Department of History İstanbul Şehir University Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (Prime Ministry Archive), Istanbul National Archives, Kew, London Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, Hertford British Library, London Archeio Archiepiskopes Kyprou (archive of the Archbishopric of Cyprus), Nicosia School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. 2011. 324 pp. Primary Advisor: Benjamin C. Fortna. Image: The mansion of dragoman Hadjigeorgakis Kornesios. Echoing the island’s historical legacies, the building combines Venetian/Frankish and Ottoman elements. Image copyright Despo Pasia.
New Roots Vitamin C Crystals, 908 g Pure ascorbic acid, USP grade, in powder form. An antioxidant for the maintenance of good health. Helps in the development and maintenance of bones, cartilage, teeth, and gums. It also helps the body to metabolize fats and proteins. \|100% pure vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Each ⅛ teaspoon contains 600 mg of vitamin C. No fillers or excipients. Did you know that vitamin C isn’t essential to all animals? However, it is for us, humans. It isn’t a necessary component of diet, at least for all mammals with the exception of guinea pigs, fruit eating bats, the red-vented bulbul bird, and primates—which includes us. All other species make their own. They do this by converting glucuronic acid derived from glucose into ascorbic acid (C6H8O6). Three enzymes are required to make this conversion; one of these enzymes, or part of the enzyme system, is missing in primates. Irwin Stone proposed, in 1965, that a negative mutation may have occurred in these species so as to lose the ability to produce vitamin C. In primates, this is thought to have occurred in the region of 25 million years ago. Unlike other vitamins, vitamin C is required in large amounts, which could only be supplied by a tropical diet high in fruit and other vegetation. If sufficient vitamin C could be obtained from such a diet, the quantity of glucose normally used to synthesize vitamin C could be channelled towards energy production. This could conceivably have been an advantage for primates or other species. Dr. Jungblut, an early pioneer of vitamin C therapy in the 1930s, discovered that only we primates and guinea pigs were susceptible to scurvy as well as anaphylactic shock, pulmonary tuberculosis, diphtheritic intoxication, a poliomyelitis-like viral infection, and a viral form of leukemia; none of the vitamin C–synthesizing laboratory animals had susceptibility to these diseases. This is perhaps one of the first observations that led to the idea that susceptibility to viral infections could be a consequence of vitamin C deficiency. The fact that almost all species continue to make vitamin C suggests that the amount of vitamin C generally available from the diet is not enough for optimum nutrition, except in exceptional circumstances such as a tropical environment. Under normal circumstances, the daily amount produced, adjusted for comparison to a 70 kg man, is somewhere between 3 000 mg and 15 000 mg, with an average of 5 400 mg. While a mere 60 mg a day can prevent scurvy, the deficiency disease first identified by Dr. James Lind in 1753, it would be illogical to assume that this is the optimal dose. A survey of doctors in the US found that those who were healthiest consumed at least 250 mg of vitamin C per day. A recent survey has shown that a person’s vitamin status is a good predictor of their mortality risk. High blood vitamin C levels indicate a low risk for cardiovascular disease as well as for certain types of cancer and other immune based diseases. Optimal intakes to reduce risk of such conditions would appear to be at least 500 mg per day. But aren’t you simply making expensive urine when you take large amounts of supplements? Dr. Michael Colgan investigated this often-made rebuttal. He investigated how much vitamin C we use by giving increasing daily doses and measuring excretion. Only a quarter of the subjects reached their vitamin C maximum at 1 500 mg a day; more than half required over 2 500 mg a day to reach a level where their body could use no more. Four subjects did not reach their maximum at 5 000 mg. Increasing vitamin C intake from 50 mg to 500 mg tends to double serum vitamin C levels; increasing intake to 5 000 mg a day will double serum levels again. Vitamin C protects the bowel, kidneys, and bladder on the way out. As Dr. Michael Colgan points out, the average victim of bowel or bladder cancer in the US spends $26 000 for treatment—mostly to no avail. It is valid to infer from this brief history of evolution, a comparison with other species, and average excretion rates, that optimal vitamin C levels are probably above 1 000 mg, with plenty of room for individual variation. What about “hard evidence”? What levels are required to ensure maximum function of enzymes and body systems dependent on vitamin C? A quick review of some of vitamin C’s hundreds of biochemical roles will help us here. Vitamin C is required for the synthesis of collagen, our intercellular glue that keeps skin, lungs, arteries, the digestive tract, and all organs intact. It is a potent antioxidant protecting against free radicals, pollution, carcinogens, heavy metals, and other toxins. It is strongly antiviral and mildly antibacterial. Energy cannot be made in any cell, brain or muscle, without adequate vitamin C. The adrenal glands have a high concentration of vitamin C, which is essential for stress-hormone synthesis. Vitamin C is so central in so many chemical reactions in the body that, without it, life is simply not possible. This product hasn't received any reviews yet. Be the first to review this product!
Feeding strategies to improve the nutritional value of pork and at the same time reduce the environmental burden were examined on three pig farms representing single-feed, two-phase and multi-phase feeding systems. The experimental feed was supplemented with selenium, vitamin E and crushed linseed. Furthermore, the protein content was reduced. Fattening runs with common feed served as control. The experimental feed did not consistently affect daily weight gains, but feed consumption increased and feed conversion was impaired in most of the runs. Carcass composition was impaired only in the single-feed system, as evidenced by decreased loin muscle diameter and increased backfat thickness. The lean meat content of pigs in the multi-phase system (reduction in weekly stages from 155 to 125 g crude protein per kg feed) did not decrease, but intramuscular fat content increased, which may indicate a slight under-supply of protein. Overall, the reduction of protein in the feed hardly improved protein efficiency (i.e. protein retention/excretion). Stable climate has an important impact on the respiratory health of horses. In a study on indoor climate quality, three different ventilation systems were tested. Although milk-production oriented (MPO) cow breeds have also become established in the mountain region, farms with the dual-purpose ‘Original Simmental’ breed are proving to be economically viable, with lower costs and higher direct payments making up for lower revenues from milk. High milk yields before drying-off increase the risk of udder infections during the dry period. An online survey highlights what drying-off methods are currently used and how farmers rate the ‘incomplete milking’ approach for reducing milk yield.
Family violence involves the intent of a person to control by means of physical, psychological, sexual, spiritual, financial, or property abuse. The purpose of this abuse is to control behavior by the inducement of fear. Underlying all abuse is a power imbalance between the victim and their abuser. The term family violence will encompass the implications of the violence for society as a whole. - Any action that intentionally harms or injures another person - Forcing an individual to do something against their will - Not Random, it is Not your fault - Had arguments with your partner where you were injured, insulted or verbally attacked - Felt afraid of your partners behavior such as reckless driving, use of drugs and alcohol or threatening behavior - Been prevented from seeing your friends or family, getting a job, going to school or church - Listened to constant criticism by your partner for how you look or what you wear - Been told you are to blame for all the problems in the relationship - Been made to have sex when or in ways or with people that you did not want - Had money or information about your finances kept from you - Been put down or threatened in front of your children If you answered ‘YES’ to any of these statements, you may be experiencing abuse in your relationship. Society sees personal security as a fundamental human right. We are therefore committed to providing a safe haven where women and their children can seek shelter while fleeing from abusive relationships. The Hope and Area Transition Society will take every possible step to ensure safety for all Residents and Staff. Domestic Violence Services Jean Scott Transition House An 8-bed home, providing free accommodations and support services to women with or without their children who are fleeing an abusive environment. Stop the Violence Counselling The PEACE program is a psycho-educational initiative aimed at ultimately breaking the cycle of violence against women and children. Children can participate in group sessions or individual on-to-one sessions. School-Based Anti-Violence Program A psycho-educational initiative aimed at ultimately breaking the cycle of violence against women and children. This program is offered to all school-aged children in Fraser-Cascade School District.
Origin: Anc Greek ανά/ana(=prefix before verbs meaning “upon”. “toward”, “ against”) Anaphylaxis is opposite to the Greek word προφύλαξις/prophylaxis (=protection) The term “anaphylaxis” was coined by Nobel prize recipients Portier and Richet ( 1) in 1902, when they described a dog that had tolerated a previous injection of jellyfish toxin but reacted with bronchial spasm, cardiorespiratory arrest and finally death after 14 days later with a smaller toxin dose.(Portier MM, Richet C.R.Soc Biol, 54;170, 1902) An induced systemic or generalized allergy (overreacting to allergens).
A lottery is a method of raising money for a cause. Usually, a group of people buys a ticket and waits for a number to be drawn. They then have the option of betting on that number to win a prize. The earliest recorded lotteries in Europe were held in the Low Countries during the 15th century. In France, the first lottery was organized by King Francis I in 1539. In 1755, the University of Pennsylvania was financed by a lottery. Several colonies used lotteries to finance the building of fortifications, bridges, and libraries. During the Revolutionary War, a public lottery was created to raise funds for the American Continental Congress. Eventually, the government decided to ban lotteries. Some governments still endorse lotteries. They believe that they are a simple and easy way to raise money. However, some authorities argue against lotteries because of the abuses and misuses of the game. Lotteries are generally structured so that a percentage of the profits is donated to a good cause. They are usually run by the state or city government. They must record bets and stakes. Tickets must be sold by licensed vendors. The winner has the option of choosing between receiving an annuity payment or a one-time payment. The odds of winning are extremely slim. A jackpot could be worth millions of dollars. In the United States, the federal tax bracket is 37 percent. If you win a $10 million jackpot, your winnings would be $5 million after taxes.
Research Paper Outline Example: Create Your Own Today! Table of Content Writing a research paper gets simplified when you draft a research paper outline beforehand. An outline is a well-articulated structure of your research paper. It makes your research paper writing easy and convenient. With the help of an outline, you can easily arrange and organize the content of the research paper according to a logical flow and format and it makes the content readable and understandable for the readers as well. No matter, what kind of paper you write, be it an essay or research paper, drafting an outline will always simplify your writing process and will help you integrate every important element and create a well-organized and coherent paper. Outlining a research paper does not take as much time as writing a research paper. Knowing how to write a research paper and understanding the integral elements of a research paper enables you to create an outline easily and effectively. Research Paper Outline Formate Research paper outlines can either be detailed or can contain brief notes under each heading. Your instructor may provide you with guidance regarding how your outline should be. And, in case you are not provided with a guideline, then you can choose to create an outline that works the best for you. A research paper outline follows a general format that looks like the following: - ABSTRACT: A research paper abstract is a summary of a research paper. It is a short paragraph entailing the gist of your paper. - INTRODUCTION: In the research paper introduction, provide a concise overview of the problem you are assessing. State the significance of your study and what you aim to achieve through this study. The introduction should contain your thesis statement that asserts the purpose of your study. Research Question- It is a question that your research intends to provide an answer(s) to. Research Objectives- state why you have researched the topic and what you aim to achieve through this study. - LITERATURE REVIEW: It involves summarizing, synthesizing and reviewing literature work you have found. It is used as a background context. - RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: Give a summary of the research methodology used- research philosophy, approach, strategy, techniques and procedures. - DATA ANALYSIS: Provide a summary of the specific aspects of the topic you have analyzed. Mention the analytical methods and tools employed and why they are best suited for your research. - RESULTS: Discuss the major findings. Compare with previous research findings. - CONCLUSION: In the research paper conclusion, give a synopsis of the issue analyzed, methodologies, and major finding(s). Reinstate the goal of this study and what you have accomplished in your research. - RECOMMENDATION: Give your final thoughts and state how future researchers can further study and expand your work. Now let us take a look at the two specific research paper outline examples to give you a better understanding of how you can create one. Research Paper Outline Example Topic: Impacts of Food Insecurity on Academic Performance In the abstract, a detailed summary of the study is provided. It includes an overview of the paper, the importance of the study, research question, methods of research, and outcomes. Note: Cited works are not to be listed in the abstract. More than 40 million Americans are affected due to poverty on a daily basis, most of them being children. It is confirmed that malnutrition and insecurity pertaining to food have a direct relation to the sluggish cognitive development in children under three years of age. Kids, deprived of food and nutrition cannot develop skills as quickly as their classmates due to undernutrition. This leads to poor health and poor concentration among children. The problem is that there has been very little focus on how these impacts tend to augment and result in poor performance in school past kindergarten. To mitigate the issues the issues cropping up due to food insecurity, several public schools have taken initiatives like providing free breakfast and lunch. A total of 100 students at Arbore Elementary School were surveyed over one academic year to observe how effective the solutions were in boosting their academic performance and improving satisfaction in school. The survey results indicate how long the children remain affected academically due to food insecurity, even after they are getting food now. In this section, we set out to define the research problem. Here, the research question is clearly stated as a thesis statement. Poverty and poor academic performance are the problems that prevent Americans from attaining their full potential. Besides poverty, there is food insecurity, which impacts millions of families – especially children – on a daily basis. But can focusing on one issue help address the other problem? The objective of this study is to find out whether the initiatives taken by the schools to eradicate the problem of food insecurity for children help improve their academic performance or not. What motivated you to do this research? What have you found in the prior research? This section is where you include historical information or define earlier hypotheses that help put your research into context. It’s also a good time to think about your audience and what information they’ll need to go through along with the rest of your work. The food insecurity as defined by the United States Department of Agriculture says that it is a lack of daily accessibility to food as a result of one’s financial situation. The Department’s report in the “Household Food Security in the US in 2017,” suggests that 11.8 % of American households, or about 39 million people, were food insecure in 2017 (USDA 2017). In the United Nations’ 1948 Declaration of Human Rights, the right to food was included. As per the Food and Agricultural Organization, food insecurity is rated on a scale ranging from mild (not certain about receiving food) to severe (inaccessibility of food for a whole day). Understanding whether you utilized qualitative or quantitative methodologies is crucial to comprehending your research. You can include surveys, experiments, and field research in your list of data collection methods. Similarly, the analysis methods will depend on the nature of your study. The data we collected about students who might be food insecure by employing qualitative methodologies. Surveys containing various questions were used to determine whether students were hungry, apprehensive about what they are going to eat next, and/or distracted from academic tasks due to starvation (Appendix A). These surveys were completed by the students at the start of the school year; thereafter every two months till the end of the academic year, for a total of 5 survey periods. We distributed the surveys to the 100 Arbore Elementary School fourth and fifth-grade kids (10-11 years old), 50 of whom were eligible for Title 1 assistance through the free and reduced lunch program. The rest 50 pupils were members of a control group who had not been recognized as socioeconomically disadvantaged. What conclusions do you get from your research? In this area, you should discuss your findings and provide the data. Keep an objective viewpoint here and save the evaluation until the conclusion. The results of the survey revealed a clear link between poor academic performance and food insecurity. In the survey, pupils who responded affirmatively were identified as constantly lower-performing members. In comparison to their classmates those who weren’t categorized as socioeconomically challenged, these kids ranked anxiety over their next meal to be one of their top three concerns. Their involvement in programs such as free breakfast and subsidized lunch helped to alleviate daily hunger and improve their overall happiness, but their fear about food insecurity persisted. In the conclusion section, explain why the findings are significant. This section gives you the opportunity to assess your outcomes and dwell on your process. Is there any further research that needs to be done for this study? Systemic food insecurity is more than just a source of distraction for young students. Concerns about dinner were diverting them from their schoolwork, even after they have had a good breakfast and nutritious lunch at school. The final survey session, which occurred just before the start of summer vacation, revealed to what extent insecurity of food influences a child’s expectations of a prolonged period without school – and thus, regular meals. With poor academic achievement later in life, these youngsters may become future parents in the families of food-insecurity, thus continuing the cycle. Getting rid of the cyclical problem of poverty and poor school performance necessitates the participation and involvement of higher authorities, including city governments, and federal laws aimed at breaking the cycle for future generations. When you want to include a piece of subsidiary information that is relevant but not significant to your paper, then you can include it in this section. Arbore Elementary School Survey Questions - Did you eat breakfast this morning at school or home? - Was your lunch purchased or home made? - Are you hungry now? - When do you feel is the most difficult to concentrate during the day? - Do you have concerns about food? - Do you know what you are going to eat next? - Do you ever feel as though you don’t have sufficient food at home to eat? - Do you feel hungrier during weekends than during school days? - Do you struggle to concentrate on your studies when you are hungry? - Are there any issues that you value more than food? Importance of Outlining a Research Paper As you have seen in the above examples, how drafting an outline gets half of your task done. Yet again, we emphasize the importance of preparing a research paper outline beforehand in the following points: - An outline ensures a coherent presentation of your paper. It helps you arrange and organize your entire paper according to an established format. - You will be less likely to get writer’s block. An outline guides you through the process and shows you how to get reach your objective. - With a detailed and clear outline, you can ensure that you adhere to the outline and not deviate from it or drift into subject areas that are not relevant to your research problem. - An outline allows you to organize a variety of ideas about your topic. When you research a lot of materials and study a variety of perspectives, it becomes much easier to analyze your research problems. An outline enables you to sort out the methods of analysis that are most effective and appropriate to use for discovering robust findings. How to Prepare a Research Paper Outline As per PenMyPaper, outlines may differ when it comes to writing about different topics, but the structure or format remains the same. You may follow the following steps to develop an outline: - Start with a good research paper topic. - Conduct thorough research on the topic. - Make notes of all the ideas that you want to integrate. - Arrange the notes according to the research paper format. - Organize and arrange the notes that are significant and relevant into sub-groups. - You may either create a detailed outline or include headings and sub-headings and write short notes under each heading. - Format the research paper outline in either full-sentence, alphanumeric or decimal format. Note: Keep a track of the sources you research and use in your paper. Need Further Guidance? Hopefully, the above research paper outline examples have helped you develop a better understanding of how to prepare a research paper outline. If you still have doubts regarding how to prepare a research paper outline or you are finding it hard to create one, then don’t hesitate to seek help from the professionals. We, at PenMyPaper, will guide you in your research paper assignments, whether it is for preparing an outline or writing a research paper. You can simply ask PenMyPaper to write my research paper and we will gladly do it for you.
For those who do not know "Chiune "Sempo" Sugihara", Sugihara was the Vice-consul in Japanese Consulate in Lithuania during World War II in 1940s. He issued tens of thousands of visas helping Jewish refugees to exit Russia, Poland, and Lithuania. It is thought that the number of refugees whom he saved would be between 6,000 and 10,000. It is why he is called the "Japanese Schindler". Before he started issuing visas for refugees, he requested approval to issue visas for refugees to the Imperial Japanese Government. According to an official record, he requested approval three times. All of the requests were rejected. He decided to ignore the Japanese Government's regulations and issued visas to refugees who would not normally qualify. This was obviously violating Japanese law. The Japanese Government were in alliance with the anti-Semitic Germany. His conduct could endanger the alliance between Germany and Japan. He had issued visas against Japan law for what he believed to be right. It was a brave humanitarian action. However, the big question is why the Japanese government did nothing to stop his illegal activity. Instead, when refugees' entry to Japan was about to be rejected, the Government of Japan in coordination with Jewish community in Kobe allowed the refugees to enter into Japan. Many of them moved to Shanghai and the US. A not so small number of people stayed in Japan. There might have been a strong supporter of Sugiura in the Japanese government to help him. It is true that the Government of Japan supported Sugihara's action in helping those refugees by not rejecting the applications of refugees. Who were those people who supported Sugihara's activities? How many were they? What were their names? Though our imagination can go on and on, we are unable to know who they were now. They are all gone from history due to confusion in the lost war. Sugihara continued to serve the Foreign Ministry of Japan as a diplomat in various European countries such as Czechoslovakia and Bucharest after he left Lithuania. After the end of the war, after being held as a POW camp for 18 months in Romania, he returned to Japan in 1946. He resigned from the Foreign Ministry in 1947. Many believe that he was asked to resign from Foreign Ministry due to his conduct in Lithuania. The official government record only shows that Sugihara resigned. After his resignation, Sugihara worked for a trading firm using his language skills. He was stationed in Moscow as the general representative of the trading company in the 1960s. Israel, Poland, and the Japanese governments gave him an honor for his humanitarian activity giving him honorable medals. Israel offered him, his family, and his descendants an honor of perpetual Israeli citizenship. Sugihara died on July 31, 1986 from a stroke. He was 86 years old. Asked why he did what he did, he answered that he could not stop helping people who were suffering. Read this Article in EzineArticles.com: It's NEW! It's exciting!! It brings you the result!!! Web Traffic Toolbox!!! Please also take a look at my Traffic Solution, which is now a part of my Internet Business Toolbox. Check my websites to find out what I am doing: Feel free to contact me: Fill the Missing Link
To enlarge or complete to pad to inflate - initially cotton fiber or cotton fiber wool - high-sounding inflated big without indicating magniloquent bombastic - pompous or pretentious talk or writing - Originally, cotton, or cotton fiber wool. - Cotton, or any soft, fibrous material, made use of as filling for garments; stuffing; cushioning. - Fig.: High-sounding terms; an inflated style; language over the dignity of the celebration; fustian. - High-sounding; filled; big without definition; magniloquent; bombastic. - To swell or fill out; to pad; to inflate. 1560s, "cotton fiber padding," corrupted from early in the day bombace (1550s), from Old French bombace "cotton, cotton wadding," from Late Latin bombacem, accusative of bombax "cotton, 'linteorum aut aliae quaevis quisquiliae,' " a corruption and transferred usage of Latin bombyx "silk," from Greek bombyx "silk, silkworm" (which also found indicate "cotton" in Medieval Greek), from some oriental word, perhaps regarding Iranian pambak (modern-day panba) or Armenian bambok, perhaps ultimately from a PIE root meaning "to twist, wind." From stuffing and padding for garments or upholstery, indicating extended to "pompous, empty address" (1580s). In addition through the same resource tend to be Swedish bomull, Danish bomuld "cotton fiber," and, via Turkish types, Modern Greek mpampaki, Rumanian bumbac, Serbo-Croatian pamuk. German baumwolle "cotton" might be through the Latin term but changed by folk-etymology to check like "tree wool." Polish bawełna, Lithuanian bovelna are partial translations from German. (n.) Originally, cotton fiber, or cotton wool. - (letter.) Cotton, or any soft, fibrous product, made use of as stuffing for garments; stuffing; cushioning. - (letter.) Fig.: High-sounding words; an inflated design; language above the dignity regarding the occasion; fustian. - (a.) High-sounding; inflated; huge without definition; magniloquent; bombastic. - (v. t.) To swell or submit; to pad; to inflate. The matter is well arranged, the style (modelled on that of Xenophon) simple, and on the whole free from the usual florid bombast of the Byzantine writers.
Meaning of plum — n., adj., plum•mer, plum•mest. - the drupaceous fruit of any of several trees belonging to the genus Prunus, of the rose family, having an oblong stone. - the tree itself. - any of various other trees bearing a plumlike fruit. - the fruit itself. - a sugarplum. - a raisin, as in a cake or pudding. - a deep purple varying from bluish to reddish. - an excellent or desirable thing, as a fine position: The choicest plums went to his old cronies. - an unanticipated large increase in money or property, as an unexpected legacy; a windfall: The company offered bonuses and other plums. - Also calleda large stone used in massive concrete construction. - extremely desirable, rewarding, profitable, or the like: a plum job in the foreign service. — adj., adv. - plumb (defs. 3–7). - a city in SW Pennsylvania. 25,390. - plum (Thesaurus)
Although obesity and lack of physical activity both raise the risk of type 2 diabetes in women, obesity appears to be the more important factor, researchers report in the journal Diabetes Care. For decades, the number of kids trying weight-loss surgery has been tiny. The operations themselves were risky, with a death rate of about 1 in 50. Children rarely got that fat, and when they did, pediatricians hesitated to put the developing bodies under the knife. Only 350 U.S. kids had such an operation in 2004, according to federal statistics. But improvements in surgical technique and huge increases in the number of dangerously obese children have begun fueling a change of heart.
Brain plasticity; Rewiring the brain Once upon a time, researchers and scientist theorised that the brain stops developing within the first few years of life. The connections the brain makes during the ‘critical period’ are fixed for life. However, there is mounting evidence, from human and animal studies, that this view underestimates the brain. The brain has a remarkable ability to continually make new connections throughout our life, it has an extraordinary ability to compensate for injury and disease by ‘rewiring’ itself. Neuroplasticity, or brain plasticity, refers to this ability to form new connections, reorganise already established neural networks and compensate for injury and disease. There are many different definitions and explanations of brain plasticity. It is referred to as the brain’s ability to reorganise itself and form new connections throughout life. Brain plasticity allows the brain to adapt to disease or injury, by allowing neurons to adjust their activity in response to new situations or changes to the environment. Learning new things or processing/memorising information cause lasting functional changes to the brain. These changes in neural connections is essentially brian plasticity. Changes in neural pathways is a result of changes in environment, behaviour, thinking, emotions and neural processes. The brain;s ability to reorganise itself and form neural connections is what makes the brain resilient. Brain plasticity enables the brain to overcome stroke, injury, birth abnormalities, learning disabilities, depression, addiction, obsessive thought patterns and other brain defects. There are many types of brain plasticity. Positive brain plasticity, which enhances healthy functioning of the brain. Negative brain plasticity, which promotes unhealthy functioning of the brain. Synaptic plasticity occurs between neurons, whereas non-synaptic plasticity occurs within the neuron. Developmental plasticity occurs during early life, and is important for developing our ability to function. Injury induced plasticity is the brain’s way of adapting to trauma. Positive brain plasticity involves changes to structures and functions of the brain, which results in beneficial outcomes. For example, improving the efficiency of neural networks responsible for higher cognitive functions such as attention, memory, mood. There are many ways in which we can promote neuroplastic change. Positive brain plasticity is when the brain becomes more efficient and organised. For example, if we repeatedly practise our times tables, eventually, the connections between different parts of the brain become stronger. We make less errors and can recite them faster. CBT, meditation and mindfulness can all promote brain plasticity. These practices improve neural function, strengthen connections between neurons. Negative Brain Plasticity Negative brain plasticity causes changes to the neural connections in the brain, which can be harmful to us. For example, negative thoughts can promote neural changes and connections associated with conditions such as depression, and anxiety (how to overcome panic and anxiety attacks. Also overuse of drugs and alcohol enhances negative plasticity by rewiring our our reward system and memories. Synaptic plasticity is the basis for learning and memory. Furthermore, it also alters the number of receptors on each synapse (synapses are the connections between neurons that transmit chemical messages). When we learn new information and skills, these ‘connections’ get stronger. There are two types of synaptic plasticity, short term and long term. Both types can go in two different directions, enhancement/excitation and depression. Enhancement strengthens the connection, whereas depression weakens it. Short term synaptic plasticity usually lasts tens of milliseconds. Short term excitation is a result of increased level of certain types of neurotransmitters available at the synapse. Whereas short term depression is a result of a decreased level of neurotransmitters, long term synaptic plasticity lasts for hours. Long term excitation strengthens synaptic connections, whereas long term depression weakens these connections. As synaptic plasticity is responsible for our learning ability, information retention, forming and maintaining neural connections, when this process goes wrong, it can have negative consequences. For example, synaptic plasticity plays a key role in addiction. Drugs hi-jack the synaptic plasticity mechanisms by creating long lasting memories of the drug experience. This type of plasticity occurs away from the synapse. Non-synaptic plasticity, makes changes to the way in which the structures in the axon and cell body carry out their functions. The mechanisms of this types of plasticity are not yet well understood. In the first few years of life, our brains change rapidly. This is also known as developmental plasticity. Although it is most prominent during our formative years, it occurs throughout our lives. Developmental plasticity means our neural connections are constantly undergoing change in response to our childhood experiences and our environment. Our processing of sensory information, informs the neural changes. Synaptogenesis, synaptic pruning, neural migration and myelination, are the main processes through which development plasticity occurs. Synaptogenesis – rapid expansion in formation of synapses so that the brain can successfully process the high volume of incoming sensory stimuli. This process is controlled by our genetics. Synaptic pruning – Reduction of synaptic connections to enable the brain to function more efficiently. Essentially, connections that aren’t used or aren’t efficient are ‘pruned’ or ‘disconnected’. Neural migration – this process occurs whilst we are still in the womb. Between 8 and 29 weeks of gestation, neurons ‘migrate’ to different parts of the brain. Myelination – This process starts during fetal development and continues until adolescence. Myelination is when neurons are protected and insulated a myelin sheath. Myelination improves the transmission of messages down the neuron’s axon. Injury induced plasticity Following injury, the brain has demonstrated the extraordinary ability to take over a given function that the damaged part of the brain was responsible for. This ability has been noted in many case studies of brain injury and brain abnormalities. Some stroke sufferers have displayed remarkable feats of recovering functions lost due to brain damage. There are two distinct mechanisms through which the brain attempts to restore its functionality. Recovery and Compensation. Recovery involves restoring the neural tissue, the behaviour it controlled, as well as recovering the level of activity of the behaviour. So for instance, if an individual suffers a stroke, which affects a small area of the motor cortex responsible for controlling arm movement, in recovery, the tissue which sustains damage is restored. The action of moving the arm and the range of motion the individual has, of the arm, prior to the stroke, is also restored. Compensation is the brains way of compensating for the injury. Compensation for the injury involves recruiting new neural networks to take over functions the damaged areas were responsible for. Two stages of recovery for injury induced plasticity Researcher Heidi Reyst, proposes that recovery can occur in two stages. Stage 1 is spontaneous recovery. The brain recovers from injury and change, on its own and without help from training and rehabilitation. The researcher proposes three different processes for this stage: - Diaschisis reversal – reversing the changes in blood flow, metabolic function and neuron excitability. Essentially, the areas of the brain that are disrupted by injury, are restored to their pre-injury functioning. - Kinematic changes – changes in movement patterns. They way in which an individual’s movement post injury is different prior to injury as a result of compensatory mechanisms. - Cortical reorganisation – rewiring and restructuring of the brain. Using neurogenesis, axonal sprouting (intact axons sprouts new nerve endings to reconnect with neurons) and blood vessel formation. Stage 2 is training induced recovery. This stage involves compensation, recruiting new neural networks or brain areas to carry out functions, the damaged area used to be responsible for. For example, if the left frontal lobe (which controls language function) is damaged, the right frontal lobe will be recruited to improve language function. As well as compensation, retraining is an essential part of injury induced brain plasticity. This involves training the nearby brain tissue to reorganise and control the lost functions. There are products available to help patients improve brain plasticity and train the brain tissue to help recover after brain injury. CogniFit is an online program that uses fun brain games and assessments to track and improve the cognitive skills affected by the brain injury. In a nut shell, brain plasticity on the whole is a wonderful thing! Our brains possess the fascinating ability to adapt to pretty much any situation that is thrown at it! Whether it be in utero, childhood, while we learning, overcoming depression or post injury. The brain is the pretty good at bouncing back. Pretty amazing stuff! Am I right?! Any questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below 🙂
The American Dental Association has studied Xylitol, and concluded it prevents the formation of bacteria in the mouth. This bacteria is responsible for bad breath, and it also builds up over time to produce cavities. Many dentists suggest chewing Xylitol gum at night to maximize the health benefits. Xylitol is a sugar substitute that's received a good deal of press coverage lately. Chewing Xylitol even three times a day can have a positive effect on your oral health, and there are plenty of studies to back up these claims. Xylitol has been recognized by the American Dental Association as a healthy a alternative to sugar. If you've tried the Xylitol gum available in the stores, you may not be getting enough Xylitol to prevent cavities. In order for Xylitol to achieve maximum effectiveness, you need to chew between four and 12 grams per day. Many people just like you have found it too hard to keep up with the amount of gum you need to chew every day to prevent cavities. That's why we made our gum stronger than the stuff you find in stores..
Is Your B12 Status at Risk? Genetics and excess folate may increase your odds of vitamin B12 deficiency. You may be consuming plenty of vitamin B12. But, is it getting where it needs to go in your body? New research suggests that, even after absorption (which is sometimes poor), genetic variations held by some people may reduce the vitamin's transport from the intestines to the body's tissues where it does its work. Plus, excessive intake of folate (a different B vitamin) might make this problem worse in people with specific genetics.
The Awakening is a novel full of symbolism; within each narrative segment there is often a central and powerful symbol that serves to add meaning to the text and to underline some subtle point Chopin is making. Understanding the meaning of these symbols is vital to a full appreciation of the story. Here are listed some of the major symbols with explanations of their import. It is important for you to discover symbols and meanings on your own, and these are here only to offer assistance. It might also be useful in considering all symbols in the text, not just those listed below, to remember this quote by Sandra Gilbert: Symbols in The AwakeningPorches and pianos, mothers and children, skirts and sunshades - all these are the props and properties of domesticity, the key elements of what in the nineteenth century was called "women's sphere," and it is in this sphere, on the edge of a blue gulf, that Edna Pontellier is securely caged when she first appears. . . she is confined in what is not only literally a "woman's sphere" but, symbolically speaking, the Woman's House. . . every object and figure [here] has not only a literal domestic function and a dreamlike symbolic radiance but a distinctively female symbolic significance" (47). Art:Art becomes a symbol of both freedom and failure. It is through the process of trying to become an artist that Edna reaches the highest point of her awakening. Edna sees art as a way of self-expression and of self-assertion. Mlle. Reisz sees becoming an artist as a test of individuality. Edna fails because her wings are too weak. Birds:Birds are major symbolic images in the narrative. They symbolize the ability to communicate (the mockingbird and parrot) and entrapment of women (the two birds in cages; the desire for flight; the pigeon house). Flight is another symbol associated with birds, and acts as a stand in for awakening. The ability to spread your wings and fly is a symbolic theme that occurs often in the novel. Edna escapes her home, her husband, her life, by leaving for the pigeon house. Mlle. Reisz lectures Edna on the need for strong wings in artistic endeavors. Clothes:Edna is fully dressed when first introduced; slowly over the course of the novel she removes her clothes. This symbolizes the shedding of the societal rules in her life and her growing awakening and stresses her physical and external self. As she disrobes, the reader is presented with an internal voyeuristic view. As MacCurdy points out, "Edna's dress opposes external nature, but more importantly, it begins to oppose her inner nature. A division exists between her and her environment as well as between her social character and her awakening instincts" (59). When she commits suicide she is finally naked, she has shed everything she has in her quest for selfhood. But it is not only Edna who is symbolized in clothes, Adele is more "careful" of her face in the seventh chapter and wears a veil. Both she and Madame Leburn constantly make clothes to cover the body, and the woman in black and Mlle. Reisz never change their clothes, symbolizing their distance from any physical attachment. There are several symbolic meals in the text and each stress mythic aspects in the text. The meal on Cheniere Caminada occurs after she awakens from a fairy tale sleep; the dinner party in chapter thirty is viewed by some as a re-creation of the Last Supper. Houses:There are many houses in the novel: the one on Grand Isle, the one in New Orleans, the pigeon house, the house in which Edna falls asleep on Cheniere Caminada. The first two of these houses serve as cages for Edna. She is expected to be a "mother-woman" on Grand Isle and to be the perfect social hostess in New Orleans. The other two are places of supposed freedom. On the island she can sleep and dream, and in the pigeon house she can create a world of her own. In the same way, places have a similar significance. Grand Isle itself is a place of women. Most men only visit on weekends, and while there go to places of their own like Kiles's hotel. Cheniere Caminada is then a place of escape off this island of women, into a new, romantic, and foreign world. It is also similar to a garden, a Garden of Eden, where Edna gains knowledge. New Orleans is the bastion of societal rules, of realistic life and duties. Kentucky, for Edna is simply New Orleans in a different place; ridged with rules and full of unhappy memories. New York and Mexico are men's Grand Isles, and both Leonce and Robert leave Edna for these places, where they do business with other men. Learning to swim:Edna has struggled all summer to learn to swim. She has been coached by the men, women, and children on Grand Isle. In chapter ten, Chopin uses the concept of learning to swim as a symbol of empowerment. It provides Edna with strength and joy. Also attached to the concept of swimming are the ideas of staying afloat and getting in over one's head. Edna manages to do both. The moonThe moon has many symbolic meanings in The Awakening. It is used as a symbol of mythic power and connects Edna with the goddess Selene and the associated implications. She is strong and commanding, the goddess of the hunt. She is sexually aware of Robert for the first time, the fertility aspect of Artemis. Moonlight also symbolizes the struggle Edna has with the concepts of sexual love and romantic love. At the end of chapter ten, delicate images of "strips of moonlight," are interposed with strong sexual feelings, "the first-felt throbbings of desire." Joyce Dyer suggests that this juxtaposition "symbolically anticipates the problems Edna will have determining the relationship between sex and romance" (58).Go back and reread chapter 10. Ocean, Gulf, or Sea:The ocean is a symbol of both freedom and escape. Edna remembers the Kentucky fields of her childhood as an ocean, she learns to swim in the gulf, and she finally escapes into the sea. The ocean is also a source of self-awareness, both an outward knowledge of the expansion of the universe and an inner direct obsession with self. The sound of the surf calls to her, comforts her throughout the novel, and acts as a constant beckon in the text. As you read, notice how often, even in New Orleans away from the sea, the language mimics the sound of the surf or the actions of the water. Piano playing:Music is an important symbol in text, both Adele and Mlle. Reisz play the piano. Each woman functions to underscore a different aspect of the narrative. Adele is considered a musician by Leonce, but she does not play for art, instead she does so to keep her husband and children cheerful and to set time for parties. Mlle. Reisz, on the other hand, is disliked by all, but is granted status as a musician by only Robert and Edna. The issue of the piano playing echoes the issue of placement in society. If you follow the rules and norms whatever you accomplish is considered great, if you defy those rules you are shunned and dispairaged. Thus, the piano playing becomes a symbol of societal rules and regulations. Sleep:Sleep is an important symbolic motif running through the novel. Edna's moments of awakening are often preceded by sleep and she does a great deal of it. Robert Levine calls it the "sleepiest novel in the American literary canon" (71) and sees Edna's sleep patterns as a rebellion against natural rhythms. Sleep is also a means of escape and of repairing her tattered emotions. In fairy tales, sleep is a key ingredient. © Neal Wyatt (1995) [contact at firstname.lastname@example.org] Kate Chopin Study Text
by Wayne Ren-Cheng, Shi With the Four Ennobling Truths, Siddhartha set the groundwork for all Buddhists who would follow his teachings. In pragmatic Buddhism we use ennobling rather than the traditional translation of noble because like fertile ground the Truths are empty until used. Ennobling is an adjective, one that brings recognition that the Four Ennobling Truths are only furrows in a field. It isn’t until one is willing to plant the seeds, cultivate the ground, and experience what grows there is only emptiness. The Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, the first discourse the Buddha gave contained the essence of all his later teachings, the ground from which all other Buddhist teachings in the Pali Nikayas would grow from. It was to the five ascetics, once his friends and companions, that had become his first disciples that he brought the Four Ennobling Truths to the attention of human beings. The Four Ennobling Truths were the fertile ground, the Eightfold Path the furrows that would guide the growth of Buddhist practice. Contemporary Buddhist scholars like Stephen Batchelor and David Kalupahana experience Siddhartha as presenting not a list of observations that if one believes their truth then that person can join the Buddhist club. Instead they experience the truths as a sequence of dependent origination or causality. The first Truth is, so the second is, the third is, the fourth is, and the fourth leads back to the first; and forms a causal loop. They are the truths that reveal the reality of how things are and of what works best in the here and now. Why do we think this is what the Buddha meant? By looking at each of the ennobling truths we can see the corresponding action it requires. #1 Unsatisfactoriness exists for human beings. You must become fully aware of all the types of suffering that plague mankind and the world he lives in. Only by fully knowing unsatisfactoriness can we recognize the causes. You must accept that all human beings will encounter moments of suffering. #2 The cause of unsatisfactoriness is craving, unnatural attachments and dualistic thinking that neglect an understanding of dependent origination, You must look within (rigorous self-honesty) and without for the causes. The realization that nothing arises from nothing is where we begin. Craving for permanence and fear of change, a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Universe works, and an attachment to ego must be regognized as that cause. #3 There is a path that leads to the cessation of craving and unnatural attachments of the mind, and thus there is a way to positively transform unsatisfactoriness. The lessons of the Middle Path will lead us to the realization that suffering can be alleviated. You discover through experiential verification that the realities of the causal process of the Universe coupled with impermanence empower you to make the changes needed, to engage in positive transformation. #4 This path is Eightfold. In the Eightfold Path you find the dispositions of human beings that directly effect HOW you interact in an interconnected world. Like all Buddhist “lists” the Eightfold Path is not meant to stand alone but to be a dynamic and integral part of Buddhist practices, all which have an impact on HOW a Buddhist lives their life in relation to the causal Universe. The ideals of encompassing and corrective view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration when applied in conjunction with the Six Refinements become a “power tool” in the Buddhist toolbox. The English Buddhist monk Novera said, “The four truths are not to be understood or known, they are injunctions in which we are directed to ACT!” Wisdom, the sixth refinement is gradually developed as you practice generosity, morals, tolerance, energy and meditation, and acting with wisdom also helps us gradually develop those characteristics. For example the wise application of generosity takes more than just giving. You must learn to develop a clear and realistic view of the situation, what is needed as opposed to what is wanted. To start there will be a level of self-regard to your giving and that is a part of the gradual turning from that self-regard to selfless compassion. Your intent will undergo that change if you are mindful. The other aspects of the Eightfold Path – speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration – also have value in determining acts of generosity. Looking deeply into the Eightfold Path you’ll recognize the elements of the Six Refinements. View and intention are acts of wisdom. Speech, action and livelihood are acts of morals and ethics. Effort, mindfulness and concentration are acts of a meditative bodymind. Like all Buddhist teachings, to be useful and productive in the alleviation of suffering, should lead us back to the Four Ennobling Truths so all the thoughts and actions of your Buddhist practice should have its goal the ideals of the Four Ennobling Truths.
Give online or call Member Services at (205) 328-8756 or (800) 239-5233. For premiums/gift info use extension 0136, for contributions use extension 1689, and for questions about programming or technical issues use extension 0145. The companion book to Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s PBS series, And Still I Rise—a timeline and chronicle of the past fifty years of black history in the U.S. in more than 350 photos. Beginning with the assassination of Malcolm X in February 1965, And Still I Rise: From Black Power to the White House explores the last halfcentury of the African American experience. More than fifty years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the birth of Black Power, the United States has both a black president and black CEOs running Fortune 500 companies—and a large black underclass beset by persistent poverty, inadequate education, and an epidemic of incarceration. Harvard professor and scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. raises disturbing and vital questions about this dichotomy. How did the African American community end up encompassing such profound contradictions? And what will “the black community” mean tomorrow? Gates takes readers through the major historical events and untold stories of the sixty years that have irrevocably shaped both the African American experience and the nation as a whole, from the explosive social and political changes of the 1960s, into the 1970s and 1980s—eras characterized by both prosperity and neglect—through the turn of the century to today, taking measure of such racial flashpoints as the Tawana Brawley case, OJ Simpson’s murder trial, the murders of Amadou Diallo and Trayvon Martin, and debates around the NYPD’s “stop and frisk” policies. Even as it surveys the political and social evolution of black America, And Still I Rise is also a celebration of the accomplishments of black artists, musicians, writers, comedians, and thinkers who have helped to define American popular culture and to change our world.
Show image list » Albert Einstein escapes Nazis... Item # 592534 September 11, 1933 THE NEW YORK TIMES, September 11, 1933 * Albert Einstein flees Nazis * Pre World War II Europe * Jewish persecution Page 9 has one column headlines: "EINSTEIN IN REFUGE ON ENGLISH COAST", "Fleeing Nazi Threats, He Goes From London to a Little Known Spot on North Sea", "Closely Guarded There" and more. This is coverage on Albert Einstein escaping Nazi Germany shortly after Adolph Hitler became dictator. He would arrive in America about a month later. Other news, sports and advertisements of the day with much on the situation in Europe regarding the Nazis and the Jews. Complete in 36 pages, light browning, otherwise in good condition. Category: The 20th Century
Métis woman making inroads into the field of engineering Chennoa Tracey is a young Métis woman who graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with a mechanical engineering degree. Today she is a proud STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) professional working as an assistant engineer with the Saskatchewan Research Council. Tracey worked hard to achieve her goals but also attributes her career success to the Gabriel Dumont Institute (GDI). The GDI is an Aboriginal Skills and Employment Training Strategy (ASETS) delivery organization that develops and delivers Métis-specific educational programs and services. Through the GDI Training and Employment summer student program, Tracey was connected to the Saskatchewan Research Council's Aboriginal Mentorship Program, where she met her mentor, Sheldon. Over two summer placements, Sheldon worked alongside Tracey to provide advice and support that pushed her education and work experience to the next level. Tracey encourages others to get in touch with the GDI because, "they help keep Métis people connected to our history and with each other like a community should. They also helped me build my résumé, get interviews and obtain a permanent job in my field of study. And I'm doing better than expected. I consider myself very lucky." According to Tracey's colleagues, she is an asset to the Saskatchewan Research Council because she demonstrates a willingness and interest to learn and apply new engineering analysis skills. Her advice to young women who are thinking of careers in STEM is to "always seek out opportunities, don't get discouraged, and find a way to reach your goal." In May 2019, after engagements with Indigenous groups, ASETS was replaced by the new Indigenous Skills and Employment Training (ISET) program. The new program has 4 distinct labour market strategies: First Nations, Inuit, Métis and Urban/Non-affiliated. The Government of Canada and Indigenous partners are working together to reduce the skills gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people by 50%, and the employment gap by 25%. Since it began, ASETS has served 481,000 clients, with more than 159,000 finding jobs.
Student Stewardship Program Stewardship is a way of life. It is a way of giving each day in gratitude for all the blessings that God has given to us. Stewarship is also a living out of the virtues. The roots of stewardship can be found in the Bible, which tells us that God is the Creator and Giver of all gifts. It is our responsibility to show our gratitude to God for these gifts, by giving back to Him the “first fruits.” Stewardship at MQP School MQP students are actively involved in our school Stewardship Program from Pre-K through 8th grade. The program strives to teach our students that service is indeed a way of life! It emphasizes sharing our gifts from God to serve those in need. Students, teachers, staff and parent volunteers work together by grade to serve the following areas of need: Pre-K - Loving All God's Creatures Kindergarten – Caring for God's Children 1st Grade – Protecting God's Creation 2nd Grade – Cherishing Our Elders 3rd Grade – Feeding God's People 4th Grade – Celebrating Our DIfferences 5th Grade – Honoring the Armed Forces 6th Grade – Sheltering God's People 7th Grade – Respecting Human Life 8th Grade – Working for Social Justice Students engage in specific service projects at least three times per year. Projects provide tangible benefits (such as canned food, baby items and monetary donations), as well as intangible benefits (such as laughing and singing with the elderly). Our students truly learn and experience some of the many ways we can put into practice what Jesus taught us about loving our neighbor! Below is an excerpt from an 8th grader's essay on "What MQP Catholic School Means to Me" written for Catholic Schools Week: "I believe that true service is helping others from your heart without expecting anything in return. Mary Queen of Peace has helped me to find great joy in serving others. With a different stewardship focus for each grade, I have been able to learn about and make a difference in the lives of those needing help for all sorts of reasons. I have sent cards to those in the military, helped to organize donations at St. Patrick's Center, learned the difference between justice and charity, and collected food to give others a warm, Thanksgiving meal. The numerous Dress Out Days for St. Patrick's Center, canned food collections, sandwich makings, collections for the Red Cross, and many other actions of service have made me realize how greatly blessed I am to be safe, happy and healthy. Mary Queen of Peace has provided me with a wide range of opportunities to put others before myself. Through all my service experiences at MQP, I have discovered how big a difference I can make in the lives of all those in need. This could range from the elderly at St. Agnes nursing home where my smiling face brightened up their day to the third graders who I help to stay safe while having fun at recess. I am so glad Mary Queen of Peace has helped me to realize how important it is to think of others before myself, and my happiness in serving those in need will continue for the rest of my life." If you are interested in further information on the MQP School Stewardship program or wish to donate time, talent or treasures to the Stewardship Program, please contact the School Office at 314-961-2891.
American Rivers today released its annual report of America’s Most Endangered Rivers, with California’s San Joaquin River at the top of the list. Outdated water management, compounded by the current drought, have put the San Joaquin River at a critical crossroads. It is hard to overstate the importance of the San Joaquin River and its main tributaries— the Merced, the Tuolumne, and the Stanislaus. These rivers provide drinking water to more than 4.5 million people, including the city of San Francisco, and support numerous endangered or declining species. The rivers also support some of the most productive agriculture in the world, irrigating more than two million acres of land. But the San Joaquin is so overtapped, through excessive diversions and groundwater overdraft, that it runs dry in certain stretches. So much groundwater is pumped that swaths of land are sinking. The river’s salmon and steelhead populations are on the brink of extinction. The current drought is placing additional stress on the river and revealing the inadequacies of status quo water management for both people and the environment. In naming the San Joaquin the nation’s #1 Most Endangered River, American Rivers is calling on the California State Water Resources Control Board to increase flows in the river to support water quality, fish, and sustainable agriculture. American Rivers is also urging Congress to preserve agreements and laws designed to protect the San Joaquin River and the jobs and communities it supports. For the second year in a row, the America’s Most Endangered Rivers report underscores the problems that arise for communities and the environment when we drain too much water out of rivers. Last year the Colorado River was #1 on the list because of outdated water management. The Colorado River Basin remains in the spotlight this year, with water diversion threats placing the Gila River and the rivers of the Upper Colorado Basin on the Most Endangered list. “On the San Joaquin and across the nation, communities can increase their ability to deal with drought now and in the future by protecting and restoring rivers and using water more efficiently,” said Bob Irvin, president of American Rivers. “By prioritizing healthy rivers and sustainable water management, we can enjoy reliable clean water supplies, healthy fish and wildlife, recreation, and quality of life for generations to come.” America’s Most Endangered Rivers of 2014: #1 San Joaquin River (California) Threat: Outdated water management and excessive diversions At Risk: River health and resilient communities #2 Upper Colorado River System (Colorado) Threat: New trans-mountain water diversions At Risk: River health and recreation #3 Middle Mississippi River (Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky) Threat: Outdated flood management At Risk: Wildlife habitat and public safety #4 Gila River (New Mexico) Threat: New water diversions At Risk: River health, fish and wildlife, recreation, and tourism #5 San Francisquito Creek (California) At Risk: Fish and wildlife habitat and public safety #6 South Fork Edisto River (South Carolina) Threat: Excessive water withdrawals At Risk: Fish and wildlife habitat, recreation, and water quality #7 White River (Colorado) Threat: Oil and gas drilling At Risk: Drinking water supplies and fish and wildlife habitat #8 White River (Washington) Threat: Outdated dam and fish passage facilities At Risk: Salmon, steelhead, and bull trout populations #9 Haw River (North Carolina) Threat: Polluted runoff At Risk: Clean water #10 Clearwater/Lochsa Rivers (Idaho) Threat: Industrialization of a Wild and Scenic River corridor At risk: Scenery, solitude, world-class recreational values
Tokyo National Museum in Ueno has an excellent collection of Japanese and East Asian arts. Cool, unique, important and very old (some are from the past of thousands years ago!) arts are waiting for us. It is quite natural that such a museum becomes a popular tourist spot. \|Tokyo National Museum\| On this post, I’ll show you Must-Sees at the museum and some travel tips! (Sometimes the museum changes the permanent exhibition on display, but we see other important arts in this case.) - 1 Part 1: Arts on Japanese History Textbooks - 2 Part 2: Romantic Adventure to Ancient Times - 3 Part 3: Indigenous Cultures in Japan - 4 Tokyo National Museum Visitor Information Part 1: Arts on Japanese History Textbooks Everyone sees them on History textbooks at elementary and junior high school in Japan. You’ll meet genuine ones there. Not just photos nor replicas! A Dogu (Clay Figurine) called “Shakkouki-Dogu” This kind of figurines were made 3000 – 6000 years ago, especially in North East Japan. Among those remaining today, this Dogu is so well-designed that it appears on textbooks. Nobody knows exactly for what purpose ancient people made Dogus, but the influential idea is that they are goddess sculptures to wish rich harvest and generation. Deep Bowl with Flame-like Ornamentation 3000 – 2000 BC \|An ancient bowl\| Ancient people made some earthenware for their daily lives and festivals. Again this fantastic design makes this particular bowl very famous. Wind God and Thunder God by Korin Ogata, 18th Century \|Wind God and Thunder God\| Wind God and Thunder God are often paired in Japan. A good example is that they are at the gate of Sensoji Temple in Asakusa. The right is Wind God and the left is Thunder God. There are Wind Gods in other cultures such as Greek myths, and these are the Japanese style. Korin Ogata is famous for this kind of paintings. (Students must memorize his name for Japanese History exams!) Part 2: Romantic Adventure to Ancient Times A Haniwa (Terracotta figure for tombs – right) Deep Jar with Spout (middle) 4000 – 3000 BC A Dotaku (Bell-shaped bronze – left) 1st – 3rd Century \|A haniwa, jar and dotaku\| Ancient royal people made BIG tombs (as big as a hill!!) and placed Haniwas around. Talking about Dotaku, it is a model of a Pokemon. Mysterious, aren’t they? We can get souvenir Haniwas at the Museum Shop. GENUINE Japanese Sword \|A Japanese sword\| “Japanese sword” reminds us of samurais. Of course it is totally true, but swords had an aspect as arts (and sometimes charms.) There are some great swords in this museum and I see some international visitors are excited to see them! Part 3: Indigenous Cultures in Japan Many cultures have been living in Japan. Sometimes a foolish politician says, “only one ethnic group lives in Japan, so…” but it is completely wrong. In the long history, many cultures have mixed up to become Japan of today. Ainu Bowl and Cup Stand, Iku-pasui (conveyor of wine and prayer to gods), Inau (ritual items) \|Ainu bowl and cup stand\| Beautiful, aren’t they? Ainu is indigenous people in Hokkaido, Northern part of Japan. There are Ainu language and its unique culture with some similarities to Japan and East Asia. I regret to say this but horrible things happened by the Japanese government in the past. However, people now understand how horrible that history is and even feel Ainu culture is so cool. The museum sometimes displays arts of Ryukyu Kingdom (today’s Okinawa, the southern island) instead of Ainu arts. Okinawa also has cool, unique, beautiful cultures. It is popular as a resort island with beautiful beaches. You’ll enjoy and learn a lot if you add Okinawa on your travel schedule. Part 4: Travel Tips of Tokyo National Museum from a Local Many people miss its balcony. There is a big back door in the ground floor of the building. I think people just pass beside it because they think it is closed, but… it’s open. It’s a quiet balcony of stone and you’ll explore the view of a Japanese garden and the building itself. \|The Japanese garden of Tokyo National Museum\| If some days in spring and autumn, you can take a walk around the garden from outside. In autumn, this garden is extremely beautiful with red and yellow leaves! Tokyo National Museum has several buildings. Do you know that this Hyokei-kan and Heisei-kan have lounges on the ground floor to take a rest? It’s great when your legs get a bit tired! Thank you very much for reading and hope you have a good day there! Tokyo National Museum Visitor Information 620 yen for Adult Opening Hours 9:30 – 17:00 Closed on Monday (if Monday is a public holiday, open on Monday and closed on Tuesday), 28 Dec – 1 Jan Link to Official Website http://www.tnm.jp/
Feeling heightened emotions or like you’re unable to control your emotions can come down to diet choices, genetics, or stress. It can also be due to an underlying health condition, such as depression or hormones. Is bottling up emotions a mental illness? When you bottle up negative emotions like anxiety and anger, it can disrupt the normal function of your stress hormones called cortisol. What happens to your mind and body? A lowered immune function, at risk of developing a chronic illness, and is a gateway to developing mental health conditions. Why do I bottle things up then explode? If we bottle things up, they don’t just go away. Emotions will stay down until we physically can’t contain them anymore, then they’ll burst out fiercer than before. How do you deal with bottled anger? - Change your environment. Sometimes a change in environment is enough to help prevent feelings of anger from being repressed. … - Work it out. … - Challenge your thinking. … - Practice relaxation exercises. … - Use creative arts. What is Bottleup? : to keep (a feeling or emotion) inside instead of expressing it : to hide (a feeling or emotion) She’s kept her feelings about the accident bottled up for too long. Why do I not cry? There are many reasons why you might struggle to shed a tear or two. It might be because of a physical ailment but, more often than not, an inability to cry says a lot about our emotional state, our beliefs and prejudices about crying, or our past experiences and trauma. Why is it healthy to cry? Researchers have established that crying releases oxytocin and endogenous opioids, also known as endorphins. These feel-good chemicals help ease both physical and emotional pain. Why do I feel so out of control? Some of the biggest culprits are anger, fear, stress, and grief. Sometimes we’re not even aware of these emotions, but they still affect our behavior. Talking to someone about your feelings and writing in a journal are great ways to sort out what you’re feeling and why. Restlessness. What Mental Illness Causes anger? Intermittent explosive disorder is a lesser-known mental disorder marked by episodes of unwarranted anger. It is commonly described as “flying into a rage for no reason.” In an individual with intermittent explosive disorder, the behavioral outbursts are out of proportion to the situation. What are signs of anger issues? - Are hurting others either verbally or physically. - Always find yourself feeling angry. - Feel that your anger is out of control. - Frequently regret something you’ve said or done when angry. - Notice that small or petty things make you angry. What is silent anger? You bottle up your anger and replay what made you angry over and over in your head until you have analyzed the situation or person to death. … You act as if everything is fine, but anyone who knows you can tell that something is eating away at you. Why do I get angry when hurt? Anger triggers happen when someone hits a sensitive area in your life. Someone says something that hurts emotionally, and what you feel is sadness or hurt. When your body and mind feels this emotional pain it wants to find some relief, so anger jumps in to take over. Why do I get angry so easily? Some common anger triggers include: personal problems, such as missing a promotion at work or relationship difficulties. a problem caused by another person such as cancelling plans. an event like bad traffic or getting in a car accident. What is seething rage? Seething describes anger you can barely contain. If you are seething and something sets you off, you just might explode into a rage. Someone who’s seething with anger is furious but keeping it a secret. How do you release bottled emotions? - Check in. Ask yourself how you feel right now. … - Use “I” statements. Practice expressing your feelings with phrases like “I feel confused. … - Focus on the positive. It might seem easier to name and embrace positive emotions at first, and that’s OK. … - Let go of judgement. … - Make it a habit. What is bottle made of? A bottle is a narrow-necked container made of an impermeable material (clay, glass, plastic, aluminium etc.) in various shapes and sizes to store and transport liquids (water, milk, beer, wine, ink, cooking oil, medicine, soft drinks, shampoo, and chemicals, etc.)
Imagine receiving an email that your professor ran your paper through anti-plagiarism software and found some questionable passages. He or she is notifying you that your paper is being submitted to the university to investigate possible plagiarism. In this scenario, you’d probably think “Why am I in trouble for plagiarizing? I paraphrased my work! I used my own words and even provided citations!” For many students, the standards of what qualifies as original work are unclear. Every academic institution likely has an extensive plagiarism policy in place and holds students to rigorous expectations. Yet, many of these concepts can seem nebulous, especially if you’ve been out of school for a while. Here’s a quick refresher: Be cautious when paraphrasing Information drawn from sources should be presented entirely in your own words, rather than changing a few words within the sentence someone else wrote. Similarly, you shouldn’t rely too heavily on citations to attempt and justify paraphrased information. But wait, doesn’t providing a citation make it legal, you may ask? After all, I’m not stealing the author’s work and presenting it as my own. Even if you properly cite the author, you must also keep in mind that the objective of any academic activity is to evaluate your understanding of the core concepts and material. Your professor cannot assess what you’ve learned if you copy and paste a hybrid of source material, even if it’s properly cited. If your professor doesn’t know you understand the material, how can he or she award you points for having met the course goals? In other words, the safest route for avoiding plagiarism is to gather as much information as possible in the course of your research and analyze it in an individual way, using citations primarily to strengthen your logic or exemplify a main point. In general, relying entirely on citations lends itself more easily to plagiarism. Don’t copy or steal from others To state the obvious, copying large segments of text, blatant parallel structure or buying a paper online are all inexcusable forms of plagiarism. If you have the slightest inkling that one of your decisions may qualify as plagiarism, it’s best to rework the section or entire assignment to steer clear. Consider asking your instructor directly about specific assignment guidelines or to clarify cases where you are uncertain of how to appropriately cite sources. In many cases, even if citations are used correctly, overusing them can weaken an assignment and affect the grade overall. Let’s say your professor sees an entire discussion post has been copied and pasted from a website or textbook. If it’s properly cited, your work may not necessarily be considered “stolen,” but (and this is a big but!) if the student hasn’t demonstrated his or her analysis of the material then it likely won’t demonstrate a strong enough understanding to earn high marks. Since your work failed to meet the academic objectives, it won’t earn an exemplary grade. As for whether or not over-citing is definitively considered plagiarism, consider the University of Illinois at Chicago’s definition of plagiarism includes; “cites sources but relies too heavily on text’s original wording and/or structure” and “cites sources but doesn’t offer anything original. So yes, even if you provide citations, you are at risk. If you do not offer anything original and show that you understand the material, you may be plagiarizing! Ed Keim has been an adjunct professor for several years at various universities and has over twenty years of experience as a half- and full-time university student. His professional experiences include serving as a weapons system technician on F14A Tomcat aircraft, operating heavy construction equipment in the environmental remediation field, and repairing, and later managing, electronic manufacturing production lines for a large Japanese electronics firm. He has also years of experience running his own business consulting firm and tax preparation. His hobbies include herpetology and his office is populated by several reptilian friends, including two ball pythons who have been with him for over 25 years, a baby reticulated python, an albino Columbian redtail boa constrictor, a 10 foot Burmese python, and an Argentine tegu the size of a Chihuahua. [i]University of Illinois at Chicago (n.d.). The reality and solution of college plagiarism. Retrieved from http://healthinformatics.uic.edu/resources/infographics/the-reality-and-solution-of-college-plagiarism-infographic/
One of the mysteries of the English language finally explained. 1mass noun The state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities.‘an organization aiming to promote racial equality’ fairness, justness, equitability, impartiality, even-handedness, egalitarianism, equal rights, equal opportunities, non-discriminationView synonyms - ‘Can marriage be reformed to serve as a public status that promotes equality and liberty?’ - ‘The report also sets out a new public sector duty to promote equality of opportunity for people with mental health problems.’ - ‘The Government advocates equality of opportunity for every child.’ - ‘Many people think of feminism as a movement that promotes gender equality and opportunity.’ - ‘Moreover, not everything is done to ensure equality of opportunity.’ - ‘All the evidence shows, that if you want to promote social mobility and equality of opportunity, you have to start early.’ - ‘People disagree about what is needed to ensure fair equality of opportunity.’ - ‘They want to see people given a fair go, they want equality of opportunity, and they want fairness.’ - ‘We should be striving to create a meritocratic society with equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.’ - ‘It's no secret that great numbers of jobs are sewn up from the inside, despite claims of equality of opportunity.’ - ‘When we promote equality, we need to make sure that we are promoting equality of opportunity.’ - ‘The striking workers are demanding equality of promotion opportunities with their colleagues.’ - ‘Does equality of opportunity matter more than equality of outcome?’ - ‘For example, complete negative freedom would not provide equality of opportunity, outcome, or treatment.’ - ‘But equality of aspiration is not matched by equality of opportunity.’ - ‘It's easy to say one is in favour of equality of opportunity.’ - ‘The value of equality of opportunity gets most of its practical force from its opposition to systematic discrimination.’ - ‘A new settlement must be able to deliver equality of opportunity for unionists as well as nationalists.’ - ‘Parliament alone can give equality of opportunity and thereby increase liberty for all.’ - ‘We also know that the labour movement has to work very hard to ensure that same equality of access and opportunity in the union.’ A symbolic expression of the fact that two quantities are equal; an equation. - ‘In full equilibrium, as Johnson pointed out, both equalities hold (the economy is at the IS-LM intersection) and the two theories are formally identical.’ - ‘The formal algebraic manipulation of series investigated by Lagrange and Laplace in the 1770s was put in the form of operator equalities by Arbogast in 1800 in Calcul des dérivations.’ - ‘In a series of papers published over the following years Edmonds examined a whole variety of different conditions on the functions f and g which give the required equalities.’ - ‘Relationships between other values from different quantity spaces can be defined using equalities and correspondences.’ - ‘There is a clear violation of strand symmetry in the loop regions: the intrastrand equalities of A = T and G = C expected at equilibrium are not obeyed.’ Late Middle English: via Old French from Latin aequalitas, from aequalis (see equal). In this article we explore how to impress employers with a spot-on CV.
Providers’ Perceptions of Prevalent Mental and Behavioral Health Problems: Differences and Similarities Across Urban, Rural, and Frontier Areas Most research exploring possible differences in the prevalence of mental and behavioral health¹ (MBH) problems between urban and rural areas has indicated that there are no differences. Unfortunately, most of this research has measured urbanness–ruralness as a 2-level or dichotomous construct only (i.e., an area is either urban or rural), and researchers have used inconsistent (and sometimes conflicting) definitions for what constitutes an “urban” or “rural” area. In this study, urbanness–ruralness is conceptualized as an expanded categorical construct with the addition of a 3rd point: The frontier area. Surveys were completed by 259 MBH professionals across the urban, rural, and frontier counties of a U.S. state in the intermountain west. Survey items asked about a number of issues related to MBH, including what the professionals perceived to be the most-prevalent MBH problems in their areas. Anxiety was perceived to be a significantly more prevalent problem in urban areas, and substance abuse and domestic violence were perceived to be significantly more prevalent problems in frontier areas. These results suggest that when urbanness–ruralness is conceptualized as an expanded categorical construct (rather than simply a dichotomous one), differences in the perceived prevalence of MBH problems may be found. McDonald, Theodore W.; Curtis-Schaeffer, Amy K.; Theiler, Alexander A.; and Howard, Elsa K.M.. (2014). "Providers’ Perceptions of Prevalent Mental and Behavioral Health Problems: Differences and Similarities Across Urban, Rural, and Frontier Areas". Journal of Rural Mental Health, 38(1), 36-49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rmh0000009
In this challenge, students decipher as much as they can about objects from their or another community's past. Prepare for the activity by locating several historical artifacts in second-hand stores or in family storage areas or by locating pictures of artifacts that would likely have been available or used in the early days of their community (e.g., household items, tools, obscure clothing). Wherever possible, include objects from various cultural groups that have played a role in the community's history. Introduce the activity by showing the objects and explaining that they were in use during earlier days in the community. Explain that through careful detective work, the class can learn about life in the past from these objects. You may choose to dress up like a detective (e.g., Sherlock Holmes). Assist students in exploring one of the mystery objects by asking the class to look for clues in response to the following questions: - Who do you think would use this object? (A child? A woman? A man?) - What is this object? (What is it made of? What features does it have?) - Where might we find this object? (Inside? Outside? In a house? On a farm?) - When would this object have been made? (Is it old or new?) - Why was this object needed? (What is its purpose?) - Is there a modern replacement? You may want to adapt the chart and strategies for Collecting Information (Support Material) to structure and assess student generation of conclusions based on the observed clues. After students have exhausted their conclusions, explain the object, its use and, if possible, the story of how you came to have possession of it, as well as other anecdotes. Discuss the current replacement, if any, for the historical object and help students see why this object would no longer be in use. Over the next several days, repeat this process with other historical objects that you may have assembled. Over the course of the inquiry, encourage students to bring in their own historical mystery objects (or photographs of the objects) and have the class uncover their story. You may want to send a letter home explaining this activity and inviting parents/guardians to communicate with you information and stories about the object so that you may assist their child in answering questions about the object. Adapted from "Using Artifacts to Foster Historical Inquiry," by Linda Farr Darling, published in The Anthology of Social Studies: Issues and Strategies for Elementary Teachers, ed. Roland Case and Penney Clark (Vancouver: Pacific Educational Press, Fall 2005).
Scarce Silver-lines Bena bicolorana Wingspan 40-45 mm. Possibly our most immaculate-looking moth, this is one of the few green species in Britain, and one of the brightest. It is distributed widely in England and Wales, as far north as Yorkshire, being locally common in places. It inhabits woodland and parkland. Flying from June to August, it regularly visits light. The caterpillars feed on the leaves of oak (Quercus).
See glossary for symbol meaning. Bailey Family Coat of Arms Variations of this name: Baille, Bailles, Baillie, Bayley, Bayly, Bayley, Baylie.We have several coat of arms design(s) for the name Bailey. Click on the thumbnails to view each design. Each of the designs above is a variation of the family crest for this name. We have a visual glossary of coat of arms symbols which you can use to explore the meaning of the various design elements and colors which make up each coat of arms. Bailey Family Gift Ideas Origin, Meaning and Family History of the Bailey Name Surname Name Meaning, Origin, and Etymology The name Bailey has three origins. One is from the occupation of steward, from the Old French “balif” and middle English “bail”. It eventually developed in to “Bailie” in Scotland, meaning municipal magistrate, or “baliff” in England, meaning officer of the court. Secondly, it came from where they made their home, in this case, near the outer castle walls, or “bail(l)y” in middle England. Lastly, it came from the town they lived in, “Bailey”, in Lancashire, meaning “berrywood”. Common spelling variations of this last name include: Baillie (Scottish), Baille, Bayley, Bayly, Bayley, Baylly Early Bearers of the Surname The first record of the family name is Roger le Baylly, dated 1230, in the Suffolk Pipe Rolls, during the reign of Henry III. History, Genealogy, and Ancestry Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage: The Bailey lineage was created by a certificate granted by Sir Charles Erskine (Lyon King-of- Arms), dated 28 June, 1676, confirming to Thomas Baillie the family coat of arms and motto, it is stated that the Baillies of Pulkemmet are descended from the Ballies of Jerristowne, who were descended from the Baillies of Carphin, who were cadets of the Baillies of Lamingtoune. Thomas Baillie of Polkemmet, married in 1600 to Elizabeth Polwarth of Cathlaw, and had Issue: Thomas, his heir; James who married Catherine Hamilton of Airdrie in 1642; Elizabeth who married Thomas Hamilton, of Boghead in 1647; and Katherine, who married John Sommerville in 1643. The oldest son, Thomas Baillie, married Alison, daughter of Sir James Muirhead of Lauchop, and had issue: Thomas, his heir; and Margaret, married Robert Flemyng of Ravens Craig, Lanarkshire in 1654. The only son, Thomas Baillie married Margaret, daughter of William Baillie, of Carphin in 1644, and had issue: Thomas, John, and Jean. The lineage of Bayley—Isaac Bayley, of Huntingdon, son of Daniel Bayley, and grandson of Philippe Bayley (or de Bailieui, Seigneur of Eecke), who emigrated from Spanish Flanders to escape persecution in the 17th century, bought Willow Hall, at Thorney, near Peterborough. He married Orme, daughter of Henry Bigland of Leicester in 1732, leaving issue: Edward (Rev.); rector of Courtenhall, Northhampton, m). thrice: leaving issue; John, the heir; Charles, of Peterborough, married Cordelia, daughter of Samuel Taylor; Henry, of Uppingham, married Elizabeth, daughter of John Sly, of Huntingdon, and had issue; and Isaac, of Market Harborough, married Mary, daughter Rev. George Widowson, and had issue. His 2nd son, John Bayley, of Northampton, married Sarah, daughter and heir of White Kennett, leaving issue: Daniel who died unmarried; John, the heir; Saul who died unmarried; Edward who died unmarried; and Basil Kennett who died unmarried. The 2nd son, The Rt. Hon Sir John Bayley, a lawyer of eminence, was for many years one of the Judges of the king’s bench, and subsequently a baron of the Exchequer. He was knighted in 1808, and created a baronet on his retirement in 1834. He married Elizabeth, daughter of John Markett, of Kent in 1790, and by her had lssue: John Edward George (Sir). 2nd baronet; Kennett Champain (Rev) rector of Copford, Essex, married in 1831 to Charlotte, daughter of James Drake Brockman, of Beachborough, Kent, having had issue. Early American and New World Settlers Early settlers to America include Richard Bailey (Massachusetts 1650), from the company that set up the first cloth mill in America; John Bailey (Massachusetts 1939); John Bayley (Massachusetts 1635), a weaver. The Baillie family motto is in caligine lucet, from the family crest, meaning “It shines in the darkness”. The Bayley family motto is virtus simper viridis, meaning “Virtue is always flourishing”. Famous people with this last name include: 1) Jacob Bailey (1731–1808), Church of England clergyman and author; 2) Benjamin Bailey (1791–1871), British missionary in India; 3) Charles Bayly (17th century), the first overseas governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company; and 4) Baillie of Jerviswood (died 1684), Scottish conspirator. Bailey Family Gift IdeasBrowse Bailey family gift ideas and products below. If there are multiple coats of arms for this surname, you will see them at the top of this page and can click on the various coat of arms designs to apply them to the gift ideas below. Clothing & Accessories Kitchen & Bath Fun & Games More bailey Family Gift Ideas Blazons & Genealogy NotesBailey - (Norwich). Per pale az. and sa. a cross crosslet saltirewise betw. four estoiles or. Crest— A cubit arm erect vested bendy of six az. and sa. cuff ar. the hand ppr. holding a crosier and surmounted by an estoile both or. Motto—Deo duce. Bailey - (Ightham Place, and Nepicar House, co. Kent). Erminois a lion pass. sa. holding in the dexter paw a cross pattee fitchee gu. on a chief nebulee of the second a cross pattee, or. Crest—In front of a demi lion erminois holding in the dexter paw a cross pattee fitchee gu. the trunk of a tree eradicated fesswise and sprouting ppr. Motto—Nec temere nec timide. Bailey - Erm. three bars wavy sa. Crest— A demi lady holding on her dexter hand a tower, in her sinister a laurel branch vert. Bailey - (Bart, of Glanusk Park, co. Brecon). Ar. betw. two bars, three annulets in fesse gu. all betw. as many martlets of the last. Crest—A griffin sejant ar. semee of innulets gu. Motto—Libertas. Bailey - (Stretford, co. Lancaster). Gu. on a fesse nebuly betw. four martlets three in chief and one in base ar. two roses of the first barbed and seeded ppr. Crest—In front of an anchor in bend sinister ppr. a female figure vested vert aupporting with the right hand an escocheon gu. charged with a martlet ar. and resting with the left on the stock of the anchor. Motto—Vallum aeneum esto. Bailey - Ecosse - (Riestap à Forestier) - D'azur à neuf molettes d'or 3 3 2 et 1 Baille - Provence - Dominique , bourgeois de la Cadière. D'azur à un coeur d'or surmonté d'une croisette du mesme au chef de gueules chargé de trois étoiles d'or. English: Azure with a heart or, surmounted by a crosslet of the same, a chief gules, charged with three etoiles or. Baille - Provence - Famille de Seyne et de Vernet, inscrite dans l'Arm. gén. de 1696 : Jean-Antoine , notaire; Antoine , bourgeois; Joseph , marchand. D'argent à trois hures de sanglier de sable défendues du champ. English: Argent three boar head sable, tusked of the field. Baille - Provence - Joseph B. cabaretier à Toulon - D'argent à un arbre terrassé de sinople le fût accosté de deux roses de gueules chaque rose surmontée d'une étoile d'azur. English: Argent a tree on a mount vert, the trunk having to the sides two roses gules, each rose surmounted by an etoile azure. Baille - Provence - (Arm. gén. de 1696) Antoine , pelletier à Toulon. De gueules aux lettres A et B en pointe surmontées d'une croix pattée et deux points accostant le B le tout d'or. English: Gules the letters A and B in base, surmounted by a cross pattee and two points on either side of the B, all or. Baille - Guyenne, Gascogne - (Bach. Defl) - De sable au chevron d'or acc de trois besants du mesme. English: Sable a chevron or, accompanied by three bezants of the same. Baille - Narbonne - D'or à la bande de gueules chargée de trois étoiles d'argent acc en chef d'une main l'index allongé issant en barre d'une nuée mouvant de l'angle senestre du chef et en pointe d'une tige fleurie d'une pièce et de quatre boutons English: Or a bend gules, charged with three estoiles argent, accompanied in chief by a hand pointing, issuing in bend sinister from a cloud coming out of the sinister chief angle of the shield, and in base by a stem flowered with four buds. Baille - Provence - De gueules à six billettes d'or posées 3 2 et 1 English: Gules with six billlets or, arranged 3, 2 and 1. Baille - (du) - Normandie - D'azur à deux chevrons d'or acc en chef de deux étoiles d'argent et en pointe d'une rose du même. English: Azure two chevrons or, accompanied in chief by two etoiles argent, and in base by a rose of the same. Bailles - (Yorkshire, granted 1578). Or, a fesse wavy az. betw. two lions pass. guard. sa. Baillie - (Kennedy-Baillie: exemplified, 1836, to Rev. James Kennedy-Baillie, D.D.. Rector of Ardtrea, Armagh, on his assuming by Royal Liccnse the additional name of Baillie). Quarterly, 1st and 4th, az. nine etoiles three, three, two and one, for BAILLIE; 2nd and 3rd, ar. a chev. gu. betw. three cross-crosslets fitchee sa. within a double tressure flory counterflory of the second, for KENNEDY. Crests—1st, A boar’s head couped ar., for Baillie: 2nd, A dolphin naiant az. Motto—Quid clarius astris. Baillie - (Hoperig, co. Haddington, and Lamington, co. Lanark). Az. (in some early blazons, sa.) nine stars three, three, two, and one, ar. Crest—A boar’s head erased ppr. Motto—Quiil clarius astris. v. Cochrane. Baillie - (Jervieswoode, co. Lanark; the heiress m. Lord Binning, and her 2nd son, who inherited Jervieswoode, took the name of Baillie: his descendants eventually succeeded to the Earldom of Haddington). Sa. the sun in his splendour betw. nine stars, three, two, and one, ar. Crest—A crescent or. Motto—Major virtus quam splendor. Baillie - (Walstoun, Scotland). Ar. the moon in her complement betw. nine stars, three, two, three, and one, ar. Crest—A dove volant holding in her beak a branch of olive ppr. Motto—Patior et spero. Baillie - (Mannerhall). As. Jervieswoode, a crescent ar. for difference. Crest—A crescent or. Motto—Major virtus quam splendor. Baillie - (Cairnbroe, co. Lanark, 1780). Sa. the sun in his splendour betw. five stars two, two and one, ar. in middle chief an eagle's head erased or. Crest—On the point of a sword erected ppr. hilted and pommeled or, a laurel wreath fructuated of the first. Motto—Perseveranti. Baillie - (Polkemmet, co. Linlithgow, bart., 1823). Quarterly, 1st and 4th, az. nine stars three, three, two, and one or, a bordure counter nebuly ar. and sa.; 2nd and 3rd, az. a lion ramp. and in chief three stars ar., INGLIS of Murdistown. Crest—A star of eight points issuing out of a cloud ppr. Supporters—Two lions guard, ar. Motto—In caligine lucet. Baillie - (Innishargy, Ireland). Az. nine stars, three, three, two and one ar. a bordure wavy or. Crest—A star of eight points ar. issuing from a cloud ppr. Motto—Nil clarius astris. Baillie - (William Baillie, of Rosehall, co. Sutherland, son of Alexander Baillie of Dochfour, 1747). Az., nine stars, three, three, two and one. ar., a bordure or, charged with ten cinquefoils vert. Crest—A cat sejant ppr. Motto—Spero meliora. Baillie - (Gen. Sir Evan Baillie, Bart., 1812). Az. nine stars, three, three, two and one, ar. Crest—A boar’s head erased ppr. Supporters—Two tigers ppr. each gorged with an antique crown or, and thereto affixed a chain passing betw. the forelegs and reflexed over the back of the last. Motto—Ubi bene ibi patria. Baillie - (Monkton, co. Ayr, 1874). Az. nine stars three, three, two and one, or, a bordure engr. ar. Crest—An eagle reguardant his wings raised ppr. Motto—Libertas optima rerum. Baillie - (Paignton, co. Devon, 1855). Az. nine stars of six points wavy three, three, two and one, or, a bordure of the last charged with two boars’ heads erased in pale and two hands holding daggers erect in fess all ppr. Crest—A boar’s head couped ppr. Motto—Quid clarius astris. Baillie - (Balmeddiesyde, Scotland). Az. nine stars or, three, three, two and one, a bordure ar. charged with eight crescents of the first. Crest—A morning star ppr. Motto—Vertitur in lucem. Baillie - (James Baillie, descended of Littlegill, 1763). Az. nine stars, three, three, two and one ar., a bordure indented of the second charged with eight stars gu. Crest—A boar’s head erased ppr. Motto—Quid clarius astris. Baillie - (William Robert Baillie, Edinburgh, 1858). Az. eight stars three, two, two and one, or, in fess point a stag’s head cabossed of the last, a bordure erm. Crest—The sun in his splendour ppr. Motto—Clarior astris. Bayley - (Thomas Butterworth Bayley, Esq., of Hope Hall, Sheriff of Lancashire, 1768). Ar. on a fesse betw. three martlets gu. as many plates. Bayley - (Oxfordshire). Gu. three martlets or, a chief vair. Bayley - (formerly of Chesterton, co. Huntingdon, bart.). Quarterly, gu. and erminois on a fesse az. three martlets or, betw. in the first and fourth quarters a lion ramp. ar. Crest—On a mount vert behind a wall ar. a lion ramp. also ar. Bayley - (Hoddesdon, co. Herts, 1634). Ar. three torteaux two and one, a chief gu. Crest—Out of a ducal coronet or, a nag’s head ar. Bayley - (London). Gu. a fesse vair, in chief a bezant, charged with an anchor sa. betw. two estoiles in base three martlets ar. Crest—A dexter arm embowed habited az. on the arm a fesse vair the hand ppr. supporting a staff or. Bayley - (Middle Temple). Sa. a chev. between three human hearts or. Crest—A demi lion guard. or. holding in the paw a branch vert. Bayley - Ar. on a fesse betw. three martlets gu. as many plates (another, bezants). Crest—A griffin sejant erm. wings and fore legs or. Bayley - Az. nine estoiles ar. three, three, and three. Crest—A boar’s head erased ppr. Bayley - Gu. a chev. engr. erm. betw. three martlets ar. Bayley - (Northallerton, co. York, previously of Easingwold, in that county, and originally from the South of England; borne by Charles John Bayley, Esq., London, late of Trinity College, Cambridge). Ar. on a fesse betw. three martlets gu. three bezants, quartering Barry (formerly the patronymic of the family). Crest—A griflin sejant erm. wings and fore legs or. Bayly - (Plas Newydd Anglesey, bart.; now represented in the male line, by the Marquess of Anglesey). (Ballyarthur, co. Wicklow, descended from Lambart Bayly, 3rd son of Sir Edward Bayly, first bart. of Plas Newydd, co. Anglesey). Az. nine estoiles, three, three, two, and one, ar. Crest: A boar's head erased ppr. Motto: "Quid clarius astris". Bayly - (Bristol). Or, on a fesse engr. betw. three nags’ heads erased az. as many fleurs-de-lis gold. Crest—A goat's head az. bezantee attired or. Bayly - (London). Gu. a fesse vair betw. two mullets of six points in chief, and a heart in base or. Crest—An arm couped at the elbow and erect, habited gu. charged with a fesse vair, the cuff ar. holding in the hand ppr. a mullet of six points or. Bayly - (Major Sir Henry Bayly. K.H., second son of Zachary Bayly, Esq., of Bideford, by his wife, the youngest dau. of L. Clutterbuck, Esq., of Newark Park, co. Gloucester). Or, on a fesse engr. betw. three nags’ heads erased az. as many fleurs-de-lis gold. Crest—Out of a ducal coronet or, a nag’s head ar. Bayly - Ar. a chev. ermines betw. three mullets gu. (another, martlets). Bayly - Ar. three torteaux, two and one. Bayley - (alias Godeman) (Ireland). Gu. on a cross ar. five greyhounds’ heads erased sa. in the first quarter a covered cup of the second. Bailie - (Ringdufferin, co. Down). Az., nine stars, three, two, and one, ar. Crest—A hand and dagger. Motto—Quid clarius astris. Baylie - Az. three doves rising ar. legged gu. ana crowned with ducal coronets or.
We live in a time where our lives move at a fast pace, governed by ever-changing technologies and the constant need to innovate. ‘Gamification’ is not just a new word that made it to the English dictionary; it has become a catalyst, a disruptive agent to our daily life experiences. Gamification is now embedded in everything we use; we’re all users, promoting it — and at times addicted to it, without even realising. Forrester, market advisers in technology and business, defines gamification as ‘the insertion of game dynamics into non-game activities to drive a desired behaviour’. Put in simpler terms, it is basically the application of typical elements of game playing to other areas of activity. Now how does this translate to our day-to-day lingo? Let’s see. As kids, we were always curious to know more about how things worked, so we used to experiment. Sometime, we’d succeed and other times fail. If we take a closer look, gamification has always been part of our childhood. In a classroom, we were rewarded for picking the right colours, alphabets, animals and shapes. This process of infotainment (sharing information through entertainment) and getting rewarded is gamification. Gaming elements actually increase natural desire to socialise, learn, compete, succeed and interact. Although an event should not become a game, leveraging the psychology on game mechanics is an important element to keep audiences fully immersed. In recent years, gamification became another key component of online marketing and digital innovation, to engage target audiences, consumers, potential partners, as well as organisations which use various platforms. These gamifications focus on several attraction methods such as competition with peers, scoring points, setting rules, role-playing and more. Not only that, even social media platforms have incorporated some elements of gamification. Think of Facebook’s “likes”, or even your Instagram’s “number of followers and the number of “likes” on your photos. The same goes for Twitter and other emerging social platforms. They all have one thing in common: each one of them gives you a score for the content you share, your performance, or tweets. Rewarding has a satisfactory impact on our emotions and thinking, and that’s what motivates us to keep using our social media platforms day after day. Gamification is also taking other forms and is now a “playful” component that is sought after by many brands when planning their marketing touch points and activities. An example is Domino’s pizza’s ordering app which has been released in many countries. The marketing purpose of this app was to reiterate a fresh and innovative side to the Domino’s brand and generate more sales through gamification. The app gave consumers a chance to take on the role as “pizza maker” and make their own pizza from scratch, from adding the toppings and ingredients to placing it in the oven for baking. This app was connected to the nearest Domino’s Pizza branch and it was then delivered to the customer. The app was easy to use, fun, and rewarding and as a result, Domino’s increased its sales significantly and engaged its target audience in an innovative, fun experience. ‘The Game Report’, a direct marketing exercise executed by Serviceplan, is another example of how gamification was utilised to help visualise technical and financial data for BytroLabs — a ‘game developing start-up’ looking for investors and business partners. Serviceplan designed a technical business report based on an actual game, allowing receivers of this direct marketing exercise to understand the business aspects of the start-up by playing a fun game that takes the user into obstacles and scoring steps to explore the business data. To put it simply, gamification is the stimulus that brings out the child in us with an end goal that ranges from sales generation, data gathering, crowd sourcing, brand message delivery, all the way through to keeping our minds engaged at all times. Let the fun begin. – The writer is Chief Operating Officer at Prisme International. – The article was written for Gulf News and published at http://gulfnews.com/business/sectors/media/gamification-more-than-fun-and-games-1.1550036 – Image credits: Shutterstock.com
-- - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - Life improvement of blind people by means of NEW Special Sports. These Sports are intended for the Life improvement of blind, deaf, and deaf-blind people, Including people with impaired vision and must be considered as Unique Rehabilitation programme. It is elaborated the following Sports: Synchronous motions in the space blindfold. This is a pair sport, where one athlete is leader and second one is follower. The leader standing behind the back of follower makes free motions. The task of the follower is exactly to repeat them. Note: the follower does not see the leader, and also his movements do not accompany with sounds. Any defining by the trainer music can be presented as background. Football, volleyball, basketball and so blindfold. Two teams by four blind (or just blindfolded) players each (one of them is goalkeeper) play on a hockey size field. By means of new training method athletes acquire a possibility of sensitivity of surrounding objects, in this case of the ball, gate and each other. The task of the field players is to define the ball's localization and forwarding it to the gate. The task of goalkeepers is to catch the ball. Note: the ball does not ring. Musical background and commentaries through loudspeaker are reasonable. Orientation in the space blindfold (like "Sport orienteering but with eyes closed). Trainings and competitions can be conducted in a sport hall, on a stadium, and also in field and forest conditions. The task of athlete is to find a hidden object or place. Rounding of obstacles. ("Bat"). In a sport hall or anywhere else it must be created artificial obstacles. The task of athlete is to go all them round. It develops an ability to prevent any dangers, that allows to provide more favorable life's conditions to people disabled in vision. The following of an invisible information trail. This is a pair Sport too. The leader walks along a free chosen by him way and leaves in the space his information trail. The task of a blind (or just blindfolded) athlete is to follow this trail as exactly as possible. The competitions or drills can conduct in a sporthall or in any field conditions. Also the Program allows to get a number uf unique decisions in the Track and Field for the blinds and other Sports. So I suggest them to be involved in the world sport life for the disabled people. This is a real Breakthrough in the whole sport science. I am looking for any assistance to realize these Unique Programs in the Life. Thank You in advance. If You feel You can help me to create a GREAT SPORT FOR THE BLIND REHABILITATION CENTER in Moscow, Russia, please click here: Tel/fax: 7 095 9152360 email@example.com ->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->- Start of Blindring HTML snippet -----> This site is a proud member of The Blind Ring. Follow this link to join the ring. Also, from this page, you may: This Page has been visitedtimes since 26 Feb 1999 Also you can check my Main Page with links to others.
If dogs come from wolves, where do cats, rats and birds come from? You have to stop thinking of evolution linearly. Things don’t evolve “from” other things. In the case of dogs, they truely are descended from the Gray Wolf, and are actually just considered a subspecies. However, the other animals you named do not have such an evolutionary history. Domestic cat breeds share a common ancestor with other types of cats…they are all descended from the same, extinct, ancient cat-like creature (which we probably haven’t discovered or named). In fact, all animals can be linked to each other through a common ancestor, but the older the ancestor, the less closely related the species are. Humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor that lived approximately 5 to 6 million years ago, which is relatively short when you’re speaking in evolutionary terms. This is what makes us so closely related to chimps. However, chimps share a common ancestor with Bonobos (pygmy chimps) that lived only 1 to 2 million years ago, making chimps more closely related to Bonobos th
Ocean Optics enables highly sensitive, trace-level Raman spectroscopy measurements with its RAM-SERS-SP Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy substrates. The company recently demonstrated the power of the substrates’ proprietary gold-silver nanosponge alloy with a real world example related to the honeybee die-off problem. By comparing the ability of new gold-silver substrates to traditional substrates to detect imidacloprid, an insecticide suspected to be dangerous to bee colonies, Ocean Optics scientists were able to demonstrate the enhanced sensitivity that RAM-SERS-SP substrates bring to Raman measurements. SERS substrates amplify very weak Raman signals by many orders of magnitude, with measurements of SERS-active analytes possible at even parts per trillion levels. Silver-only SERS substrates work best with 532 nm Raman excitation, and gold substrates are better suited to 785 nm Raman systems. By combining the silver and gold on one substrate, the new SERS nanosponge substrates perform well with either wavelength. When used with 638 nm Raman excitation, the nanosponge substrates are enhanced to an even higher level of sensitivity. Recent high rates of honeybee loss have been investigated by government regulators and other researchers. According to ongoing U.S. EPA studies, the insecticide imidacloprid has been identified as a threat to commercial honeybee colonies, citing traces at concentration levels greater than 25 ppb as likely harmful to honeybees. To test the effectiveness of Ocean Optics substrates in detecting imidacloprid at these harmful trace levels, Ocean Optics scientists set up a lab experiment using the company’s gold nanoparticle and gold-silver nanosponge SERS substrates. They made a series of measurements using the gold nanoparticle substrates, in a setup with 785 nm Raman laser excitation; and a series of measurements using the gold-silver nanosponge substrates, in a setup with 638 nm Raman excitation. In the testing, the gold-silver nanosponge SERS substrates delivered the best results, able to detect imidacloprid concentrations as low as 4 pg (0.4 ppb; well within the 25 ppb concentration rate cited by the US EPA as harmful to bees). Their high sensitivity and low background noise made it easier to discern Raman peaks at these very low concentration levels. Raman is a useful technique for fast, non-destructive analysis, with the enhanced sensitivity provided by SERS substrates allowing detection of trace levels of samples such as insecticides. Affordable and easy to use, the Ocean Optics SERS substrates are well suited to deployment in the lab or field. To read the full Honeybee Insecticide Detection application note, visit http://oceanoptics.com/sers-pesticide-detection-honeybee/.
Learning outcomes of the course unit The module is inserted in the teaching of Clinical Pathology Perioperative Medicine. It aims to raise awareness and understanding of the student the meaning of laboratory tests for the purpose of major diseases. In particular, being inserted in the Teaching of Perioperative Medicine, aims to make early detection of diseases that can emerge from their assessment and that may interfere with the performance and the result of the intervention. The student at the end of the course, will be able to use the acquired knowledge in order to identify the diseases and problems of the patient in general and in particular of the surgical patient. It must also be able, in the light of the objective problems of the patient, to draw up a care plan appropriate to its specific condition and to emerging issues. fundamentals of biochemistry and general pathology Course contents summary The first series of lectures provides basic knowledge about the type and the method of application of laboratory tests and their purpose. They are then described methods of handling, storage, transportation and shipment of biological samples, methods of assessment of their suitability and methods of preservation. They also examined the possible factors interfering with the variability of the result. In the second series of lessons we get to the application of laboratory tests and their relationship to specific diseases. Provides the necessary elements in order to interpret the meaning of changes in the main laboratory. Techniques for sampling and storage of blood and biological materials. Composition of the blood. Main routine tests and their usefulness: complete blood count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, blood glucose, glycated hemoglobin, liver and kidney function, electrolytes, lipid profile, coagulation, urinalysis. Markers of myocardial damage. Monitoring of the diabetic patien L.Triolo: Medicine for Health Care Workers - Ed.Piccin - last edition The teaching will be carried out not only lectures, but also with interactive teaching and presentation of reports and case studies that will give students the chance to meet with real cases, in order to learn to be inferred from laboratory data and underlying diseases issues related to them. Assessment methods and criteria The learning and the degree of preparation is checked by written examination with multiple choice quizzes on the arguments put forward and discussed during the lessons. The student must demonstrate that they have acquired adequate knowledge and skills to recognize the alterations of laboratory tests are important for the proper care of the patient, in particular of the surgical patient. The examination shall be deemed passed if the student will be provided at least 80% correct answers. During the lecture series will run two tests in progress, without attribution to vote, in order to reveal any need to study. The final grade will be formulated based on the overall judgment of Teachers Teaching which owns the module in question.

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