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As energy companies snap up leasing rights in Wayne County, some residents are optimistic, but environmentalists are worried BMWs, Lincolns and other cars with Louisiana, Texas and Colorado license plates fill so many parking spaces around the Wayne County Courthouse that it’s tough for residents to find spots for their pickups. Two blocks west, lunchtime business at Jemini Coffee House nearly doubles on some days with new customers who are a little secretive. And fresh phrases are creeping into the local vernacular — vocabulary such as “lease hound” and “modern-day Clampetts,” a reference to the hit 1960s TV comedy “The Beverly Hillbillies,” about a backwoods family that strikes oil. Wayne County, a rural locale about 270 miles south of Chicago, is experiencing a land rush thanks to a controversial effort to tap into hard-to-reach oil and gas deposits. A relatively new twist on a 65-year-old technology, horizontal hydraulic fracturing may enable energy companies to hit pay dirt in southern Illinois. And representatives of those companies — many from the big oil states — are descending on the region, digging through land records at courthouses, then offering leases to farmers and other owners of mineral rights. As much as $100 million has been spent on leasing rights in the region, according to one industry representative. Wayne County, population 17,000, is the state’s hot spot. At least six companies are there acquiring leases. Amid the excitement and mystery, however, is a measure of anxiety. A regional group is scrambling to muster opposition as state lawmakers rush to stitch together regulations. Looming over Wayne and several other southern Illinois counties is a national debate that, at the extremes, pits the promise of energy independence and economic gain against the specter of environmental catastrophe.

Near-Infrared Diffuse Reflection Analysis of Fruit Using the Vivo Direct Illuminated Reflection Stage and NIRQuest256-2.5 Extended Range NIR Spectrometer The quality of fruit and produce cannot be judged by appearance alone. A colorful mango or vibrant avocado must do more than add a splash of color to the plate. Taste and freshness are critical. Since it is not possible to determine fruit quality by tasting each individual piece, an objective, nondestructive measurement is needed to determine the quality of the fruit hidden beneath the peel. In this application note, near-infrared (NIR) diffuse reflection spectra are measured for avocados and mangoes to demonstrate the power of NIR measurements for the noninvasive assessment of fruit quality. Consumers use many techniques to assess fruit quality including smell, firmness, sound, appearance and even intuition. Everyone has their own special approach, with mixed results. While these qualitative techniques are sufficient for consumers, commercial fruit growers and packers require a quantitative approach to determining fruit quality to ensure customer satisfaction and retain or expand market share (consider that annual worldwide production of mangoes alone exceeds 62 million metric tons). Determination of critical quality parameters such as sugar, starch and moisture content requires a rapid, noninvasive, online measurement to test fruit prior to picking or packaging. NIR spectroscopy meets these requirements. NIR spectroscopy has been used since the 1970s for the analysis of agricultural products. Spectral data for NIR light reflected from an agricultural sample like grain or produce is acquired and compared with a calibration model generated from spectral data acquired for samples with known levels of the constituents of interest. For fruit or produce covered by a peel, the longer wavelengths used for NIR analysis are weakly absorbed so they pass through the peel, enabling sampling of the fruit pulp beneath. The measurement of NIR reflection is rapid (no sample preparation is required), quantitative (with the assistance of carefully constructed calibration models) and nondestructive. Since its initial use as an industrial tool in agriculture, NIR spectroscopy has grown significantly in areas ranging from materials analysis to pharmaceutical monitoring and medical diagnostics. The NIR region extends from 780-2500 nm. Absorption of light in this region causes molecules to vibrate. These molecular vibrations result in spectral data with features dependent on the chemical composition of the sample. In the case of agricultural samples, the NIR spectra are typically composed of broad peaks due to overlapping absorptions caused by overtones and combinations of vibrational modes of organic functional groups like C-H, O-H and N-H chemical bonds. The NIR spectrum provides a snapshot of the sample with information for multiple components available in a single NIR spectrum. These characteristics and others make modern NIR spectroscopy instrumentation ideal for online monitoring and process control. Starch and sugar (primarily fructose, glucose and sucrose) are commonly measured to determine fruit maturity and quality. While the peaks for these constituents are located near one another, starch has some specific wavelengths that enable construction of a multi-parametric model for determination of fruit quality based on starch components. An extended range NIR spectrometer like the NIRQuest256-2.5 is a great option for these measurements because it can detect critical starch peaks near 1722 nm, 2100 nm and 2139 nm, as well as sugar peaks that occur primarily between 900-1200 nm (some peaks also occur >2100 nm). The NIRQuest256-2.5 enables detection of all these wavelengths in a single spectrum. In addition to the spectrometer, a bright light source like our Vivo Light Source is necessary. Vivo has four powerful tungsten halogen bulbs and fibers that transmit light efficiently for effective NIR measurements of fruit. Since much of the light will scatter off the surface of the fruit, a large core diameter fiber (600 microns) is recommended for these measurements to increase throughput and improve sensitivity. Sampling configuration is critical for these measurements. In addition to the light lost by scattering off the surface of the fruit, water in the fruit will absorb NIR wavelengths. In addition, the constituents of fruit (or any natural or agricultural products) are not uniformly distributed within the sample. Sampling over a large surface area of the fruit is recommended to provide an average value for the constituents in the fruit. The Vivo light source with its large illumination area is a great option for sample illumination when testing fruit and produce. While the results reported here are qualitative, a carefully constructed chemometrics model is required for a multi-parameter, quantitative assessment of fruit quality. With a good set of reference spectra and PLS (partial least squares) modeling, it is possible to develop a calibration model that can be used to measure multiple fruit parameters (sugar, starch and other fruit constituents) for the prediction of fruit quality. The ability to quantitatively measure multiple parameters simultaneously makes NIR spectroscopy a powerful tool for the agricultural industry. NIR spectra were measured for avocados and mangoes using the NIRQuest256-2.5 extended range NIR spectrometer (900-2500 nm) and Vivo direct illuminated reflection stage with the STAGE-RTL-T adjustable reflection and transmission stage. The Vivo provided bright, diffuse illumination with four tungsten halogen bulbs illuminating the sample. A 2 meter VIS-NIR fiber with a 600 micron core diameter (QP600-2-VIS-NIR fiber) arranged at a 45 degree angle relative to the tungsten halogen bulbs was used for the measurement of diffuse reflection from the fruit. Reference measurements were made with a WS-1 diffuse reflection standard. The dark measurement was made with the lamps turned on and an empty optical stage. The stage was shielded from overhead illumination during the dark measurement with a black shroud. The setup used for the measurements is shown in Figure 1. NIR diffuse reflection was measured for whole fruit samples with measurements made at four different locations on the fruit. The fruit was placed on the magnetic ring of the Vivo optical stage to keep the fruit from rolling off the stage. Multiple measurements were made due to the variable nature of fruit — bruising, non-uniformity in color and differences in sugar content (due to differences in sun exposure) all lead to NIR spectral differences. To account for the inhomogeneity and variations in the fruit surface, many more measurements should be made at different points on the fruit surface. NIR diffuse reflection measurements were made for whole ripe and unripe mangoes and avocados. In Figure 2, the average of the spectra measured at four locations on each piece of fruit is shown for two mangoes and two avocados. Multiple spectra (n=4) were recorded for each piece of fruit to account for the inhomogeneity of the fruit. These spectra demonstrate that even spectra for the same fruit type show variability across the spectral region with the avocado more consistent in the region above ~1100 nm. While the spectral features are similar for both types of fruit, differences in magnitude are observed throughout the spectra. Sampling additional locations on the surface of the fruit would help to average out variability for a given piece of fruit and improve the accuracy and repeatability of the results. Fortunately, the speed of the NIR technique provides the option to sample a larger surface area of the fruit with multiple measurements without the need for lengthy measurement times. Notably, spectral features observed in these diffuse reflection spectra arise from a combination of phenomena depending on the amount of light scattered from the surface of the fruit and the penetration depth for NIR light into the sample. Light that is not scattered by the surface of the fruit passes through the peel and enters the fruit where it can be absorbed based on chemical composition. While diffuse reflection measurements are relatively straightforward to make, diffuse reflection from a variable rounded sample like a piece of fruit results in a complicated spectrum requiring carefully constructed interpretation models to extract quantitative information. The spectra for peeled versus unpeeled ripe avocados and mangoes are shown in Figures 3 and 4. In the case of the avocado shown in Figure 3, the spectral features are more pronounced for the peeled avocado than the unpeeled avocado. This may result from less reflection of light by the peel, which increases absorption based on the chemical composition of the avocado. For the mango shown in Figure 4, the effect of peeling the fruit is similar to the spectral differences observed for peeled and unpeeled avocados. But the impact of removing the peel is not as significant for the mangoes (there is less smoothing due to light reflected from the peel). The spectral differences observed when an avocado or mango is peeled suggest that different fruit peels have different properties that impact the overall fruit spectrum either through chemical composition or reflection properties. The spectra for ripe versus unripe avocados and mangoes are shown in Figures 5 and 6. In Figure 5, the unripe avocado spectra are very consistent in the region from ~1900-2500 nm. The spectrum for the ripe avocado in this region flattens relative to the unripe avocado. In Figure 6, the ripe versus unripe mango spectra are very similar with only very slight differences occurring between ~1900-2500 nm. These differences are most likely related to differences in sugar and starch content as the fruit matures. While many of the spectral changes are very subtle, a carefully constructed calibration model and a good sampling approach could be used to extract more quantitative information on fruit maturity from these spectra. NIR spectroscopy is a powerful measurement tool for the characterization of agricultural samples. In the case of fruit, long NIR wavelengths where absorption is weak allow sampling through the peel of the fruit. This also makes sample preparation unnecessary. Combine these advantages with the ability to make rapid measurements and NIR spectroscopy becomes a great option for online measurement of fruit. While the spectral data shown here illustrate the qualitative differences between avocados and mangoes at different stages of maturity, more quantitative information on fruit quality could be extracted from these spectra using an appropriate chemometric model and careful sampling to account for the inhomogeneity of the fruit.

You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls. But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed You're gonna have to serve somebody, It may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you're gonna have to serve somebody. - Bob Dylan No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon. - Gospel of Matthew (Sermon on the Mount) Around 1930, when Stalinist repression was closing in around poet Osip Mandelstam, he was asked by an interviewer for a definition of poetry. He replied, in typical pithy fashion : "the poet's sense of being right" (or sense of "inner rightness"). M's adage planted itself in my mind years ago, & keeps returning, like an unsolved puzzle. About 13 years ago I wrote a couple of impressionistic essays for Chris Reiner's spunky little magazine Witz, which attempted to come to terms with it; I will try to come up with an online copy of the 2nd one ("Sense of Being Right"), which raised more questions than it answered. (The 1st Witz essay can be found here, & here.) The crux of the puzzle is that M.'s defining characteristic for poetry comes not from aesthetics but from ethics and morality. In the latter Witz essay, I wrote that M. had asserted that poetry's purpose - its end, its telos - resided beyond itself : in a realm of the moral imperative, an ethical Absolute. "Rightness". And I said that it was a mistake to separate this moral telos from some hypothetical (aesthetic) beginning - in creative nature, in process or praxis, etc. Rather, M. is saying that the "beginning" is in the end : they cannot be separated. And he bolsters this position by suggesting that poetry (at least, Acmeist poetry - his poetry) has, as its subject, "the idea of Man". Not Man as Citizen (or subject of history or the State), but the idea of Man in its most universal and inclusive (& non-gender-specific!) sense : "It's not Rome the city that lives through the centuries But man's place in the universal scheme." In other words : our human being, our nature as individuals and as species, is constituted and characterized by moral conscience. Our consciousness is a moral consciousness : our inner compass or gyroscope, our "sense of being right", is an expression of inherent justice (or the seeking thereof). Mandelstam elaborates on this in another essay, on Pyotr Chaadev, a 19th-cent. thinker perhaps somewhat comparable to Emerson in the U.S. Chaadev's theme was that Russia's destiny depended on a quality (represented by the choices & acts of individual Russians) which he called "moral freedom". Roughly speaking, he was reminding Russians that individual conscience - and not the forces of the collective, the State, or history - is the anchor of civilization. In another place, M. portrayed this general view of things as "the gold coins of humanism" - a Renaissance-vision of civilization as a kind of personalized, human hearth. Nothing is outside the human spirit, which makes the world a "home" ("domestic hellenism") : and yet Man is the measure of all things only so long as she/he remains devoted to a consciousness of rightness & justice - to an absolute, standing beyond our willful grasping. To a "plumbline", in other words. So this allegiance to something beyond ourselves is actually our defining, distinguishing characteristic - that which makes us human. What I am suggesting here, is that our "plumbline" is not simply a kind of critical tape measure, a tool we can apply in some detached technocratic fashion. In Mandelstam's view, poetry is a living tradition, a distinct emanation of our humanness per se : it is far too engaged and intertwined with the moral & existential choices facing individuals and peoples, now & every day, to support the arrogance of mandarins, aesthetes, jobbers, technocrats. Poetry is the living speech of the Personal and the Human - the Individual and the People; that which reaches deep, grasping & mirroring our common nature with a piercing, proverbial intensity. Thus we are reminded that a plumbline dangles from a point of leverage (related, perhaps, as Joseph mentioned in a comment, to Pound's Confucian notion of the "unwobbling pivot") which stands in its own firmament, and firmly beyond the reach of those changeable circumstances to which it is applied as measure. This is an image of human conscience aligned with justice, the moral absolute. The fact that both poetry and human life generally dangle from the same spiritual pivot is what makes possible the various syntheses, on various levels (ethical, aesthetic, political), of the mediating "golden mean". And this same pivotal situation holds out a perennial promise to the artist, that her labors will find an echo with an understanding audience.

Heart Blood Pressure Urinary Tract and Kidneys Pocket-sized pups are more than just an accessory Small dog breeds are attractive to people for many reasons. These miniature pooches offer the same loyalty and friendship as a large dog, but they virtually stay puppy-sized forever. Toy dog breeds are the canines of choice for those who love little dogs. From the toy poodle to the pug, toy dogs come in all shapes and sizes, though they share a few qualities – they are all under 20 pounds, and they will all love their owners unconditionally. Some toy dogs, like the Brussels Griffon, were bred for specific purposes, such as hunting small vermin. Others, like the the Pekingese, were bred for the function they still serve today – lap dog. From China to Europe, many toy breeds have warmed the laps of royalty for hundreds of years. Now, your breed says nothing about your class, but toy breeds are particularly well-suited to people who live in small spaces. Toy breeds are considered the best for novice owners. However, if you have children, a larger breed may be better. Toy dogs can be slightly fragile because of their size and may not do so well around rambunctious children. Having one of these tiny bundles of joy is fun because you can bring them almost anywhere. Thanks to pet supplies like the Sport Pet Stroller, you can run all of your errands without worrying about your pooch getting tired of walking, since small breeds to not need as much exercise and do not have as much stamina as larger dogs. Bags like the 3-in-1 Soft-Sided Pet Carrier are handy for carrying your pooch, and the Dog Car Seat and Travel Carrier can even be strapped into your car for safety while driving. Toy breeds do have particular diet needs. Pet food like Artemis Fresh Mix Small Breed Adult Dry Dog Food is specially formulated for the nutritional needs of small breed dogs. These tiny canines are also good for new pet owners because they eat less food, meaning they will be less expensive overall.

You will need two disposable aluminum foil pie pans for each gong. Let the kids use their creativity and decorate the pans first with paint, permanent markers, adhesive stickers, or glued on cutouts. They may even want to try Chinese calligraphy, Chinese zodiac animals, dragons (a symbol of strength and goodness), or red flowers. Have an adult spread a bead of Crazy Glue ™ all around the plate rims. Place a handful of dried beans or popcorn kernels inside and glue the two pans together, clamping it together with clothespins so it can dry. Poke a hole in the top to thread a ribbon as a hanger. With their "gongs" in hand, kids walk around the room and hit the metallic chimes with the eraser ends of unsharpened pencils. This colorful gong may also be hung outside as a wind chime. Each year, one of the animals of the Chinese zodiac is represented. For example, in the year of the rooster, kids can make a neat paper bag puppet with a rooster face. You can find large pictures of roosters in coloring books or even draw one freehand. Place the head on the bottom flap of the bag and a mouth portion just under the flap. Glue these into place. Your child can place his hand inside the bag to manipulate this puppet. With little ones, talk about the rooster, the sounds it makes, how it walks, where it lives, and why it is chosen the symbol of the year's Chinese New Year. A great "how to" book with drawing templates is called Bag Puppets by Donalyn Easterday. Encourage your child to make other bag puppets representing the other animals in the Chinese zodiac. On the fifteenth and last day of the New Year festival, family members carry lighted lanterns in a parade. The people march alongside friends, some of whom may be wearing a silk and bamboo-covered dragon costume. Children can make their own lanterns with colorful construction paper. Fold an 8 ½-inch by 11-inch piece of construction paper in half lengthwise. Draw a line across the paper one inch from the top. Cut slits about an inch apart from the fold up to the line. Unfold, curve the lantern around, and staple. Attach a paper handle. Egg Drop Soup Egg drop soup is a traditional Chinese soup. This simple, kid-friendly version can be used as an appetizer to go with a delicious Chinese dinner—or you can just have some as a snack on a chilly day! To make it you'll need: - 3 cups chicken broth soup - 2 eggs (beaten) - One-half teaspoon salt - One-half cup frozen peas Heat the chicken broth in a saucepan to a rapid boil. Add the salt first and slowly pour the beaten eggs, stirring with a wire whisk. Being careful to keep your child from being burned, let your child watch the egg form into shapes and flowers. Fold in the peas and heat thoroughly. Serve in small bowls. Happy Chinese New Year!

Module 2 - Orientation and Assessment Orientation and assessment are directly affected by the process through which students enter and exit adult learning programs. Some programs are structured such that students are able to join a class on any day on which it meets. This may put the responsibility for all orientation tasks on the classroom instructor, and assessment may be scheduled for a later time or worked into the instructor’s lesson plan. Often such programs have no formal exit or end date; students voluntarily “drop in” and then “drop out” as fits their schedule. Another option is called “managed enrollment.” At a minimum, managed enrollment indicates that students may only join a class on certain days. This allows instructors to plan for new student entry and assessment. At its most formal, managed enrollment classes could have a specific beginning and end date, be of a certain length, and cover specific curriculum at a specific pace – similar to a college course or training workshop. Some programs have created orientation sessions of a specific length where orientation and initial assessment tasks are addressed, after which the student’s intake information is passed along to the instructor and the student joins the class on a particular day or date. This provides the instructor with much of the information needed on which to base instruction. Think back through previous jobs you have held. Pick one where you can clearly remember someone who assisted you during the first few days (or weeks) on the job. - Did you have a formal orientation or training process before independently performing the duties of your job? Or did you “jump right in?” By what process did you learn the duties and skills required? Who assisted you in learning the job? - Consider the feelings of the person who assisted you. How comfortable were they? Did a formal orientation/training procedure make their job easier? Could it have made it easier? On your worksheet, make some notes about open-versus-managed enrollment. Think about how often, and when, students initially enter your classroom. State why this is an important factor in planning your daily instruction.

Every day, millions of people wake up, go to work or school, and take part in social events. But every so often the unexpected happens: an earthquake, a fire, a chemical spill, an act of terrorism or some other disaster. Routines change drastically, and people are suddenly aware of how fragile their lives and routines can be. Each disaster can have lasting effects — people may be seriously injured or killed, and devastating and costly property damage can occur. People entering any public assembly building need to be prepared in case of an emergency.

Many American employers are facing an unexpected challenge in a time of chronic high unemployment—an insufficient supply of skilled and educated workers. Statistics show that 3.4 million jobs sit vacant because businesses simply can’t find qualified workers to fill them. Education and workforce development systems have not kept pace with the demands of the 21st century, creating a skills gap that threatens our prosperity at home and our competitiveness abroad. Approximately 90% of the jobs in the fastest-growing occupations require some level of postsecondary education or training. But fewer American students are emerging from our public education system with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. Too many lack proficiency in math, science, reading, communications, and critical thinking. Once first in the world, the United States now ranks 10th in the percentage of young adults with a college degree. At the same time, baby boomers are retiring at an accelerating rate without a steady inflow of skilled talent behind them. To help foster a competitive workforce, American businesses spend billions of dollars each year training their employees and pour billions more into education. Despite these investments, employers continue to report that too many applicants are unqualified for modern jobs. Basic training programs alone can’t bridge the gap. And by allowing these jobs to sit vacant, the United States is missing crucial opportunities to grow the economy and strengthen the recovery. Meanwhile, our competitors are surging ahead in the global race for talent. Germany, India, Korea, and China have all made preparing their citizens to work in the 21st century a priority—and their economies are stronger for it. Global investors and major manufacturers tend to go where the skilled workers are, which is increasingly not in America. To bridge the U.S. skills gap, we must focus on developing homegrown talent through commonsense education reforms. Applying the principles of innovation, transparency, accountability, high standards, and a focus on efficiency and results would help restore excellence in American schools. Our students must have a strong foundation in order to move on to higher education and advanced training. We can also better leverage the talents and experience of U.S. veterans by smoothing their transition to the workforce. Many military servicemembers have skills that are directly transferable to private sector jobs. Americans need jobs, and U.S. employers need workers. Through smart reforms, we can bridge the skills and education gap, match workers with jobs, and energize the economy.

Comfortable clothing and an adventurous spirit is all that’s required to take part in green toruism in Lombardy. The journey begins at the Parco Regionale del Campo dei Fiori, one of the largest and most important in the province of Varese. The park dominates the hilly areas and the Pianura Padana and within it there are six nature reserves to visit; wet areas rich in waterfowl perfect for birdwatchers, eight natural monuments and sixteen well signposted footpaths. The best way to get to know the Parco Valle del Lanza - named after the river Lanza or Gaggiolo that runs through it - and the enchanting streams and woodlands is to take a walk along any number of the many well signposted footpaths that go hither and thither. The Parco Nazionale della Val Grande is only 100km from Milan, between Lago Maggiore and Val d’Ossola: known as the largest wild area in Italy, there are nature walks, suitable even for beginners, for experiencing eco-tourism in Italy. Undoubtedly worthy of a visit is the Museo d’Acqua “Acquamondo” at Cossogno near which stands a typical recently restored mill. A few kilometres further on the most extensive moor in southern Europe: the Parco Groane, with many kilometres of paths is the perfect place for mountain bike excursions. Bike rental point for adults and children from 6 years of age and tandems for disabled cyclists. Between the provinces of Varese and Como, at the mouths of the great pre-alpine valleys, the Parco Pineta is the most extensive and thickly forested area in the region. It is best experienced, on horseback along the approved bridleways of Lombardy, during the summer months when the colours and scents of nature explode in all their splendour. Between the provinces of Como and Milan, not far from Gaggiolo, lies the Parco Sovraccomunale della Brughiera Briantea, a large extension of broad-leaf forests. Every season of the year is a good one for long walks to contemplate the horizon from a pre-alpine backbone and to experience green tourism in Lombardy. Running alongside the Autostrada dei Laghi, Lainate-Chiasso, the Parco del Lura is a veritable ecological corridor typified by an extraordinary biodiversity. An original way in which to get to know the Parco del Medio Olona is on board the carriages of the ancient Valmorea railway, which connects Valle Olona with Switzerland.

IQ Interview: Seth Godin Discusses How to Assess and Hire “Linchpins” By Jamie Danziger Seth Godin really needs no introduction. He’s the author of Tribes, Purple Cow, Permission Marketing, and many other international bestsellers, and one of the most respected authorities on the subject of marketing. He’s also one of the most influential business bloggers and the founder and CEO of Squidoo – one of the top 100 websites in the US. Known for his thought-provoking ideas and business strategies, he constantly challenges the status quo and in his latest book Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? asks the question “why do you matter?” We recently spoke with Seth about where companies tend to go wrong in their hiring, and how they can do it better. IQP: Do you have an overriding people strategy? SG: We’ve moved beyond organizations that are just about filling an org chart - instead the most successful organizations are building tasks and opportunities around extraordinary individuals who make a difference. I call these individuals “linchpins” – people we can’t live without. If you set out to find the cheapest person to fit into a defined slot, that’s probably what you’re going to find. I want to challenge people who are hiring to say “How do I find the most exceptional person to take advantage of an opportunity?” - not “how do I find the cheapest suitable person to get rid of this problem.” IQP: How do you advocate people change their selection and assessment criteria? SG: It starts with caring about what people do, not who they were or where they’ve been. Your credentials or the school you went to are not nearly as important as your ability to ship things out the door, your ability to take responsibility for the work that you do - your desire to connect with projects and people and make change. If we look at successful brands and businesses in any category, you can divide people in most jobs into “change-makers” and “task-doers” - and it’s the change-makers who are the ones that are able to disrupt a marketplace efficiently for an organization to generate significant growth. If you have that once in a lifetime business where you’re on a roll, you know where you’re going and you just need someone to do a task, then all of this is irrelevant. For most businesses most of the time though, the opportunity to hire someone is in fact an opportunity – and the person you want to hire is someone who in the past has demonstrated a desire to make mistakes, a desire to overcome institutional fear, and make things happen. IQP: What is the best way to determine if you have a change-maker or a task-doer on your hands? SG: One of the stories I’ve heard about how they hire at IDEO that I like very much, is they ask marketing people to come in with a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation of their portfolio and then give a 10 minute presentation and defend it to the group. What I like about that is that’s what you do all day when you work at a place like IDEO – you make presentations and defend them. The goal to me of most interviews should not be to figure out if this is someone you want to have dinner with - it should be to figure out if this person does the job in a way you need the job done. The best way to do that is to actually create situations where they’re doing the work. Sometimes you actually have the luxury of working with someone on a freelance basis or project basis, but if you can’t do that then my preference is to put people in situations where they are dealing with uncertainty and dealing with status quo and see how they’re able, in real life, to make change as opposed to just pontificate about it. All of the bad hires I’ve ever made, and I’ve hired a lot of people, were people who were great at pontificating, but weren’t great at actually initiating and executing. IQP: Are successful companies of the future going to be made up of just change-makers or a combination of both change-makers and task-doers? SG: Well it would be fairly impossible to be just change makers, but the real question is you get to pick what kind of person you’re going to be and which one you want to be. Do you want to be the replaceable cog working at the lowest possible price? Because sure, we do need people to man the cash register at Wal-Mart but no, you don’t have to do that job. So I think what we’re seeing already is companies, be it research institutions or marketing organizations or customer service organizations, that create pockets or circles built around somebody who makes change and takes responsibility. That person is then supported by a number of people who are doing a job that you or I would not necessarily want to have. IQP: You’ve advocated the notion of the five minute interview - are you truly advocating that or just trying to get people to think? SG: Well I’m known to be incendiary sometimes and to throw out ideas to get people’s attention, but I’ve never written about stuff I wasn’t willing to do myself. The hundreds of people I hired, I needed to pay lip service to whether there was chemistry or not. I wasn’t willing to hire people that I didn’t like, but I knew, and research backs me up, that you can tell if you like someone in five minutes or not. So yes, a five minute interview as a screening device makes perfect sense to me and I’ve done it many times. I recommend it highly because what it does is it forces the organization to not be lulled into believing that they actually did a thorough interview - that all they were doing was interviewing for chemistry. So go ahead, get it over with, and now do the real work once you’ve figured out if you can live with somebody, of digging deep enough to decide if you want to hire that person. But if you’re not willing to do the five minute screen, what you end up doing is wasting huge amounts of time and effort, hours per person, on a chemistry check you could have easily been done in five minutes. IQP: When you’re assessing whether you like someone in those first five minutes, do you have tangible ways you assess or does it come down to gut feel? SG: A lot of people have different biases about what their work style is. My work style is I like to work with people who disagree with me early, often and intelligently, and do it in a way that makes room for either outcome to be acceptable. So if I’m talking to somebody and they agree with every single thing I say, they’re boring to me. If I’m talking to somebody who disagrees with everything I say and isn’t willing to hear the other side, then I can’t work with that person. But if I can go back and forth with somebody around something that interests both of us and it makes me want to keep talking to them, that’s exactly what I’m looking for. I might bring up a topic like a book they’re interested in or an idea that’s in the news at that moment and have a discussion around it. And if that discussion is an interesting one, then it’s likely I’m going to be interested in talking to that person some more. IQP: What about the other fifty-five minutes? Is that where you’re digging into skill and experience? SG: At that point I don’t interview them anymore – I work with them. Instead it’s “well here’s this project we’re working on – what should we do?” I’ll ask them to sit with me and say lets do this right here. Let’s figure out how to sell this thing to a certain company or let’s figure out why this cover is better than that cover, or look at some stock photo sites and tell me which images you’d use instead. I don’t think of those things as interviews in the sense of “Tell me about three times in your past when you had a situation where blah blah blah”. Being good at being interviewed is not a particularly useful skill. I mean why would you want to hire someone who’s good at interviewing? How often are they going to need that skill? Simple example – if you’re looking for a publicist for your company, you could interview five hundred different ways to discover that this person is reasonably talented at going down a list and calling people on the phone, spamming journalists, and trying to get them to write about you. But there are a million people who can do that so just hire the cheapest one. Why would you pay extra? On the other hand if you’re looking to make a difference in the community of media people and have your stuff get noticed, then I’d sit next to them and say here’s the press release we sent out last week – tell us what we did wrong and how we could have done it better. That’s much more interesting to me than discovering that they can answer my questions. IQP: What other key messages in your book are there that you’d like to talk about? SG: Well the thing that’s frightening about my book is I’m demanding that people ask different questions, as opposed to giving them a slightly different answer than they’re used to. The questions that we need to ask ourselves in a world where factories are irrelevant, in a world where everyone has a blog or Twitter account, in a world where I can get something done in India or China for a tenth of what I can get it done in Toronto, is “Why Do You Matter?” and what is it that’s holding you back from being that person that people can’t live without? If you ask those questions, then I think you’re going to get a better job. And if you’re a recruiter then I think you need to be able to answer those questions for your clients. And if you’re a Hiring partner at a firm, I think the most important thing you need to say to yourself is “Am I hiring someone to fill a job description, and if so, why am I paying extra?” And if I’m not hiring to fill a job description, what’s the very best person I can get? Who is that person and what will it take to get them here? IQP: Your question “Why Do You Matter?” is obviously primarily aimed at candidates and individuals, but does it apply to companies as well? SG: You betcha. Once you’re a linchpin, once you’re someone people can’t live without, you have all the power. And the question on the other side needs to be why should I be your employee? Why should I let you be my client? When you look at firms that are really successful, one of the things they do is they’re extremely picky about who they take on as clients, because your clients define who you are. IQP: Any last words for people on this topic? SG: Think hard about what is going to be necessary to succeed for the next ten years. This new economy is either the opportunity of a lifetime or it’s a nightmare - and the real question is which one are you going to pick? and Financial Services, and operate at the mid-to-senior management level. IQ PARTNERS' head office is in Toronto with partner offices across Canada, and internationally

Solar state of mind In a region with thousands of hours of sunshine a year, the solar energy industry is in its infancy. Can Saudi Arabia lead the way in harnessing a new source of energy? February 11, 2010 10:36 by Sarah Abdullah The feasibility of harnessing Saudi Arabia’s vast resource of solar energy has been studied as far back as the 1960s. Yet for all the research, the outcome has always been the same: Converting solar energy into electricity is just too expensive. This leaves fossil fuels – primarily diesel – as the main source of energy for the country’s electricity power plants. Yet recent indications suggest that this might soon change, although no one involved is getting too excited yet. “I really do wish to say yes, since I was very optimistic 30 years ago, says Dr. Mohammed Bashrahil, electric generation expert and research manager at the Saudi Electric Company. “I expected more use and utilization of sun power in power generation, however I still have hope that one day we shall see a breakthrough in the field, so let’s wait and see,” he said. Bashrahil also said that a deciding factor in whether solar power can finally be an economic alternative is the advancement in modern technology. “Solar power research and development has been increasing and implemented during the end of the last decade and hopefully will increase in this decade,” he said. With demand for electricity rising at 6 percent per year, coupled with an increasing population, it would seem to be in the electric company’s best interests to use solar energy to relieve the power burden. Just how big is the problem? Saudi Arabia’s Industry and Electricity Ministry has estimated that the country will require up to 20 gigawatts of additional power generation capacity by 2019, which will require an investment of at least $624 billion over the next 15 years to cope with the demand, with $46.9 of the investment figure for power investment alone. However, Bashrahil is clear that solar energy is not the complete solution to these problems. “Solar radiation is one of the alternatives to fossil fuels to generate electric power, but not the only one. Even though it is used, it will not replace oil, coal, nuclear, and other various other sources of generating thermal power used to run power plants.”

As you all know, every year there are certain species of duck that are closed to hunting or restricted while others are open. That presents a challenge to a hunter to be alert at all times and become adept at duck identification to comply with the law. As a young hunter, I had the opportunity to share the blind with a wonderful, experienced Cajun guide named Amos Hebert in Little Prairie. He would amaze me at how calm he would remain upon seeing ducks in the sky, and turn them to us with just a few sweet notes from the call. Most times, he would tell me what kind of ducks we were looking at even if they didnít come into the decoys or get killed. And most times, he was right. I was young and really idolized his skills, so some of my memories may be a little distorted in his favor, but he was good at what he did. I have had some occasions in the blind where I actually saw the distinct plumage of ducks in flight and knew what they were before we fired, but honestly, there are many other times that I was certain it was a duck, but not certain of the species. The days where you are likely to make good identifications are on sunny days, where there is plenty of sunshine to light up the birds and reflect the color patterns, but the overcast cloudy days present a real challenge to a hunter. Of course, some birds are easier to identify than others. I believe even the most inexperienced waterfowl hunters can pick out a flock of teal. Pintail have a distinct wing shape and, as they get closer, the pintail feather gives them away. The challenge lies in the other similarly sized and colored ducks. Think about a few ducks sneaking in on you from the back side of the blind and, with only a split second to identify and shoot, you must make an identification. Think about the redhead and canvasback. Similar color patterns, with the main difference being the size and beak shape. The problem is a year ago, canvasbacks were illegal to shoot, while redheads were legal. There are other ducks that are similar in size that present challenges to identify. The notorious black duck versus the mottled duck comes up every year. If you can pick them out in flight, you are a wizard. That leaves the hunter with difficult decisions to make. To completely and fully comply with the law, many hunters would have to not shoot at many ducks that do not come completely into the decoy spread. Many times, that is the only way I can accurately ID them. And there are days when wary ducks will only skirt your spread and give you passing shots, but never come into the decoys. Should you sit in the blind and never pull the trigger that day? In my lease, it is tough to pass up any shots because there are many days where my opportunities are limited. On the other hand, if you make an honest mistake and take a restricted species you have a dilemma of wasting a fine duck by leaving it in the field or risking an expensive citation. So, what is a good hearted, ethical hunter to do? I encourage everyone to be as informed as possible about duck identification BEFORE you go into the field. That gives you the best ability to make the correct ID in the heat of the moment, when you have a split second to make a decision. Many times, there are debates on the Web site about duck identification when the duck is dead right in front of the hunter. If you canít ID it when you are holding it, then you certainly canít tell in flight. Take the time to look at duck ID materials and Web sites with actual photographs of the ducks. I have seen duck ID books with renderings and drawings of ducks that are not very accurate, so find pictures of the real thing. One good resourse is Ducks Unlimited website (www.ducks.org). There are others, so educate yourself on the duck species that are common to your area and you will have the best chance at staying within the law. We have all failed to properly ID a duck in flight at some time, myself included. In my opinion, that is an inherent risk associated with the sport. When that has happened to me, I personally chose to take the game in and not waste it, even though I risk a fine. I guess it is the respect of the resource that I cannot overcome, but I canít leave a duck to waste. I am fortunate that the few times over the years when I have made the mistake that I did not face a fine, but I would be honest with the game warden and accept the consequences. I know in my mind that I hunted with good faith and honest intentions, and that is what matters to me. Maybe there can be some modification to the laws to allow a good-faith accident to be free from prosecution someday, but until then, do your best and enjoy the outdoors. I hope you shoot straight and shoot often. Have a very Merry Christmas. I hope you and your family are blessed this holiday season.

Belongingness: We're Hard-Wired By Nature To Bond May 09, 2012 Why are people so strongly motivated to have relationships? Oddly, the words "sex" and "pleasure" are never mentioned in The Need to Belong – Part of What Makes Us Human. Instead, this online overview of a recent landmark psychology paper concentrates on a range of intriguing human behaviors: The need to form (and stay loyal to) social bonds. The merging of one's own identity with that of loved ones. The emotional highs and lows associated with a loved one's presence or absence. And the evolutionary advantages of developing these deep and abiding feelings: "People throughout the world are born with the ability and motivation to form close relationships, and this universal tendency is adaptive. Children who form close emotional attachments to their parents are less likely to wander off, get picked off by a predator, or fall victim to some other natural danger. Thus, relationships protect us from harm when we are young and vulnerable." It's really heartening to now know that we're hard-wired by nature to be such emotional pack animals. There's even evidence that our natural bonding mechanism can have positive effects on our health and boost our immune system. Now, that's the kind of social Darwinism that we can get behind. So, what are you waiting for, go out and spread the love. It's for the sake of all mankind after all. Make a new friend, share a hug, and getting back to the topic of "sex" and "pleasure", what better way to bond with your special someone? Image source: Shutterstock-jannoon028

Our annual survey of seafood in Southeast Louisiana this year counts down the 33 best seafood species enjoyed in our restaurants, seafood markets, and homes. For the full survey so far, click here. Or use the links at the bottom to move up and down the list. The best dish I ate during a cruise in Alaska was a surprise special. The ship's captain went fishing one day and pulled up a 200-pound halibut. He sent it to the galley, where the chef made it a verbal dinner special. It was magnificent: a thick block of white, flaky goodness, moist and vivid,, in a sauce with a little cream, peas, and red pepper. A halibut is a gigantic flounder. It can outsize the boat from which it was caught. (If you don't believe that, look at the halibut hanging on the wall in the Anchorage Airport.) Like flounders, halibuts lie on the bottom of the sea, waiting for a good-looking fish to swim within dinner distance. It's highly thought of in the northern Pacific coast, where it's in the company of salmon as the great gourmet fish of the region. It's also caught in the north Atlantic. In New Orleans restaurants, halibut usually runs as a special. If you ever encounter it, first make sure that it's fresh. Frozen halibut is a factory fish and is both tough and tasteless. The fresh fish is wonderful, with a very mild flavor so good that even those who prefer stronger-tasting fish look forward to eating it. The most likely restaurant for trying halibut is Gautreau's, where Chef Sue Zemanick loves it and tries to get keep it on the menu most of the time. If you ever wind up with some halibut in your kitchen, the way to prepare it is to either bake or broil it. It's best cooked to the point where it's still very moist inside. It is a fine fish for sauces, especially those with cream and some assertive ingredients like saffron, green peppercorns, or fennel. This is an idea inspired by Gautreau's Sue Zemanick, but different enough from her great works with halibut that she avoids all blame. The detonator is a crusty topping with horseradish and garlic held in a matrix of bread crumbs. While the fish roasts, the thick crust get toasty brown. - 1/2 stick butter - 1 cups bread crumbs - 2 Tbs. fresh horseradish, finely grated - 2-3 cloves fresh garlic, finely chopped or even pureed - 10 sprigs flat-leaf parsley, leaves only, chopped - 1 Tbs. Creole seasoning - 4 thick halibut fillets, cut across, about 8-10 oz. each - Juice of 1/2 lemon Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. 1. Melt the butter and blend it with the other crust ingredients until it almost but not quite sticks together. Divide this into four portions, and cover the top of each grouper fillet with a layer of the crust. 2. Place the encrusted fish fillets in a large skillet or baking pan, lightly oiled with olive oil. Sprinkle lemon juice over all. Bake the fish in a preheated 400- degree oven for 10-12 minutes. (To test the fish for doneness, push a kitchen fork into the center of the biggest fillet. Hold it there for five seconds, then pull it out. Touch the tines of the fork carefully to your lips. If it feels even warm, the fish is done.)

Ever had the feeling that you were shoveling you-know-what against the tide? I’ve had that feeling a few times, but whenever I run into a situation where I begin to wonder if there’s any justice in this crazy world I think back to a story told by one of my favorite people — Winston Churchill. Everyone knows Churchill as the aging prime minister of Great Britain during World War II. Everyone has seen him making his famous V-for-victory sign, and everyone has heard the stirring words he spoke on June 18, 1940 after the French surrender, when he warned his people and the world that if Britain fell “... the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for may be lost.” That speech ended with these never-to-be-forgotten words: “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and the Commonwealth last a thousand years, men will say ‘This was their finest hour.’” There’s whole lot more to Winston Churchill than World War II, though. In fact, had he died long before WWII began, he would have gone down in history as one of the finest men who ever lived, not to mention one of the most interesting. And one of the wittiest and most humorous writers too. I tell you if you haven’t read his book, “My Early Years,” you have missed out on one of the greatest reading experiences of a lifetime. To begin with, it is impossible to keep a straight face as Churchill discusses Latin and Greek, neither of which he was exactly in love with. And his comments on things like the English equivalent of the SAT are nothing less than knee slappers. If there were nothing else in his book except that, it would be well worth reading. But there’s a whole lot more. Boy, is there ever! Churchill went to Sandhurst and became a cavalry officer. And not satisfied to merely serve “the regiment” at home in some quiet military station, he finagled his way into every war Great Britain fought before World War I. He fought the Afghans in Northwest India, and he fought the whirling dervishes in the Sudan, when Kitchener and the British Army finally wreaked vengeance upon the Islamic fanatics who had taken Khartoum and slayed General Gordon 14 years before. In the action against the dervishes he took part in the very last full-fledged cavalry charge ever seen on this planet. Churchill writes in a way which makes it impossible to put down one of his books once you begin reading. Best of all, to me at least, is the tale of his days in South Africa during the Boer War. By then he was no longer just a cavalry officer. Somehow or other he managed to achieve dual status as cavalry officer and war correspondent. I’ve read how he managed it, not once but several times, and I still don’t quite get how he pulled it off. A cavalry officer and war correspondent? At one and the same time? How do you do that? I don’t know, but he did it. And more than once too. And get this: At the beginning of the Boer War, while still just a war correspondent, Churchill was on an armored train which came under cannon fire from the heights above the tracks. It was hit and was put out of service as several train cars turned over. Now Churchill was a civilian at that moment, but nevertheless took charge of the situation under a hail of rifle and machine gun fire from the heights above, and a constant barrage from three very accurately firing cannons. Having convinced the engineer, who was running away, to return to his engine, he managed to get two wrecked cars out of the way, get the train moving, and get a large portion of the soldiers and civilians on the train safely away. Then, safe on the now moving train, he jumped off, went back to some overturned cars to rescue some soldiers separated from the group, and was taken prisoner by a Boer horse soldier armed with a rifle — but only because in all the excitement he had left his broom-handled semiautomatic Mauser pistol on the plates of the engine while he supervised work on the derailed cars. Had he had that pistol, which had once before saved his life when his troop was cut off during fighting on the Nile River in the Sudan, either he or that horseman would not have lived to tell the tale. Now would you believe this? The horse-mounted private who captured Churchill was none other than Louis Botha, a man destined to become prime minister of the Transvaal? Had that pistol been in its holster it is likely that one, or both, of two famous prime ministers of future years would have died on the spot. So Winston Churchill was taken prisoner by soon-to-be General Louis Botha, a man destined to become one of his best friends. And — it just keeps getting better! — he then escaped from the closely guarded military prison in Pretoria, the Boer capital, and made his way back to British territory, the only man to ever do it. Oh, how I wish there were time here to tell you about how he escaped, but there isn’t. You’ll just have to read it yourself. It was this exploit, piled atop his reporting from three wars and his books about the fighting, which got him into politics. He became quite famous as a result of his exploits, and after the Boer War he returned to England and ran for office. Here comes the part where Churchill’s sense of humor and the question of whether there is any justice in the world cross paths. Having saved train, soldiers and civilians by taking over at a time when all was confusion, and having gone on to escape from the Boer capital city, traveling over 250 miles through enemy territory to do it, Churchill was acclaimed a hero back home. But being Winston Churchill, while he mentions the acclaim, he also whimsically quotes a telegram a wee bit different from the hundreds of other letters and telegrams praising his courage. “London, December 30th. Best friends here hope you won’t go on making further ass of yourself. McNeil.” As I said, sometimes you just can’t win.

Czech specialists engaged the international Pneumococcal Awareness Council of Experts (PACE) and tried to negotiate with the Ministry of Health for implementation of routine pneumococcal vaccination. Vulnerable groups are mainly small children under two years of age and elders. Serious pneumococcal diseases result in about 430 patients per year, and 14 per cent of infected children die. PRAGUE – Vaccination of children against pneumococcal diseases would save millions of lives all over the world. This was announced by the Pneumococcal Awareness Council of Experts (PACE) at today’s seminar in Prague. Pneumococcal disease causes pneumonia, encephalitis or barotitis. 400 cases of pneumonia are confirmed each year in the Czech Republic, and 14% of the infected children below five years of age die. Did you know that Czech children can receive vaccination against the treacherous pneumococcal infection from two months of age? A three year-old boy has recently died from it in our country. Pneumococcus often causes serious infections in various parts of the human body. They can be divided into serious invasive disease and non-invasive infections of the upper breathing apparatus (barotitis, nasal cavity infl ammations). Pneumococcal disease is little known, but deadly to more young children worldwide, than AIDS, malaria and measles. Orin Levine from the Bloomberg School of Public Health says the bacterial infection is a neglected and preventable child killer.

Recommended Word Lists for Vocabulary Instruction - Grades: Early Childhood, PreK–K, 1–2, 3–5 Here are the top five word lists recommended by Francie Alexander, Chief Academic Officer and publisher of primary programs for Scholastic Education. Use them for vocabulary instruction in your own classroom! Compound Words (PDF) Two for the price of one! Compound words can double student word knowledge. (Teaching Phonics and Word Study in the Intermediate Grades by Wiley Blevins, 2001, Scholastic Inc. in the Teacher Store.) Most Common Prefixes / Most Common Suffixes (PDF) This list not only provides the meaning but also a key word to use as an example of each prefix and suffix. (Teaching Reading Sourcebook: For Kindergarten Through Eighth Grade, Bill Honig, Linda Diamond and Linda Gutlohn, 2000, CORE.) This list provides 1000 words to grow on; it comes from my top pick for making word lists: The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists, Fourth Edition (2000, Prentice Hall). A New Academic Word List Thank you Dr. Kate Kinsella of San Francisco State University! You introduced me to a more up-to-date list of words. This list addresses the needs of English Language Learners who are developing the vocabulary they need to succeed in school and beyond. (Coxhead, A. 2000, A New Academic Word List, TESOL Quarterly.) This list is from the Scholastic Transition Program Teacher’s Edition. It illustrates the importance of knowing more than one language, and I think it would be interesting for students.

Putting your body into deep relaxation releases stress and tension causing pain and discomfort. We all need stress. It is part of our physiological makeup. However like everything in life TOO much of something can be harmful. And too much stress can be very detrimental to your energy – what are the benefits? 1. Sleep better and more fully When you don’t have a good night’s sleep your judgment, mood, and ability to learn and retain information are weakened. Over time, chronic sleep deprivation may lead to an array of serious medical conditions including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and even early mortality. Sleep helps to repair your body. Sleep helps keep your heart healthy. Sleep reduces stress. Sleep improves your memory. Sleep helps control body weight issues. Sleep reduces your chances of diabetes. Sleep reduces the occurrence of mood disorders. Reiki similar to Tai Chi allows you to listen to your body more fully and creating better sleep patterns. 2. Energy – Increase You feel better about yourself. You reduce Stress. Reduce your Pain. Boost your immunity system – have strength to fight colds and flu; a renewed passion for life. Reiki provides the vehicle to allow you to focus the energy to the parts of the body requiring it. 3. Stress – Reduce, Relieve Reiki can benefit your stress levels with time out to refocus on what is important for you. What you want to remove from the outside world and what you want to keep that is important to you. 4. Pain – Relieve At some stage in our lives we experience pain. It is our body’s response to damage. So when you feel niggling headaches, or mood swings, or feeling restless, you may need to focus yourself to find the cause. Reiki can assist by putting your body into deep relaxation releases stress and tension causing pain and discomfort. 5. Improve Mental Clarity Reiki can help you by rapidly relaxing your body. Reiki helps your body to naturally heal itself on all levels of the mind, body and soul. Relaxing your body can help you refocus on your goals and what’s important to you in your life.

Upper Strathearn Combination, Perthshire The Upper Strathearn Combination was formed in 1863 and initially comprised the eleven parishes of Auchterarder, Blackford, Crieff, Dunning, Forgandenny, Forteviot, Fowlis-Wester, Gask, Madderty, Methven, and Trinity-Gask. They were later joined by Ardoch. Callander, Comrie, Kilmadock, Monivaird, and Muthil. The total population of the member parishes in 1881 was 27,337. The Upper Strathearn Combination poorhouse was erected in 1863-4 on a site located to the south-west of Auchterarder. The architect was James Campbell Walker. The site location and layout are shown on the 1860s map below: A single-storey entrance block was located alongside the road at the north of the site. This probably contained the porter's quarters, a committee room, and possibly an office for the relieving officer. A stone plaque gives the date as 1863. The main building was a typical H-shaped layout. The larger block at the front was a corridor plan building with a central portion which would have contained the Master's quarters, committee rooms and clerk's office. The two wings of the front block contained male and female accommodation, probably with the aged at the front side and able-bodied or "dissolute" inmates at the rear. Children's quarters were usually placed at the far end of each wing. At the centre rear of the front block were the kitchen and the dining-hall which may also have been used as a chapel. In the rear range of single-storey buildings were found various work and utility rooms including a bakehouse on the men's side and laundry on the female side. An additional block was added later at the north-east corner of the buildings. Its function is unknown but it may have been an isolation block. After 1930, the poorhouse became known as the Strathearn Home. In 1946 it provided 71 beds including 14 chronic sick, 2 maternity, and 8 for certified mental cases, with the rest for destitute persons. The former poorhouse building has now been converted for use as office accommodation. - Perth and Kinross Council Archive, AK Bell Library, 2-8 York Place, Perth PH2 8EP. Holdings include: Poorhouse minutes (1861-1962); Registers of admissions (1884-93, 1924-47); Visitors' inspection book (1937-45); Treasurer's cash books (1877-1905).

- May 19, '08 by high hopesI think 90% is too much. Even the top notchers can't get that score. 80% will be ok though. But I would like to suggest more on closing down of schools which performed poorly during examinations(NLE exam that is)and students who are consistently having poor grades be eliminated from the nursing course. Elimination should be done every semester. Schools should hire only experienced clinical instructors and not the fresh graduates because they don't have enough skills/knowledge to teach their students. In that way I believe, the Philippines will/can produce more qualified and competent nurses. - May 21, '08 by 2b_usrnwell i believe that regardless of your race, as long as you are qualified to work as an R.N. in a certain country. no one can trample you on the ground. alot of hearsays can get you off the real track.(like spreading how rewarding the nursing career is in the states, without informing the "struggle" process on how a foreign nurse can get a visa and qualify to work in the u.s. or to some other country) so be real, accept the fact that the PI's economy right now is not good and tendency is, if a filipino has a chance of getting a job abroad, he'll most likely grab it. everybody has the freedom to choose a career. - May 21, '08 by suzanne4The US has a pass rate of about 88% for those that are first-time takers and trained in the US. And when schools do not have adequate numbers that pass, then they get put on probation or actually closed down. This is something that needs to be done with the programs there that have not even had one passing student for the NLE. And get things back to what they once were, not what it has become. - Jul 31, '08 by AiSeeYooMailAreEn"GLOBALIZATION" is a term that large US companies started using to help their employees understand that they were being undercut and losing their jobs to cheaper foreign labor. It is a scapegoat word for foreigners that depend on America for employing them. Just my 2 cents. - Jul 31, '08 by Ginger's MomGlobalization is when jobs are exported not when people are imported. After reading the results of the NLE, I am very scare that a nurse who went to a school that has a very low pass rate will practice nursing. These nurses are not well prepared. The boards (NCLEX) in the US are a final check to see that the student has basic understanding. A nurse who has to study hours and take review courses, is basically teaching themselves nursing which defeats the purpose of nursing school. Any bright person could study the NCLEX review book and pass the test. Most employers I have worked for state they want a nurse who graduated from a NLN approved program. This means students in the US have to pay high tutition to have qualified instructors. It also means that a high rate of students passing or the school is no longer a NLN approved school. Why not ask your school for NLN approval, they approve foreign programs. So, in the US, the nursing students often have to wait for a program in an open spot for admission to nursing school.The student needs to pass the exam the first time, failing the NCLEX is seen a big failure. Also the student has to pay a hefty tutiton bill, what I saw post here for a semester is what many pay for one course. Then when US students pass they often don't get a position in a hospital. Now you think it is ok to ask them to compete for positions in their homeland. Some employers only care about cheap labor, and foreign grads fit this bill. That is why US policy is to limit immigration. So, who is to blame, I would say the Phillipine government allowing these schools for allowing these schools to open up. And the nursing students not checking to see that their school has high standards, when I applied to nursing school I check my school had a 100% pass rate. In the US, my daughter was applying to medical school. It is extremely difficult. She graduated top in her class, high gpa 3.9, and had a masters degree in clinical research. At one point she was considering going overseas to medical school. She was told, even if she went to the best over seas school she would always be considered second rate. My point is it is similar in nursing, coming from the best school you will always be behind a US nurse. For the current grads the out look coming to the US is slim to none, especially if you have zero nursing experience. No one would hire a US nurse who passed the boards 5 years ago and never practiced, now add English as a second lanuage and foreign training in my opinion it means very unlikely to work in the USA except for an employer who wants cheap labor and doesn't care about the quality of care. - Jul 31, '08 by Daly City RNNo one would hire a US nurse who passed the boards 5 years ago and never practiced, now add English as a second lanuage and foreign training in my opinion it means very unlikely to work in the USA except for an employer who wants cheap labor and doesn't care about the quality of care.[/quote] Several years ago U.S. hospitals were able to hire cheap foreign nurses, even nurses from Europe, and these nurses were paid only half the salary of locally hired nurses. I remember a nurse from Germany who came to the U.S. on a temporary basis to accompany her boyfriend while he studied here in California. She was recruited by an agency that paid her only about $20/hour. Even our certified nursing assistants were earning more per hour in salary than this registered nurse from Europe. Had she came to the U.S. first, then applied in person in any U.S. hospital she would have been paid the prevailing local rate for U.S. nurses which was more than $40/hour at that time. Currently RNs in most acute care hospitals in San Francisco, California pay between $45-60/hour plus PM shift, Night shift and weekend differentials. Legal holiday rates are "time-and a-half" to "double-time-and-a-half". Therefore a 12-hour night shift RN who works on a legal holiday can earn almost, or to a little over $1,000 on one legal holiday shift. But a foreign recruited RN under contract could only be paid the regular low salary rate. At this time no foreign nurses are being given work visas by U.S. immigration due to retrogression. Therefore U.S. hospitals can't hire cheap foreign nurses until retrogression is lifted. Any RN with a U.S. license who applies for a nursing job in person in a U.S. hospital will be paid the high prevailing local wage for registered nurses.

Become a Licensed Andover Educator You can join the growing body of music teachers sufficiently knowledgeable in the physiological and neurophysiological basis of music training to effectively convey crucial information to their students and colleagues. Many musicians who take the Andover Educators course may find that they themselves are interested in becoming Licensed Teachers. Experience has shown that the best teachers of this vital information for musicians are themselves musicians. Music teachers can find their lives enriched by being part of a solution to a significant problem in the musical community. Musicians interested in training are encouraged to join Andover Educators as a supporting member, to take lessons with a Licensed Instructor and to watch at least two different instructors present the What Every Musician Needs to Know About the Body Course. Additionally, we require a letter of recommendation from one of our Licensed Teachers in order for you to begin the training program. Andover Educators Licensed Teachers are approved by Amy Likar, Janet Alcorn, Jennifer Johnson and Lisa Marsh. During training, students study the course texts, learn the historical context for Andover Educators both from a Music Education perspective and a Somatic Education perspective, study anatomy, observe the course being given by Licensed Teachers, take private and group training sessions with Licensed Andover Educators, develop materials for their own courses, participate in discussion and development of What Every Musician Needs to Know about the Body on-line through participation in a teacher and trainee list-serve, participate in conference calls scheduled to mentor trainees through the training process and develop their own playing with the principles of Body Mapping and other somatic disciplines. The mission of Andover Educators is to put music training on a secure somatic foundation so that all musicians, amateur and professional alike, may play free of pain and injury and with increasing enjoyment and skill. Course quality is maintained by careful initial selection of teachers, thorough training, continuing education, peer review, course evaluations, ongoing communication, and supervision. Teacher courses and supervised teachings are approved by Amy Likar, Janet Alcorn, Jennifer Johnson and Lisa Marsh. Trainees are permitted to train with Amy, Janet, Jennifer and Lisa in addition to other licensed Andover Educators and through self-study. The content of the training is preparation for giving the course, What Every Musician Needs to Know about the Body®, and nothing else. The training is in no way Alexander Technique teacher training, even though Amy Likar and several other Andover Educators are certified Alexander Technique teachers. Trainees are judged to be ready for licensure solely on the basis of their verbal skill in conveying information, the integrity of their visual aids, and their ability to demonstrate with their own instruments what is being taught. By the end of the training, our teachers have new tools for teaching their private students and for effectiveness in their classroom teaching. Many are a valued resource for their colleagues who consult the Andover Educators about their injured or at-risk students. Schools of music are finding the presence of courses in injury prevention and efficient movement a recruiting asset and protection against the lawsuits students are beginning to bring against teachers and schools of music for failing to give the information to prevent injury.

The Locomotive Acts (or Red Flag Acts) were a series of Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom to control the use of mechanically propelled vehicles on British public highways during the latter part of the 19th century. The first three, 'The Locomotives on Highways Act 1861', 'The Locomotive Act 1865' (or 'Red Flag Act') and the 'Highways and Locomotives (Amendment) Act 1878' all contained very restrictive measures for road vehicles. The 'Locomotives on Highways Act 1896' provided legislation that allowed the automotive industry in the United Kingdom to develop soon after the development of the first practical automobile. The last 'locomotive act' was the 'Locomotives Act 1898'. The 1865 act required all road locomotives, which included automobiles, to travel at a maximum of 4 mph (6 km/h) in the country and 2 mph (3 km/h) in towns and have a crew of three travel, one of whom should carry a red flag walking 60 yards (55 m) ahead of each vehicle. The 1896 Act removed the need for the crew of three and raised the speed to 14 mph (23 km/h). The Highway Act 1835 and subsequent acts (Public Health Act 1875, Local Government Act 1888 and Local Government Act 1894) attempted to find satisfactory methods of maintaining roads since the UK Turnpike Trust system had failed following the UK railway boom. These new Locomotives, some up to 9 feet (2.7 m) wide and 14 tons, were alleged to damage the highway while they were being propelled at "high speeds" of up to 10 miles per hour (16 km/h). There is evidence that the steam carriages' brakes and their wide tyres caused less damage to the roads than horse-drawn carriages because of the absence of horses' hooves striking the road and wheels which did not lock and drag. In addition to any concerns about the state of the roads, by the 1860s, there was concern that the widespread use of traction engines, such as road locomotives and agricultural engines, would endanger the safety of the public. It was feared that engines and their trailers might cause fatal accidents, scare horses, block narrow lanes, and disturb the locals by operating at night. Although all of these fears were justified and were soon realized, there was a gradual acceptance of the machines as they became more common in commerce. Similar 'Red Flag' legislation was enacted in some States in America. The emerging UK automotive industry advocated very effectively for the 1896 Act during the preceding year. Coventry manufacturer Harry J. Lawson, who had purchased the British Daimler engine patents in 1895 and later was to form The Daimler Motor Company, was very influential. The Acts Locomotive Act 1861 The Locomotives on Highways Act 1861: - Limited the weight of vehicles to 12 tons (12 tonnes). - Imposed a speed limit of 10 mph (16 km/h) on open roads in town. The Locomotive Act 1865 (Red Flag Act) The Locomotive Act 1865 (Red Flag Act): - Set speed limits of 4 mph (6 km/h) in the country and 2 mph (3 km/h) in towns. - Stipulated that self-propelled vehicles should be accompanied by a crew of three: the driver, a stoker and a man with a red flag walking at least 60 yards (55 m) ahead of each vehicle. The man with a red flag or lantern enforced a walking pace, and warned horse riders and horse drawn traffic of the approach of a self propelled machine. - Firstly, at least three persons shall be employed to drive or conduct such locomotive, and if more than two waggons or carriages he attached thereto, an additional person shall be employed, who shall take charge of such waggons or carriages : - Secondly, one of such persons, while any locomotive is in motion, shall precede such locomotive on foot by not less than sixty yards, and shall carry a red flag constantly displayed, and shall warn the riders and drivers of horses of the approach of such locomotives, and shall signal the driver thereof when it shall be necessary to stop, and shall assist horses, and carriages drawn by horses, passing the same, Highways and Locomotives (Amendment) Act 1878 With the highways and Locomotives (Amendment) Act 1878: - Made the red flag optional under local regulation - The distance ahead of the still necessary pedestrian crew member was reduced to 20 yards (18 m). - Vehicles were required to stop on the sight of a horse. - Vehicles were forbidden from emitting smoke or steam to prevent horses being alarmed. Locomotives on Highways Act 1896 Locomotives Act 1898 The 1898 Act included various measures relating to length weight and operation of locomotives on the highway. - "The early years of the automobile in Britain". Dailmer. Retrieved 2010-10-09. "Meanwhile British Motor Syndicate began a public relations campaign to lobby for the repeal of the "Highways and Locomotive Act", still the main obstacle to the introduction of the car in Britain... Furthermore, on November 2, 1895, the syndicate published the first issue of the magazine "The Autocar" – today the world's oldest car magazine ... The show was a great success and in political terms, too, things were now running according to plan. Even before the show opened the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, expressed a desire to view and ride in an automobile. Simms and Ellis were happy to oblige with a ride in a belt-driven Daimler. Prince Edward returned from his test drive full of enthusiasm, and even though he expressed the view that as an animal lover he hoped the car would not render the horse completely redundant, he agreed to become patron of Britain’s first motor show."

Acute pain from gallstones and gallbladder disease is usually treated in the hospital, where diagnostic procedures are performed to rule out other conditions and complications. There are three approaches to gallstone treatment: - Expectant management ("wait and see") - Nonsurgical removal of the stones - Surgical removal of the gallbladder Expectant Management of Asymptomatic Gallstones Guidelines from the American College of Physicians state that when a person has no symptoms, the risks of both surgical and nonsurgical treatments for gallstones outweigh the benefits. Experts suggest a wait-and-see approach, which they have termed expectant management, for these patients. Exceptions to this policy are people who cholangiography shows are at risk for complications from gallstones, including the following: - Those at risk for gallbladder cancer - Pima Native Americans - Patients with stones larger than 3 cm One study reported that very small gallstones increase the risk for acute pancreatitis, a serious condition. Some experts therefore believe that gallstones smaller than 5 mm warrant immediate surgery. There are some minor risks with expectant management for people who do not have symptoms or who are at low risk. Gallstones almost never spontaneously disappear, except sometimes when they are formed under special circumstances, such as pregnancy or sudden weight loss. At some point, the stones may cause pain, complications, or both, and require treatment. Some studies suggest the patient's age at diagnosis may be a factor in the possibility of future surgery. The probabilities are as follows: - 15% likelihood of future surgery at age 70 - 20% likelihood of future surgery at age 50 - 30% likelihood of future surgery at age 30 The slight risk of developing gallbladder cancer might encourage young adults who do not have symptoms to have their gallbladder removed. Gallstones are the most common cause for emergency room and hospital admissions of patients with severe abdominal pain. Many other patients experience milder symptoms. Results of diagnostic tests and the exam will guide the treatment, as follows: Normal Test Results and No Severe Pain or Complications. Patients with no fever or serious medical problems who show no signs of severe pain or complications and have normal laboratory tests may be discharged from the hospital with oral antibiotics and pain relievers. Gallstones and Presence of Pain (Biliary Colic) but No Infection. Patients who have pain and tests that indicate gallstones, but who do not show signs of inflammation or infection have the following options: - Intravenous painkillers for severe pain. Such drugs include meperidine (Demerol) or the potent NSAID ketorolac (Toradol). Ketorolac should not be used for patients who are likely to need surgery. These drugs can cause nausea, vomiting, and drowsiness. Opioids such as morphine may have fewer adverse effects, but some doctors avoid them in gallbladder disease. - Elective gallbladder removal. Patients may electively choose to have their gallbladder removed (called cholecystectomy) at their convenience. - Lithotripsy. A small number of patients may be candidates for a stone-breaking technique called lithotripsy. The treatment works best on solitary stones that are less than 2 cm in diameter. - Drug therapy. Drug therapy for gallstones is available for some patients who are unwilling to undergo surgery, or who have serious medical problems that increase the risks of surgery. Recurrence rates are high with nonsurgical options, and the introduction of laparoscopic cholecystectomy has greatly reduced the use of nonsurgical therapies. Note: Drug treatments are generally inappropriate for patients who have acute gallbladder inflammation or common bile duct stones, because delaying or avoiding surgery could be life threatening. Acute Cholecystitis (Gallbladder Inflammation). The first step if there are signs of acute cholecystitis is to "rest" the gallbladder in order to reduce inflammation. This involves the following treatments: - Intravenous fluids and oxygen therapy - Strong painkillers, such as meperidine (Demerol). Potent NSAIDs, such as ketorolac, may also be particularly useful. Some doctors believe morphine should be avoided for gallbladder disease. - Intravenous antibiotics. These are administered if the patient shows signs of infection, including fever or an elevated white blood cell count, or in patients without such signs who do not improve after 12 - 24 hours. People with acute cholecystitis almost always need surgery to remove the gallbladder. The most common procedure now is laparoscopy, a less invasive technique than open cholecystectomy (which involves a wide abdominal incision). Surgery may be done within hours to weeks after the acute episode, depending on the severity of the condition. Gallstone-Associated Pancreatitis. Patients who have developed gallstone-associated pancreatitis almost always have a cholecystectomy during the initial hospital admission or very soon afterwards. For gallstone pancreatitis, immediate surgery may be better than waiting up to 2 weeks after discharge, as current guidelines recommend. Patients who delay surgery experience a high rate of recurrent attacks before their surgery. Common Duct Stones. If noninvasive diagnostic tests suggest obstruction from common duct stones, the doctor will perform endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) to confirm the diagnosis and remove stones. This technique is used along with antibiotics if infection is present in the common duct (cholangitis). In most cases, common duct stones are discovered during or after gallbladder removal. Management of Common Bile Duct Stones Common bile duct stones pose a high risk for complications and nearly always warrant treatment. There are various options available. It is not clear yet which one is best. - In the past, when common bile duct stones were suspected, the approach was open surgery (open cholecystectomy) and surgical exploration of the common bile duct. This required a wide abdominal incision. - Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) with endoscopic sphincterotomy (ES) is now the most frequently used procedure for detecting and managing common bile duct stones. The procedure involves the use of an endoscope (a flexible telescope containing a miniature camera and other instruments), which is passed down the throat to the bile duct entrance. - Laparoscopic cholecystectomy also is increasingly being used for the detection and removal of common bile duct stones. This is an approach through the abdomen, but it uses small incisions instead of one large incision. It is used in combination with ultrasound or a cholangiogram (an imaging technique in which a dye is injected into the bile duct and moving x-rays are used to view any stones). Experts are currently debating the choice between laparoscopy and ERCP. Many surgeons believe that laparoscopy is becoming safe and effective, and should be the first choice. Still, laparoscopy for common bile duct stones should only be performed by surgeons who are experienced in this technique. Oral drugs used to dissolve gallstones and lithotripsy (alone or in combination with other drugs) gained popularity in the 1990s. Oral medications have lost favor with the increased use of laparoscopy, but they may still have some value in specific circumstances. Oral Dissolution Therapy. Oral dissolution therapy uses bile acids in pill form to dissolve gallstones, and may be used in conjunction with lithotripsy, although both techniques are rarely used today. Ursodiol (ursodeoxycholic acid, Actigal, UDCAl) and chenodiol (Chenix) are the standard oral bile acid dissolution drugs. Most doctors prefer ursodeoxycholic acid, which is considered to be one of the safest common drugs. Long-term treatment appears to notably reduce the risk of biliary pain and acute cholecystitis. The treatment is only moderately effective, however, because gallstones return in the majority of patients. Patients most likely to benefit from oral dissolution therapy are those who have small stones (less than 1.5 cm in diameter) with a high cholesterol content. Patients who probably will not benefit from this treatment include obese patients and those with gallstones that are calcified or composed of bile pigments. Only about 30% of patients are candidates for oral dissolution therapy. The number may actually be much lower, because compliance is often a problem. The treatment can take up to 2 years and can cost thousands of dollars per year. Contact Dissolution Therapy. Contact dissolution therapy requires the injection of the organic solvent methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) into the gallbladder to dissolve gallstones. This is a technically difficult and hazardous procedure, and should be performed only by experienced doctors in hospitals where research on this treatment is being done. Preliminary studies indicate that MTBE rapidly dissolves stones -- the ether remains liquid at body temperature and dissolves gallstones within 5 - 12 hours. Serious side effects include severe burning pain.

Geology of San Diego County, California San Diego County can be divided between three distinct geomorphic regions: the Coastal Plain region as exposed west of the Peninsular Ranges, the Peninsular Range region, and the Salton Trough region as exposed east of the Peninsular Ranges. This geomorphic division reflects a basic geologic difference between the three regions, with Mesozoic metavolcanic, metasedimentary, and plutonic rocks predominating in the Peninsular Ranges, and primarily Cenozoic sedimentary rocks predominating to the west and east of the central mountain range. The irregular contact between these geologic regions reflects the ancient topography of this area before it was buried by the thick sequence of Cretaceous and Tertiary sedimentary rocks deposited over the last 75 million years by ancient rivers and in ancient seas. Together, these rocks and their contained biological record (i.e., fossils) document the geological and biological evolution of this part of western North America. They record a time when consumption of an ancient oceanic crustal plate created an archipelago of volcanic islands, and when this same plate subduction produced massive volumes of magma that later congealed in the crust to form plutonic rock. Local rocks also record an early period when tectonic forces uplifted and erosion unroofed the deeply buried plutonic rocks to form a steep and rugged mountainous coastline, similar to that present today along the west coast of South America. Also recorded are periods of higher rainfall and subtropical climates, which supported coastal rain forests with exotic faunas and floras; periods of drowned coastlines, great rivers, and relentless erosion; periods of extreme aridity and renewed volcanism; and periods of widespread faulting and crustal shear and the formation of new seaways. These are just some of the geologic stories preserved in the rocks of San Diego County. Deciphering the geological and biological record is an ongoing process and each year brings new discoveries and new insights. In the sections that follow, more specific information is provided for the different regions of our area. In the Coastal Plain region, resistant peaks composed of Mesozoic crystalline rocks (such as at Rock Mountain on the north side of Otay Valley, Black Mountain near Rancho Penasquitos, and Cowles Mountain near San Carlos) are actually "rooted" at depth to the buried Mesozoic crystalline rock terrain. These basement "highs" poke through the younger Cretaceous and Tertiary sedimentary cover and demonstrate the amount of topographic relief on the buried landscape of western San Diego County. The Coastal Plain Region is underlain by a "layer cake" sequence of marine and non-marine sedimentary rock units that record portions of the last 140 million years of earth history. Over this period of time the relationship of land and sea has fluctuated drastically so that today we have ancient marine rocks preserved up to elevations around 900 feet above sea level and ancient river deposits as high as 1,200 feet. Faulting related to the local La Nacion and Rose Canyon fault zones has broken up this "layer cake" sedimentary sequence into a number of distinct fault blocks in the southwestern part of the county. North of La Jolla the effects of faulting are not as great and the rock units here are relatively undeformed. Excellent exposures of late Cretaceous-aged (72-76 million years old) marine sedimentary rocks occur in the sea cliffs along the west side of the Point Loma Peninsula and in La Jolla from Bird Rock to La Jolla Shores. The sea cliffs north of Scripps Institution of Oceanography provide spectacular exposures of Eocene-aged (42-48 million years old) marine sedimentary rocks. The Peninsular Ranges Region is underlain primarily by plutonic (i.e., granitic) rocks that formed from the cooling of molten magmas deep within the earth's crust. These magmas were generated during subduction of an oceanic crustal plate that was converging on the North American Plate between 140 and 90 million years ago. Over this long period of time, extensive masses of granitic rocks accumulated at depth to form the Southern California Batholith. Intense heat associated with these plutonic magmas metamorphosed the ancient sedimentary rocks into which the plutons intruded. These metasediments are now preserved in the Peninsular Range Region as marbles, slates, schist, quartzites, and gneiss. Good exposures of schist can be seen in the roadcuts along Banner Grade and exposures of marbles can be found in the Ranchita area. In Jacumba Valley there are younger, Miocene-age (16 million year old) volcanic rocks and flows. Even younger sedimentary rocks occur in isolated districts in various regions of the Peninsular Ranges Region, such as in Warner Valley. Approximately the eastern one-third of San Diego County falls within the Salton Trough Region, also referred to as the Colorado Desert. The Salton Trough is the northern landward extension of the Gulf of California and is undergoing active deformation related to faulting along the San Jacinto and Elsinore fault zones. These fault zones are in turn related to the major tectonic feature in this part of the world -- the San Andreas Fault. Much of the land surrounding the Salton Sea in the Imperial and Coachella valleys is below present sea level. This is the result of crustal thinning and subsidence caused by the same extensional tectonics that continue to form the Gulf of California today. As a result of this rifting and subsidence, the Salton Trough has been filled with sediments to a depth of up to 5 miles since the early Miocene, approximately 24 million years ago. The source of these sediments has been the local mountain ranges, as well as the ancestral and modern Colorado River. Wonderful exposures of late Miocene-aged marine sedimentary rocks are found in the Coyote Mountains and Fish Creek Mountains. The Borrego Badlands in Anza Borrego Desert State Park provides extensive exposures of Pleistocene-aged (100-700 thousand years old) stream and playa lake deposits.

I am losing my hair. What could be causing it? Patients are often surprised to learn all of the things that can make them lose their hair. At the top of the list, in my practice, are grooming problems. This includes home permanents), too frequent or too rare touch ups, tight braids, hair weave glues., and permanent color done at the same time as the permanent wave. Other causes of hair loss include anemia, thyroid diseases, lupus and other connective tissue diseases. Finally, prescription drugs and over the counter supplements may cause hair loss. Some patients are on more than one drug that could be causing their hair to fall out. What can I do about these moles on my face? They seem to run in my family and I don't like the way they look. Removing moles is one of the most common cosmetic procedures done in my office. I use a small electric device to basically "dry up" the moles and they gradually fall off over the next several days. No anesthetic is required, although there is a cream (called LMX) that we can use for patients who want this. The moles don't necessarily grow back, but the process of growing more of them as you get older does not change. It is kind of like coloring your hair...it is necessary to get a touch up every so often if you like the way you look without the moles. This technique does not cause scaring or light spots when it is done properly. I have split earlobes from where my ears were pierced. Can anything be done about this? Yes. Using local anesthesia in the office to make the split area numb, the ear can be repaired and later repierced so that you can wear earrings again. What is the treatment for keloids? It depends on where they are. On the earlobe, we can excise them and follow that up with injections of a steroid solution to keep the surgical scar from turning into another keloid. When they occur on the chest wall or over moving joints (shoulders or knees) I don’t recommend surgery. Instead, I treat them by injections periodically. If a keloid is itching, then that is a sign that it is growing and you should bring that to the attention of your dermatologist. When do I need to see a dermatologist? Whenever the problem you are having involves your skin, hair or nails. A dermatologist spends three years after medical school studying the diseases and disorders of these areas. If your general, non specialist physician is not getting to the root of your problem then it is probably time for you to consult a medical specialist. What is cosmetic dermatology? Basically it means the treatment of skin concerns of cosmetic importance, those things that you believe will make you look better or feel better about yourself. These include facial peels, scar revision, removal of moles that are not suspicious or cancerous.

Perhaps you might have encountered some wasps disturbing your picnic date. These are no ordinary wasps making common paper wasp nest, these are European wasps known for their reputation of disturbing outdoor get-togethers. Most likely, they are enticed by the smell of sweet delights so you have to keep the food sealed whenever time permits. Otherwise, you might find these wasps joining your merriment. What are these wasps? European Wasp is also known as German Wasp and Yellowjacket, not to mention its scientific name, Vespula Germanica. This sort of wasp also bears black and yellow stripes like that of the bee. Measuring up to 13mm, the insect is comparable to the common wasp although it is found with three black dots on the head as well as on the abdomen. Among others, the European wasp has been popular for building grey paper nest. That must be ascribed to the fact that the nest is made from saliva and chewed plant fibres. Most likely, the queen initially builds the nest while the other members of the colony take charge in the construction afterwards. Male wasps are considered as commodity for mating purposes so sterile females are left to do manual labour. Why are they dangerous? Like many other wasps, this species is also capable of giving the most painful sting. They have sharp stingers that can blow you away, not to mention the venom that can cause allergic reaction. The lethal combination can leave you suffering from loss of breath upon getting stung near the airways such as on the throat. European wasp sting is commonly characterized by redness, burning pain, raised lump, and swollen skin. What is even more terrifying is that these wasps can land multiple stings onto your skin. Multiple stings, particularly five to ten times, can lead to increased heart palpitation, abdominal cramps, and unconsciousness. These are signs and symptoms of severe allergy that merits a hospital trip immediately. Where are they found? Although it’s called European wasp, it is also found in some areas outside Europe. In fact, it is native to Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa, all spots located in the Northern Hemisphere. The same species has been introduced in some other parts of the world such as in Australia, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, and North America. Unfortunately, the German Wasp has been regarded as pests in New Zealand and South America. Drastic wasp control has been administered on these key locations. Nonetheless, this sort of wasp is essential for the sake of ecological balance. Wasps may not be able to produce wax but they are as important as bees in pollination. Along the process of flower hopping, they are likely to spread pollens that stick on their bodies. These insects are also essential to bring back insect-feeding birds into the forest to liven up the ecosystem. When do they become active? European wasps are active in Spring and Summer when another breed of the species comes out in the open after the winter. More often than not, the queen lays as much eggs as possible in Spring while building cells into the nest. Just in time for Summer, the queen has already built her empire to pursue initial nest building process. Just like many other wasp, the German wasp is active at daytime. In contrast, they become inactive as soon as the sun goes down at night. That means you can go for wasp nest removal pursuit at night by exterminating the colony in nesting place. Doing away with the colony shall not suffice, not until the nest has been destroyed. Surviving wasps are likely to go back into their nest that is meant to last all year round. Let’s start with wasp control preventive measures before going through drastic extermination. European wasps can be driven away by getting rid of items that can excite them starting from sweet food and drink, fallen fruit, decaying matter, and the like. Most importantly, you should keep the place clean and fresh to do away with these wasps. If you happen to see this sort of wasp though, swatting the same won’t help. Such an act can attract the rest of the wasps for vengeance. Although they can be aggressive, the wasp won’t sting unless provoked. Keep your cool as much as possible and try to avoid huge movements. The next thing you’ll know, it has already flown out of sight. How can they be exterminated? Best way to get rid of European wasps is by getting rid of their nesting place at night. You may want to gear up for wasp hunting by keeping yourself fully covered from head to toe. Simply detach the nest from any fixture, and you’re ready to go. Sealing the nest either in a box or a bag shall do in order to contain them. Finally, you can kill the rest of the wasps in the hub by freezing them in the fridge. Feel free to call the pest control group once German wasps go out of hand. The team is consists of trained professionals that can do the tricks for wasp extermination. Although you are expected to spend some dollars out of your budget, rest assured the cost shall be worth the desirable results. After all, you can do away with the panic attacks brought about by these wasps.

Science Fair Project Encyclopedia Etching is an intaglio method of printmaking in which the image is incised into the surface of a metal plate using an acid. The acid eats the metal, leaving behind roughened areas, or if the surface exposed to the acid is very narrow, burning a line into the plate. Etching is also used in the manufacturing of printed circuit boards. There are many ways for the printmaker to control the acid's effects. Most typically, the surface of the plate is covered in a hard, waxy ground that resists acid. The printmaker then scratches through the ground with a sharp point, exposing lines of metal that are attacked by the acid. Once the drawing in the ground is finished, the plate is submerged in acid for a period of time; longer submersion means that deeper lines are etched. The ground may be removed, or the artist may continue drawing in it, etching it again in acid to deepen existing lines while adding new lines. The ground may also be reapplied to protect existing lines while adding new ones. The ground may be removed and the plate printed to see its current printing state, to be followed by more work (or other techniques, such as aquatint, drypoint, or engraving); thus, many of Rembrandt's etchings exist in several distinct forms, with the final, "accepted" version apparently preceded by many artist's proofs. A "soft" ground may also be used--a ground that is sensitive to pressure. The soft ground is applied to the plate, and the artist removes it by putting paper on top and drawing on the paper. The varying pressure of the pencil on the paper lifts the soft ground in a likewise varying amount, in a particulate way--rather than removing the ground, its density is decreased, allowing more or less acid through. The effect is much like that of particulate media like chalk, charcoal, or pencil: the image burned into the plate is composed of greater and lesser densities of minuscule pitting, rather than sharp, continuous lines. Minor variations involve putting a soft ground on a plate along with some textured surface (such as fabric or crumpled plastic wrap or paper), and then running the combination through a press, transferring the texture to the plate. Aquatint is a variation in which particulate resin is evenly distributed on the plate, then heated to form a screen ground of uniform but less than perfect density. After etching, the result is a uniformly roughened (i.e., darkened) plate that may then be drawn on by smoothing it, creating the image from dark-to-light rather than the reverse. Printing the plate is done by covering the surface with ink, then rubbing the ink off the surface with tarlatan cloth or newsprint, leaving ink in the roughened areas and lines. Damp paper is placed on the plate, and both are run through a printing press; the pressure forces the paper into contact with the ink, transferring the image (c.f., chine-collé). Unfortunately, the pressure also subtly degrades the image in the plate, smoothing the roughened areas and closing the lines; a copper plate is good for, at most, a few hundred printings of a strongly etched imaged before the degradation is considered too great by the artist. At that point, the artist can manually restore the plate by re-etching it, essentially putting ground back on and retracing her lines; alternately, plates can be electro-plated before printing with a harder metal to preserve the surface. Zinc is also used, because as a softer metal, etching times are shorter; however, that softness also leads to faster degradation of the image in the press. Faux-bite is common in etching, and is the effect of minuscule amounts of acid leaking through the ground to create minor pitting and burning on the surface. This incidental roughening may be removed by smoothing and polishing the surface, but artists often leave faux-bite, or deliberately court it by handling the plate roughly, because it's viewed as a desirable mark of the process. The phrase "Want to come up and see my etchings?" is a romantic cliche in which a man entices a woman to come back to his place with an offer to look at something artistic. The erotic etchings of Félicien Rops were some of the first to inspire this phrase. The connotation is that the person inviting is a suave aesthete with class and charm, unconcerned with petty matters like mere fornication; an evening with this man will be a banquet of lovemaking, if one is so inclined. A mandolin player may also be in attendance.

Simulation Software Rocks for Training, but Its Benefits Go Way Beyond Teaching to Aiding Design, Optimization, Maintenance and Life-Cycle Management. Heres How Savvy Users are Gaining Simulations Full Advantages As economical separation of contaminants from natural gas becomes increasingly important, simulation eases the design of innovative module to remove carbon dioxide. Membranes offer potential advantages over other methods. A computer simulation helps solve a refinery combustion problem. Finding ways to limit NOx from fired heaters, especially under stringent environmental regulations, has become a major concern for the petroleum refining industry. Complying with new stricter regulations, a Texas refinery upgraded the burners in one of its large cylindrical furnaces. For the business of designing process heat exchangers, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools are still not practical for everyday use. However, in a research consortium such as HTRI, integrating advanced analysis tools like CFD with industrial-sized experimentation and then applying them to real-world technical problems provides a significant synergistic benefit to the consortium members. Like the 20th Century’s Great Conflict, the first Fieldbus War never really ended. But what will the outcome be this time? This article from CONTROL makes an educated prediction on how the battle may turn out.

When liposuction began to be used more widely in the 1980s, it was welcomed by women and men who had struggled to remove fat deposits with diet and exercise. Improvements in techniques and equipment have continued in the last 30 years, and now we have SmartLipo, a sophisticated technique that reduces trauma and downtime while providing great results. What is SmartLipo? Is it a good choice for you? SmartLipo is an advanced type of liposuction that uses laser energy to dissolve fat deposits under the skin. In contrast to traditional liposuction, SmartLipo is non-invasive; it requires no incisions, and you do not have to go under general anesthesia. Another big benefit that this technique offers is the ability to tone skin. The laser energy directed at the area beneath the skin encourages your body to produce collagen, which helps the skin look more toned and tight. Other advantages: • Less discomfort compared to traditional liposuction. • Virtually no down-time. • Very little bruising or discomfort after the procedure. • And best of all, it is effective in treating stubborn fat deposits in the hips, buttocks, abdomen, breasts, thighs, chin, neck, back, and other areas of the body. The SmartLipo procedure starts in the same way that traditional liposuction does: the areas that you want treated are marked so the surgeon has clear guidelines. Next, a local anesthetic is injected into the area to numb it. The laser is a small, handheld device that directs energy towards the fat beneath your skin. The energy causes the fat cells to liquify. Your body drains this liquified fat naturally in the days following the procedure. In addition, to helping promote collagen development, SmartLipo’s laser also helps seal blood vessels, which reduces bleeding and post-procedure swelling. SmartLipo is not for those who have a lot of weight to lose or who are considered obese. Instead, it is effective in those of average or slightly above-average weight who cannot rid themselves of stubborn fat deposits with diet and exercise. You must also be in good overall health. The good news is that patients typically only need one to three SmartLipo treatments in order to see the results they want. After the procedure, you will have some swelling. This will go down, and your results will reveal themselves over the next six to eight weeks as your skin becomes used to the new contours of your body. The results are permanent, in a sense. The fat that is removed is permanently removed, but it doesn’t stop you from gaining weight! Maintaining a healthy diet and exercise schedule is key to keeping your new body toned and lean. SmartLipo is comparable in price to traditional liposuction, costing about $2000 to $4000 per session, depending on the size of the area you want treated. This is a great alternative to liposuction, and you will feel less discomfort. Talk to your Austin doctor to see if SmartLipo is a good choice for you.

I found the following nugget in the comments on a piece on saturated fat on www.docsopinion.com. The commenter is David Brown. The original piece is worth reading. It gives a good perspective on the fact that there is no evidence that saturated fats are harmful. This comment, however, sheds much needed light on how the whole business of nutritional science and policy-making has been thoroughly corrupted by vested interests in the agri-food sector. A cautionary tale, indeed: “Quote from paragraph 7: “On the other hand, the vast majority of trans fats in our food are manufactured by adding hydrogen bonds to unsaturated fats.” Technically, it would be more accurate to say that “the vast majority of trans fats are formed during partial hydrogenation of unsaturated fatty acid chains.” Quotes from paragraphs 6 and 15: “Why such a huge effort has been put in promoting the risk of saturated fat,s and their possible effects on blood cholesterol is hard to understand, not least because the scientific basis behind it is indeed fairly weak…In light of the available scientific evidence it is hard to understand how we have managed to create those misconceptions.” This article documents the rise of the low-fat ideology: Corporations have always done what was necessary to protect supply chains. The International Food Information Council Foundation (IFICF) is the latest, most powerful iteration of a string of food and beverage supply chain protection schemes. It amounts to a corporation funded educational machine that shapes the content of dietetics instruction throughout academia. Here is what the IFICF says about itself: “Incorporated as a public education foundation in 1991 and based in Washington, DC, the International Food Information Council Foundation is independent and not-for-profit. We do not lobby or further any political, partisan, or corporate interest. We bring together, work with, and provide information to consumers, health and nutrition officials, educators, government officials, and food, beverage, and agriculture industry professionals. We have established partnerships with a wide range of credible professional organizations, government agencies, and academic institutions to advance the public understanding of key issues. For example, we have a long-standing relationship with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion as part of the Dietary Guidelines Alliance, a public-private partnership focused on the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the MyPlate Food Guidance System. Recognizing the global nature of food safety, nutrition and health issues, the Foundation extends its mission internationally. We share education materials with an independent network of Food Information Organizations and partners from around the world. We also serve as a news media resource. We provide science-based information to the media and refer journalists to our 350 independent, credentialed experts on a variety of nutrition, food, and safety topics…We believe in the importance of educating health and nutrition professionals. We regularly host Continuing Professional Education (CPE) programs which are offered in person and via Web cast, and have developed a series of Commission on Dietetic Registration, the credentialing agency for the American Dietetic Association, CPE-approved learning modules on a variety of subjects.” “People in America like to think that they eat with freedom. Ultimately, however, they can only pick what is presented to them, and what they can afford. Then, the decision is based on what they believe to be healthy, tasty and safe. With that in mind, can you imagine how great it would be for the industries mentioned above, if dietary advice given could be contained and restricted to just one organization that they could pour money into? That scenario is not just some North Koreanesque wet dream. It is USA 2010. The ADA (American Dietetic Association) has complete monopoly on dietary advice. To keep the bubble airtight, the full might of the law has even been implemented. Kim Jong-il would be proud of the attention to detail. Staggeringly, in 46 out of 50 States, the message the authorities want you to have is protected. The law determines who is able to provide you with nutritional advice. The Commission on Dietetic Registration is the credentializing agency for the ADA. A practicing dietician not registered with the ADA or CDR is liable to face prosecution in over 90% of the country. With that in mind, who precisely is ‘sponsoring’ the ADA and the nutritional advice you receive? My friends, it is a beautiful army. Partners (recent and current — and their latest annual revenue figures): Coca Cola (revenue $31.4 billion), GlaxoSmithKline (revenue $42.5 billion), Hershey’s (revenue $5.3 billion), Unilever (revenue $55.8 billion), Aramark (revenue: $12.3 billion). There are even some ‘premier sponsors’: Mars (revenue: $30 billion), PepsiCo (revenue $44.3 billion), Truvia sweetener (revenue of parent company Cargill: $116.6 billion), Kellogg’s ($12.7 billion). ADA ‘sponsors’ have combined revenues of over $400 billion. Why are these gargantuan companies — whose only intention is to make money, not make you healthy — allowed to fund the ADA? The ADA themselves can perhaps assist us. On their own website (in the section where they are trying to seduce corporate America), they offer a helping hand: Why Become an ADA Sponsor? As ADA past president Martin Yadrick stated in a 2008 US News & World Report article: “We think it’s important for us to be at the same table with food companies because of the positive influence that we can have on them.” But, Martin, darling, they are paying you to be at their table. You are publicly telling America that you are somehow the one wearing the trousers in the relationship? My headline must be correct — even the ADA seem to think that America is stupid.” “In the end, it’s not that hard to understand how the anti-saturated fat ideology originated, became common knowledge, and remains entrenched dogma. It’s simply good business for the edible oils industry. Or at least it was for the better part of a century.”

Mexico and other Latin American countries are moving toward drug decriminalization — and Washington isn't complaining. MEXICO CITY, Mexico — After carefully packing light green Mexican marijuana into a homemade water pipe, university student Salvador Chavez drew a deep breath from the tube and blew the smoke out of the window of his modest family home. “I don’t care if the neighbors call the police on me. They can’t arrest me for this anymore,” he said behind lightly glazed eyes. “But then police here never cared much about a bit of marijuana anyway. Everything has just stayed the same really.” Almost two months after Mexico decriminalized the possession of small amounts all major narcotics — including marijuana, cocaine and heroin — the most notable thing is how little has changed. Drug users and addicts still smoke, snort and inject quietly in their homes; drug dealers are still regularly arrested in stash houses and on street corners; and major cartels carry on battling police to smuggle huge loads to the United States. But while the law has yet to have a measurable impact on the Mexican streets, it has sent waves across the Americas to groups campaigning to change drug laws in their own countries. Shortly after Mexico enacted its decriminalization act on Aug. 20, the Supreme Court of Argentina ruled that it was unconstitutional to punish people for personal consumption of marijuana. “The state cannot establish morality,” Argentine Supreme Court President Ricardo Lorenzetti said following that ruling. The Argentine Congress is now looking to change its laws accordingly. Then weeks later in Colombia, the Supreme Court also ruled that people could not be prosecuted for possession of narcotics for personal use, resisting pressure from conservative President Alvaro Uribe to lock up drug users. “Real change is happening. More and more people over the world are taking a more rational view on drugs,” said Maria Lucia Karam, a retired judge in Brazil who is part of the pro-legalization group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. “People are understanding that the prohibition of drugs does more damage than the actual drugs themselves,” she said. A similar court ruling to that of Colombia and Argentina may soon be passed in Brazil, Karam said. Latin American legalization advocates have been particularly encouraged by the muted United States reaction to the Mexican law.

NHC Tools Address Housing Needs, Foreclosure Crisis As part of their efforts to provide “solutions-focused” tools and resources for housing practitioners and policymakers, the National Housing Conference (NHC) and its research affiliate, the Center for Housing Policy, last week released three research briefs in a new series entitled “Insights From Housing Policy Research.” The studies were: - “‘Don’t Put It Here!’ Do Subsidized Housing Developments Cause Property Values to Decline” — With a special focus on work by Ingrid Ellen — associate professor of public policy and urban planning and co-director of the New York University Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy — the research shows that affordable housing on the whole does not usually have an adverse impact on the value of neighboring properties and may actually improve them in some cases. Key factors that are associated with stable or increased property values include an attractive design that blends with the surrounding neighborhood and strong property management. - “Taking Stock: The Role of ‘Preservation Inventories’ in Preserving Affordable Rental Housing” — This brief examines how states and localities — including Cook County, Ill., Florida, New York City, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. — are using data analysis to preserve the stock of affordable rental housing. “Preservation inventories” collect available data on the existing affordable rental housing stock, making it easier for communities to identify properties that are at risk of being lost as a result of physical deterioration or the expiration of affordability limits. - “The Well-Being of Low-Income Children: Does Affordable Housing Matter?” — The report profiles the research program of Sandra J. Newman — professor of policy studies at Johns Hopkins University, chair of the Graduate Program in Public Policy and director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies — examining how affordable housing affects children and families. As discussed in the brief, a recent Newman research project found that children in unaffordable housing markets may not fare any worse than children living in affordable housing markets. This is perhaps because they benefit from living in communities that have better schools and neighborhood amenities. However, Newman stresses that more research is needed to better understand these findings. Online Guide Focuses on Foreclosure Prevention In addition, in partnership with KnowledgePlex, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation and the Urban Institute, the center for Housing Policy launched ForeclosureResponse.org, a new online guide to foreclosure prevention and neighborhood stabilization, geared to helping communities address pressing housing needs. “Getting Started” answers questions about foreclosure prevention and neighborhood stabilization such as “What types of loans are most at risk of foreclosure?” and “Who is responsible for maintaining foreclosed properties?” The “Policy Guide” presents high-impact solutions that can help states and localities prevent and respond to foreclosures. And the “Maps and Data” section of the site allows users to create maps identifying which areas have a high-priority need for foreclosure prevention or neighborhood stabilization assistance, as well as indicating the relative strength of the housing market in the areas. The Center for Housing Policy last week also announced the launch of HousingPolicy.org Discussion Forum, an online tool to help users quickly and easily share ideas, innovations and questions about housing policy. The forum is available through both HousingPolicy.org — the center’s online guide to state and local housing solutions — and its new sister site, ForeclosureResponse.org.

A return to the politics of envy could serve us well As inequality grows, the country becomes nastier. We should be seriously unrelaxed about the existence of the filthy rich Friday December 29, 2006 I hope the employees of Goldman Sachs and other City firms who netted a reported £9bn in end-of-year bonuses – with many receiving several million pounds each – had a very merry Christmas. I am not, heaven forfend, envious of them. The politics of envy is so 1970s and besides, I cannot imagine anything more dispiriting than spending all my waking hours shuffling money from one hedge fund to another.Unfortunately, though, it is no longer possible to follow Peter Mandelson’s manifesto for New Labour: to be “relaxed about people getting filthy rich”. Mandelson’s argument was that high earnings at the top of the tree don’t hurt those at the bottom. We can now see how economically illiterate he was. For one thing, as the TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber, pointed out yesterday in his new year message, that £9bn of bonuses would be enough to give every worker in Britain an extra £350. As Barber also points out, the colossal purchasing power of the super-rich has sent house prices, particularly in the south-east, to levels far beyond the average wage earner. That’s fine for people who already own houses and find themselves sitting on rapidly appreciating assets. It’s not so good for those under 35 who, failing the early death of an affluent relative, face a lifetime of renting property. In that sense, high pay rises among the top 1% are as inflationary as wage rises among the mass of the population. It’s just that this inflation affects assets rather than goods and services. For years our rulers have insisted that one worker’s wage rise is another’s job loss. It is equally true that one person’s fat-cat bonus is another’s loss of home ownership prospects. It may be a job loss, too, since the Bank of England’s concerns about an overheating housing market may cause it to raise interest rates.There is more, much more. In some areas of London, such as Belgravia, shops selling things that ordinary people can afford have almost disappeared in favour of the high-value retailing of interior design, fashion, jewellery, beauty and so on. The very rich can hog the best surgeons, denying their services to others. They can monopolise the best restaurants, forcing prices even higher. More important, they can hire the best accountants to minimise or wipe out their tax liabilities. If an increasing proportion of national income and wealth is taken by a tax-avoiding elite, the tax base ultimately shrinks. Increasingly, we must look to the philanthropic efforts of the rich to relieve poverty and to create social assets such as schools and arts centres. That sounds fine in principle, and Victorian philanthropy, free from the stultifying effects of public bureaucracy, is often held up as a model. But the result is a step backwards for democracy, with the super-rich deciding our social priorities. In education, for example, they tend to channel resources to the more elitist institutions, such as Oxford and Cambridge. Worse, as we have seen with New Labour and as has long been evident in America, the wealthy tend to buy up political parties. Politicians become accountable not to a mass electorate but to a rich minority. Most seriously, there is overwhelming evidence that as inequality grows a country becomes nastier. In The Impact of Inequality, Richard Wilkinson, professor of social epidemiology at Nottingham University, shows rates of violent crime and racism tend to be higher where the gap between rich and poor is greater. So firmly established is the link between homicide rates and inequality, according to Wilkinson, that many criminologists regard it as more important than any other environmental factor. One man’s bonus from Goldman Sachs, then, is almost literally another person’s killer, particularly given the evidence, also set out by Wilkinson, that in some countries inequality reduces the life expectancy of the poorest by as much as 25%. We are talking about the effects not of absolute poverty but of inequality – which apparently leads to acute anxieties and insecurities, and a chronic lack of social trust. New Labour’s argument that, if we can drag the poor off the bottom, it doesn’t matter if a rich minority jets off into the financial stratosphere is thus wrong in almost every respect. What can be done is another matter. Financial services, Britain’s major industry, are by their nature inegalitarian because new technology allows a few to control enormous resources across the globe. The economy is stimulated by constant injections of money from the global mega-rich; perhaps a million jobs depend directly on London’s status as a financial centre and haven for billionaires. Like crack cocaine, this drug is highly addictive. It destroys normal economic activity. Attempts to wean us off it, through higher taxes on the rich or more controls, would lead to acute national withdrawal symptoms. But it would be a good start if New Labour at least recognised the problem. Let us all make a new year resolution to be seriously unrelaxed about the filthy rich and to recognise that bringing back the politics of envy may not be such a bad idea after all.

POLICY AND PRACTICE Interventions antitabac s'appuyant sur la religion : comment l'OMS doit-elle s'y prendre ? Intervenciones de control del tabaco basadas en la religión: ¿cómo debe actuar la OMS? Samer JabbourI, 1; Fouad Mohammad FouadII IAssistant Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, American University of Beirut, Van Dyck Hall, Beirut, Lebanon (email: [email protected]) IIIntervention Coordinator, Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies, Aleppo, Syria Using religion to improve health is an age-old practice. However, using religion and enlisting religious authorities in public health campaigns, as exemplified by tobacco control interventions and other activities undertaken by WHO's Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office, is a relatively recent phenomenon. Although all possible opportunities within society should be exploited to control tobacco use and promote health, religion-based interventions should not be exempted from the evidence-based scrutiny to which other interventions are subjected before being adopted. In the absence of data and debate on whether this approach works, how it should be applied, and what the potential downsides and alternatives are, international organizations such as WHO should think carefully about using religion-based public health interventions in their regional programmes. Keywords: Tobacco use cessation/methods; Smoking cessation/methods; Religion; Health promotion; Health policy; Evidence-based medicine; World Health Organization; Eastern Mediterranean (source: MeSH, NLM). Faire appel à la religion pour améliorer la santé est une pratique séculaire. Cependant, l'utilisation de la religion et l'enrôlement des autorités religieuses dans des campagnes de santé publique, comme dans le cas des interventions antitabac et autres activités entreprises par le Bureau régional de l'OMS pour la Méditerranée orientale, représentent un phénomène relativement récent. Bien qu'il convienne d'exploiter toutes les possibilités offertes par la société pour lutter contre le tabagisme et promouvoir la santé, les interventions s'appuyant sur la religion ne doivent pas être dispensées de l'examen factuel approfondi auquel sont soumises les autres interventions avant d'être adoptées. En l'absence de données et de débats sur l'efficacité de cette approche, sur la façon dont elle doit être appliquée et sur ses inconvénients et ses solutions de remplacement éventuels, les organisations internationales telles que l'OMS devraient engager une réflexion approfondie sur l'utilisation d'interventions de santé publique s'appuyant sur la religion dans leurs programmes régionaux. Mots clés: Arrêt tabac/méthodes; Sevrage tabagique/méthodes; Religion; Promotion santé; Politique sanitaire; Médecine factuelle; Organisation mondiale de la Santé; Méditerranée orientale (source: MeSH, INSERM). Recurrir a la religión para mejorar la salud es una práctica secular. Sin embargo, el uso de la religión y de las autoridades religiosas en campañas de salud pública, como se ha hecho en algunas intervenciones de control del tabaco y de otro tipo emprendidas por la Oficina Regional de la OMS para el Mediterráneo Oriental, es un fenómeno relativamente reciente. Aunque hay que explotar todas las oportunidades posibles que brinde cada sociedad para combatir el consumo de tabaco y promover la salud, las intervenciones basadas en la religión no deben quedar exentas de los exámenes basados en la evidencia a que se someten otras intervenciones antes de adoptarlas. A falta de los datos y el debate necesarios para determinar si este enfoque funciona, cómo debe aplicarse y cuáles son sus inconvenientes y las alternativas, las organizaciones internacionales, como la OMS, deben estudiar detenidamente la conveniencia de acometer intervenciones de salud pública basadas en la religión en sus programas regionales. Palabras clave: Cese del uso de tabaco/métodos; Cese del tabaquismo/métodos; Religión; Promoción de la salud; Política de salud; Medicina basada en evidencia; Organización Mundial de la Salud; Mediterráneo Oriental (fuente: DeCS, BIREME). The 12th World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Helsinki, Finland, held in August 2003, ended with a plenary lecture on the role of religion in tobacco control; this stirred much discussion. The rationale for using religion, as well as examples of activities and data on its perceived impact, were presented by WHO's Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office (EMRO) and summarized in a news article (1). While it is commendable that EMRO is using all opportunities to promote tobacco control, it remains unclear whether this is actually affecting tobacco use in the region. The more difficult question is how WHO should approach interventions for which there is no peer-reviewed evidence and which have yet to be subjected to vigorous discussion. Summarizing the complex association between religion and health is beyond the focus of this article, and it has been covered extensively elsewhere (2). Religion may play a part in health beliefs and behaviours such as tobacco use. However, no systematic effort has been made to summarize the relationship between tobacco use and religious beliefs and practices, but a few observations can be made. Reports from diverse settings suggest that religiousness in different faiths is associated with less use of tobacco (311). Members of the same community, even if they adhere to different faiths, seem to have similar patterns of tobacco use (12). Maziak et al. have shown that where differences are present, it is not clear whether this is due to religion or to broader social differences (of which religion is only one) (13). This and other studies (1417) raise questions about the importance of religion as an explanatory variable for tobacco use. Indeed, tobacco use by religious professionals is common (18, 19), and patterns of tobacco use worldwide do not correlate with the religiousness of societies or the faiths to which their members adhere. Religion-based public health interventions: relevance for tobacco control There are an increasing number of reports from multiple settings, in richer as well as poorer countries, and in areas of different faiths, monotheist and others, on using religion as a public health intervention to improve variations of health outcomes. A review on this topic summarized the research and practice challenges (20). The evidence is difficult to synthesize and remains conflicting due to variety in methods, settings, populations, definitions of exposures and outcome measures. Common methodological limitations of many published studies include small sample sizes, inadequate control of confounders and failure to control for multiple comparisons. The increasing interest in the impact of religion (and, more generally, spirituality) on health has led to the introduction of this topic into the curricula of many medical, public health, nursing and theology schools (21). Several large-scale initiatives, involving universities or schools of public health, are devoting important resources to studying the impact of religion on health and to openly promoting the need for considering religion in health care (22). With regard to tobacco, studies have reported on the use of religious settings, holy times, religious professionals and/or faith-based interventions to reduce tobacco use and other risk behaviours (2328). There are calls to use more of these approaches to prevent diseases and reduce the use of tobacco (2932). EMRO has taken several steps towards using religion to promote tobacco control in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. Religious authorities, both Muslim and Christian, were solicited to provide their opinions on tobacco and to advocate against tobacco. Muslim scholars issued religious opinions, or "fatwas," advising their followers that smoking inflicts bodily harm upon its users and so they should abstain from using tobacco (33, 34). WHO followed this up with a larger meeting of prominent leaders from all religious faiths, and they unanimously agreed that smoking is not sanctioned (35). EMRO has worked with Saudi Arabian authorities to restrict access to tobacco in the holy sites of Mecca and Medina, especially during Ramadan and the annual pilgrimage. These steps build on EMRO's publications that advocated using a religious perspective and approach to tackle diverse public health issues, such as AIDS, environmental health and health promotion (36). To involve religion or not: WHO's dilemma It is important to have cultural sensitivity, pay attention to local needs and use local opportunities when choosing health interventions. These considerations had a role in creating WHO's regional offices in the first place. WHO, academic public health institutions and state health institutions, which have traditionally shied away from seriously considering religion, cannot ignore religion as an important component of the social fabric of many societies. The issue then is not whether religion should be considered in public health but how and under what conditions. In the Eastern Mediterranean Region it is often claimed that widespread religiousness among the public dictates the need to use religion as a pillar of public health interventions (36). This argument alone, however, is not sufficient for using religion as the basis for public health policy for the following reasons: communities in this region, and individuals in these communities, are quite diverse in terms of religiousness, thus interventions need to be tailored accordingly to affect members of all communities, including those who are not religious; religiousness is not unique to the region, in fact it occurs all over the world and among members of all faiths. Therefore, the rationale for focusing on religion in this region, as compared with other regions, must be more clearly presented; there are other social attributes that also need consideration but which are inadequately studied and utilized. These include, for example, the values, beliefs and attitudes of the new cyber-savvy younger generations, especially women. Furthermore, there are many other problematic issues to address because in religion, as in other fields, the devil is in the detail. What are some of these issues? Inadequate evidence base Data are inadequate to support this approach. Process indicators, such as issuing a fatwa against smoking and banning smoking in certain sites and at certain times, are of course welcome. However, it has yet to be demonstrated that the wider application of religion-based interventions will have an impact on high rates of smoking in this region. Country profile data published between 1997 and 2003 do not show any reduction in smoking in the region (3739). Furthermore, although studies indicate that religion can be a deterrent to smoking in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (11, 13, 34) this cannot be assumed to mean that religion-based interventions will be effective in controlling tobacco use. Indeed, despite a high level of awareness of the fatwa against smoking in Egypt, attempts to quit smoking have not increased (34). Data from EMRO's campaign remain too preliminary for wide advocacy of this approach. This means that we need to evaluate religion-based interventions in a research context so we can generate evidence from properly designed and conducted studies. Without such evidence, advocating and adopting religion-based interventions would be a departure from evidence-based practice, a potentially significant step for WHO. At the very least, arguments to justify excluding religion-based interventions from the usual process of efficacy evaluation should be presented and debated. Using religion to help control the use of tobacco may have unintended consequences. For example, religious institutions and authorities may come to be seen as the main public health players thus overshadowing already weak public health institutions. Although religious authorities may care about public health, they have no public health expertise and their priorities may come into conflict with other public health initiatives. For example, religious authorities who agree with WHO on tobacco control may have opposing views when it comes to other health issues, such as family planning. When religious authorities take positions on controversial issues that are favourable to public health their considerations tend to be more religious and political rather than health oriented. Additionally, religion is unavoidably linked to religious institutions and authorities and thus to politics. Therefore, relying on religious authorities in the fight against tobacco, and in other public health areas, may be perceived as promoting religious authorities as key social players. This has the potential to increase their strength in many societies but especially among the more traditional societies in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. This may add more heat to existing contentions between religious and secular groups over social policies. Selective use of religious authorities There is no unified interpretation of what all religions dictate in terms of health policy. This is not so much of a problem for tobacco control (which receives wide if not unanimous support from religious authorities) as it is for other health interventions, such as family planning. Therefore, using religion to promote health requires selective application of religious principles and careful treading of sensitive terrain that is influenced by preferences and strong opinions. But promoting selectivity may backfire. Some policy-makers may choose to use religion selectively to promote policies that do not have public health merit. The current administration of the United States would like to withdraw support from family planning programmes that allow abortion, partly on religious grounds. However, its weak support of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control does not give it the high moral ground. Moreover, selectively enlisting one religious faction to promote public heath may alienate other factions who see the issue differently. An important lesson was learnt from the United Nations' International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994 during which there was an apparent conflict between religious factions of the same faith that held different views, for example Catholics for Free Choice and other Catholic clerics argued over family planning methods. WHO needs to consider whether it can afford to be put in the middle of such conflicts. Opportunity costs and resources There are many unexploited or inadequately exploited non-religious public health interventions. In tobacco control there are well tested interventions, including taxation and restriction of access, that deserve wide application. As a public health intervention the use of religion is associated with opportunity costs, and it requires resources. Interventions should be chosen based on opportunities that are informed by evidence. For example, even in a traditional society such as that found in Syria, health consequences were more important deterrents to smoking than religion (17). Focusing on religion in this case may not give the desired outcomes. Complex ethical issues need to be considered when religion is used to meet public health needs. Sloan et al. (40) have argued that religion is not in the domain of responsibility and expertise of health professionals, and while there is a need to consider religion as a social factor, its use in health promotion has risks. They have also argued that the use of religion-based interventions may be associated with harm because the public may link poor health outcomes to non-adherence to religious teachings, thus further exacerbating the guilt that many people, especially elderly people, feel about their responsibility for their bad health. Potential risks specific to WHO Using religion-based interventions to promote health is not without potential risks for an organization such as WHO. If religion-based programmes are run under its name and logo and are branded as WHO programmes, they must be well designed and implemented and be able to withstand the scrutiny of sceptics. Furthermore, as an international organization, WHO would need to consider a range of opinions when deciding on a policy issue of this importance. It seems that the rationale for, the need for, the effectiveness of, and alternatives to using religion as a strategy have not been thoroughly considered within WHO. What needs to be done? There is no consensus within the public health community about using religion in interventions, even for those that receive unanimous support, such as tobacco control. Because religion remains a divisive issue, well beyond public health circles, the issue of whether to use religion-based interventions must be approached with care. Obviously, religious practices and the faith of the public should be respected. When requested by national governments and regional bodies to work in religious settings and with religious authorities WHO is mandated to respond as positively as it would to requests to work with other bodies. Furthermore, WHO should not shy away from considering and incorporating religion into its policies and programmes as it would other social attributes. What is controversial is whether it is acceptable to use religion as the basis for health promotion programmes as the Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean has done and whether religion-based interventions can be exempted, because of cultural sensitivities, from the evaluation process usually used before public health interventions are adopted. We argue that at the very least a broad dialogue should be started. Such a dialogue should debate the conceptual, philosophical and social implications of using religion-based interventions; review case studies and discuss lessons learnt in the Eastern Mediterranean Region and elsewhere; and develop recommendations and mechanisms for assessing the potential health impact and social impact of using religion-based interventions. This process should be guided by evidence evaluated in the same manner and with the same rigour as evidence used to assess other candidate health interventions. Another issue for debate is whether using religion in public health can be explored at a country level or regional level or whether it requires organization-level discussions and strategies. The first approach befits the decentralized nature of WHO and encourages national and regional initiatives and creativity. However, sensitive issues may need to be taken up more centrally and involve all countries in order to synthesize evidence from multiple settings and devise a strategy that makes sense to all. This applies not only to the use of religion but also to approaches at the opposite end of the spectrum, for example the use of symbols of consumerist culture, such as beauty queens, to promote tobacco control. While WHO should be involved in debating these issues, broader participation is also important to solicit a range of opinions. 14. Bush J, White M, Kai J, Rankin J, Bhopal R. Understanding influences on smoking in Bangladeshi and Pakistani adults: community based, qualitative study. BMJ 2003;326:962-7. [ Links ] 15. Sutherland I, Shepherd JP. Social dimensions of adolescent substance use. Addiction 2001;96:445-58. [ Links ] 16. Ahmed F, Brown DR, Gary LE, Saadatmand F. Religious predictors of cigarette smoking: findings for African American women of childbearing age. Behavioral Medicine 1994;20:34-43. [ Links ] 17. Maziak W, Asfar T, Mock J. Why most women in Syria do not smoke: can the passive barrier of traditions be replaced with an information-based one? Public Health 2003;117:237-41. [ Links ] 18. Smith MTS, Umenai T. Smoking among Buddhist monks in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Tobacco Control 2000;9:111. [ Links ] 19. Acik Y, Sezer RE, Karaman F, Sezer H, Oguzoncul F, Dinc E, et al. Smoking among religious professionals in Turkey. Tobacco Control 1998;7:326-7. [ Links ] 20. Chatter LM. Religion and health: public health research and practice. Annual Review of Public Health 2000;21:335-67. [ Links ] 23. Taket A, Kotecha M, Belling R. Evaluation of London-wide Ramadan campaign. London: South Bank University; 2003. [ Links ] 24. Reinert B, Campbell C, Carver V, Range LM. Joys and tribulations of faith-based youth tobacco use prevention: a case study in Mississippi. Health Promotion Practice 2003;4:228-35. [ Links ] 25. Yanek LR, Becker DM, Moy TF, Gittelsohn J, Koffman DM. Project Joy: faith based cardiovascular health promotion for African American women. Public Health Reports 2001;116 Suppl 1:S68-81. [ Links ] 26. Schorling JB, Roach J, Siegel M, Baturka N, Hunt DE, Guterbock TM, et al. A trial of church-based smoking cessation interventions for rural African Americans. Preventive Medicine 1997;26:92-101. [ Links ] 27. Swaddiwudhipong W, Chaovakiratipong C, Nguntra P, Khumklam P, Silarug N. A Thai monk: an agent for smoking reduction in a rural population. International Journal of Epidemiology 1993:22:660-5. [ Links ] 28. Influence of religious leaders on smoking cessation in a rural population Thailand, 1991. MMWR Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 1993;42:367-9. [ Links ] 29. Zaidi Q. British Heart Foundation speaks out in support of paper. BMJ 2003;327:165-6. [ Links ] 30. Ofili E, Igho-Pemu P, Bransford T. The prevention of cardiovascular disease in blacks. Current Opinion in Cardiology 1999;14:169-75. [ Links ] 31. Islam N. Tobacco control through Imams. Tropical Doctor 1998;28:122-3. [ Links ] 32. Lasater TM, Wells BL, Carleton RA, Elder JP. The role of churches in disease prevention research studies. Public Health Reports 1986;101:125-31. [ Links ] 33. World Health Organization Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean. Islamic rulings on smoking. The right path to health: health education through religion. Alexandria, Egypt: WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean; 1996. [ Links ] 34. Radwan GN, Israel E, El-Setouhy M, Abdel-Aziz F, Mikhail N, Mohamed MK. Impact of religious rulings (Fatwa) on smoking. Journal of the Egyptian Society of Parasitology 2003;33 Suppl 3:S1087-101. [ Links ] 35. World Health Organization. Meeting report on religion and health: Tobacco Free Initiative. Geneva: WHO; 1999. WHO document WHO/NCD/TFI/99.12. [ Links ] 36. World Health Organization Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean. Health Education through Religion series: the right path to health, 2004. Available from: http://www.emro.who.int/Publications/HealthEdReligion [ Links ] 37. World Health Organization. Tobacco or health: a global status report. Geneva: WHO; 1997. [ Links ] 39. Shafey O, Dolwick S, Guindon GE, editors. Tobacco control country profiles 2003. Atlanta (GA): American Cancer Society; 2003 (also available from ). [ Links ] 40. Sloan RP, Bagiella E, Powell T. Religion, spirituality and medicine. Lancet 1999;353:664-7. [ Links ]

Black Farmers Asssociation The Reverend Willie J. Burns is a black family farmer. Years ago, increasingly high operating costs in an increasingly unprofitable business forced him to turn to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for financial help. He applied for an operating loan (to help buy seed) and, unlike many of his white neighbors, he got his loan late, in the middle of the growing season, when much of its value (but not its interest) had been lost. He was put, again unlike his white neighbors, on a supervised loan, meaning the USDA needed proof he was spending the money appropriately. He wasnt allowed to access his money without his loan officers permission, and the running around, which he had to do to prove he was buying farm equipment eventually cost him days of labor, depleting his yield. This costly process repeated itself for several years. When he complained to his loan officer, the officer threatened to put Burns out of business. The USDA felt it was justified in following through on that threat and began the foreclosure procedure that would eventually have separated him from his livelihood Burns, one of 18,000 black farmers to seek reparations in a lawsuit against the USDA, managed to hold on to his property. Many others were not so lucky. Similar stories of unequal treatment are so common that many black farmers think discrimination is national policy. Eddie Slaughter, vice president of the Black Farmers and Agriculturists Association (BFAA), complains, this is standard operating procedure, that discrimination is actually supposed to take place because youre black. BFAA has been working for years to obtain justice for the black farmers suffering. Recently it looked as if they had succeeded when they reached a widely publicized settlement with the USDA. Farmers who passed a simplified claims process were promised $50,000, full debt relief, and other legal rewards. But, Tom Burrell of Tennessee remarks, Weve been duped again. All it is is more discrimination The original expectation that over 80 percent of the claims would be approved was made farcical by the enormous quantity of denials. Thousands of farmers were refused the right to file and most of the settlements that were reached did not include the promised debt relief. Many farmers received their check and owed it right back to the USDA. They remain in continued danger of foreclosure and farmers still in the claims process have been told by representatives of the government that they will lose their homes as soon as a decision leaves the courtroom. Discrimination cost Burns over $400,000 in lost revenues (the settlement was worth far less) and he worries that nothing is being done to correct the problems which brought him to court in the first place. Not one USDA employee has been fired for the widespread discrimination and farmers fear vengeance after a settlement, which, according to BFAA president Gary Grant, was not even a slap on the wrist. The worst punishment handed down by USDA authorities is the one-day suspension of a man who brought a loaded gun onto federal property in order to threaten black farmers. He still holds the same position as before and continues to hold power over their loan applications. Black farmers have held on for longer than anyone expected. Governmental reports in the 1980s and 1990s predicted that there would be no black farmers left by the turn of the millennium, but there are several thousand still working their farms. These holdouts will not last long if the USDA is allowed to continue its current policy. A successful legal appeal seems to be BFAAs only opportunity to stall the suffering of the black farmer and to prevent the end of family farming. Z

suffering from Athritis? Facts about Arthritis The Impact of Arthritis Millions of individuals around the world live with arthritis daily. An estimated 15% of people in the United States are affected by this disabling disease. The economic burden of arthritis is immense. The cost from medication expenses to missed days of work in America is several billion dollars yearly. The two most prevalent forms of arthritis are osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). OA is the most common joint disorder and is a leading cause of disability and pain, especially among the elderly. Over half of individuals over the age of 65 have radiographic (x-ray) evidence of OA. An estimated 80% of those in their eighth decade of life show signs of OA. Fortunately, not every person develops symptoms. While it is less common than OA, RA also affects millions of individuals worldwide, with an estimated prevalence from 0.3-1.5% of the population in North America. RA can occur at any age, with a peak incidence between the fourth and sixth decades of life. Although their causes and disease courses differ, both OA and RA can result in significant and disabling joint pain and damage with impaired activities of daily living, and substantial healthcare costs. The Arthritis Diet - Treatment Beyond Medication? Today there are many medications that are used in the treatment of arthritis. The main drug treatments for OA are primarily focused on pain relief and anti-inflammation. Drug treatment in RA also focuses on pain relief and anti-inflammation, as well as medications known as DMARDs (disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs), which aim to prevent further joint damage and progression of RA. Although drug therapy has proven to be beneficial in arthritis treatment among a majority of patients, the medications are not without risks. It is the undesirable side-effects and high associated costs of drug treatment that has motivated many patients to seek relief in what are commonly termed “alternative therapies.” Within this realm of alternative therapy is something that is a fundamental part of our daily lives—nutrition. Note to Readers For the purposes of this article, nutrition can be defined as a substance that provides nourishment to the body. This includes not only the food and beverages ingested daily, but also such things as cooking oils, vitamins, and other supplements. Many studies have looked at various components of nutrition and the effects of these components on arthritis and other diseases. Unfortunately, while there is no shortage of studies on nutrition and arthritis, there are several conflicting data regarding the relationship between nutrition and the development, progression, and symptoms of arthritis. Controlled studies of diet and nutrient supplementation effects on OA and RA are inherently difficult due to variability in clinical course of disease and the wide variety of individual responses to nutrition. The use of dietary questionnaires and varied adherence to assigned diets by study subjects also make an accurate and scientific study of nutrition very difficult. While there may be evidence supporting the benefits of a certain diet or nutrient for arthritis treatment or prevention, this does not imply a direct causal relationship. For example, a study that shows a significant association between Vitamin D intake and a decreased incidence of RA does not imply that taking more vitamin D will prevent RA in everyone. Rather, it offers evidence that a relationship exists between increased vitamin D intake and decreased chances of developing RA. The importance of medications in the treatment of arthritis should not be forgotten. Despite the cost and potential side-effects of traditional drug therapy for arthritis, millions of dollars are spent and numerous clinical trials are completed to ensure the efficacy of these medications. Sufficient evidence must be shown that medications are effective in the treatment of arthritis before these drugs are made available to patients. Unlike their alternative therapy counterparts, arthritis medications are followed closely to ensure their integrity and recognize significant side-effects associated with them. Herbal and over-the-counter remedies are currently exempt from legislation governing conventional medications. With this in mind, one should consider nutritional and supplemental treatments of arthritis as potential enhancements to traditional, proven medical therapy. Although nutritional adjuncts are often used for arthritis treatment, patients may be hesitant to report these uses to their doctors. Before beginning any change in arthritis treatment, including nutritional and dietary approaches, patients should be sure to speak with their physicians and discuss the potential benefits and side-effects of their new treatments. The remainder of this article will focus on the two most common forms of arthritis, RA and OA, and provide some information on the role of nutrition in their development, progression, and potential alleviation. Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a systemic inflammatory disease that typically occurs in the synovial membrane of joints, including the cervical spine, fingers, wrists, elbows, feet, and others. The chronic inflammatory process of RA can eventually lead to severe joint dysfunction and deformity. Although the exact mechanisms are unknown, the role of the immune system is considered paramount in this autoimmune disease. Specific components of the body’s natural immune system, such as T-cells and cytokines, have been implicated as the major players in RA and its progression. Within this paradigm, studies have generally tried to explain both the benefits and ill effects of nutritional components on their ability to modulate inflammation and inflammatory substances in the body. There is a genetic component to the development and progression of RA. However, many believe that environmental triggers, such as nutrition, can also play a role in RA, especially in those who are already genetically susceptible. Despite variation among study outcomes, several nutritional components have come to the forefront as candidates in the prevention and treatment of RA. A study involving 238 RA patients in England found that 44% of these individuals had used some sort of herbal or over-the-counter remedy in a 6 month period. Following are some of the more widely studied nutritive components and evidence supporting or disputing their use in the treatment of arthritis. Omega-3 Fatty Acids and Fish Oil Omega-3 fatty acids, also called n-3 PUFAs (polyunsaturated fatty acids), are a naturally occurring component of certain foods and oils. Omega-6 fatty acids are another type of PUFA. Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids are distinct and have opposing physiologic functions. Metabolism of omega-6 PUFA produces arachidonic acid (AA), which leads to certain pro-inflammatory cellular products. In contrast, metabolism of omega-3 PUFA, produces docosahexaenoic (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), which have anti-inflammatory effects that balance that of omega-6 fatty acids. Major omega-6 and omega-3 PUFAs are linoleic and alpha-linolenic acid, respectively. The body cannot produce these substances making them essential to the diet. It is thought that the increased consumption of omega-6 PUFA-rich vegetable oils, such as sunflower oils and spreads in today’s Western diets, has dramatically increased the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3, shifting the balance of cellular products to a more pro-inflammatory state. Sources of omega-3 fatty acids include: Flax seeds, seafood and fish such as chinook salmon, halibut, shrimp, and scallops, walnuts, cooked soybeans, raw tofu, winter squash, green leafy vegetables, as well as flaxseed oil and soya bean oil. Dietary sources rich in omega-3 PUFA can increase omega-3 fatty acid tissue concentrations, but these concentrations are hard to obtain in a regular diet. For this reason, and due to concern over mercury and other toxins in fresh fish, fish oil has recently become a popular supplement. Fish oil contains a high content of omega-3 fatty acids and are most often available in coated gel capsules. Dosages vary, and most recommended dosages can be quite high, in excess of 3-4 grams. People with diabetes, bleeding disorders and patients on blood-thinners should take caution when taking large doses of fish oil. Always discuss the potential risks and side effects before starting any new supplement with your doctor. In addition to health benefits in heart disease and several other conditions, beneficial effects of dietary supplementation of fish oil on RA has been observed in at least 13 double-blind, placebo controlled studies since 1985. A common feature of the studies has been a reduction in symptoms and in number of tender joints. Decreased morning stiffness and decreased dose of analgesic medications were also noted. One study reported a significant reduction in NSAID (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug) usage in patients receiving a fish oil supplement compared with those taking a placebo. Olive oil contains large amounts of an omega-9 MUFA (monounsaturated fatty acid) called oleic acid. Metabolism of oleic acid produces eicosatrienoic acid (ETA). Similar to omega-3 products, ETA competes with omega-6 PUFAs, tipping the scales to a less inflammatory state. Some have hypothesized that the prevalence of olive oil in Mediterranean diets is one reason for the reduced incidence of arthritis in Mediterranean populations. In a Greek population, consumers of high amounts of olive oil (almost daily throughout life) were four times less likely to develop RA than those subjects who consumed the oil less than six times per month. Although olive oil studies are not as common as fish oil studies, there is some evidence for the potential benefit of olive oil in arthritis. One study found that RA patients who consumed olive oil capsules (6g/day) had significant reduction in pain and joint symptoms at 6 months and some patients were able to reduce their dose of NSAIDs by 400 mg of ibuprofen/day. Another study found a significant trend between increased olive oil consumption and decreased risk of RA development. Although the strength of these studies is not ideal, they do present a small amount of evidence that olive oil can be beneficial in countering the inflammation of RA. With a virtually absent side-effect panel and a delicious food influence, it is certainly not unreasonable for arthritis patients to explore the option of incorporating olive oil into their diet. Some studies have looked at possible correlations between the consumption of red meat and the incidence of RA. Four controlled studies have looked at vegetarian diets and pooled results have implied that eliminating meat from the diet may be useful in the treatment of RA. These studies are difficult to interpret since the effect may be a result of excluding meat, or things such as increased fruit and vegetable intake (and subsequent vitamin C intake). One ecologic study including 16 countries demonstrated a positive correlation between the national prevalence of RA and the per capita consumption of red meat. Interestingly, another recent study from 2004 showed a higher level of total protein intake increased the risk of inflammatory arthritis by almost three-fold. The study concluded that high levels of red meat consumption is an independent risk factor for development of inflammatory arthritis, although they were unsure if this association was causative. One concept that may explain this apparent association is that red meat provides a dietary source of arachidonic acid (AA), the aforementioned cellular product that is involved with production of pro-inflammatory molecules. In addition to AA, red meat is also a large source of iron. In animal studies, iron has been shown to accumulate in rheumatoid synovial membranes, causing tissue damage. There is also evidence of iron-catalyzed oxidative reactions, shown to be causative in worsening synovial inflammation following iron infusions. Ironically, iron-deficiency anemia is not uncommon among RA patients. Although not proven, it has been hypothesized that some of these anemia cases could be caused by uptake of iron by inflamed synovial tissue. As individual needs and responses to diet may vary, arthritis patients should discuss any diet changes or reduction in dietary meat intake with their doctor and/or nutritionist prior to implementing any diet changes. Coffee and Green Tea Coffee and green tea, two of the most popular beverages in the world, have been tested in only a few arthritis studies, and they have produced conflicting inconclusive results. One study reported that greater than 3 cups of coffee per day, especially decaffeinated coffee, is a risk factor for RA development. Another recent study found no significant association between decaffeinated coffee consumption greater than 4 cups per day and risk of incident RA. This same study found no relationship between caffeinated coffee consumption over 4 cups per day, or regular tea consumption, and risk for RA. The Nurses’ Health Study is a very large, ongoing study of thousands of women. As of 2002, this study had found no significant association between drinking coffee or tea and the risk of RA. There are no human studies or evidence that green tea is effective for RA or other forms of arthritis. The anti-oxidant polyphenol compounds found in green tea are thought to reduce inflammation. As with many things, it appears that consumption in moderation may be the guideline for coffee and tea. However, one may wish to remove coffee from their diet for a period of time to see if its removal may prove beneficial for arthritis symptoms. Vitamin C is well-known for its purported benefits with such things as the common cold and for its role as an anti-oxidant. Studies of vitamin C for the treatment of arthritis have produced mixed results. One animal study showed a decrease of inflammatory cell infiltration into synovial fluid (the fluid that is present between certain joints in the body) with the supplementation of vitamin C. One human study from 1999 failed to show any beneficial effect of vitamin C on the synovial inflammatory process. A population-based study of UK residents looked at dietary intake and found that over time, patients who developed inflammatory arthritis consumed less vitamin C than matched controls. A Framingham study found that a high intake of vitamin C was associated with a three-fold decrease in risk of OA pain and progression. There are many who advocate taking very large doses of vitamin C for many different things. Although vitamin C toxicity is rare, it is possible with extremely large doses. No acute dose causing toxicity has been identified, but a chronic dose of 2 grams/day has been quoted. Signs may include renal colic (ie, nephrolithiasis), diarrhea, nausea, and occult blood in the stool. Dietary sources of vitamin C include citrus fruits, green peppers, strawberries, tomatoes, broccoli, sweet and white potatoes. The role of vitamin D in prevention of bone loss and building bone mass is well known. There are some studies that have looked at vitamin D intake and its correlation with RA. The Iowa Women’s Health Study looked at over 29,000 women and found that a greater intake of vitamin D may be associated with a lower risk of RA in older women. These results were not definitive by any means, but an interesting finding for further studies to build on. There are also animal studies supporting potential vitamin D benefit in RA. Arthritis patients taking steroids may be at risk for steroid-induced osteoporosis. Steroids can impair intestinal absorption of calcium. It is recommended that patients should at least meet recommended vitamin D as well as calcium dietary intake guidelines. Sources of vitamin D include cheeses, fortified milk and fortified cereals. As with other vitamins and supplements, overdose is possible with very large supplementation. Acute toxicity effects may include muscle weakness, apathy, headache, anorexia, nausea, vomiting, and bone pain. Chronic toxicity effects include the above symptoms and constipation, anorexia, polydipsia, polyuria, backache, hyperlipidemia, and hypercalcemia. Findings may also include calcinosis, followed by hypertension and cardiac arrhythmias. Acute toxic dose is not established, and chronic toxic dose is more than 50,000 IU/d in adults. In children, 400 IU/d is potentially toxic. A wide variance in potential toxicity exists. The recommended daily allowance is 400 IU for persons older than 1 year. Individual supplements are generally around 400 IU per tablet. Vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) is most frequently recognized for its anti-oxidant properties. Vitamin E deficiency and low tissue vitamin E has been reported to enhance inflammatory components of immune response. The ability of vitamin E to alleviate both OA and RA symptoms has been evaluated in studies, most of them of short duration. One study found that vitamin E worked better than NSAIDs for OA symptoms. Another molecular study demonstrated enhanced anti-inflammatory effects of aspirin with vitamin E supplementation, suggesting a reduction in the dosage of aspirin needed for RA symptoms. Other studies have produced conflicting results. Arthritis patients may find benefit with vitamin E supplementation. Recommended daily allowance is from 15-30 mg. Although it is very rare, toxicity can occur at very high doses. The potentially toxic dose is more than 3000 IU/d for 7-9 weeks. Supplements usually are 100-1000 IU per capsule. People with heart problems, or at risk for heart problems, should use Vitamin E with caution and only after a careful conversation with their doctor. While some studies have suggested improved cardiovascular health with Vitamin E supplementation, at least one study has shown that in people with a history of coronary artery disease, Vitamin E may negatively influence outcomes. Different medications may affect the relationship between Vitamin E and outcome. Again, as with starting any supplement, discuss the potential pros and cons with your doctor. Signs of toxicity from Vitamin E may include bleeding, especially in people taking blood-thinners. Dietary sources for vitamin E include whole grains, nuts, wheat germ, green leafy vegetables, and some oils. It is hypothesized that selenium levels drop in response to inflammation and that selenium supplementation may have anti-inflammatory effects. Studies of selenium supplementation in RA patients have produced conflicting results. One of the largest studies reported a significant decrease in RA symptoms, reduced reliance on cortisone and NSAIDs, and a significant decrease in biochemical inflammation markers in a group receiving selenium. However, both placebo and study groups were receiving fish oil as well. Although levels of selenium are low in RA patients, it should be noted that the human body requires only very small amounts of selenium. Side-effects of selenium supplementation may include nausea, vomiting, nail changes, and fatigue. Good dietary sources of selenium include crab, liver, fish, poultry, and wheat. More studies on selenium supplementation in arthritis patients are needed to accurately evaluate any benefits it may have. GLA (gamma-linolenic acid) GLA is also known as evening primrose oil or black currant oil. Several studies have shown that GLA can ease RA pain and inflammation in humans. GLA is an omega-6 fatty acid that, unlike the other aforementioned omega-6 fatty acids, can possibly have an anti-inflammatory effect. GLA is available in capsules as well as oil, with a usual dosage of approximately 1800 mg per day. It is possible that GLA can enhance the effects of blood-thinners, leading to bleeding, as well as cause nausea, diarrhea, and abdominal pain. There are also potential drug interactions that can occur with GLA supplementation and one should always speak with a physician prior to beginning GLA supplementation. Folate and B12 Folate and B12 may be of particular importance to those RA patients taking methotrexate, a very common DMARD used in the treatment of RA. A Cochrane review of seven trials described a positive effect of folic and folinic acid supplementation in reducing gastrointestinal side-effects of low-dose methotrexate in RA patients. A 79% reduction in mucosal and gastrointestinal side-effects were observed with folic acid supplementation alone, with no apparent differences between low and high dose folic acid. Patients taking methotrexate for their RA may want to discuss folic acid supplementation with their physicians. Although it is not considered a nutrient, cigarette smoke is, unfortunately, a daily intake for many individuals. Cigarette smoking has consistently been found to be a risk factor for the development of RA and other inflammatory arthritis conditions. This risk factor is within every person’s control, and smoking cessation should be considered a top priority for arthritis patients. Following are a few links that provide assistance with smoking cessation: Nutrition and Osteoarthritis Osteoarthritis (OA), also known as degenerative joint disease, results primarily from the normal wear-and-tear of daily joint use. Over time the cartilage between bones begins to erode, leaving narrowed joint spaces, abnormal bone remodeling, often associated with pain. Unlike the systemic nature of RA, OA tends to be more focused, with a predilection for weight-bearing joints such as knees and hips. Although OA is not considered an inflammatory disease, there is evidence for pro-inflammatory cells of the body playing a role in its development and progression. For this reason, it would appear that some of the nutritional supplements mentioned above for RA treatment could theoretically be beneficial in the treatment of OA as well. Although the vast majority of studies focusing on nutrition and arthritis are focused towards RA, it is not unreasonable for OA patients to discuss supplements and dietary factors with their physician. One large study found that OA progressed three times faster in people who consumed low amounts of vitamin D. Others have shown that vitamin D intake decreased incidence and progression of hip OA. There are two supplements that have been studied extensively for treatment of OA. Glucosamine is a supplement derived from the chitin shells of crab, lobster, and shrimp. Chondroitin sulfate is derived from cattle trachea. Both of these supplements have shown promise as alternative treatments of OA. Studies have provided evidence that both supplements can help with the pain and stiffness of OA, and possibly prevent further cartilage damage. Glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate are often sold as a combination in a single capsule. Many different brands exist, but one should be aware that the quality of individual brands may vary significantly. Although side effects are rare, it is possible that people with shellfish allergies could have a reaction to glucosamine. The recommended dose of chondroitin sulfate is 1200 mg per day, divided into two doses, while the usual glucosamine dosage is 1500-2000 mg per day taken in two doses. The Impact of Weight on Osteoarthritis A major risk factor for OA is excess body mass. Population-based studies have shown that overweight people carry a greater risk of knee OA than people of average weight. Extra weight increases risk for getting OA in knees and possibly hips, especially in women. In men, extra weight can also increase risk for gout. Long-term studies also suggest that obese individuals with knee OA are at greater risk for disease progression and weight loss may decrease the symptoms of knee OA. Research in 2004 demonstrated that exercise and diet together significantly improve physical function and reduce knee pain in people older than 60 who are overweight or obese, according to both the Arthritis Foundation and the American College of Rheumatology. Maintaining normal weight is a crucial component in the prevention of OA, as well as in managing the symptoms and progression of OA. Faced with the obesity epidemic in the United States today, people are increasingly at risk for development of OA. OA and obesity can interplay in a potentially vicious cycle. Weight loss and exercise are clearly beneficial, but as OA symptoms progress it can become difficult to tolerate exercises. For this reason, exercises that decrease weight bearing such as biking, running on an elliptical machine, and swimming are often recommended. Obese individuals often show an increase in inflammatory molecules in their system, and weight loss is usually associated with decreased concentrations of these inflammatory substances in the circulation. One study looked at the effect of weight loss on production of inflammatory molecules from adipose (fat) tissue. Results showed that weight loss resulted in decreased expression of inflammatory markers in the fat tissue of subjects, as well as an increase expression of anti-inflammatory molecules. Another study looked at the knee joints of 142 obese and overweight OA patients, and the effect of an 18-month diet and exercise trial on the forces placed on these joints. The results showed a significant association between weight loss and the forces applied to knee joints. They concluded that each pound of weight lost resulted in a 4-fold reduction in knee loads. An additional study showed that weight loss of 11.2 pounds over a 10-year period decreased the likelihood of developing knee OA by over 50%. Clearly, in terms of nutrition, weight loss through a healthy lifestyle and diet lies at the heart of the matter for OA prevention and treatment. Diet should be tailored to each individual, especially those with pre-existing medical conditions such as diabetes or food intolerances. The help of a registered dietician is never a bad idea. These individuals can be helpful in setting up diet programs and answering questions about nutrition and supplementation. They can also provide different menus and recipes to promote healthy variety in daily meals. Occupational and physical therapists are also a valuable addition to diet and exercise. Clement K, et al. (2004) Weight loss regulates inflammation-related genes in white adipose tissue of obese subjects. FASEB J; 18: 1657-1669 Curtis CL, et al. (2004) Biological bsis for the benefit of nutraceutical supplementation in arthritis. Drug Discov Today; 9(4): 165-172 Handout on Health: Rheumatoid Arthritis. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. <http://www.niams.nig.gov/hi/topics/arthritis/rahandout.htm>. Accessed 2005 Sep 25. Holden W, et al. (2005) Use of herbal remedies and potential drug interactions in rheumatology outpatients. Ann Rheum Dis; 64: 790 Karlson EW, et al. (2003) Coffee consumption and risk of rheumatoid arthritis. Arthritis Rheum; 48(11): 3055-3060 Kimmo A, et al. (2004) Risk factors for rheumatoid arthritis. Ann Med; 36(4): 242-251 Merlino LA, et al. (2004) Vitamin D intake is inversely associated with rheumatoid arthritis. Arthritis Rheum; 50(1): 72-77 Messier, SP, et al. (2005) Weight loss reduces knee-joint loads in overweight and obese older adults with knee osteoarthritis. Arthritis Rheum; 52(7): 2026-2032 Miggiano GAD, et al. (2005) Dieta, nutrizione e artrite reumatoide. Clin Ter; 156(3): 115-123 Miles EA, et al. (2005) Differential anti-inflammatory effects of phenolic compounds from extra virgin olive oil identified in human whole blood cultures. Nutrition; 21: 389-394 Pattison DJ, et al. (2004) Dietary risk factors for the development of inflammatory polyarthritis. Arthritis Rheum; 50(12): 3804-3812 Pattison, DJ, et al. (2004) Does diet have a role in the aetiology of rheumatoid arthritis? P Nutr Soc; 63: 137-143 Pattison DJ, et al. (2004) The role of diet in susceptibility to rheumatoid arthritis: a systematic review. J Rheumatol; 31(7): 1310-1319 Pattison, DJ, et al. (2004) Vitamin C and the risk of developing inflammatory polyarthritis: prospective nested case-control study. Ann. Rheum. Dis; 63: 843-847 Rados, Carol. 2005 March-April. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. FDA Consumer magazine. . Accessed 2005 Sep 25. Rennie KL, et al. (2003) Nutritional management of rheumatoid arthritis: a review of the evidence. Journ Hum Nutr Dietet; 16: 97-109 Rindfleisch JA, et al. (2005) Diagnosis and management of rheumatoid arthritis. Am Fam Physician; 72(6): 1037-1047 Simopoulos AP, et al. (2002) Omega-3 fatty acids in inflammation and autoimmune diseases. J Am Col Nutr; 21(6): 495-505 Wahle, K, et al. (2004) Olive oil and modulation of cell signaling in disease prevention. Lipids; 39(12): 1223-1229

Who we learn from and with can profoundly influence our beliefs. There's no obvious way to compensate. Is it time to panic? During one of my epistemology classes, my professor admitted (I can't recall the context) that his opinions on the topic would probably be different had he attended a different graduate school. What a peculiar thing for an epistemologist to admit! Of course, on the one hand, he's almost certainly right. Schools have their cultures, their traditional views, their favorite literature providers, their set of available teachers. These have a decided enough effect that I've heard "X was a student of Y" used to mean "X holds views basically like Y's". And everybody knows this. And people still show a distinct trend of agreeing with their teachers' views, even the most controversial - not an unbroken trend, but still an obvious one. So it's not at all unlikely that, yes, had the professor gone to a different graduate school, he'd believe something else about his subject, and he's not making a mistake in so acknowledging... But on the other hand... but... but... But how can he say that, and look so undubiously at the views he picked up this way? Surely the truth about knowledge and justification isn't correlated with which school you went to - even a little bit! Surely he knows that! And he does - and so do I, and it doesn't stop it from happening. I even identified a quale associated with the inexorable slide towards a consensus position, which made for some interesting introspection, but averted no change of mind. Because what are you supposed to do - resolutely hold to whatever intuitions you walked in with, never mind the coaxing and arguing and ever-so-reasonable persuasions of the environment in which you are steeped? That won't do, and not only because it obviates the education. The truth isn't anticorrelated with the school you go to, either! Even if everyone collectively attempted this stubbornness only to the exact degree needed to remove the statistical connection between teachers' views and their students', it's still not truth-tracking. An analogy: suppose you give a standardized English language test, determine that Hispanics are doing disproportionately well on it, figure out that this is because many speak Romance languages and do well with Latinate words, and deflate Hispanic scores to even out the demographics of the test results. This might give you a racially balanced outcome, but on an individual level, it will unfairly hurt some monolingual Anglophone Hispanics, and help some Francophone test-takers - it will not do as much as you'd hope to improve the skill-tracking ability of the test. Similarly, flattening the impact of teaching on student views won't salvage truth-tracking of student views as though this trend never existed; it'll just yield the same high-level statistics you'd get if that bias weren't operating. Lots of biases still live in your head doing their thing even when you know about them. This one, though, puts you in an awfully weird epistemic situation. It's almost like the opposite of belief in belief - disbelief in belief. "This is true, but my situation made me more prone than I should have been to believe it and my belief is therefore suspect. But dang, that argument my teacher explained to me sure was sound-looking! I must just be lucky - those poor saps with other teachers have it wrong! But of course I would think that..." It is possible, to an extent, to reduce the risk here - you can surround yourself with cognitively diverse peers and teachers, even if only in unofficial capacities. But even then, who you spend the most time with, whom you get along with best, whose style of thought "clicks" most with yours, and - due to competing biases - whoever agrees with you already will have more of an effect than the others. In practice, you can't sit yourself in a controlled environment and expose yourself to pure and perfect argument and evidence (without allowing accidental leanings to creep in via the order in which you read it, either). I'm not even sure if it's right to assign a higher confidence to beliefs that you happen to have maintained - absent special effort - in contravention of the general agreement. It seems to me that people have trains of thought that just seem more natural to them than others. (Was I the only one disconcerted by Eliezer announcing high confidence in Bayesianism in the same post as a statement that he was probably "born that way"?) This isn't even a highly reliable way for you to learn things about yourself, let alone the rest of the world: unless there's a special reason your intuitions - and not those of people who think differently - should be truth-tracking, these beliefs are likely to represent where your brain just happens to clamp down really hard on something and resist group pressure and that inexorable slide.

Greece has long been a popular cruising and charter destination for megayachts, particularly among Americans. The country’s rich history, tranquil anchorages, beautiful beaches, friendly people, and of course fantastic food are just some of the many reasons. Even with the severity of its economic crisis, tourism is not waning. In fact, visitors to Greek islands and ancient ruins regularly pump about 15 percent into the economy and help pay for one in five jobs. In addition, the United Nations estimates that Greek tourism will rise 20 percent this year. If you’ve never cruised Greek waters, you’re in for a treat. The Cycladic Islands, which include the famed isles of Mykonos and Santorini, are among the favorites of Megayacht News’ editor, Diane M. Byrne. They’re also a favorite of many charter brokers. Missy Johnston of Northrop & Johnson Worldwide Yacht Charters is among them, and she suggests the following weeklong itinerary. Among the yachts available there is the 162-foot O’ceanos (pictured). One word of warning, however: The Meltemi winds can blow at anytime during the warm months from May to October. If they’re blowing too strongly, cruising through the Cycladic Islands may not be possible, so another alternative itinerary through protected islands will be arranged. Day 1: Athens to Kea Join your yacht in Athens, unpack, and relax as you begin your cruise to Kea, a 40-mile steam. The exceptionally picturesque island lies 15 miles from the southeast coast of Attica. The mountain masses, encountered in most of the Cyclades, are broken up by small valleys sparsely planted with vines and fruit trees and run right down to the sea, opening out into pretty little bays. Visit one of the island’s peaceful beaches at Pisses, Korissia, or Koundouros. Cruise to the western side of the island into Agios Nikolaos Bay and deep within it to the port of Korissia, which is considered to be one of the safest natural harbors in the Mediterranean. Overnight in the port of Korissia, perhaps enjoying evening mezes (appetizers) or dinner at a harborside traditional Greek taverna, many of which offer fresh seafood. Day 2: Tinos and Mykonos Cruise to Tinos, the “Holy Island of the Cyclades.” It’s site of the Church of Evangelistria, which houses an icon of the Annunciation that draws thousands of Orthodox Christian visitors, especially on the feast day of August 15. On Tinos, there are plenty of good beaches as well, most notably the ones at Agios Fokas near the town, Kionia, Porto, Panormos Bay, Kolimbithra, Agios Sostis, and Pahia Amos. The lunar-type landscape at the spot known as Volax, with its peculiar boulders, is worth a visit. Also make sure you purchase, or at least sample, the locally made, high-grade cheeses like kopanisti and mitzithra. Cruise in the afternoon to Mykonos (above). Quite cosmopolitan, Mykonos justifiably attracts tourists from all over the world. The capital Chora, with its colorful harbor dotted with fishing boats nested happily side by side with luxury yachts, presents quite a different picture from that of the majority of Aegean island towns. One of the most charming districts of Chora is Little Venice. Pretty houses belonging to the island’s sea captains are built right on the rocks, lashed by the sea. You’ll also see the island’s mascot, Petros the pelican, which can be seen trying to bite tourists along the main quay. Spend time wandering the many alleyways of Chora, filled with shops and boutiques. This island is also well known for high-end jewelry. Later, stop and sit at a harborside cafe for a cool drink and watch the world go by. At night, check out the happening bars and discos, some of which are open until sunrise. Day 3: Delos and Paros Late morning, cruise just a few miles and anchor off Delos, taking the yacht’s tender to the quay. This spiritual island can only be visited during daylight. Delos was the religious capital of the Ionians in 1,000 BC. According to Greek mythology, Leto, one of Zeus’ lovers, gave birth to Apollo on Delos. Delos’ greatest period was in the 3rd to 4th century BC, when the tiny island had a population of 20,000 and was the chief financial center and slave market in the Mediterranean. Wander through the excavated ruins, such as the Avenue of the Lions, the theater, and many one and two-story houses with mosaic floors, like the House of the Trident. A flight of steps ascends to the island’s summit, Mt. Kynthos, the birthplace of Apollo. After working up a thirst, head back for a swim and have lunch on the aft deck of your yacht. Then, cruise to Paros, the third-largest of the Cycladic Islands. Gently rolling hills surround the center and southeast of the island, which are covered with endless vineyards. Definitely visit Monastery of Katapyliani (“Church of a Hundred Gates”). It’s in a wooded park near the harbor and one of the most important Christian monuments in Greece. Along the beaches near Naoussa, huge rocks have eroded into strange shapes, like sculptures in the sand. Anchor off Langeri, a secluded sandy beach, or off of Drios beach, where a fabulous fish taverna is ideal for dinner. Day 4: Ios, Santorini Cruise to Ios, locally called Nios, an island dating to prehistoric times. Homer is said to have been buried at Plakotos, at the northern end. Ios also has the remains of an ancient aqueduct, an ancient temple, a ruined Venetian castle, and more. Exploring the capital means walking, so depart your yacht in the cool part of the morning. One hour is enough to enjoy its whitewashed village, perched on the slope between the port and Mylopotas. Then, enjoy Ios’ excellent beaches, like Kalamos, a natural reserve on the eastern coast; Papa; and Manganari. After lunch, cruise to Santorini (above). As you approach its black cliffs of volcanic rock, it’s easy to imagine the cataclysmic volcanic eruption that created this crescent-shaped island. The main town, Thera, is atop the cliff. There are three ways to get there from Skala, the main port: mule, foot, or cable car. The most popular is mule. Also be sure to take the yacht’s tender to Nea Kammeni, where hot air and sulphuric steam still rise from the volcanic crater. The land is warm, so wear sturdy shoes and take plenty of water. Hot springs exist at the nearby Palia Kammeni, where the sea is sulphur blue. Santorini is well worth exploring over a few days. Most people want to visit the two towns of Thera and Oia. Both tumble down the sides of the Caldera, with the patio of one building resting on the roof of the building below. Thera is filled with shops and boutiques of designer goods as well as locally made items like lace. Oia is more of an artist’s colony and is filled with art galleries. Inland is the Boutari Winery, with a showroom for tastings. (The unusual black sand, volcanic in nature, produces excellent grapes.) Don’t miss the excavation site of Akrotiri, an ancient settlement some believe is the lost city of Atlantis. If not open, visit the artifact museum in Thera. Day 6: Sifnos Cruise in the afternoon to Sifnos, a mountainous island dating to 3000 BC, with fertile valleys and beautiful beaches. The first inhabitants were the Kareans and the Phoenicians, famed for their wealth, which came from gold and silver mines plus stone quarries. Kastro, Sifnos’ capital from the 14th to the 19th centuries, retains medieval character. The town was built on a rocky outcrop with an almost sheer drop to the sea on three sides. There is also a small archaeological museum, which exhibits a collection of Archaic and Hellenistic sculpture and ceramics from ancient times to the Byzantine era. There are clean and attractive beaches all over the island. Platygialos is a large sheltered beach, Vathi is one of the most beautiful beaches in Greece with fine sand, and Apokofto is a sandy beach with a rocky shelf near Chrysopigi. To overnight, cruise to Herronissos, another traditional fishing village on the northern end. It’s renowned for handmade ceramics, sold in the village shops. Day 7: Serifos, Kithnos As your yacht glides into the port of Livadi, you’ll glimpse the towering hills of Serifos flecked with the white, sugar-cube houses, landmarks of the Cycladic Islands. Perseus, the mythological hero who killed Medusa, was born on Serifos. The greatest attraction of Serifos is its magnificent beaches. The beach of Psilli Ammos, which lies about 2 km to the east of Livadi, beckons with the softest and whitest sand. Close to the monastery of Moni Taxiarchon is Platis Gialos Bay, ringed by three small, nice beaches. Koutalas is an attractive village with a beautiful bay and a lovely beach, secluded from the winds. After anchoring in a beautiful bay for lunch, in the afternoon cruise to Kithnos, an island named after Kithno, king of the first settlers, the Dryopians. Thermia is what many locals call it, due to the many thermal springs. Kithnos has shops selling beautiful folk-art objects, shells, leather products, ceramics, wood carvings, and vividly colored woven fabrics. The island is also packed with pretty little bays. Chora or Messaria is the island’s capital, noted for churches with fine wood-carved sanctuary screens and icons. Also visit the Church of Panagia Flambouriani, in the village of Flambouria, southwest of the town of Kithnos. According to tradition, there are traces from the steps of the Virgin all the way from the beach to the church.

Violent crime in England and Wales has risen 14%, Home Office figures show. Violent crime has risen in recent months There were 289,500 violent crimes recorded between July and September last year, compared with 253,000 during the same period in 2002. But ministers say part of the increase has resulted from new methods in the way police record crimes. Overall crime rates remained stable, with significant falls in burglaries and vehicle crimes. Click here to see change in crime rates But the British Crime Survey - regarded by ministers as a more reliable indicator of trends - suggests violent crime actually dropped 3% in the year to September. The BCS also indicates a slight fall in overall crime rates over the same period. There is also evidence that people are less worried about crime than they used to be. RECORDED CRIME RATES Violent crime: 289,500 (2003) 253,000 (2002) +14% Sexual offences: 14,000 (2003) 12,900 (2002) +8% Serious violence: 11,800 (2003) 10,000 (2002) +18% Firearms deaths: 81 (2003) 97 (2002) -16% Home Office Minister, Hazel Blears, said changes in police recording procedures introduced in 2002 with the National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS) explained much of the apparent rise in violence. Better recording, said Ms Blears, meant police forces now had a clearer picture of crime in their areas. Anti-social behaviour and "low-level thuggery" - both included in violent crime figures - were also more accurately recorded. "We are also encouraging victims to report crimes, especially violent and sexual offences, and we would expect to see a rise in these figures." Overall crime 'stable' According to the BCS, overall crime was down 1% compared to the same quarter in 2002, while burglary, robbery and vehicle crime, fell significantly. The police figures suggested overall crime remained stable. President of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) Chris Fox said: "It is good news that reported crime generally is not rising, and in many categories continues to fall. But he said the rise in violent crime remained a "particular concern", although he noted the BCS had suggested a fall in violent offences over the period. The BCS figures are based on interviews with 36, 854 adults living in private households in England and Wales. The fieldwork was carried out by BMRB Social Research between October 2002 and September 2003. 'Slowdown' in gun crime Meanwhile, separate gun crime figures indicate a two per cent increase in firearm offences in the year to March 2003. The figures came as the Home Office announced that offenders possessing illegal firearms would from now on receive a mandatory five-year prison sentence. It said the gun crime figures showed "a dramatic slowdown" compared to a 34% increase the previous year. But they also pointed to a 46% rise in the use of imitation firearms, with 1,815 recorded offences.

An article in 2012, many [worker wellness programs] offer discounted premiums to workers who meet standards related to blood pressure, cholesterol and weight, with the value of those discounts running between $30 and $60 a month, says Jim Pshock, founder and CEO of Bravo Wellness in Avon, Ohio. Pshock administers such wellness programs for about 220 employers nationwide, including Colorado construction firm Oakwood Homes and Nashville’s Ardent Health Services. Although employers may set specific goals — such as a body mass index (BMI) below the 30, the level considered obese — many also reward achievement of less daunting targets. One employer rewarded workers if their test results didn’t get any worse, Pshock says. At Swiss Village, workers get $500 off their deductible for each of these measures: not smoking, having a BMI of 27.5 or less, a low-density lipoprotein cholesterol level (LDL) of 130 milligrams per deciliter or less, and blood pressure of 130/85 or less. LDL levels above 129 are associated with higher risk of heart disease, while blood pressure greater than 120/80 is considered a risk factor for heart attack and stroke. Starting in 2014, federal law allows employers to raise the value of the perk or penalty from 20 percent of the cost of a worker’s health insurance plan, to 30 percent. Based on the average cost of employer-offered insurance today, that means firms will be able to offer annual discounts or penalties of more than $4,500 a family, or $1,600 for individuals. Employers will still have to craft plans to comply with federal and, in some cases, state requirements, Volpp says. The programs must be voluntary — meaning an employer can’t require a worker to participate as a condition of coverage. And the employer must offer a "reasonable alternative" to qualify for the reward, or to avoid the penalty for those who can’t achieve the sought-after medical goals. Of the employers who offer such programs, about one-third offer financial incentives to those who undergo specific medical tests, according to the Aon Hewitt survey. And 5 percent of those tie the financial rewards or penalties to meeting specific medical-based standards. The survey also found the use of medical screening tests poised to expand to family members: 57 percent of employers said they planned to add incentives for spouses and dependents in the next three to five years. Faced with crippling healthcare costs, the number of employers embracing such programs shot up from 49 percent in 2010 to 54 percent last year — and more say they expect to do so soon, according to a survey by consultants Aon Hewitt. Big-name participants include insurer UnitedHealthcare, car rental firm Hertz, postage meter maker Pitney Bowes and media owner Gannett, owner of USA TODAY. And more employers are expected to adopt them starting in 2014, when the health law allows them to offer larger incentives or penalties than they can now.

This time of year I’m full of tumult and can hardly sleep at night because of unformed emotions swirling through my head. It’s not the change in the weather, which is usually welcome, but the beginning of school. From beginning kindergarten -- where I was late joining and therefore never part of the social structure -- to the beginning of first grade -- where I didn’t understand the explanation of lunch and just went home -- where I found the house terrifyingly empty. From the beginning of high school where I was convinced I’d be assaulted and isolated to the beginning of undergrad college at NU which was like being dropped out of an airplane with no parachute. My terror was only exceeded by my confusion. When I began to teach, it was no better. I only taught because I couldn’t think what else there was. Not much in those days. By the time I got to Div School in 1978, just turning forty, I was focused. I knew what I wanted and I was getting it. In fact, I was so “into” it that my classmates, all five of them in their early twenties, said they were embarrassed by my enthusiasm. Too bad for them. I was through being bullied. Church starting in the fall never felt risky. We were glad to get moving again. The year I reluctantly tried to return to teaching in Cut Bank (2001? 2002?) was a plunge back into the torture chamber of never knowing what was going on and hating it when I figured it out. By then the bullying was rampant and the worst was superintendent/principal-on-teacher. I’m parting out the family albums and came across these photos: Every year on the first day of school my father took ceremonial photos. This is me and my brother Mark in 1947. I was not quite eight, so Mark had just turned six. Paul (not in the photo) was three, too young for school. To my parents, raised rural, school was a big deal. New clothes, new shoes, new school supplies. I had finally escaped sausage curls. Some people stop parenting kids along in here, thinking they are old enough to take care of themselves. This is 1948. Mark scored cowboy boots! And somehow I managed to get patent leather ankle straps. Normally I had to wear “sturdy shoes” and in winter thick full-length stockings with a garter belt that went over my shoulders to hold them up because I had no waist. This dress was a hand-me-down, but I loved hand-me-downs because they were always fancier than clothes off the rack or, more likely, dresses my mother made. Plaid was always the school starting pattern. I don’t know why. I liked it. This is Vernon School, a very big place made of brick. There was a predecessor building of wood that burned. (It was at night and no one was killed or hurt but they say it was spectacular.) We sat on this grassy bank to watch General MacArthur go by waving from a convertible after Truman fired him, which MacArthur interpreted as a triumph. These kids -- trust me -- are not talking on cell phones! I don't know why their hands are up. Notice that no one has a proper lunch pail -- just paper sacks. We were still living in the shadow of WWII, always conscious of the looming Korean War. It was not just the Cold War, but the Coldest and Most Alien War. They tell us now that school -- as we organize it -- is meant to prepare us to work in factories -- that the whole system of grades and testing was based on manufacturing assembly lines. Manufacturing = middle class = wages = buying power. The humanities were signs of prosperity and privilege more than achievement. Very dictated, very English. But it was an Age of Wonders according to the magazines, esp. “Life,” which had shown us the war. One million veterans used the GI Bill to go to college. Consider what my history overview book lists in 1947: Princess Elizabeth got married. Camus wrote “The Plague” and Tennessee Williams wrote “A Streetcar Named Desire.” The Dead Sea Scolls were found and the sound barrier was broken for the first time by an airplane. Thor Heyerdahl crossed the Pacific on a raft and Bell laboratories invented the transistor. Henry Ford and Al Capone died. Dior introduced the “New Look” -- torpedo bras, tiny waists, and big skirts. Abstract expressionism was in and Jackson Pollock was becoming famous. In short, all the new ideas that always emerge from war technology and massive shifts in population were changing the world. In these years I had a hard time. My growing long bones tortured me with leg aches, my developing adrenals (I guess) gave me far more trouble than when I hit puberty -- that is, night terrors. My teeth hurt. I needed glasses but no one listened to my whining about not being able to see, or maybe they’d say, “Well, you read too much.” My father’s concussion and my mother’s loss of her mother both happened in this two year period. We kids all had measles, chicken pox, and something more serious -- maybe scarlet fever -- but not whooping cough. We’d been vaccinated for smallpox. The girl next door had died of polio but that was before we were born. Pneumonia, tonsillitis -- they were expected. Also worms and funguses. We ate dirt, not quite on purpose. Our immune systems were pretty tough. I was lonesome. Except for books. In those days we weren’t told anything, much less got explanations or even a chance to ask questions. Only recently have I realized that a strange secret on our street was that one of the boys who babysat us had committed suicide by hanging in Forest Park, a big woodsy area of Portland where gays met even in those days. I don’t know any more than that raw fact and the big dark area in conversations among grown women on the street. I had my own ideas about self-therapy, probably from a book. When I was most terrified, I would pretend I was talking to myself at age forty, which I was certain would be old enough to understand everything. When I hit forty, I was in seminary. Asking more questions. Remembering, I tried to frame up some kind of advice to myself at eight. Didn’t come up with much. At nearly seventy-three I have more ideas. Among the best is abolishing public schools in the form they take now. Totally reworking the education of teachers. I still like one-room schoolhouses, though when Piegan Institute tried to return to them for the Blackfeet Immersion School, the teachers found they lost too much in terms of efficiency and scale. There are things you can do with fifty kids that you can’t with ten, not least of which is teacher collaboration. But that was before the Internet. Mentioning Cuts Wood School leads me to the not-so-irrelevant comment that at Vernon (in Portland, Oregon) there were two exceptional elementary teachers who were American Indian: Miss Colbert was my fourth grade teacher and Mrs. Eagle was the one who figured out that Mark’s missing puzzle piece that kept him from reading was simply phonics. A little drill and he was on his way. I think they felt their classes were tribes rather than assembly lines. They valued community more than manufacturing.

Once in a while, the stars – or molecules – align such that a career trajectory happens to converge neatly with advances in science and technology. Steven Hall, PhD, who manages the Sandler-Moore Mass Spectrometry (SMMS) Core Facility at UCSF, is a case in point. As one of more than 80 core facilities at UCSF, the SMMS Core Facility makes its services available to all campus investigators, including those affiliated with the University at the Gladstone Institutes and San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The SMMS Core Facility also serves as the mass spectrometry core for the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. The lab has five mass spectrometers, all dedicated to the science of proteomics, which entails answering biological questions by investigating the structure of proteins at the molecular level. The high cost of the instruments (one mass spectrometer can cost anywhere from $300,000 to $1 million) requires that institutions adopt a time-sharing approach to their use. Hall and his staff maintain the equipment and conduct the analyses. His title is director of operations, but the words hardly do justice to the job’s complexity. Not only are the scheduling a challenge and the science complex, but the job requires a heavy dose of diplomacy as well. “You’re interacting with any faculty who walk through the door, as well as postdocs and grad students,” Hall said. “They’re all passionate about their research, they want you to know all about it and they have all these questions they want answers to,” he said. “So myself and our staff have to be able to talk science at different levels according to individual investigators’ varying backgrounds.” Though mass spectrometry can be crucial to the success of an investigator’s work, research labs seldom need it on more than an occasional basis. Still, the facility is in consistently high demand from a wide variety of researchers, many of whom want their data yesterday. Hall also has the occasional task of breaking disappointing news to researchers who arrive at the facility filled with hope. Mass spectrometry, an analytical technique for determining molecular mass, isn’t new. The technique has existed since the late 1800s. However, thanks to technological advances over the last 30 years, mass spectrometry is now amenable to protein analysis. Mass spectrometers measure the molecular mass of proteins and peptides (pieces of proteins) and have many applications. For example, information regarding a protein’s structure enables scientists to determine how drugs might target the protein by fitting into its structure. Alternatively, mass spectrometry can determine molecular structural differences between proteins isolated from the blood of a breast cancer patient and those from a healthy woman. This latter example highlights the relatively new translational research area of discovery and validation of the protein biomarkers of disease, a field in which mass spectrometry will continue to play a prominent role. And given its potential for answering basic scientific questions about protein structure, mass spectrometry is often a path on which researchers pin their hopes. That’s where the diplomacy – and education, mixed with finesse in the art of the gentle letdown, while maintaining hope – comes in. “Mass spectrometry can answer a lot of questions, but there are also many that it can’t answer,” Hall said. “A lot of times, some of the questions investigators have can’t be answered by mass spectrometry. It might give them information that leads them down a different path, but it won’t give them the answers they’re looking for.” In such cases, Hall finds himself in the role of educator. “Despite being a very powerful technique, many investigators have preconceived notions about the limitations of mass spectrometry, which is perfectly understandable, given that protein mass spectrometry is a constantly evolving field,” Hall said. “In these situations, it’s our job to educate them regarding the capabilities within the core facility and then, together, craft a rational experimental approach to answering their questions.” Hall earned his PhD degree in 1989 in analytical chemistry from Loyola University of Chicago and spent six years at UCSF, first as a postdoc, and then as an assistant research chemist. In 2003, while he was working at Applied Biosystems, a manufacturer of mass spectrometers specifically designed for protein analysis, Susan Fisher, PhD, who directs UCSF’s Human Embryonic Stem Cell Program, recruited him to run the mass spectrometry core facility she was starting. He seized the opportunity. “I’m that type of person,” Hall said. “When I see a door open, I go through it, especially when an opportunity like this falls in your lap. It was the right time in my career to return to UCSF.” Fisher, who is the faculty director of the SMMS Core Facility, is Hall’s boss. Returning to UCSF after a successful sojourn in the corporate world is not uncommon at UCSF, and it’s a career path that Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH, is certainly familiar with. In fact, in deciding to return to UCSF, the chancellor said, one of the biggest lures was the people. Similarly, Hall said, it was Fisher and others of her caliber who enticed him back to UCSF. He arrived as the core lab’s first official employee, and he was soon followed by Hall’s co-director, Ewa Witkowski, PhD, whom he and Fisher recruited. The facility has since grown to its current staffing level of nine scientists. The facility’s interactions with UCSF scientists are an example of hybrid vigor at its best. One of UCSF’s strongest emphases is on biology as it relates to human disease, and the facility plays a major role in the quest to identify protein biomarkers for particular diseases. For instance, a long-term goal of such work is to identify proteins that are indicative of the earliest stages of breast cancer, prior to tumor detection. “The thing that makes our lab really cool is that we have all these biologists who can inform us about proteins to be looked at,” said Eric Johansen, PhD, the SMMS Core Facility lab manager. “We use the resources of the UCSF biologist to inform our searches for biomarkers. We’re not letting the machines do all the work.” Johansen, who turned to Hall as an informal mentor during graduate school, said Hall is a continuing inspiration to him. “The way he balances all the work on our plates is really impressive,” Johansen said. “His whole management approach helps with time management and getting help when you’re stuck.” The result, said Johansen, is a much more efficient advancement of research.

Saving for a rainy day Why you need to be saving for a rainy day... This time last year the Guardian claimed fewer Britons were saving their pennies. Despite our troublesome economic climate, large inflation and lower interest rates meant the average family had less to spend on themselves and therefore less to save. A fifth of those surveyed mentioned they didn’t have any savings whatsoever. So with this we ask, should you be saving for a rainy day? We save for many reasons. A holiday of a lifetime, new car or the home of your dreams, but do we ever put money aside “just in case”? We can often be caught completely off guard when it comes to saving. We think everything is under control then every household appliance decides to break, you’re hit by an uninsured driver or burgled in the middle of the night. Granted, these things are unlikely, but they can happen and when they do, have you got it sorted? It’s important to set money aside for life’s little mishaps. An urgent repair on your boiler or calling someone in to fix the washing machine is made so much easier when you don’t have to race around withdrawing money from various accounts. Let’s not forget the stress and potential arguments you have avoided when asking family or friends for help. Emergencies or an unforeseen crisis is made ten times easier, but putting money aside for something that may never happen can be demoralizing. Surely spending your hard earned wages on something more enjoyable is a much more appealing option? It isn’t just bad luck and fortune you should be thinking about when saving. Everything is getting more and more expensive and having that a little bit extra in the bank can go a long LONG way. Take for example, education. Fees for universities have hiked, not to mention the part-time courses and if you decide you want to learn something later in life, the option may not be there anymore. If you’ve kept money aside, you’re in a much better position to follow your hopes and dreams. The perfect home comes within reach, or perhaps you can think about taking that early retirement. Let’s not forget saving for your future. Education for yourself is one thing but what about if you decide to start a family. You want to give your children the best start to their lives (not mentioning the middle and end too!) and saving is the best way to do that. Think about the amount of interest that will be added on too! The general rule of thumb is to save the amount that you would be able to live on for four months. This includes rent, food, bills and to live fairly comfortably. This should be more than enough if you (touch wood) lost your job, crashed your car, etc. Although it’s not always possible to save the amount you may want each month. Let’s not forget events like birthdays! You can start to save little amount from each pay packet. Once you’ve created an aim you wish to meet, saving a bit at a time will become easier and you can go on living comfortably without worry. Not everyone is good at saving. In fact, the ability to save money has a lot to do with your brain with researchers discovering that those who use the left side of their brain’s more are more likely to save than those who use the right. If you’re more inclined to save, you’re a deeper thinker who refuses to give in to any impulses the left side encourages. You can probably guess which you’re more partial to but saving manageable chunks is simple for everyone. Saving for a rainy day isn’t about entertaining yourself when we have a spot of rain. Let’s face it, that would be fairly often in our climate! It’s about preparing for the worst by creating a healthy and reassuring back-up plan. Knowing that cash is there will give you peace of mind and the ability to combat any of life’s problems.

AR Volunteer Premises Identification System What Is the Arkansas Volunteer Premises Identification System? The Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission is launching a volunteer premises identification system to comply with USDA guidelines. No Arkansas livestock producer is required to register for a premise number. This is a voluntary program. The Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission's premises identification program is strictly a volunteer program. No Arkansas livestock producer is required to register for a premises number. The strength of a national network for animal disease traceability is dependent upon the capability of the states, tribes, and territories to trace animal movements. Disease amplification occurs within the states, tribes, and territories, making it the responsibility of those entities to develop effective and efficient animal disease traceability and surveillance programs. At the same time, those entities must maintain the freedom to move animals interstate and internationally with open communications between and among the states, tribes, and territories 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Because of its tremendous diversification, the animal agriculture industry believes that animal traceability programs are most successful when led by the respective states, tribes, and territories. Why Is Premises Registration Important? The identification of premises that allow for the commingling of animals is the foundation of the NAIS and must be established before animals can be tracked. Knowing where animals are located is the key to efficient, accurate and cost-effective epidemiologic investigations and disease control efforts. Premises location data that will include a unique premises identification number to actual location involved in livestock commerce or the movement of animals or poultry will be implemented and administered by the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission under the guidelines of USDA. What Is a Premise? A premise is any geographically unique location associated with animal agriculture that would allow for the commingling or movement of animals involved in commerce. What Does It Cost to Register a Premise? Because of a grant from USDA, there is no cost to Arkansas livestock producers to register a premise. How Do I Register a Premise? The volunteer premises identification system registration form is one page. It asks for information such as owner name, business name, alternate contact person, mailing address, telephone number(s), e-mail address, business type, business unit (farm/ranch, clinic, livestock auction, exhibition, etc.) and species. When the form is completed, mail or fax it to the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission. They will review the form for approval. Once approved, the Livestock and Poultry Commission will submit the information to USDA for a premises identification number. Once USDA assigns a premises identification number, the livestock producer will be notified.

Best Known For Major Archibald Butt was a trusted presidential aide and known hero aboard the doomed RMS Titanic. A graduate of the University of the South, Butt worked as a journalist for several years after finishing his education. He started out at the Louisville Courier Journal. After later moving to Washington, D.C., Butt became a correspondent for a series of southern newspapers in the nation’s capital city. For a time, Butt worked in the Mexican Embassy for General Matt W. Ransom. He then joined the military during the Spanish-American War. Soon after the war ended, Butt served as a volunteer in the Philippines, rising to the rank of captain. He later served in Cuba before becoming an aide to President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908. Well regarded, Butt stayed on as an advisor when President William Howard Taft took office in 1909. In 1912, Butt took a trip to Europe, which was supposed to be a vacation. But he caused a lot of speculation about his journey when he went to visit the Pope Pius X at the Vatican in late March. Butt, however, remained tight-lipped about the purpose of his visit with the press. A short time later, he decided to return to the United States, booking passage on the maiden voyage of the Titanic. Butt was accompanied on this journey by his friend Francis Millet, a writer and an artist. Edward J. Smith and railroad executive John B. Thayer. Later that evening, around 11:40 p.m., the Titanic struck an iceberg. The vessel was damaged in the collision and began taking in water. As the crew prepared the lifeboats, Butt helped in the rescue efforts. One survivor, Renee Harris, told The New York Times of his heroism. Describing him as calm and collected, she said that he helped the sailors with the boats and lifted women inside them. He even stopped a man from entering one of the boats, saying “women will be attended to first or I’ll break every . . . bone in your body,” according Harris’s account.

Growth and water relations of Tamarix ramosissima and Populus euphratica on Taklamakan desert dunes in relation to depth to a permanent water table The hypothesis that water relations and growth of phreatophytic Tamarix ramosissima Ledeb. and Populus euphratica Oliv. on dunes of varying height in an extremely arid Chinese desert depend on vertical distance to a permanent water table was tested. Shoot diameter growth of P. euphratica was inversely correlated with groundwater depth (GD) of 7 to 23 m (adj. R2 = 0.69, P = 0.025); growth of T. ramosissima varied independent of GD between 5 and 24 m (P = 0.385). Pre-dawn (pd) and midday (md) water potentials were lower in T. ramosissima (minimum pd −1.25 MPa, md −3.6 MPa at 24 m GD) than in P. euphratica (minimum pd −0.9 MPa, md −3.05 MPa at 23 m GD) and did not indicate physiologically significant drought stress for either species. Midday water potentials of P. euphratica closely corresponded to GD throughout the growing season, but those of T. ramosissima did not. In both species, stomatal conductance was significantly correlated with leaf water potential (P. euphratica: adj. R2 = 0.84, P < 0.0001; T. ramosissima: adj. R2 = 0.64, P = 0.011) and with leaf-specific hydraulic conductance (P. euphratica: adj. R2 = 0.79, P = 0.001; T. ramosissima: adj. R2 = 0.56, P = 0.019); the three variables decreased with increasing GD in P. euphratica. Stomatal conductance of P. euphratica was more strongly reduced (> 50% between −2 and −3 MPa) in response to decreasing leaf water potential than that of T. ramosissima (30% between −2 and −3 MPa). Tolerance of lower leaf water potentials due to higher concentrations of leaf osmotically active substances partially explains why leaf conductance, and probably leaf carbon gain and growth, of T. ramosissima was less severely affected by GD. Additionally, the complex below-ground structure of large clonal T. ramosissima shrub systems probably introduces variability into the assumed relationship of xylem path length with GD.

China Transacts First Panda Standard VERs Answering China’s call for intensified emissions targets, the nation yesterday saw its first transaction of voluntary carbon credits piloted under the domestic Panda Standard. The credits – purchased from a bamboo reforestation project by a large Chinese real estate firm – signal Chinese companies’ willingness to pay for (literally) home grown carbon reductions. Yesterday, the China Beijing Environmental Exchange (CBEEX) and BlueNext announced the first transaction of pilot voluntary carbon credits under China’s Panda Standard – the nation’s own domestic third-party standard for voluntary carbon reductions. One day after Chinese officials surprised the world with their higher-than-expected five-year emissions and energy intensity targets, the Panda Standard partners – which also include Winrock International – announced the sale of 16,800 voluntary emissions reduction credits (VERs) to domestic buyer Franshion Properties. A subsidiary of the state-owned Sinochem Group and one of the nation’s leading real estate companies, Franshion purchased the VERs via CBEEX, for which BlueNext is also a strategic partner. "The Panda Standard serves as a key reference for China's fledgling carbon market, including the price of tradable carbon, the validation process, and the supervision system,” said Mei Dewen, CBEEX General Manager, in an interview following the announcement. The price of the credits – at $9.14/tCO2e – was lower than the going rate for credits under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism but higher than the average price fetched by forest carbon credits on the voluntary carbon market. This is perhaps due to the unique nature of the inaugural sale and project itself, a bamboo reforestation project covering up to 59,000 hectares in China’s Yunnan Province. The project is indicative of the Panda Standard partners’ goals , including quality emissions reductions and poverty alleviation in the region. Parlez Vous AFOLU? At the 16th UN Conference of Parties in Cancun (COP16), held in December 2010, Agence Française de Développement signed an MOU with CBEEX and BlueNext to pursue these goals as it developed the standard’s first pilot project in the Yunnan Province. In an earlier gesture of Sino-French cooperation, the French Global Environment Fund (FFEM) pledged in April 2010 to work alongside the Administrative Centre for China's Agenda 21 (ACCA21) to craft the Panda Standard’s bamboo reforestation methodology. The methodology fits under the Panda Standard’s agriculture, forestry and land use (AFOLU) specifications , for which the initial public comment period closed in late January 2011. The Panda Standard partners agreed to an initial focus on AFOLU, which dovetails with the desire of its stakeholders – including China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and State Forestry Administration – to pair poverty alleviation and carbon emissions reductions. Mechanisms and Rumors of Mechanisms The Panda Standard, CBEEX and its partners aren’t the only show in town. Throughout 2010, several major carbon market players – and the Chinese government itself – announced domestic initiatives in an effort to stay in front of the government’s emerging climate targets. In August 2010, the Chinese government introduced low-carbon pilots and related exchanges in five provinces and eight cities throughout the nation – several of which had already made significant progress toward their mandates by the year’s end. In September, Pacific Carbon Exchange (PCarbX) and Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange (SEEE) signed an MOU to exchange technical best practice and foster partnerships between their respective members. The Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation (iCET) also announced at COP16 its partnership with CBEEX, Los Angeles-based The Climate Registry and software company Misys to operate and promote the China-specific Energy and Climate Registry.

Dr. Shiel received a Bachelor of Science degree with honors from the University of Notre Dame. There he was involved in research in radiation biology and received the Huisking Scholarship. After graduating from St. Louis University School of Medicine, he completed his Internal Medicine residency and Rheumatology fellowship at the University of California, Irvine. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology. Dr. Balentine received his undergraduate degree from McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland. He attended medical school at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine graduating in1983. He completed his internship at St. Joseph's Hospital in Philadelphia and his Emergency Medicine residency at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center in the Bronx, where he served as chief resident. Other Causes, Symptoms, Signs, Treatment, Prognosis, and Types of Acute Knee Pain Description: Both the quadriceps and patellar tendons may rupture partially or completely. Quadriceps tendon rupture typically occurs in recreational athletes older than 40 years (this is the injury President Clinton suffered while jogging), and patellar tendon rupture typically occurs in younger people who have had previous tendonitis or steroid injections to the knee. Symptoms and signs: Rupture of either the quadriceps or patellar tendon causes pain (especially when trying to kick or extend the knee). Those people with complete ruptures are unable to extend the knee. The patella is also often out of place either upward (with patellar tendon rupture) or downward (with quadriceps tendon rupture). The patient can usually notice a difference in appearance when comparing his/her knees. Treatment: Tendon ruptures should be evaluated urgently. Tendon ruptures generally require surgical repair. A partial rupture may be treated with splinting alone. Description: Injuries to the meniscus are typically traumatic injuries but can also be due to overuse. Often, a piece of the meniscus will tear off and float in the knee joint. Symptoms and signs: Meniscal injuries may cause the knee to lock in a particular position or either click or grind through its range of motion. Meniscal injuries may also cause the knee to give way. Swelling typically accompanies these symptoms although the swelling is much less severe than with an ACL injury. Treatment: Meniscal injuries often require arthroscopic surgical repair. A locking knee or a knee that "gives" should be evaluated for arthroscopic repair. Description: Dislocation of the knee is a true limb-threatening emergency. This is also a rare injury. Dislocation of the knee is caused by a particularly powerful blow to the knee. The lower leg becomes completely displaced with relation to the upper leg. This displacement stretches and frequently tears not only the ligaments of the knee but also arteries and nerves. Untreated arterial injuries leave the lower leg without a blood supply. In this case, amputation may be required. Nerve injuries, on the other hand, may leave the lower leg viable but without strength or sensation. This injury can be due to a motor vehicle accident where the patient's knee or leg hits the dashboard. Symptoms and signs: Knee dislocations are severely painful and produce an obvious deformity of the knee. Many dislocations are reduced or put back into anatomic alignment spontaneously. As this occurs, many will report feeling a dull clunk. Treatment: If the knee dislocation has not been put back into place (reduced), the doctor will immediately reduce the dislocation. Medical treatment, however, does not stop here. Whether a dislocation reduces by itself or is put back into place in the hospital, it requires further evaluation and care. After reduction, people with these injuries are observed in the hospital, where they usually do a number of tests to ensure that no arterial or nerve injury has occurred. If such an injury is found, it must be repaired immediately in the operating room. Dislocated kneecap (patella) Description: A common injury caused by direct trauma or forceful straightening of the leg, such as an injury that happens when serving in volleyball or tennis. Patellar dislocation is more common in women, the obese, knock-kneed people, and in those with high-riding kneecaps. Symptoms and signs: If you have this injury, you will notice the patella being out of place and may have difficulty flexing or extending your knee. Treatment: The doctor will pop the patella back into place (reduce the dislocation). Even if the patella goes back into place by itself, however, it needs to be X-rayed for a fracture. After reducing the patella and ensuring the absence of a fracture, the doctors will treat these injuries by splinting the knee for three weeks to allow the soft tissues around the patella to heal followed by strengthening exercises to keep the patella in line.

It’s flu season again! While you can catch the flu (influenza) any time of the year, the virus is most common in the US between October and May and peaks around January or February. Since flu strains often change from year to year and the vaccine’s effects may wane after a season or two, everyone over the age of 6 months is advised to get a flu shot each season. Check out this month’s newsletter for more information about this year's flu shot recommendations.

FSUV1 (Fused Silica) FQVIS2 (Fused Quartz) Fused Silica is the glassy form of quartz and is thus isotropic. It is tough and hard and has a very low expansion. Normal varieties contain water that gives strong absorption in the IR. Water-free varieties are available. Vitreous silica is the generic term used to describe all types of silica glass, with producers referring to the material as either Fused Quartz or as Fused Silica. Originally, those terms were used to distinguish between transparent and opaque grades of the material. Fused Quartz products were those produced from quartz crystal into transparent ware, and Fused Silica described products manufactured from sand into opaque ware. Today, however, advances in raw material beneficiation permit transparent fusions from sand as well as from crystal. Consequently, if naturally occurring crystalline silica (sand or rock) is melted, the material is simply called Fused Quartz. If the silicon dioxide is synthetically derived, however, the material is referred to as synthetic Fused Silica. These materials are ultra pure, single component glasses (SiO2) with a unique combination of thermal, optical and mechanical properties, which make them the preferred materials for use in a variety of processes and applications where other materials are not suitable. The very high purity (over 99.9 %) ensures minimum contamination in process applications. These materials can routinely withstand temperatures of over 1250 °C, and due to their very low coefficient of thermal expansion can be rapidly heated and cooled with virtually no risk of breakage due to thermal shock. These materials are inert to most substances, including virtually all acids, allowing their use in arduous and hostile environments. The dielectric properties and very high electrical receptivity of these materials over a wide range of temperatures, together with their low thermal conductivity allow their use as an electrical and thermal insulating material in a range of environments. Fused Quartz is less expensive vitreous silica formed by fusing naturally occurring quartz crystal or lower grade synthetic stock material, the UV use is limited to 250 nm and this material is usually used for windows covering visible wavelengths. Fused Silica is vitreous silica formed by fusing high purity synthetic material. The UV use can be reached about 160 nm. FSUV1 (Fused Silica)Equivalent to Suprasil 1 and 2 (Heraeus), Spectrosil A and B (Saint-Gobain) and Corning 7940 (Corning), Dynasil 1100 and 4100 (Dynasil). FQVIS2 (Fused Quartz)Equivalent to Homosil 1, 2 & 3 (Heraeus), Dynasil 1000 & 4000 and 5000 & 6000 (Dynasil) UV grade Fused Silica (FSUV1) is synthetic amorphous silicon dioxide of extremely high purity. This non-crystalline, colorless silica glass combines a very low thermal expansion coefficient with good optical qualities, and excellent transmission in the ultraviolet. Transmission and homogeneity exceed those of crystalline quartz without the problems of orientation and temperature instability inherent in the crystalline form. Fused Silica is used for both transmissive and reflective optics, especially where high laser damage threshold is required. FSUV1 is transparent in the ultraviolet and visible regions, and has no absorption bands in the 170 - 250 nm wavelength intervals. It has an intensive OH absorption band in the interval of wavelength 2600 - 2800 nm. FSUV1 is used for optics operating in the deep UV and the visible wavelength range (laser lenses, windows, prisms, mirrors, etc.). It is practically free of bubbles and inclusions. Optical Grade Fused Quartz (FQVIS2) provides good UV and visible transmission. It has almost the same physical and chemical properties with FSUV1. However only in thin & small sheet pieces, FQVIS2 is virtually bubble-free. Elements built from larger pieces will most likely contain bubbles, so application should not be sensitive to these inclusions. But in cases where simple light gathering and strong mechanical properties are the primary goals, FQVIS2 grade provides excellent performance at a low price. Ideal Applications for FQVIS2: - Condenser optics not concerned with scatter or distortion - High temperature and pressure applications - Optical flats, microscope slides and sight glasses

How might the U.S. presidential race present a moment to consider the role of race in Italy and the U.S.? Having read Ottorino Cappelli’s and Maria Laurino’s recent posts on the topic, I thought I’d take things into a new direction of sorts. The subject of Italian Americans, race, and politics brings together two topics of particular interest to me: the role of memory in the creation of an Italian American white ethnic identity and the terms used to talk about different generations of post-immigrant “ethnic” individuals. And in this sense, I agree with Laurino’s and Cappelli’s respective views that the current election brings to the surface important issues about race and identity in the U.S. and Italy. One intriguing issue related to the question of Italian American whiteness is the way in which popular memory contributes to the creation of identity. Whatever we call it (popular memory, public memory, collective memory, cultural memory, historical memory), shared recollections in part construct “a group, giving it a sense of its past, and defining its aspirations for the future” (as James Fentress and Chris Wickham put it The display of that memory—in what we read, what we watch, how we dress, how/if we worship, how we vote—becomes in part how ethnic identities become codified within larger social and cultural structures. Anthropologist Micaela di Leonardo in looking at Italian American communities considers how these memories more often than not become sentimentalized, especially around issues of gender, race, and class, creating a “rhetoric of nostalgia” about a past that never existed. This kind of selective popular memory leads to, as I’ve argued elsewhere , the reliance on stereotypical images of Italian American men and women in cinema, among other places. This nostalgia, what Jennifer Guglielmo refers to as a loss (“Italians were not always white, and the loss of this memory is one of the tragedies of racism in America,” in Are Italians White? How Race Is Made in America ), might very well be connected to how individual Italian Americans think of themselves and, in turn, the choices they make in the voting booth. Italian American identities, as the I-Italy site makes very clear, are vast and complex. And yet when we exercise our right to vote we align ourselves with likeminded voters, and in so doing cement our own identities as belonging to some greater community (surely not only an Italian American one!). This discussion of the construction of identity is in great part an academic one alone. (In other words, individuals’ everyday lived experiences are caught in very real and very messy combinations of how power plays out with race, class, gender, and sexuality.) And so we might consider the role language plays, but not though with regard to identifying terms and slurs used for different groups (think of that great clip from Do the Right Thing that Cappelli uses in his post). Instead, I’d like to bring up the failings of both English and Italian to have given us specific words to help us remember the past, especially in relation to Italian migration. I’m thinking of words like those that exist in Japanese, words that describe the variety of Japanese transnational migration. Here are a few of the terms, now part of American English: The generation who emigrated from Japan, generally referring to pre-WW II emigration (not eligible for U.S. citizenship until 1952). The first generation born abroad, generally of an issei couple. The child of a nisei couple, or the second generation to be born abroad. The child of a sansei couple, or the third generation to be born abroad. An individual of Japanese descent born in the U.S. but mainly educated in Japan. If adopted uncritically such terms no doubt may actually obscure rather than clarify. On the other hand, these terms have come to underscore legal issues related to race and citizenship rights in U.S. history (click image below to view this recent satirical take on that history care of The Onion). ("U.S. Finally Gets Around to Closing Last WW II Internment Camp") I wonder at times what the upshot might be if we had such words to talk about Italians. Terms in any language that would begin to clarify some of the nuances of the history of the Italian diaspora could perhaps be one way to keep nostalgia at bay (and if the world turns my way, keep progressive politics at the forefront). The result (perhaps a tad oversimplified) might be Italians who, faced with new immigrants in Italy, remember their brothers’ and sisters’ own history of migration, and Italian Americans who, faced with new choices for president, remember not to look at the past through rose-colored glasses.

Welcome to the Butterfly Atlas! Butterflies occupy a happy spot in the human psyche. Only our most exuberant songbirds are as closely identified with the warm, colorful passion of summer. We tend to think of butterflies—quite rightly—as inhabitants of sunny meadows filled with wildflowers. But butterflies live in a broad spectrum of habitats including forests, heathlands, bogs, swamps, even salt marshes—anywhere, in fact, where their caterpillar food plants and sources of nectars for adults are found. In addition to their aesthetic appeal, butterflies are among nature's most fascinating creatures. Did you know that: - One hundred three species of butterflies occur regularly in Massachusetts and another 27 species have been recorded as rare vagrants or have become extinct in the state. - Several species of Massachusetts butterflies such as the Mourning Cloak overwinter as adults—quite possibly in the walls of your house! - One species, the Harvester, is a carnivore, its caterpillar gorging itself on wooly aphids and then hiding under a pile of discarded aphid skeletons. - A few species eat poisonous plants as caterpillars and become unpalatable to predators like birds. Other, non-poisonous species gain protection by mimicking the color patterns of toxic ones and faking out their would-be attackers. - There are currently seven species of butterflies on the Massachusetts Endangered Species List. The website is based on data collected during the Massachusetts Butterfly Atlas Project (see "About the Atlas"). Future additions and improvements to the website are anticipated in the near future including: - The ability to search the database of butterfly records accumulated during the Atlas project - Updated distribution records reflecting the substantial collecting performed by members of the Massachusetts Butterfly Club since the completion of the Atlas in 1990 - A mechanism for continued updates and comparisons of past and current butterfly distributions - An extensive bibliography of butterfly taxonomy, distribution, and ecology On this website, you will find links to the Massachusetts Butterfly Club as well as other butterfly resources. We especially appreciate the contributions of the members of the Butterfly Club, many of whom generously contributed their photographs, in making this website a reality. We particularly welcome photographs for species not currently depicted or updates to species accounts.

Taking the Lead is a collection of essays and personal portraits that highlight the struggle and achievements of a diverse array of individuals, groups, and organizations. The common thread among these movers and shakers is the urge to bring about positive change — to refuse to accept an untenable or ineffective status quo. These are stories of hard-working people, many from the margins of society who have defied the odds in an effort to improve their own lot, and the lives of others. But there is also a strong personal component to these stories. Mixed in with the practical, concrete goals of improving how we are governed, how our laws are written, interpreted, and enforced, there is always personal growth. Many of those profiled here undergo a marked change in their spirituality and sense of self-worth. They are not quite the same at the end of their journey as they were at the beginning. The people in these essays are of all age groups, many races, and both genders. There is also a wide variety of subject matter. Many of the stories deal with women, native people, and children. Readers will meet, among others, an anti-poverty crusader, a native Peacekeeper, a Chinese doctor, and a gay rights activist. There is a story of police insensitivity and brutality, a profile of a community-minded, unpretentious priest, and a look at the life work of someone who strives for the personal enrichment of the disabled. Taking the Lead offers stories of people who, either on their own or with others, have fought against what they believe is fundamentally wrong. A catch phrase binding these essays These stories, then, are life affirming in a broad way. They show that positive change, both on a personal and social level, can be brought

TiPED™ is a five-tiered system. It is designed to help chemists determine potential endocrine disrupting activity of a new chemical. TiPED was conceived as a tool for new chemical design (though it can be used for existing chemicals), thus it starts with a chemist theoretically at “the drawing board”. TiPED consists of five testing tiers ranging from broad in silico evaluation up through specific cell- and whole organism-based assays. Most assays identified for use in TiPED are not “validated” in the regulatory sense, because they have not been reviewed and accepted by agencies that oversee the validation process. That process can take years, with the unfortunate consequence that validated assays rarely reflect the current state of scientific understanding. For a field, endocrine disruption, that has developed so strongly over the past 10 years, that is a distinct handicap for validated assays. That does not, however, mean that assays in TiPED are invalid. The assays presented in TiPED are based on widely accepted scientific principles, commonly used in research laboratories funded by the National Institute of Health., and are performed with a battery of known controls (both positive and negative) to provide reliable information to the chemist. To be effective at detecting endocrine disruption, a testing protocol must be able to measure potential hormone-like or hormone-inhibiting effects of chemicals, as well as the many possible interactions and signaling sequellae chemicals may have with cell-based receptors. Accordingly, we have designed this protocol to broadly interrogate the endocrine system. No single tier in the TiPED system will reveal the entire picture; the tiers are designed to reinforce each other. While each Tier will be informative, confidence about whether or not a compound alters endocrine function is increased by combining evidence from multiple tiers. Ideally, tests from multiple tiers will be conducted, examining endpoints across cell and animal types, encompassing different life stage effects and a range of doses. How the Tiers Work: Tier 1 offers computer-based approaches that can be used to begin assessment of a molecule. These approaches can be subdivided in two categories: searching existing databases of known EDCs, and in silico predictive computer models. Tier 2 consists of targeted-cell assays, or tests that can assess whether or not a certain cell target (such as a hormone receptor or a gene) is turned “on” or “off” by a given chemical. Note that TiPED’s first two tiers are “target” based assays. That is, these tests identify chemicals that interact with specific target proteins to modulate their activity. Tier 1 predicts activity using in silico modeling of protein-small molecule interactions. Tier 2 tests targeted impact of chemicals on the activity of transcription factors, such as nuclear hormone receptors and other modulators of endocrine signaling pathways. In contrast, the assays in Tier 3 are “process and function” based. Assays in the Cell-Process tier integrate cellular functions to reveal the activity of a test chemical on an endocrine signaling pathway that may be cell-type (or tissue-) specific. Thus Tier 3 can pick up on integrated endpoints that the first two “targeted” tiers would miss. Tier 4 consists of fish- and amphibian whole animal tests. While Tier 3 begins to integrate endpoints, Tiers 4 and 5 do this to a much greater degree. Tier 4 looks for chemical impacts on fish or amphibian reproduction, development, and behavior. At this level we do not isolate EDC activity per se, but look for morphological or behavioral changes which are, to a significant degree, hormonally regulated. Finally there is Tier 5: mammalian tests. Tests on mammals are critical if one wants to be as certain as possible that a chemical is not an EDC. Each of the previous tiers can give an indication of the probability of particular chemical’s potential EDC activity, but there remains no absolutely reliable substitute at this point in time for mammalian tests. The mammalian endocrine system is complex and incompletely understood. Computer models, cell-, tissue-, and fish-based tests can lay out a strong case for or against a compound’s having EDC characteristics, but the highest degree of confidence still relies on mammalian assays. Most significantly, tests at this level can catch effects for which the endocrine pathways are not known. Note TiPED will not detect all possible mechanisms of endocrine disruption, because scientific understanding of these phenomena is advancing rapidly. Going forward, TiPED or any EDC testing tool must continue to incorporate new science as it emerges.

Ground is defined as the surface of or soil from the earth.(noun) An example of ground is dirt. The definition of ground is base or beginning.(adjective) An example of ground is the first class in a set course of several classes. The definition of ground refers to being cut up into small pieces or into a powder.(adjective) An example of ground are the powdery structure of spices after they have been crushed into particles. Ground means to cut up into small particles or to prevent an aircraft or pilot from flying.(verb)

PH08 Metals in the Environment: Aquatic Biological Perspectives (PH075) Toxic effects of cadmium, copper, and zinc to four different marine phytoplankton quantified by PAM fluorometry. Miao, Aijun1, Wang, Wenxiong2, Juneau, Philippe3, 1 Biology Department of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology2 Biology Department of Hong Kong Univerisity of Science and Technology3 Department of Biological Sciences-TOXEN of Université du Québec à Montréal ABSTRACT- The toxic effects of Cd, Cu, and Zn on four different marine phytoplankton, Dunaliella tertiolecta, Prorocentrum minimum, Synechococcus spp., and Thalassiosira weissflogii were examined by comparing the cell specific growth rate, Pulse-Amplitude-Modulated (PAM) parameters M and M', chlorophyll a content, and cellular metal concentration, over a 96 h period. The calculated Non-Observed Effect Concentration (NOEC) and Lowest-Observed Effect Concentration (LOEC) based on both the cell specific growth rate and the PAM parameters were comparable. Thus, the PAM parameters were not more sensitive than the growth inhibition as biomarkers for trace metal toxicity to the marine phytoplankton. The cyanobacteria Synechococcus was the most sensitive species among the four algal species tested due to the highest cell surface to volume ratio. The toxicity of these three tested metals followed the following order: of Cd > Cu > Zn based on the cellular metal concentration of the four algae at the NOEC. The cellular metal bioaccumulation followed the same Freundlich isotherm for each metal regardless of the algal species, indicating that the metal accumulation was a non-metabolic process under the high ambient metal concentrations and the surface metal binding sites were comparable among the different species. For all the algae studied in our study, the bioaccumulation potentials of Cu and Zn were comparable, while the Cd bioaccumulation was much lower under the environmentally realistic metal concentration. Key words: Cellular metal concentration, Cell specific growth rate, PAM fluorometry, Quantum yields

Paddling Nunavut's Coppermine River Lynda and I were drawn to the Coppermine River by the written accounts of early explorers like Samuel Hearne of the Hudson's Bay Company and Sir John Franklin of the British Navy. Hearne's famous overland 1771 journey to Bloody Falls with the Chipewyan leader Matonabbee, and Franklin's somewhat naove and ill-fated 1821 journey down the Coppermine's length with Hood, Back, Richardson, and Hepburn, guided by the Yellowknife chief Akaitcho, fascinated us. Following Franklin's journey, the preferred route from Coronation Gulf to the arctic coast became through Dease Arm on Great Bear Lake and then down the Dease River to the lower reaches of the Coppermine; in fact, this is the route that Franklin had initially planned to follow. Fort Franklin (or Bear Lake Post as it was known in the early 1800s) located at the extreme western end of Great Bear Lake, and later Fort Confidence established in 1837 at the head of the Dease River on the extreme eastern end of the lake, became logical way points for northern travelers. The area around Great Bear Lake saw an active fur trade and continued exploration by men like Sir John Franklin, Dr. John Richardson, Thomas Simpson, Peter Dease, and John Rae until about the mid 1800s. Not until about 1890 did many more Europeans venture into this area of the north, when a new breed of gentlemen adventurers suddenly appeared. With no clear goal in mind other than to explore this remote area and to meet the indigenous residents, these adventurers left some fascinating accounts of their travels and meetings with the Inuit and the Athapaskan Dogrib, Slavey, Yellowknife, and Chipewyan Indians. Men like the British big-game hunter Cosmo Melville, David Hanbury, who wandered the Barrens for two years and then disappeared as suddenly as he arrived, the Canadian Douglas brothers, who traveled widely through the area, the Belgian Oblate Father's Rouviire and Leroux, who were murdered by the Copper Inuit, all drifted through the stories Lynda and I read. From Frank Russell's account of his journey in 1894 with the Dogribs to hunt for muskoxen, to John Hornby's fascination when he visited among the nomadic Copper Inuit in 1912 on Coronation Gulf, to the accounts of Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who wintered near the area of the Dease River during the winter of 1910, the thread that seemed to hold it all together was a thin blue line of ink on our map the Coppermine River. Although the written history of this river is largely about white explorers and adventurers, one thing is certain, none of these Europeans would have completed their trips without the help of the Athapaskan Indians and Inuit. Franklin's chance meeting, with a North West Company Metis interpreter while he was overwintering in Fort Chipewyan, shows the dependence these Europeans had on the knowledge of the indigenous residents. This interpreter, Beaulieu, advised Franklin to speak to the Yellowknife Indians about the Coppermine River, as they sometimes traveled its length to the sea. As he sketched a rough map of the river on the floor, an old Chipewyan named Black Meat walked in and recognized the map. He quickly took a piece of charcoal and drew in a route he had used to return from a war excursion that his tribe had made against the Inuit. Black Meat then accurately described two other rivers to Franklin the Back and the Burnside. No sooner had he finished his story than another old man walked in and commented on the map indicating that he, as well, had traveled widely through the Barrens with his people. This Chipewyan, named The Rabbit's Head, was no less than Matonabbee's stepson and had traveled with him when he guided Hearne's journey. Although the Yellowknife Indians, or Copper Indians as many Europeans knew them, were defeated by the Dogribs, their vast knowledge of the Barrens is still incorporated in the oral history of the Chipewyans, with whom their remaining people amalgamated.

October 7, 2012 | 3 Seriously. Look at this guy. It doesn’t get any better than that. Berlin Zoo has announced the birth of its first rusty-spotted cat kittens since it opened 168 years ago. Nicknamed ‘the hummingbirds of the cat family’, rusty spotted cats (Prionailurus rubiginosus) rival the black-footed cats (Felis nigripes) of southern Africa for the title of world’s smallest wild cat. Their long bodies and tails, which can reach a total of 78 cm in the largest males, might out-stretch their African relatives, but they’re just a little bit lighter at 0.9 – 1.6 kg. To put this in perspective, the world record for the smallest adult tabby cat is 1.36 kg. And my giant beast of a tuxedo cat is 4 kg. Which, by the way, is the average weight for a domestic cat (I’m not a terrible mum). Berlin Zoo’s two new kittens were born on August 5, would have weighed somewhere between 60 – 77 g. They’re not an easy species to breed – compared to the domestic cat’s estrous cycle (when the cats are ‘on heat’ and ready to mate) of 14 to 21 days during breeding season in spring, the rusty-spotted cat’s estrous lasts just five days. And she’ll only ever have one or two kittens in a litter, born after a gestation period of around 67 days. Unlike another very rare and small wildcat species, the Scottish wildcat, rusty-spotted cats are easy to tame, and there have been some reports of this species being bred with domestic cats. Nineteenth century British physician and zoologist Thomas C. Jerdon kept a number of rusty-spotted cats in his home for research, and according to Wild Cats of the World by Swiss naturalist and writer Charles Albert Walter Guggisberg, he said of them, “I had a kitten brought to me when very young in 1846, and it became quite tame, and was the delight and admiration of all who saw it. Its activity was quite marvellous and it was very playful and elegant in its motions.” In his 1884 book, Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon, British naturalist Robert Armitage Sterndale described his experience with some rusty-spotted cats, “I had two kittens brought to me by a Gond in the Seonee district [in Central India], and I kept them for many months. They became perfectly tame, so much so that, although for nine months of the year I was out in camp, they never left the tents, although allowed to roam about unconfined … At night the little cats were put into a basket … and on my arrival next morning I would find them frisking about the tent roof between the two canvasses, or scrambling up the trees under which we were pitched. Whilst I was at work I usually had one in my lap and the other cuddled behind my back on the chair. One day one of them, which had been exploring the hollows of an old tree close by, rushed into my tent and fell down in convulsions at my feet. I did everything in my power for the poor little creature, but in vain, it died in two or three minutes, having evidently been bitten by a snake. The survivor was inconsolable, refused food, and went mewing all over the place and kept rolling at my feet, rubbing itself against them as though to beg for the restoration of its brother. At last I sent into a village and procured a common kitten, which I put into the basket with the other. There was a great deal of spitting and growling at first, but in time they became great friends, but the villager was no match for the forester. It was amusing to see the wild one dart like a squirrel up the walls of the tent on to the roof; the other would try to follow, scramble up a few feet, and then, hanging by its claws, look round piteously before it dropped to the ground.” The rusty-spotted cat’s habitat is restricted to India and Sri Lanka, and these populations have adapted to such different types of environments, they have been separated into two subspecies, r. rubiginosus India and r. phillipsi Sri Lanka. In Sri Lanka, they prefer the thick, tropical forests, and in India, they take to the dry grasslands and open forests. Their restricted habitat makes them one of the many threatened wildcat species in the world. According to the IUCN Red List, they’re down to 10,000 mature individuals in the world, which puts them at the ‘vulnerable’ end of the scale, and due to habitat loss caused by logging, plus the fur trade, their numbers continue to dwindle.

Americans More Realistic About Their Diet Quality The steady upward trajectory in obesity over the past 30 years has brought Americans' dietary habits and attitudes into sharp focus. Research has suggested that Americans view their diets too optimistically, underestimating the amount of calories in their diets, for example, or overestimating the nutritional value. This phenomenon, known as "optimistic bias," means some Americans may be less receptive to dietary guidance because they believe that advice must be aimed at someone else. Recent work by ERS economists suggests that, in recent years, such optimistic bias may be on the wane. Researchers compared how American adults rated the healthfulness of their diets in two national surveys--the 1989-91 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes and the 2005-08 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. All survey respondents were asked if they thought their diets were "Excellent," "Very Good," "Good," "Fair," or "Poor" in terms of healthfulness. Although many things changed about American diets between the survey periods, the overall healthfulness, as measured against USDA dietary guidance, did not. But Americans have become more realistic about diet quality. For men, the probability of rating their diets as excellent or very good fell by 10.5 percentage points; for women, it declined by 8 percentage points. The surveys showed a decline in optimistic ratings across many demographic groups, including respondents who were overweight or obese, those with at least a high school education (but not a college degree), and those living in households with incomes between 130 and 300 percent of the Federal poverty level. Another striking finding may be of particular interest to nutrition educators. Although it is possible for consumers to choose more healthful foods when they eat out, research shows that food eaten away from home tends to be less nutritious than food prepared at home. Americans seem to recognize this; ERS researchers found that ratings of diet healthfulness were strongly inversely related to the frequency of eating food prepared away from home, particularly fast food. People who rated their diets as poor ate food prepared away from home almost twice as often and ate fast food three times as often as those who rated their diets as excellent. These results suggest that while Americans' diets are still in need of improvement, consumers understand the relative value of food prepared away from home and, more importantly, may be more receptive to dietary guidance.

I want to know what occurs to you when you hear the term “self-care”. I want to know what happens when you hear: You exist and are real. That, therefore, you must live and take care of your container, your body. I first heard “self-care” during my training as a rape crisis counselor. I was a feisty 21-year old with a lot of energy invested in my identity as a crusty vegan feminist. My fellow counselors discussed the importance of self-care, but I couldn’t overcome the notion that it was blasphemy to waste precious time on meditating, weekends off, and creative projects when I could be using that time to help others. How could I justify “indulging” in self-care, when so many humans and animals hardly get to live at all? Like most other things I know, I learned the hard way that in a society based on so many hierarchies placing one body above another, self-care might be amongst the most political and revolutionary ideas one can engage with. As a rape crisis counselor and supervisor, I was working overnights on the hotline. During that time, I also founded an animal rights group and became involved with anti-war organizing leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. All these issues were embedded with each other in painstaking ways I couldn’t escape. My cells and heartbeat obsessed. Every day I made new connections between the hierarchies and violences permeating the planet, from the destruction wrecked by global capitalism, to that done against individual bodies on dinner plates. The choice I made in the face of this overwhelm was to starve. How could I stop for dinner when a shift needed to be covered? When I had to facilitate a meeting? When Iraqi children were being destroyed and I had the privilege of a voice? Since adolescence, anorexia had been my default. Yet I hesitate to indulge some grand personal narrative around this. It’s true that I’ve obsessed in a manner, to a depth, that you’d only understand if you’ve had an eating disorder. Eating disorders are a purgatorial encasement comprised of out-of-control thought-patterns that incessantly generate themselves through your body, consuming your reality like a tyrant who may or may not exist in a guard tower. Eating disorders are torture. It doesn’t matter who you are; they don’t discriminate based on intelligence, bravery, strength, or political orientation; based on whether you are made out of love or hate. Anorexia doesn’t come from personality, yet it destroys personality altogether. It comes from a place before you, and it goes beyond who you are, infiltrates you from all sides and from around every external and internal angle. It makes you it. It becomes your only story. This is why I hesitate to write about it. I want to say things that go beyond a tired individualist tale and into the realm of helpfulness. The best I can come up with is: I’m writing this, offering it, because, if you are so alone that you cannot even find your own body, I want to remind you that you are allowed to rest and be gentle, to hold yourself back into existence. I want to tell you that you are wonderful. I suppose I could say things like: My self-destruction arose from a message I’d internalized during my personal and cultural upbringing—that my existence, my literal and metaphorical body, had time to wait. There was only so much happiness to go around, and I had to sacrifice some of mine for the sake of those who seemed to have none. So, you? How do you hold yourself? Do you see that you exist? Me, I lost so many pounds of myself that I couldn’t get out of bed. I vomited blood, broke bones, destroyed my stomach, lost my hair, got banned from the gym, fucked up my teeth, forgot where I was, got lost on my own street. Eventually I was forced to remove myself from almost all the political and social work projects I was involved in and enter treatment. Everything became its opposite. Maybe you’ve enacted a similar story. If so, I bow to you. Eating disorders override all things life-ward and good. If you’ve been to the depths of one, you have seen hell and known hell’s profound wisdom. Tell people about what you have found there. Tell people how anorexia puts a prison inside and outside you. It makes you into a prison and it makes a prison around your prison. Oppression is a prison in which we learn to police ourselves. Tell people how we can break the prisons if we decide to see them. To see our own prison bars and to see each others’ and maybe, if we are strong enough, to even see the prisons that encompass the guards. Tell about how in order to do these things, we need each other—desperately, profoundly, in ways that we might not have even conceived of yet. When I was in that hospital that time–it was, unfortunately, far from the only one my eating disorder landed me in—there was one political project I rationalized lingering with, for it was mobile. I’d been helping a friend with some important research and brought all my materials and books with me to the locked ward. I could only use a tiny pencil to write, and I had to sneak it in, because pens and pencils are considered dangerous in these kinds of places. Two days later, my heart almost stopped. It was my 23rd birthday. Because I was almost dead, I do not recall this happening. I recall waking up and my roommate on the ward swinging her fists at doctors. She wouldn’t eat because she thought they were poisoning her. It was then that I was persuaded to put the books away. At night my roommate moaned and I whispered to her: I know you know yourself. You exist. Keep going. Don’t let the bastards grind you down. For months my life was consumed by all-day eating disorder treatment. I was essentially forced to eat food that, to me—someone who’d spent most of my life considering and advocating ethical ways to eat—was unethical. It was more than a year before I was able to re-engage with the things I cared about. This might seem extreme. Yet almost all the helpers, activists, and radical dreamers I know have at some point experienced a consequential degree of preventable self-neglect. Very few have truly internalized the vital connection between oneself and others that self-care sustains, a connection that evaporates with self-destruction. I often turn to a story Thich Naht Hahn tells about the eyes of a bus driver. We’re all on and around her bus and our lives depend on her ability to see. On her intricate awareness of the road, how to move the machine and do the job. This is literal. If the bus driver closes her eyes, gets drunk, gets dizzy, goes blind, or has a heart that stops, we’ll all be deeply harmed. This is the nature of self-care. It’s intimately tied into the well-being of everybody around us. It is the opposite of personal indulgence because the self is not just the individual. We’re all riding on each others’ bus, whether or not we want to, simply by virtue of being alive together. Without a basic awareness of what we need, how we work, what our strengths, intentions, and weakness are, and how to be present and alive, we risk causing profound harm even when we think we are being neutral or helpful. If I’d chosen to be healthy, I’d have been able to do more, and better, work. I’d have felt happy doing it, instead of guilty, depressed, and anxiety-ridden. I wouldn’t have had to spend months unbound, eating food I advocated against and using my time and resources trying not to die. I’m positive my self-destruction, reactivity, and poor health affected others in ways I’ll never know, because I was driving the bus with my eyes closed and I crashed. I experienced this crash and so did everyone around me: my loved ones, my colleagues, my clients and those I counseled, my cat, everyone I wanted to help, the folks who wanted to help me. Many of the political systems I was trying to name and break down—patriarchy, violent food production, hatred and destruction of bodies—were actually strengthened. But to heal from anorexia is to grow yourself back. To grow yourself back is to grow others back. I was so terrified that I almost disappeared. I healed and I appeared again. I was so terrified that I almost unfastened my heart and dropped it in a cultural garbage can. I healed and grew my heart back. I dug my heart out of the war because I do not support the war. I stopped an entire war by healing. At first, I brushed off self-care as inherently apolitical—some kind of sneaky twist on hyper-individualistic consumerist culture. And it’s true that self-care, like everything else, often gets channeled through Western culture as little more than a brand to consume—a quick-fix tweak of diet, a brand-name exercise regime, an excuse to disconnect. A solely individualist pursuit that should come at the cost of everything and everyone else; the other extreme, the rejection of the political for the unadulterated personal. But if we are to be effective mutineers, we must be able to mindfully contend with these extremes of relating to the self. To take care of ourselves in a manner that doesn’t reject the body for the politic or the politic for the body, because the two are connected in ways that came before and go beyond both of them, and beyond words and constructions altogether. If you inhabit a body that’s in some way been deemed unacceptable— if you’re a woman, a queer person, a transgender person, a person of color, a person of the “wrong” size or shape, a trauma victim of any gender— then to insist upon your own existence is one of the most revolutionary acts you can perform. There are so many simple, free self-care practices that we can try to commit to: eating as well as possible, getting enough sleep, mindfully building breaks into our lives. Contemplative activities like journaling, developing presence and awareness through meditation, and spending time outside can change the entire game. We can set up childcare, meal, and work shares to help each other create space for rest. Whenever possible, we can ask others to take over tasks we don’t have energy for. On the path to radical self-care, saying “no” is sometimes in everybody’s best interest. It takes patience and awareness to create new habits. We must be so gentle and creative. But even just twenty minutes a day of self-care has changed my life. For those who are worried about losing their perspective, or their identity, to self-care, I promise: I haven’t lost touch with my passions—in fact, I’m a much better, happier, and more useful version of myself now. Just like the rest of the sentient beings, we don’t deserve to starve, and we’re part of many systems that are affected by our starvation. For better or worse, it’s impossible to opt out of the reality of not being alone in this strange existence. If we don’t have health and awareness, if we’re unnecessarily starving in a societal trash heap, we can’t have ourselves and each other. This “each other” extends from our loved ones to all beings across the world. I believe this is spiritual, dharmic and karmic, but it’s also plain old physics, biology and evolution. Our genuine well-being is nothing but magnificent. It is in our ability to create enough well-being to go around for everyone. The thing is, control is not the same as agency. Agency is big, it is empowering; control tries to contain and dominate things. Even at my worst, I have the agency to try to turn dominance into co-operation, power-over into power-with. When I am overwhelmed by personal losses, I can look at myself and be a witness. I can say, “I see you. You are in pain. Let’s rest.” We can say that to each other. When I am overwhelmed by my perceived powerlessness in the face of issues as big as wars, rape, factory farms, and ecocide, I remember that I do not have to contribute to the fucked-ness of the world by harming myself and, by proxy, those around me. A beautiful person I was in treatment with once said, “Eating disorders are when you are busy dying. I want to be busy being alive.” Yes. That’s just it. We’re huge and ravenous and impossible to contain; this is terrifying. Especially as a woman in this culture, it’s supposed to be. When there is pain, sometimes it feels nearly impossible to keep my eyes open. But when I can move beyond the fear, I find myself in an inexplicable wellspring of wonder and reverence. It’s the kind of wonder where I can’t breathe, like when I saw the Milky Way from that deserted West Virginia field, or when I stood in a rainbow beneath Niagara Falls, or when I touched the Mississippi River, or when I find that pink tree on my block in the spring, or when it’s firefly season. Or when I met my nephew the day he was born. And suddenly I remember why I need to start being busy being alive. Suddenly I feel the need, with a desperation as big as my heart, to beg you, all of you who are in so much unnecessary pain: Come with me, come with me, come with me…there is so much to see on the other side! It is real. To heal is real. You’ve got to believe me. Look at yourself. You have hands and knees, a face, lungs. You have pens and paper. You, yourself, are as spectacular as everything you love. Do not listen to the tyrant—take up your own space. Come with me.

As I mentioned in response to your previous question about ribbon elements, the element u which is defined from the R-matrix, u=\mu\circ(S\ot \id)(R21) has the property that uS(u)=v^2 (well this is not the formula I gave for u in that post, because the one I gave was incorrect; this one appears to be correct according to wikipedia). This relation v^2=uS(u) is true in any ribbon Hopf algebra, and in particular it implies that v has to be a square root of uS(u). So I think this means that the ribbon element is almost unique. More precisely, let v and w be two ribbon elements. Then v/w is a grouplike element of order two. I think this implies that the corresponding invariant applied to a link will be multiplied by the constant v/w applied to each link. Now if you choose irreducible representations to label your link, then this number would have to be +/- 1. Does this seem correct?

A discussion on truth, beauty, the American way, humor, intelligence, love, stupidity and where we are today Thursday, March 8, 2012 Happy International Women's Day! International Women's Day (IWD), originally called International Working Women’s Day, is marked on March 8 every year. In different regions the focus of the celebrations ranges from general celebration of respect, appreciation and love towards women to a celebration for women's economic, political and social achievements. The first national Women's Day was observed on 28 February 1909 in the United States following a declaration by the Socialist Party of America.

ATLANTA -- When it made its debut, one of the most-recognized pieces by 19th-century French Impressionist Edgar Degas raised quite a few eyebrows and sparked skepticism among critics of the day. ''Little Dancer of Fourteen Years'' -- a bronze sculpture of a young ballerina -- was originally done in wax when it first appeared at the Sixth Impressionists Exhibition in Paris in 1881. Degas veered from tradition with ''Little Dancer,'' choosing an anonymous subject and using mixed media -- satin slippers, silk ribbon, a muslin tutu and real hair. The piece was reminiscent of the wax models of Madame Tussaud. The art world balked in France but American collectors applauded the fresh, adventurous approach. It didn't take long for Degas' dabblings in realism to earn him critical acclaim in the United States and abroad. A bronze figure of ''Little Dancer'' is among the works in a new show at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. ''Degas & America: The Early Collectors'' is the first and most extensive retrospective of its kind to be presented in the Southeast, organizers say. It runs through May 27. ''Degas' work is still fresh and provocative,'' says David Brenneman, curator of European art at the High Museum. ''We started acquiring pieces two years ago. ... We felt this was an artist who deserved to be known here.'' The show consists of nearly 85 pieces spanning Degas' career. Many of the works are on loan from private and institutional collectors, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institute, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The show is an impressive arrangement of oil paintings, pastels, pencil drawings and bronze sculptures. Each gallery is distinguished by themes -- some featuring portraits and figure studies, others featuring jockeys and their race horses, dancers, women bathing and landscapes. Though Degas never trained as a sculptor, he experimented with the medium around the 1870s. In fact, Degas had little formal training, teaching himself by studying older art works at the Louvre and traveling to Italy. Most of his pieces remained in his studio until his death in 1917. He also was the only French Impressionist to visit the United States, spending time with relatives in New Orleans. Unlike Claude Monet and other impressionists of his era, Degas wasn't afraid to cross genres, as can be seen by his still lifes and portraits such as his ''Woman Seated Beside a Vase of Flowers'' (1865). Also, the strong influences of early 19th-century French draftsman Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and his rival Eugene Delacroix appear in Degas' works. Here was a man who accepted women as they were, unadorned and comfortable in their own skin, so to speak. What some may have seen as less-flattering moments, Degas found the beauty in it, Brenneman notes. ''He was an incredibly diverse artist, always working and reworking images. Americans went for it,'' Brenneman says. Artist Mary Cassatt and avid Degas collector Louisine Havemeyer were among early American followers who appreciated his odd use of color and realistic portrayals of everyday life. But some critics debated the merits of his works, particularly pieces that appeared unfinished. Recently, one of his originals sold for $25 million. ''These are some of the most sought after pieces, especially his paintings and the pastels,'' Brenneman says. The High Museum is earning a solid reputation by featuring works of the masters, and High officials hope the Degas exhibit will help increase the museum's stature in the art world. Roger Berkowitz, director of the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio, recently told the Atlanta-Journal Constitution that the High has ''particularly gained attention through its ambitious and impressive exhibition schedule.'' In 1999, ''Impressionism: Paintings Collected by European Museums,'' drew a record 252,000 visitors during its 10-week run at the High Museum. More recently, major exhibitions such as ''Starry Night: Three Masterpieces From the Museum of Modern Art, New York'' and ''Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People'' were also featured.

Prague has been one of the most beautiful European cities since the Middle Ages. Often called the "City of 100 towers", the "Rooftop of Europe" or the "Heart of Europe", Prague was a place where many merchants, artists and inventors met. Prague is full of historical monuments and shows all major artistic styles. The historical centre of Prague is situated on both banks of the Vltava river. This historical centre consists of the 6 districts, which were once independent cities that were put together in 18th century. Those are Staré Město (Old Town), Josefov (Old Jewish Town), Nové Město (New Town), Malá Strana (Lesser Town), Hradčany (Prague Castle Quarter) and Vyšehrad. It was Prince Bořivoj who established Prague Castle. There are also lots of museums, galleries, theatres, concert halls, and other historical buildings. The earliest inhabitants of the area that we know about lived in the valley of the Vltava river around 500 BC. Slavonic tribes came to Bohemia in about 500 AD. There is a legend about how the town of Prague started. Princess Libuše, the leader of a Slavonic tribe, chose a simple peasant Přemysl to be her husband. She told him to go and find a village on the banks of the Vltava and to start a town there. The town became Prague, ruled by the Přemyslid family. In the second half of the 9th century the castle’s original fortifications were built. During the reign of Wenceslas I (Václav in Czech) in the 10th century the church of St Vitus was built at Prague castle. Wenceslas was murdered by his brother when he was going to church. He was later made a saint. In the early 11th century the Přemyslid family got power in Moravia, too. Vratislav II was the first monarch to be called King of Bohemia. Another ruler, also called Wenceslas I, ruled as King of Bohemia from 1230. He encouraged the arts. A lot of Germans came to live in Prague. In 1257 King Otakar II founded the area of Prague called the Lesser Quarter for the Germans to live in. The last of the Přemyslid kings was King Wenceslas III. He was murdered in Moravia. During the Middle Ages Prague became very important as the capital of the Holy Roman Empire ruled by Charles IV (1316-1378) who was the most powerful ruler in Europe at the time. Charles made Prague a great city, building St Vitus Cathedral, a university, and a famous bridge called Charles Bridge which still exists. After Charles IV there were many arguments and fights in Prague. A priest called Jan Hus said that the Catholic Church had become too powerful. He was arrested and burned at the stake in 1415. A lot of people agreed with what Hus had been saying. These people were called Hussites. They threw a lot of important Catholic people out of the window (called "defenestration"). A lot more fighting followed, and for many years Bohemia was ruled by kings who lived in other countries. From 1526 the Hapsburg family ruled Bohemia. They were Catholics and ruled the Holy Roman Empire. In 1576 the Emperor Rudolph II moved the capital from Vienna to Prague. Prague became a rich town again, and people were free to worship as Catholics or Protestants. After Rudolph II there were a lot of religious fighting and more people were thrown out of windows. Eventually the fighting became part of the Thirty Years’ War. When Ferdinand II won the fighting a lot of Protestants left the country. New buildings in Prague were built in the Baroque style. The German language, not Czech, was spoken at court. Maria Theresa was the only queen to reign over Prague. One of her 16 children was Marie Antoinette who became queen of France. When her son Joseph II ruled, people stopped fighting about religion. The people were free to speak what they thought, and there was no more serfdom. Prague now had three parts: the Old Town, the Lesser Quarter and the New Town. Famous people such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart visited the town often. In the 19th century industry came to Prague. Factories were built, a railway was built between Prague and Vienna. The Czech nationalist movement became very strong after 1848. They wanted to use their own language instead of German. The composers Smetana and Dvořák wrote music about their country, often using Czech folksongs. The National Theatre was opened in 1881. In June 1914 the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Hapsburg throne, was murdered. This led to World War I. After the war an independent republic called Czechoslovakia was formed with Prague as its capital. It consisted of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia. In 1938 Hitler invaded the country. It was liberated by Soviet troops in May 1945. However, the communists soon seized power and the country was ruled by communists who had to obey the Soviet Union. The president Alexander Dubček, gradually tried to make reforms. This period of time is called the "Prague Spring". In 1968 the Soviet Union sent tanks into Prague to Wenceslas Square to restore their power. Democracy gradually came to Prague in 1989 when the Velvet Revolution took place. In 1993 the Czech Republic and Slovakia split into two countries. Today both these countries are part of the European Union. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1990 Prague has become one of Europe's most popular tourist places. It has buildings dating from the 13th century to the present day. The castle looks very important on the hillside. Charles Bridge is now closed to traffic so that pedestrians can walk across the bridge and buy souvenirs from the stalls. There are many museums, palaces and theatres. Tourists often go to the Old Town Square in the centre of Prague. There are lots of buildings there from different periods of history. The statue of Jan Hus stands high above the square. There is a famous Astronomical Clock on the wall of the Old Town Hall. There are museums dedicated to famous people including Smetana, Dvořák and Franz Kafka. The Estates Theatre is one of Europe’s oldest theaters. It was built in the 1780s and Mozart conducted the first performance of his opera Don Giovanni there. Prague is on the list of World Heritage Sites. Prague has been important in the economy of what is now the Czech Republic since the region developed industry in the 19th century. Textiles and machinery are made and exported to many countries. Food, electronics and chemicals are produced. Nearly half the people who work are women. Prague is becoming a city where many international companies have their headquarters. Since the late 1990s, Prague has become a popular filming location for international productions and Hollywood motion pictures. Colleges and universities[change] Prague has three metro lines, several tram lines, and buses that connect to the suburbs. There is also a funicular rail link to the top of the Petřín Hill and a chairlift at Prague Zoo. All these services have a common ticketing system. Trains from Prague connect to major cities in neighbouring countries. Prague has many parks and gardens, including a park for culture, sports and entertainments which is named after Julius Fučík, a resistance leader of World War II. It has three stadiums, the largest of which, Spartakiádní stadion, holds 250,000 people.

What is a Speed Rating? - Quick Explanation: Here is a brief step-by-step explanation of how a speed rating is made: (1) Get the results of a cross country invitational (the actual race times), as deep as possible ... (if enough sequential race times are not available, it may be impossible to make a speed rating for that race). (2) Use the actual race times to determine how fast or how slow the race was compared to a "standard race" ... For example, I might determine the race was 15 slower or 15 seconds faster than a standard race ... I can use several different statistically methods to determine how fast or how slow the race was ... this number of seconds is the race correction. (3) Add or subtract the race correction number from the actual race times ... for example, if the race correction number is +15 seconds (meaning the race was 15 seconds slower on average than the standard race), I then subtract 15 seconds from all the actual race times to get "corrected" race times ... (as an example, if the actual race time was 20:00.0, the corrected race time would be 19:45.0). (4) I could just post the corrected race times ... but, for comparison purposes, I find it easier to convert the corrected race time to a simple number (a speed rating) ... Speed Rating = (1560 - (actual race time in seconds) - (course correction factor)) / 3 where 1560 is the number of seconds in 26 minutes ... 26 minutes is used because it corresponds to zero in the standard race ... the course correction factor is how fast or slow (in seconds) a race course is in relation to the SUNY Utica standard course ... the entire expression is divided by 3 because I decided one point equals three seconds in this method. Bottom-Line ... a speed rating is just a corrected race time (that's all) ... it allows speed comparison of any race to another race ... it's nothing more than that!

VATICAN CITY — Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes turned 500 on Wednesday with the Vatican warning it might eventually limit visitors to protect one of the wonders of Western civilization. In 1512, Pope Julius II said an evening vespers service to inaugurate the room where Michelangelo toiled for four years, much of it on his back, to finish his ceiling frescoes. Now, about 5 million people, as many as 20,000 a day in summer, visit the chapel every year. Last month, an Italian literary critic wrote a letter in a major Italian newspaper denouncing the behavior of crowds visiting what is technically a sacred place. Tourists, he said, "resemble drunken herds" as they unwittingly risked damaging the frescoes with their breath, their perspiration, the dust on their shoes and their body heat. At a vespers service Wednesday night to commemorate the event in the same room 500 years ago, Pope Benedict seemed to agree on the need for more contemplation when in the chapel. Antonio Paolucci, director of the Vatican Museums, said he did not foresee limiting the number of visitors "in the short and medium term" but said the museums might not have any choice after that.

Picture of Psoriasis A reddish, scaly rash often located over the surfaces of the elbows, knees, scalp, and around or in the ears, navel, genitals or buttocks... View Image Gallery» The Sex & Love Quiz The brain. The body. The bedroom. What do you know? View Quiz » Bronchitis is acute or chronic inflammation of the air passages in the lungs. There are several viruses and bacteria that cause bronchitis. Exposure to pollutan...learn more » A bone marrow biopsy is performed to evaluate bone marrow function or to determine the cause of some infections, diagnose tumors, determine how far a disease, s...learn more » Cigarette smoking remains the leading cause of death and illness among Americans. Effects of smoking can cause cancers, emphysema, bronchitis, COPD, chronic cou...learn more » Gastrointestinal bleeding either comes from the upper GI or lower GI tract. Upper GI bleeding can be caused by ulcers, gastritis, varices, cancer, or inflammati...learn more » The electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) is a diagnostic tool that measures and records the electrical activity of the heart in exquisite detail.learn more » Uterine (endometrial) cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women in the U.S. Read about staging, symptoms, prognosis, risk factors and treatment. Treatmen...learn more » Emphysema a long-term, progressive disease of the lungs. The most common symptom of emphysema is shortness of breath. Causes and risk factors for emphysema incl...learn more » Internal bleeding may be caused by trauma, medications, or insufficient clotting factors. Symptoms of internal bleeding may be pain, referred pain, change in st...learn more » Hematoma is a collection of blood outside a blood vessel usually caused by injury to the blood vessel wall. Causes of hematoma include trauma, head injury, bump...learn more » Chest X-ray is a common procedure ordered to diagnose certain diseases and conditions such as pneumonia, congestive heart failure, emphysema, lung masses or nod...learn more »

Every two years, the Australian Government collects information on protected areas from state and territory Governments and other protected area managers. This information is published in the Collaborative Australian Protected Area Database (CAPAD). CAPAD is used to provide a national perspective of the conservation of biodiversity in protected areas. It also allows Australia to regularly report on the status of protected areas to meet international obligations such as those in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Australian protected area information is also included in the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA). Under the Australia's Strategy for the National Reserve System 2009-2030 all the state and territory Governments and the Australian Government have agreed to adopt international standards for the definition of a protected area and management categories used by the IUCN. CAPAD provides information at a national, state and territory level. For each grouping CAPAD includes information about the following: - List of all protected areas. This list includes information on IUCN category, location (latitude and longitude of mid-point (centroid)), area (hectares) and gazettal date (the year an area was declared a protected area). - Protected areas classified according to reservation type designations eg National Park, Conservation Covenant, Indigenous Protected Area. - Protected areas classified according to IUCN management categories eg. Number of designated Category III protected areas in NSW. - Protected areas classified according to type designations as a proportion of IBRA (Version 7) regions. For example, the number of type designations within the Victorian Midlands (VM) IBRA region in Victoria and the percentage of those types of Protected Areas within that region. - Protected areas classified according to IUCN management categories as a proportion of IBRA region eg. Number of Category II protected areas in Queensland and the percentage of those IUCN categories within the Queensland IBRA regions. - The level of protection of IBRA regions. - The level of protection of IBRA subregions.

Kyudo - “way of the bow” - in its most pure form is practiced as an art and as a means of moral and spiritual development. It is not dependent on age or sex. Originally, the traditional Japanese “art of the bow,” (Kyujutsu) was a discipline of the samurai, the Japanese warrior class. As the bow lost its significance as a weapon of war, and under the influence of Buddhism, Shinto, Daoism and Confucianism, Japanese archery evolved into Kyudo, the “Way of the Bow.” In some schools Kyudo is practiced as a highly refined contemplative practice, while in other schools it is practiced as a modern day sport. The yumi (Japanese bow) is exceptionally tall (standing over two meters), surpassing the height of the archer (kyudoka). Yumi are traditionally made of bamboo, wood and leathe. All kyudo archers hold the bow in their left hand and draw the string with their right, so that all archers face the higher position (kamiza) while shooting. Unlike occidental archers (who, with some exceptions, draw the bow never further than the cheek bone), kyūdō archers draw the bow so that the drawing hand is held behind the ear. If done improperly, upon release the string may strike the archers ear or side of the face.

Heal the Bay staff has been fielding questions lately from people who are concerned about debris from last year's devastating tsunami in Japan. Will it wash ashore here? Is it radioactive? The bottom line is that scientists believe that most of the debris from the tsunami has already sunk in the Pacific. What disaster-related debris may wash ashore in Southern California in the coming months and years will be widely dispersed. Most important, it's unlikely to contain radiation. Because of the high level of marine debris already in the ocean, it's nearly impossible to determine if a particular item found on the beach did indeed come from the disaster zone in Japan. If you do discover something unusual on the shoreline, we encourage you to take a picture of it and contact us. If it looks potentially dangerous, please don't pick it up.

The Army and the Early Republic The end of the War of 1812 and of the Napoleonic Wars marked the dawn of the so-called Age of Free Security. Abandoning its ambitions on the territory of the United States, Great Britain used its naval supremacy to keep the peace at sea. This stance not only insulated America from European quarrels but also enforced the American Monroe Doctrine, a warning issued by President James Monroe against further European interference in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. The Army continued to construct coastal fortifications against the receding threat of seaborne invasion, but it turned its main focus to the South and West, where many Americans were moving in search of new lands and opportunities. At times the Army served as a buffer between these restless settlers and the Native Americans. At other times the government directed it to move the tribes, forcibly if necessary, from their lands. The tragic removal of the Cherokees from their ancestral homeland in the Southeast to present-day Oklahoma was a case in point. The Army fought tribes that refused to turn over their lands to the settlers when directed by the federal government to do so. With the final collapse of Tecumseh’s confederacy during the War of 1812, the Native Americans of the Old Northwest posed little obstacle to expansion. In Florida, however, regulars and militia achieved only a partial success in driving the Seminoles from their homelands in two bitter wars spanning the period from 1817 to 1842. Its value as a frontier constabulary notwithstanding, the Regular Army of the early Republic needed to show its practical utility. The nation faced almost no external threat, and, in an age dominated by the self-made military hero and president, Andrew Jackson, many looked down on the professional military. Nevertheless, as one of few national institutions in a young republic of great size, small government, and dispersed population, the Regular Army was in a good position to contribute to national development. Soldiers proved especially well suited for exploration, given their organization, discipline, training for survival in a hostile environment, and ability to display governmental authority in a way that civilians could not. Army officers such as Stephen H. Long and John C. Fremont earned fame through their expeditions into the Missouri Valley, Rockies, Great Basin, and Southwest, making maps and gathering data that helped open those regions for transit and settlement. Until 1835 West Point was the only school in the country to produce qualified engineers, and its graduates played a vital role in the national economic development of the 1820s and 1830s. When local governments and civilian contractors could not meet demands for internal improvements—especially with respect to transportation—the Army stepped into the breach. Army engineers surveyed for roads, canals, and railroads and often supervised their construction. They were similarly instrumental in river and harbor improvements. In Washington, D.C., Army engineers built aqueducts, bridges, and public edifices, notably the Capitol dome, the Washington Monument, and the Smithsonian’s main edifice. The Army of the Jacksonian era made other significant contributions. Army doctors contributed to medical knowledge through the establishment of the Army Medical Library and work in such areas as smallpox vaccination and the study of digestion. The surgeon general directed hospitals to collect data on weather conditions for medical use and thus encouraged the evolution of a national meteorological system. The Industrial Revolution in the United States was spurred by the Army’s use of interchangeable parts in the manufacture of arms. Under the leadership of Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, the War Department completed the organization of a bureau system that it had begun during the War of 1812. Despite Jacksonian notions that a true military commander need only rely on his natural talents, the Army developed professionalism in its officer corps through a reformed course of instruction at West Point and establishment of branch schools and professional journals. The Army’s new professionalism made it an effective instrument in support of American expansionism during the 1840s. In 1846 President James K. Polk stationed Bvt. Brig. Gen. Zachary Taylor with an army of about 4,000 men near the Rio Grande to pressure Mexico into accepting that river as the boundary between the two countries. When war erupted in May, Taylor’s force quickly showed its professional mettle. At Palo Alto, Reseca de la Palma, Monterr ey, and Buena Vista, regular enlisted men demonstrated their toughness and resiliency, and the new officer corps provided skillful leadership, particularly with respect to the artillery. Volunteer regiments that had grown out of the militia system also generally served with distinction. Farther north, Col. Stephen W. Kearney’s Army of the West secured California and the future Arizona and New Mexico for the United States. In spite of these victories, Mexico continued to resist, and American leaders concluded that a direct strike at Mexico City was necessary. During Winfield Scott’s brilliant march on the Mexican capital in 1847, American soldiers again displayed fine fighting qualities at Veracruz, Cerro Gordo, Churu busco, and Chapultepec, and their officers distinguished themselves as scouts, engineers, staff officers, military governors, and leaders of combat troops. Many of these officers—including Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, Thomas J. Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and George B. McClellan—would command the armies that would face each other when North and South went to war fourteen years later. On the eve of the Civil War, the Army policed Native Americans and unruly settlers, conducted surveys for the proposed transcontinental railroad, and kept track of military developments at home and abroad, but it could not remain entirely above the sectional crisis. Northerners increasingly opposed what they saw as the efforts of the Southern “slave power” to extend slavery into the new western territories and to hunt down fugitive slaves in their communities. Southerners worried about growing Northern power and resented Northern interference with the South’s “peculiar institution.” Federal authorities had already called on regular troops to respond to South Carolina’s attempts to nullify federal laws in the 1830s. During the 1850s, the federal government again turned to regulars to control Northern crowds protesting the return of fugitive slaves. In “Bleeding Kansas,” Army troops struggled to keep the peace between proslavery and freesoil factions. For both the Army and the nation, the Civil War was the defining event of the nineteenth century. The Regular Army, numbering only about 16,000 and depleted by the resignations of Southern officers, was clearly insufficient for the task of restoring the Union after the firing on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, in April 1861. The rush to the Union colors following President Abraham Lincoln’s call for volun- teers reflected the country’s tradition of a citizenry ready to spring to arms when the nation was in danger. Within months, the Army increased to almost 500,000 men, and it would grow much larger in the ensuing years. Regular personnel, West Pointers returning from civilian life, and self-educated citizen-officers all did their part in transforming raw recruits into an effective fighting force. The War Department and its supply bureaus undertook to feed, clothe, equip, and arm the armies and otherwise mobilize the Union war effort for the task ahead. For an impatient public that had idealized the natural, irresistible “martial spirit” of Americans, the notion that the new armies required considerable organization and training became acceptable only after the Union Army’s rout at First Bull Run showed the need for more thorough preparation. That belated realization allowed professional Army officers like Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan to begin the arduous effort of transforming volunteers into soldiers. In its first efforts to restore the Union in 1861 and 1862, the Army achieved mixed results. It secured Washington, D.C., and the border states, provided aid and comfort to Unionists in West Virginia, and, in cooperation with the Union Navy, seized key points along the Southern coast, including the port of New Orleans. Under such leaders as Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, it occupied west and central Tennessee and secured almost all of the Mississippi River. In the most visible theater of the war, however, the Union Army of the Potomac made little progress against the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert E. Lee. After victories at the Seven Days and Second Bull Run, Lee, ably assisted by his chief subordinate, Maj. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, invaded Maryland in the hope of encouraging European intervention. The Union victory at the Battle of Antietam, which forced Lee to return to Virginia, reduced that danger, although subsequent defeats at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville brought the Union effort in the East no closer to success than it had been at the start of the war. After President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation expanded the Army’s mission of restoring the Union to include the emancipation of slaves in the Confederate states, the Army found itself in the middle of a revolution. As Union armies moved through the South, they were followed by a swelling crowd of African American refugees, most of them destitute with few means of survival. The Army gave food, clothing, and employment to the freedmen, and it provided as many as possible with the means of self-sufficiency, including instruction in reading and writing. African Americans in the Union Army were among those who thus achieved literacy. After years of excluding African Americans, the Army took 180,000 into its ranks. Formed into segregated units under white officers, these former slaves contributed greatly to the eventual Union victory. After four years of bitter struggle, the Army finally destroyed the Confederacy. In July 1863 Grant’s triumph at Vicksburg gave the North control of the entire Mississippi River, and the Union victory at Gettysburg turned back Lee’s last invasion of the North. The capture of Chattanooga, Tennessee, that fall opened the way for an invasion of the Southern heartland. Appointed commander of all the Union armies, Grant planned not only to annihilate the Confederate armies but also to destroy the South’s means of supporting them. While Grant wore down Lee’s army at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, and Petersburg during the 1864 and 1865 campaigns, his commander in the West, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, drove through Georgia and the Carolinas, burning crops, tearing up railroads, and otherwise obliterating the economic infrastructure of those regions. Cavalry raids and other Union operations also carried out Grant’s goal of destroying the economic and moral basis for resistance. The Army’s role in reunifying the nation did not end with Lee’s surrender at Appomattox in April 1865. To restore Southern allegiance to the United States, the Army had already established military governments in occupied areas, cracking down on Confederate sympathiz- ers while providing food, schools, and improved sanitation to the destitute. This role continued after the collapse of the Confederacy, when the Republican Congress adopted a tough “Reconstruction” policy to restore the Southern states to the Union. Serving as an occupation force, the Army was the main means of enforcement. For occupation troops in the South, the real problem was not so much the imposition of federal rule as the protection of African Americans and Unionist whites from other Southerners, notably the Ku Klux Klan. Keeping watch over local courts, the Army sought to ensure the rights of African Americans and Unionists, a task that became increasingly difficult as support for Reconstruction waned and the occupation forces declined in numbers. At the same time, military governors expedited the South’s physical recovery from the war. Through the Freedmen’s Bureau, the Army provided relief for both African Americans and whites, providing 21 million rations, operating over fifty hospitals, arranging labor for wages in former plantation areas, and establishing schools for the freedmen. The Army’s thankless but essential role in Reconstruction ended with the withdrawal of the last federal troops from the South in 1877.

Dr. Jerry McLaughlin, a scientist at Purdue University School of Pharmacy, embarked on a 28 year search for an effective cancer treatment. He led a team of researchers attempting to find substances from plants that would yield cancer cures. They screened approximately 3,500 plant species. The Paw Paw tree gave some molecules, known as acetogenins, were found to be very effective for a number of diseases. The most unfortunate part of the story is that the scientists had identified the most active molecules in the plant, but they could not figure out a way to synthesize them. This meant that they could not make the massive profits that pharmaceutical companies look for in the products that they sell. Because of this, they shelved this cancer treatment. This is video one in a series that goes into some depth about Paw Paw.

These days, drinking fluids during exercise is considered normal behavior. The importance of drinking water was first documented during the construction of the Hoover Dam near Las Vegas in the mid-1930's. Unfortunately, the athletic community didn't catch on until the middle 1960's. In the late 60's and early 70's, the opinion of many began to shift and drinking water during exercise started to become commonplace. Nowadays, withholding water might even be considered negligent. We begin to sweat within the first seconds of exercise, but we don't perceive it on our skin because the sweat evaporates so fast. Once our body temperature rises, sweat production exceeds evaporation and that is when we start to notice it on our skin. Evaporation of the sweat is the actual loss of heat. The lower the humidity, the faster the evaporation. There are even modern fabrics that help in the evaporation process. Sweat is mostly water. The amount of salt in sweat is small, so our most important task is to replace water. (were you aware that the first sports drink, Gookin-Aid, was simply the salt and water composition of the sweat of a runner named Matt Gookin?) We don't begin to get thirsty until about 1% of our body weight is lost. However, our thirst mechanism is not very good. We get thirsty after we've started to become dehydrated. When we start drinking, we satisfy our thirst before we have replaced the lost fluid. If we lose 3 pounds of weight by sweating (that is 3 pints of water-remember that relationship: 1 pint of water = 1 pound of body weight), we don't drink back those 3 pints of lost water. We typically stop drinking well before full replacement of water. It is best to drink some fluids 15-20 minutes prior to exercise. Two to three good size mouthfuls of fluid is about right. Drink 2-3 mouthfuls every 15-20 minutes during exercise (performance drops off with dehydration not too mention that the real risk of heat illness accompanies dehydration) Drinking during exercise helps keep performance up and the body temperature from getting too high. Place water bottles around the field, in the goals, and make it easily accessible on the bench so players can freely drink during the game. Use the normal stoppages in play to replenish your fluids-remember, a 90-minute game only has around 60 minutes of play, even less on hotter days so there are plenty of opportunities to drink. Water or a commercial drink? Actually, the salt in the commercial drinks helps get the water absorbed a little faster. Taste also has a lot to do with it. The better the taste (water is a bit bland) the more consumed. Carbonated sodas are never a good choice -- not before, during or after a game. The carbonation fills you up too fast and you drink less. It takes a while to replenish your fluid levels. Do not force fluids in a short period of time. Research shows that it can take up to 6 hours to get back to a normal water balance. To get back into water balance after exercise, drink 1.5 times your weight loss. Therefore, if you lose 4 lbs. of weight in a game (4 pints of water) - you should drink 6 pints of fluids in the hours after the game. Remember to drink 8 glasses of water (or 2 of those 32 oz water bottles many players have) every day. The suggestions mentioned are in addition to the normal 8 glasses per day. Heat illness is a very dangerous condition, but it is an entirely preventable problem. Drink before, during and after each exercise session. Weigh yourself at the same time each day. Unless you are trying to lose weight, your weight should be stable. If it's not, you may be becoming progressively dehydrated.

Here are some of our learning objectives. Given Turbo's lack of interest, we might not get in depth on these. - There are different kinds of trees - Trees grow things - Trees have roots, trunk, bark, branches and leaves - Trees are plants - Trees need water, nutrients and sunlight to grow - Trees provide food, shelter, wood, paper and oxygen - Trees have different types of leaves - Leaves make the food for trees We kicked off this week with a field trip to our local preserve for a nature walk. Turbo was to take pictures of nature, parts of the tree and anything else that interested him. I thought this would really get him excited about our nature walk. Nope. He wasn't interested in the nature, the activities or the topic. He just wanted to ride in the stroller next to Little Sweetie. Our only highlight was throwing sticks off the bridge into the rushing stream. Let's just say that I've scratched the Redwoods field trip off the schedule for next week! Still, We watched this great slideshow about trees. It covered all of the learning objectives and Turbo payed careful attention and asked for it most days. I wish I could find something like this for all our units as it was cute, concise and accurate. After collecting leaves (mostly by me) from our neighborhood to supplement our sad, tiny collection from the aforementioned nature walk, we did some leaf activities. We haven't been doing many arts/crafts, so this was makeup day! Inspecting and Comparing - we taped leaves to paper and used a magnifing glass to look at their veins and compare the differences. Leaf Rubbings - with both crayons and chalk Tree Bark Rubbings - Turbo had the idea "Let's do this on a tree!" so we set off to rub on all trees in our yard. Paper Plate Wreath Leaf Collage - Turbo surprised me with this present he made while I was getting the paint for his leaf painting. Awwww. Seriously sweet little boy. Painting with leaves - it was so funny, he really wasn't sure how to paint with these. Although he enjoyed it! Not really a tree learning activity, but a fun way to paint! Then we played "Does it grow on/live in a tree?" game. I had him yell Yes or No as loud as he could if it grew on a tree or if it lived in a tree. We didn't have enough dry leaves to crunch one for each answer, so we yelled instead. We read Fall Leaves Fall by Zoe Hall. We also read this last year and likely will every year! Such a lovely book. At the end we got out the silk leaves and pretended to be the wind and trees. Kumon Books ~ We continue to work our way through the Kumon books. We're starting off very easy and once I start RRSP, then we'll move onto the Capital Letters book. Weekly Game - This week we're doing puzzles. He does fairly well, but they don't hold his interest long. After putting it together once, he doesn't want to repeat the same one again. Pretend Play ~ He asked me to play grocery store this week. He wanted to play with a 'credit card' and really needed the phone since the clerks have them too. That's it for this week. I'm not sure what we're going to do next week. He's not that into trees. Maybe I can find some fun science experiments. If you have any, let me know!

Why beef is losing its flavor Feedlots have begun giving cattle a drug that causes the animal to bulk up on muscle, losing fat in the process. Feedlots have begun giving cattle a new drug with a curious side effect: It makes steaks less flavorful and juicy, Slate reports. But the drug, Zilmax, helps cattle bulk up on muscle in the last few weeks of their lives -- which brings in more money for feedlot owners. Zilmax was originally created to help people with asthma, Christopher Leonard writes on Slate. But animal researchers found that it makes animals produce more muscle and less fat. That means there are more pounds of beef to sell, but the meat doesn't have that glorious marbling that turns a steak into a masterpiece on the grill. Zilmax is sold by Merck Animal Health, one of the fastest-growing units of Merck (MRK). On its website, Merck describes Zilmax as "a feed supplement that enables an animal’s natural metabolism to more efficiently convert feed energy to lean, healthy, delicious beef." Four major meat companies control 85% of the market, Leonard writes, and they reportedly all use Zilmax now. They include Tyson Foods (TSN), JBS SA (JBSAF), Cargill and National Beef Packing Co. Cargill reportedly resisted using Zilmax for years, but finally got on board last year when everyone else was doing it. Last year's drought made it even easier for Merck to sell Zilmax. Farmers were forced to keep herds low, in fact the size of the U.S. cattle herd fell to its smallest since 1952. But Zilmax lets a feedlot owner get more meat from the cow without having to give it any additional food and water. Leonard reported that the drug could add 33 pounds of extra meat to a cow, making the animal about $30 more valuable. Merck Animal Health says that Zilmax doesn't cause the quality of steaks to suffer, and that people can't tell the difference between beef that has and has not been treated with the drug. Zilmax usage has really taken off since 2011. If Merck is right, you may have not noticed a thing. But if you've wondered recently why steak suddenly seems more muscular, less fatty and a bit more bland, now you have your answer. While incompetent bosses like Michael Scott and Andy Bernard typically can’t survive in the workplace, office romances are a very real part of corporate culture. - Southwest Airlines turns less legroom into $773M - 'American Idol' gets sorry ratings for season finale - Powerball's wacky sense of humor - Millions of Facebook's users are actually pets - Can crowd funding rescue the LA Times? - Domino's debuts a DVD that smells like pizza - Average US retirement age climbs to 61 - McDonald's aims to slim down its 145-item menu - Bathroom reading goes digital with iPad TP stand The bullish bias was evident in premarket action as the S&P futures pointed to a higher start without the benefit of any definitive news catalyst. Stocks indeed benefited from a blast of buying interest at the opening bell on this ... More

Sometime back I asked author Shashi Deshpande about negative reviews in an attempt to understand what drives a critic's disdain. Are writers proud of putting their name on pieces they know are dishonest? Can they as Ms Deshpande quoted another writer, ``look me in the eye and `say' what they wrote?'' In retrospect, it was not my business to wonder. Because writers whether they are investing years of their life in a book or mucking someone else's work, are first of all accountable to their own integrity. And they are answerable to only themselves. Regardless of these random drops of negativity..I feel blessed that there is a book with my name on it and I felt instinctively protective towards it and a tad defensive because literary criticism should be literary and these reviews just were not. Ms Deshpande has birthed ten novels since 1978 and has never lost her will to write but she till date remembers the pieces that attacked her first book and belittled it. But as she explained to me, a writer's job ends with the book. And whether criticism stems from ignorant malice or downright nastiness, it should not be allowed in that space that is yours as a writer. And then she sent me a piece she had written sometime back which made me realise whether the writer is Virginia Woolf, Doris Lessing, Shashi Deshpande or an upstart from nowhere like me, most critics don't change and say the same things and keep saying them to different authors in different contexts in different eras. An incisive take on on critics by Shashi Deshpande: Barbara Epstein calls reviewing a special skill. In India unfortunately, no skill seems to be necessary. Anyone, just about anyone, it seems, can do a review of any book, any author, any genre. To quote Doris Lessing: ` … a young man or woman, reviewer or critic, who has not read more of a writer’s work than the book in front of him, will write patronisingly, as if rather bored with the whole business, or as if considering how many marks to give an essay’ to the writer `who might have written fifteen books and have been writing for twenty or thirty years – giving the writer instructions on what to write next and how. No one thinks this absurd.’ This is absolutely true of India as well. Often the patronising comments of so-called reviewers border on cheekiness (P.Lal calls is cockiness) and presumptuousness. Even more alarming are reviewers who don’t read the book. The point is, as Doris Lessing said, that the word `critic’ is interpreted to mean `to find fault’. And therefore the more faults you find, the more destructive you are, the better a critic you can consider yourself. The idea that the reviewer is the person who can guide the reader does not exist. The lightheartedness with which a reviewer damns a book without giving a single reason for it is astounding. Surely some reason must be given for what the reviewer is saying. If you don’t like something in the book, you have to say why, you have to produce the evidence. But many reviewers think that no more is needed than a lordly `I don’t like it’. Ignorance and laziness in the reviewer create many problems. Ignorance often means that the reviewer does not have the larger context of the book. Where does the book belong? What is its place there? How does it add to what already exists? These are as integral to the understanding of a nook as what is inside the book itself. But most often these are not taken into account at all. Laziness results in using labels and tags. I have been a special victim of this, for my writing is immediately labelled feminist writing or women’s writing, which means that much in the book is missed. Doris Lessing’s main complaint about the reviews of `The Golden Notebook’ was that it was seen as a feminist book and therefore acclaimed or criticised as being part of the sex war. Which meant that the various themes, which she spelt out rather angrily in a later edition, were totally missed. To have your work being put into the slot of `women’s writing’ is equally irritating. This is part of what Margaret Atwood calls `the put-down syndrome’. A reviewer she says, spoke of the `domestic imagery’ in her book because, seeing her poetry as women’s writing, he focussed only on such imagery as could be called `domestic imagery’ and ignored the rest. When my novels are called `novels about women’ or `about women’s issues’, I want to retort, `I write about people, some of whom happen to be women’. Eudora Welty, the American writer, said the same thing about her being called a regional writer: `I write about people who happen to live in a certain region’. Labelling can go further: I remember a certain review in a magazine which reviewed three novels, all by women (one of them was my `That Long Silence’) the title of which was `A Ladies Club’. In these two words the reviewer condemned all the three novels as being upper-class, superficial and elitist. There are so many nuances in the word `ladies club’, none of which add to the value of a novel. If a reviewer uses such short cuts to speak of a book, he/she is what I can only call an inadequate reader. And an inadequate reader cannot be a good reader because such a person cannot give another reader who has not read the book an adequate understanding of it. Which is what a review is really all about. Foreign reviews of Indian books are often inadequate, because of a lack of knowledge of the context. One example I often quote is John Updike’s review of two Indian novels, one of which was `The God of Small Things’. John Updike’s concluding statement was: `Is there a place, these novels make us wonder, for an English language literature within India where a bristling nationalism staves off Asian neighbours and a Hindu fundamentalism has arisen to compete with the Islamic variety’. I thought that this statement clearly showed an ignorance of the context of Indian writing. Firstly why should this problem particularly affect English writing? If it is a problem, it applies to all the languages. Secondly, even if what he says is true, it is exactly out of such confusion and turmoil that writers write. And, finally, anyone who lives in India would know that while these dilemmas exist here, we have many other problems which are much more immediately part of our lives, if invisible perhaps to the outside world. It is the outside view, the picture of Indian writing that emerged from the novels published in the West – most of them at the time speaking of nationhood and nation-making – that gave Updike such an idea. It is as if a foreign reader is incapable of reading our novels as just novels and can only read them as `Indian’ novels – something that puzzles me both as reader and writer. For example, I read Anne Tyler’s novels as novels, not as `American’ novels. Therefore I would never ask the question what place a recent novel of hers has in a post-9/11 America which is tackling the problems of possible terrorism within the country and facing a growing hatred outside. While a negative review can stop you from writing, even if for a short time, a good review spurs you into writing, it can boost morale and increase self-confidence. It allows you to move on and not stay mired in what should be over. `One feels flooded with ideas’ as Virginia Woolf calls it. Whereas, after a bad review, she says `all the lights sank, my reed bent to the ground and that odious rice pudding of a book is what I thought it – a dank failure’. And yet Virginia Woolf herself says that a bad review can be bracing, it can make you combative. These are not contradictory statements; for a writer, a good reviewer is not the one who only praises, but who understands what you’re trying to say, what you’re trying to do and tells you whether and how and where you fall short of it. (Doris Lessing thinks that to ask for such a critic is asking for the impossible.) It’s the negative critic who’s the real enemy. Destructive criticism is specially lethal for a young or new author. Byron called it `hemlock to a sucking author’. Talent may be nipped in the bud because of unduly harsh criticism. When even seasoned writers are affected by harsh criticism, how can a young author be immune? In India I have noticed that first novels are not given any grace marks, they are judged in the same way and too often probed for greatness. Kindness, which I don’t think is mentioned in any book of criticism, certainly matters in life. Equally bad is unmerited praise which, to my mind, can be lethal. It can give rise to complacency and smugness – which is the very worst state of mind for any artist. Writing grows out of doubts, anxieties and fears, not through complacence. One might as well ask, why don’t more authors do reviews? In the West there are illustrious examples of authors/critics like T.S.Eliot or Virginia Woolf. Even today there are eminent writers who write splendid revews which are a pleasure to read in papers like the New York Times Review of books. For some reason we don’t have this tradition in this country. There are a few authors doing reviews, but one rarely finds anyone doing it regularly or persistently enough to make a difference. Authors, to my mind, can make good critics because every author is basically a critic, since writing involves self-criticism. Authors also have a better understanding of the what goes into writing, of the process and therefore have a greater respect for any written work. A writer can also get more out of a book, and offer the reader more insights. But there are some problems, which is why I have steadily refused to review any books of my contemporaries – i.e. of Indian English writers. Firstly, being one of them, I think it would be wrong for me to sit in judgement over a colleague. Besides, this is a very small world, most people know one another, or at least know of one another. How can I be sure I am unbiased? How can I be sure I am not being personal? I have seen reviewers working off personal spats through reviews, waiting years to get back at someone who had once said something uncomplimentary about their work. Everything becomes personal. Which is why reviews are used to prove friendship as well as tick off enemies. The `you scratch my book, I’ll scratch yours’ phenomenon is often at work. There’s also the danger of being called jealous. A writer, Gauri Deshpande, who wrote a review of `The God of Small Things’, began by saying, `I know that to say anything against this book is to be accused of being jealous. But I will say these things nevertheless!’ There’s the fear of making enemies. A very practical problem, as far as I am concerned, is the reluctance to take time off from what one is writing and to read another author. The lack of good critics is a big problem for most Indian writers, the biggest problem for English writing in this country. As far as serious professional criticism is concerned, our problem is that most of the theories come from abroad, which often means that the critics ignore the context of the writing, i.e. Indian literature. And apart from trying to confine a book within certain set theories, all critics write in a very intimidating jargon which can be understood only by other academics. My concern is about serious criticism moving further and further away from a living growing literature because of the language used. Good critical works written in a non-academic language almost don’t exist. There is a dearth of powerful critical voices in our country, of critics whose opinions can reach the ordinary reader as well as the literary world and give us the right perspective. Undoubtedly reviews matter immensely to authors and when you have just written a book and are waiting for the reviews, you think them a question of life and death. But in more sensible and detached moments you know that however much reviews matter, sales matter even more. Virginia Woolf each time carefully notes down the sales figures. Sales figures make up for a lot; you can thumb your nose at the critics! Equally or perhaps more important are the opinions of readers – ordinary readers who speak to you of your book. My admiration for Jane Austen, already great, went up several notches when I read that she collected the opinions of her family and friends and wrote them down. No mention anywhere of the opinions of other critics – just these opinions of ordinary readers. So have I too got the best insights from readers. When I hear their response to a book, not a studied response, but one that comes out of an emotional bonding with the book, I feel fulfilled. This is the real meaning of literature – an intimate connection between an author and a reader. This is what literature is about – touching people’s lives.

The best thing I read yesterday was on Washington Post’s “Answer Sheet” blog. Valerie Strauss posted something written by Steven Horowitz, an economics professor from St. Lawrence University. Called “A guide to writing an academic paper”, it is a quick-and-dirty look (okay, it’s 4,000 words long, so not exactly quick-and-dirty, but you get the gist) at writing your average term paper: Though it may seem excessive to write almost 4,000 words on how to write better papers, the reality is that writing papers in college (and the sort of writing you will do for the rest of your life) is not the same as you were asked to do in high school. My purpose in writing this guide is to help make you into better writers and to help you become better able to articulate your perspective….The point is not to give you pages of rules and regulations, but to give you the things you need to know to create and present your ideas in a legitimate and persuasive way. He walks through each of the different parts of the paper and what constitutes a good paper, even getting into the details of proper formatting (the best moment comes when he says: “Automatically numbered pages. Figure out how to do it in Word.”). And it gets to the heart of the truly good academic paper: one that is clearly organized, whose thesis is exact, and that supports said thesis with thorough proof that is properly cited. So naturally, being a high school English teacher, I had to ask myself where his need to write a 4,000-word piece on how to write an academic paper comes from. Why can’t college freshmen write? I have two guesses as to the answer. One is obvious, and that’s standardized testing. If you look at the way classes across various subjects have changed due to an increased focus on passing state tests, you can definitely see that the idea of the academic paper would fall by the wayside. But in all honesty, spending any more than a couple of sentences complaining about testing is kind of a waste of time because it’s taking the easy way out. Besides, testing has been around for so long that teachers like myself are trying to find a way to teach what’s important in spite of the test (and even in spite of how tests have “damaged” incoming students), so it’s not like I am going to throw my hands in the air and not attempt it because it’s “not on the test.” But again … why? Why is it so hard for them to grasp a concept that I have to say (not to brag … okay, to brag) that while I didn’t completely grasp in high school, at least had a decent amount of practice in (full disclosure: my big paper in my Ancient World History/Lit/Philosophy course my first semester of freshman year was a disaster; then again, that may have more to do with the fact that the semester itself was a disaster)? I blame technology. Now, I’m not going to go on some rant about Wikipedia in an effort to sound like every other scared English teacher out there. I happen to really like Wikipedia. I’d never cite it–for the same reasons I don’t cite the World Book Encyclopedia–but I still like it. Where I see part of the problem is in this push for project-based “meaningful” work for students when they are tackling large subjects. In theory, it’s a good idea because it seems more engaging and students can get their hands dirty and work with media that are better suited to their strengths. But in practice, it has resulted in a downgrading of the paper to something that is considered as much of a relic as the desks-in-rows “industrial model” lecture-based classroom that is the ire of all reformers and innovators (at least that’s what the talking points seem to be). It’s also resulted in countless bad PowerPoint presentations that feature groups of students standing in front of a class reading off paragraphs worth of information they have crammed onto a slide (and probably copied and pasted from Wikipedia, mind you), a clear demonstration of … well, that they know how to copy and paste and read what is on a slide. I know that sounds flip, and I know that the point of doing something like a research project or a paper isn’t the end product, but teaching or developing the skills that lead to that end product, but if we keep throwing out the individually written academic paper in favor of PowerPoints or Prezis or something creative with iMovie or a Twitter feed, we aren’t necessarily preparing those who want to go to college for what their professors will expect. And yes, I can hear the voices of protest: not everyone goes to college, our job isn’t to prepare kids for college, papers aren’t the future. But when you have colleges like CUNY overloaded with remedial writing courses and professors complaining to the heavens that their students can’t properly write a basic research paper, talking about all those new things and collaboration sounds more defensive than anything. We need to make sure we don’t lose it completely. For my part, by the time my advanced English 10 students leave the classroom in June, they will have written at least four academic papers (in addition to at least two personal essays) because many of them have their eyes set on AP-level coursework and then college, so I would like for them to at least not be completely shocked when they’re assigned a 4-5 pager on The Aeneid three weeks into their very first semester.

I have two full-time jobs — I’m a customer service center manager and a mom of two young kids. I see myself as a happy person and a hard worker. But last month, the commute to work, my job, the chores around the house, and trying to spend enough time with my kids was really stressing me out. I have to get up really early in the morning to get the kids ready for school. Then it takes me so long to get to work that I’m in a bad mood by the time I get there. My office is short-staffed and we had a lot of deadlines to meet so I was working overtime. My home life suffered — traffic going home didn't help my mood, and when I got there, I was just so tired I didn’t want to do anything! But I was faced with making dinner and doing laundry. My kids need my attention too! I wanted to handle my stress before it got the best of me. I talked with my boss about working later hours so I don't run into so much traffic and am in a better mood when I get there and get home. I asked my husband to pick up the kids from school, and he has offered to help more with dinner and the laundry. When he cooks, I go for a bike ride with my kids. I also started setting five minutes aside in the morning and in the afternoon at work for me to relax and take a deep breath. These small changes have made a big difference in my life! Stress is a feeling you get when faced with a challenge. In small doses, stress can be good for you because it makes you more alert and gives you a burst of energy. For instance, if you start to cross the street and see a car about to run you over, that jolt you feel helps you to jump out of the way before you get hit. But feeling stressed for a long time can take a toll on your mental and physical health. Even though it may seem hard to find ways to de-stress with all the things you have to do, it's important to find those ways. Your health depends on it. Stress happens when people feel like they don’t have the tools to manage all of the demands in their lives. Stress can be short-term or long-term. Missing the bus or arguing with your spouse or partner can cause short-term stress. Money problems or trouble at work can cause long-term stress. Even happy events, like having a baby or getting married can cause stress. Some of the most common stressful life events include: - Death of a spouse - Death of a close family member - Losing your job - Major personal illness or injury - Marital separation - Spending time in jail Everyone responds to stress a little differently. Your symptoms may be different from someone else’s. Here are some of the signs to look for: - Not eating or eating too much - Feeling like you have no control - Needing to have too much control - Lack of energy - Lack of focus - Trouble getting things done - Poor self-esteem - Short temper - Trouble sleeping - Upset stomach - Back pain - General aches and pains One recent survey found that women were more likely to experience physical symptoms of stress than men. But we don’t have enough proof to say that this applies to all women. We do know that women often cope with stress in different ways than men. Women “tend and befriend,” taking care of those closest to them, but also drawing support from friends and family. Men are more likely to have the “fight or flight” response. They cope by “escaping” into a relaxing activity or other distraction. The body responds to stress by releasing stress hormones. These hormones make blood pressure, heart rate, and blood sugar levels go up. Long-term stress can help cause a variety of health problems, including: - Mental health disorders, like depression and anxiety - Heart disease - High blood pressure - Abnormal heart beats - Menstrual problems - Acne and other skin problems Does stress cause ulcers? No, stress doesn’t cause ulcers, but it can make them worse. Most ulcers are caused by a germ called H. pylori. Researchers think people might get it through food or water. Most ulcers can be cured by taking a combination of antibiotics and other drugs. What is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a type of anxiety disorder that can occur after living through or seeing a dangerous event. It can also occur after a sudden traumatic event. This can include: - Being a victim of or seeing violence - Being a victim of sexual or physical abuse or assault - The death or serious illness of a loved one - Fighting in a war - A severe car crash or a plane crash - Hurricanes, tornadoes, and fires You can start having PTSD symptoms right after the event. Or symptoms can develop months or even years later. Symptoms may include: - Flashbacks, or feeling like the event is happening again - Staying away from places and things that remind you of what happened - Being irritable, angry, or jumpy - Feeling strong guilt, depression, or worry - Trouble sleeping - Feeling “numb” - Having trouble remembering the event Women are 2 to 3 times more likely to develop PTSD than men. Also, people with ongoing stress in their lives are more likely to develop PTSD after a dangerous event. How can I help handle my stress? Everyone has to deal with stress. There are steps you can take to help you handle stress in a positive way and keep it from making you sick. Try these tips to keep stress in check: Develop a new attitude - Become a problem solver. Make a list of the things that cause you stress. From your list, figure out which problems you can solve now and which are beyond your control for the moment. From your list of problems that you can solve now, start with the little ones. Learn how to calmly look at a problem, think of possible solutions, and take action to solve the problem. Being able to solve small problems will give you confidence to tackle the big ones. And feeling confident that you can solve problems will go a long way to helping you feel less stressed. - Be flexible. Sometimes, it’s not worth the stress to argue. Give in once in awhile or meet people halfway. - Get organized. Think ahead about how you’re going to spend your time. Write a to-do list. Figure out what’s most important to do and do those things first. - Set limits. When it comes to things like work and family, figure out what you can really do. There are only so many hours in the day. Set limits for yourself and others. Don’t be afraid to say NO to requests for your time and energy. - Take deep breaths. If you're feeling stressed, taking a few deep breaths makes you breathe slower and helps your muscles relax. - Stretch. Stretching can also help relax your muscles and make you feel less tense. - Massage tense muscles. Having someone massage the muscles in the back of your neck and upper back can help you feel less tense. - Take time to do something you want to do. We all have lots of things that we have to do. But often we don't take the time to do the things that we really want to do. It could be listening to music, reading a good book, or going to a movie. Think of this as an order from your doctor, so you won’t feel guilty! Take care of your body - Get enough sleep. Getting enough sleep helps you recover from the stresses of the day. Also, being well-rested helps you think better so that you are prepared to handle problems as they come up. Most adults need 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night to feel rested. - Eat right. Try to fuel up with fruits, vegetables, beans, and whole grains. Don’t be fooled by the jolt you get from caffeine or high-sugar snack foods. Your energy will wear off, and you could wind up feeling more tired than you did before. - Get moving. Getting physical activity can not only help relax your tense muscles but improve your mood. Research shows that physical activity can help relieve symptoms of depression and anxiety. - Don’t deal with stress in unhealthy ways. This includes drinking too much alcohol, using drugs, smoking, or overeating. Connect with others - Share your stress. Talking about your problems with friends or family members can sometimes help you feel better. They might also help you see your problems in a new way and suggest solutions that you hadn't thought of. - Get help from a professional if you need it. If you feel that you can no longer cope, talk to your doctor. She or he may suggest counseling to help you learn better ways to deal with stress. Your doctor may also prescribe medicines, such as antidepressants or sleep aids. - Help others. Volunteering in your community can help you make new friends and feel better about yourself. The information on our website is provided by the U.S. federal government and is in the public domain. This public information is not copyrighted and may be reproduced without permission, though citation of each source is appreciated. Stress and your health fact sheet was reviewed by:

Museum Labels for Kids’ Art When I hung up our Matisse-inspired art projects I finally remembered to make museum art labels. I saw this idea in an article called “How to Be More Creative” by A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically and Drop Dead Healthy. The article was full of good insights like “brilliance is a numbers game” and “make an appointment with your creativity.” But my favorite was Jacobs’s idea—inspired by a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art—to hang his his son’s drawings and put plaques next to them. This struck me as a very sweet thing to do. When you were a kid, didn’t you appreciate it when an adult took you seriously? Plus, it’s a good reminder that we’re all artists. We tend to glorify the arts and act as if there’s something magical about being a writer or a musician or a painter or a sculptor. But as Michelangelo said, “If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem wonderful at all.” I didn’t go too over the top with our labels. I just typed up some simple descriptions, printed them out on regular computer paper, and taped them on the wall next to our creations. (Is this art form actually papier decoupé? I don’t know. But I love how it sounds.) If you have a chance, you should check out Jacobs’s blog. He’s funny, of course, being a humorist and all. But he posted this lovely letter from a soldier in Iraq who shared stories about how you can find humor in anything. Between you and me, when I visit a writer’s blog I try to read between the lines to figure out what their kids were doing while they got some writing done or how they stopped cleaning out the closets instead of writing.

NUTRITION, AGING, IMMUNITY AND INFLAMMATION LAB: NUTRITIONAL IMMUNOLOGY 1. Determine the effect and mechanisms of food components and their interaction with age on immune function and infectious diseases. a) Determine the mechanisms of Vitamin E-induced enhancement of T cell function in the aged with focus on early activation signaling and membrane related events. b) Determine the contribution of polymorphisms at cytokine genes to heterogeneity of vitamin E-induced effects on cytokine production and resistance to respiratory infections. 2. Determine the effect of reducing caloric intake on the immune response of humans. 3. Determine the effect and mechanisms of food components and their interaction with age on immune function and infectious diseases. LAB: VASCULAR BIOLOGY 1. Identify bioactive food components and food patterns that inhibit atherosclerosis and angiogenesis using cell culture, animal models and human subjects under the following sub-objectives: a) Determine bioavailability of avenanthramides from oats and characterize their potency and molecular mechanism of inhibition of vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation using cell culture systems and the femoral artery injury mouse model. b) Elucidate the molecular mechanism of catechins and curcumin and other dietary bioactive compounds on the inhibition of angiogenesis associated with adipose tissue growth and obesity. c) Determine the comparative bioavailability and biopotency of tocopherols versus tocopheryl phosphate on the inhibition of femoral artery injury model of vascular atherosclerosis and restenosis. 2. Determine the anti-inflammatory and anti-proliferative effects of avenanthramides of oats and derivatives on several colonic cancer cells lines and mouse models of inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer. LAB: NUTRITIONAL IMMUNOLOGY T cell function declines with age resulting in higher incidence of infections in the elderly. We showed that vitamin E (E) supplementation enhances T cell function in the aged. In Objective 1-A, we will test the hypothesis that T cell receptor (TCR)-induced signalosomes (combination of protein and lipids that are formed at the site of T cell and antigen presenting cells) exhibit age- and vitamin E (E)-related differences in their patterns of protein and lipid recruitment. We will identify qualitative and quantitative age- and E-related differences in the protein and lipid composition of signalosomes using an enhanced magnetic immunoisolation procedure and highly sensitive and quantitative proteomics and lipidomics methods. In objective 1-B, we will test the hypothesis that higher frequencies of specific cytokine polymorphisms contribute to incidence and severity of respiratory infection (RI) in the aged and that the effect of E on RI is dependent on cytokine genotype. This will be tested using data and DNA samples collected from a 1-year randomized, double-blind, controlled (RTC) study of E supplementation in elderly. In Objective 2 we will test the hypothesis that a long- term calorie restriction (CR) intervention in humans will enhance T cell-mediated function and that the CR- mediated effect is due to intrinsic changes in T cells and/or a reduction in prostaglandin PGE2 production. This hypothesis will be tested utilizing subjects enrolled in the NIA- supported multi-center RTC, CALERIE Phase 2 and determining the effect of CR on T cell subsets proliferation, and intra- and extra-cellular cytokine, and PGE2 levels before, and following 1 and 2 years of 25% CR. These studies will help develop effective strategies to improve the immune response in the elderly.

The compound eye of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is an excellent model system for studying such diverse topics as tissue determination, compartment boundary establishment, cell fate specification, cell proliferation and apoptosis, planar cell polarity, signal transduction and cell-cell communication. The retina is a particularly good experimental model in part because it contains a limited number of cell types that follow a precise and stereotyped mode of development. Additionally, more than thirty years of study by dozens of laboratories has produced a detailed survey of the eye's cellular, molecular and morphological development. Eye formation begins during embryogenesis when two groups of cells within the developing head delaminate from the surface ectoderm, proliferate rapidly and organize themselves into monolayer epithelial sheets called eye-antennal imaginal discs. During the earliest stages of retinal development, cells within the eye imaginal disc, to our inspection, are completely unpatterned and undifferentiated. However, as each disc serves as the template from which the adult eye is created, over the course of several days, the imaginal discs are transformed into the adult compound eyes each of which contains approximately 800 unit eyes or ommatidia. My research group is focused on a number of questions (described below) that are central to understanding how tissues in general, and the eye in particular, are initially specified and then patterned. We use a wide range of molecular, biochemical and cellular methods to analyze the genes and proteins that control each step in retinal development. We also make extensive use of scanning, light and confocal microscopy to analyze the cellular and developmental consequences to eye development in instances in which genes critical to retinal formation have been disrupted. Regulation of Tissue Specification In addition to the retina, nearly all structures of the adult fly are derived from imaginal discs. Each type of disc must initiate a unique developmental program that will set it aside and down a path that is molecularly distinct from the other discs. Approximately fourteen known selector genes govern the process of specifying the retina. These factors are collectively referred to as the eye specification or retinal determination network and each gene encodes a nuclear protein; some of which are DNA binding proteins while others serve as transcriptional co-activators, kinases or phosphatases. Removal of any member of the core eye specification network leads to severe if not total loss of retinal tissue. On the other hand, forced expression of these factors results in the redirection of non-retinal tissues towards an eye fate. We are working towards understanding how this network promotes eye development and what are the cellular and molecular consequences of disrupting this regulatory system Connecting Specification to Proliferation The eye primordium initially consists of approximately twenty cells. As the embryo hatches and the emerging larva undergoes consecutive rounds of molting and growth, the eye imaginal disc undergoes dramatic increases in cell proliferation and will eventually reach a size of nearly 20,000 cells. The loss of specific selector genes result not only in the loss of tissue identity but also lead to dramatically lowered rates of cell proliferation and increased numbers of apoptotic cells. We are pursuing potential links between tissue specification and cell proliferation. One potential outcome of these studies is likely to be a better understanding of how tumors initiate their growth. Establishment of Compartment Boundaries One of the earliest events to take place in the developing retina is the subdivision of the eye field into dorsal and ventral compartments. Initially, gene expression is relatively uniform throughout the entire tissue. However, during the first larval instar individual selector genes are expressed specifically within either the dorsal or ventral halves of the developing eye field. This has the effect of influencing the direction that photoreceptors will rotate immediately upon their birth. The most visible outcome of this process is the mirror-image orientation of the ommatidia across the equator in the adult retina, which is critical for proper vision. We are interested in identifying the entire gene regulatory network that subdivides the retina into discrete compartments. Regulation of Pattern Formation Overt patterning of the retina begins during the final larval instar when a wave of differentiation initiates at the posterior margin of the eye field and subsequently sweeps across the epithelium much like a wave travels across an ocean. The leading edge of this mobile compartment boundary is called the morphogenetic furrow. As the furrow passes cells are organized into clusters that are the rudiments of the future unit eyes. Over the years a number of signaling pathways have been shown to regulate the initiation of pattern formation and the progression of the furrow. It has also been shown that, if unchecked, the furrow actually moves too rapidly across the epithelium. To prevent this from occurring, the eye makes use of a protein sequestration mechanism to functionally inactivate factors that are required for the movement of the furrow. This results in a slowing of pattern formation to a speed that is compatible with the rate of cell proliferation. We are focused on furthering our understanding of how pattern formation is initiated, maintained and regulated within the developing retina. The developing eye is an excellent system for studying eye development in vertebrate systems including humans because there are functional orthologs in humans for nearly all of the genes that govern each of the processes described above. More importantly, several human retinal disorders are attributed to mutations within the human versions of the fly genes. We believe that these observations will now make it considerably easier to look through the faceted lens of flies and into the eyes of humans. Spratford, C.M. and Kumar, J.P. (2011) Extramacrochaetae imposes order on the Drosophila retina by refining the activity of the Hedgehog signaling gradient. Development (in preparation) Kumar, J.P. (2011) Building an ommatidium one cell at a time. Developmental Dynamics (in revision) Weasner, B.M. and Kumar, J.P. (2011) Competition amongst gene regulatory networks imposes order within the eye-antennal disc of Drosophila. Development (in revision) Luhur, A., Weasner, B.P. and Kumar, J.P. (2011) A microRNA elicits the DNA damage response via H2Av and the Eyes Absent phosphatase. Development (in revision) Anderson, A.M., Weasner, B.M., Weasner, B.P. and Kumar, J.P. (2011) Dual transcriptional activities of Sine Oculis define its roles in normal and ectopic eye development. Development (in revision) Datta, R.R., Weasner, B.P. and Kumar, J.P. (2011) A dissection of the Teashirt and Tiptop genes reveals a novel mechanism for regulating transcription factor activity. Developmental Biology 360: 391-402 Kumar, J.P. (2011) My what big eyes you have: how the Drosophila retina grows. Developmental Neurobiology 71: 1133-1152 Datta, R., Cruckshank, T. and Kumar J.P. (2011) Differential selection within the Drosophila retinal determination network and evidence for functional divergence between paralog pairs. Evolution and Development 13: 58-71 Kumar, J.P. (2010) Retinal determination: the beginning of eye development. Current Topics in Developmental Biology 93: 1-28 Salzer, C.L. and Kumar, J.P. (2010) Identification of retinal transformation hot spots in developing Drosophila epithelia. PLoS One 5:1-8 Salzer, C.L., Elias, Y. and Kumar, J.P. (2010) The retinal determination gene eyes absent is regulated by the EGF Receptor pathway throughout development in Drosophila. Genetics 184: 185-197 - Datta R.R., Lurye, J.L. and Kumar, J.P. (2009) Restriction of ectopic eye formation by Drosophila Teashirt and Tiptop to the developing antenna. Developmental Dynamics 238:2202-2210 - Kumar, J.P. (2009) The Sine Oculis Homeobox (SIX) family of transcription factors as regulators of development and disease. Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences 66:565-583 - Weasner, B,M., Weasner, B., DeYoung, S.M., Michaels, S.D. and Kumar, J.P. (2009) Dual transcriptional activities of the Pax6 gene eyeless regulate tissue specificity of ectopic eye formation in Drosophila. Developmental Biology 334:492-502 - Weasner, B.P. and Kumar, J.P. (2009) The non-conserved C-terminal segments of Sine oculis homeobox (SIX) proteins confer functional specificity. Genesis 47:514-523 Salzer, C.L. and Kumar, J.P. (2009) Position dependent responses to discontinuities in the retinal determination network. Developmental Biology 326:121-130 Kumar, J.P. (2009) The molecular circuitry governing eye development in Drosophila. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1789: 306-314 Luhur, A.L and Kumar, J.P. (2008) Advances in microRNA Biology. Fly 2:123-124 - Yao, J.G., Weasner, B.M., Wang, L.H., Jang, C.C., Weasner, B.P., Tang, C.Y. Salzer, C.S., Chen, C.H., Sun, Y.H. and Kumar, J.P. (2008) Differential Requirements for the Pax6(5a) genes eyegone and twin of eyegone during eye development in Drosophila. Developmental Biology 315:535-551 - Weasner, B.P., Salzer, C.L. and Kumar, J.P. (2007) Sine oculis, a member of the SIX family of transcription factors directs eye development. Developmental Biology 303:756-771 - Anderson, J.L., Salzer, C.L. and Kumar J.P. (2006) Regulation of the retinal determination gene, dachshund, in the embryonic head and developing eye of Drosophila. Developmental Biology 297:536-549 Anderson, J.L., Bhandari, R. and Kumar, J.P. (2005) A genetic screen identifies putative targets and binding partners of CREB Binding Protein (CBP) in the developing Drosophila eye. Genetics 171:1566-1672 Roederer, K., Cozy, L., Anderson, J.L. and Kumar, J.P. (2005) A novel dominant negative mutation within the Six domain of the conserved eye specification gene, sine oculis, inhibits eye development in Drosophila. Developmental Dynamics 232:753-766 Weasner, B.P., Anderson, J.L. and Kumar, J.P. (2004) Eye specification in Drosophila. Proceedings of the Indian National Sience Academy Part A. 70:517-530 Kumar, J.P., Jamal, T., Doetsch, A., Turner, F.R. and Duffy, J.B. (2004) CREB Binding Protein (CBP) functions at successive stages of eye development in Drosophila. Genetics 168:877-893 Kumar, J.P., Hsiung, F., Powers, M.A. and Moses, K. (2003) Nuclear translocation of activated MAP kinase is developmentally regulated in the developing Drosophila eye. Development 130:3703-3714 Kumar, J.P. (2002) The Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor in Drosophila eye development. In Results and Problems in Cell Differentiation, Granderath, S. (ed), 37:282-292 Kumar, J.P., Wilkie, G.S., Tekotte, H., Moses, K. and Davis, I. (2001) Perturbing nuclear transport in the Drosophila eye imaginal disc causes specific axon guidance defects. Developmental Biology 240:315-325 Kumar, J.P. and Moses, K. (2001) The EGF Receptor and Notch signaling pathways act upstream of Eyeless/Pax6 to control eye specification. Cell 104:687-697 Kumar, J.P. (2001) Signaling pathways in Drosophila and vertebrate retinal development. Nature Reviews Genetics 2:846-857 Kumar, J.P. and Moses, K. (2001) The EGF Receptor and Notch signaling pathways control the initiation of the morphogenetic furrow during Drosophila eye development. Development 128:2689-2697. Kumar, J.P. and Moses, K. (2001) Eye specification in Drosophila: perspectives and implications. Semin. Cell Dev. Biol. 12:469-474 Kumar, J.P. and Moses, K. (2001) Analysis of eye specification gene expression during Drosophila embryogenesis. Development, Genes and Evolution 211:406-414

Mark Mercer, Department of Philosophy, Saint Mary’s University Those weren’t the first questions that came to mind when I read “Taking back the 95: Commuters stand up to harasser on OC Transpo bus” (24 April 2013, ), but they are important questions. I would like to think that the person driving the bus I’m on knows how to respond appropriately to a disturbance (that is, by calling the police, should the instigator ignore her firm directive to sit and be quiet) without my having to prod her into action. Surely bus drivers are better trained to deal with annoying riders than we civilians are, especially with those who might turn violent. My first question, though, on reading this story, was where was the harassment? Now clearly the man didn’t mind making the ride a little hell for everyone on the bus. He was obnoxious, and obnoxious, moreover, in a way that would make people fear for their safety. But I had to read the article twice to try to figure out why the headline tagged him a harasser, and I’m still not sure I’ve got it. According to the story, a woman asked the man to stop, but he didn’t. She asked him again, and this time he started yelling more loudly. There are elements of harassment here, but not enough to justify the headline. For behaviour to be harassing, it must be directed at a concrete individual, it must be persistent, and it must be meant as a means to gain an advantage. The behaviour here would not seem to qualify. Perhaps the harassment is to be found in the content of his rap or his invective. The article tells us (though coyly) that he spoke the terms “bitch” and “nigger.” Perhaps he even addressed the people he yelled at using those terms. His choice of language certainly reveals something about his character, something in addition to that revealed by his loud singing and bad temper. I’d say his choice of language made him even more obnoxious. But since harassment is not simply high-grade vexation, we won’t find it in his foul words. Does it matter that we call him a nuisance rather than a harasser? That we describe his actions as annoying, vexatious, and obnoxious rather than harassing? I think it does. It enables us to focus on the problem at hand, and not confuse it with different problems. In our confusion, we are likely to fail to solve our problem, if we don’t indeed make all the problems worse. The problem at hand is simply incivility. It is the unpleasant, annoying, or vexatious behaviour that too often disrupts our day and prevents us from enjoying the morning commute or the movie or the meeting—whatever we’re trying to enjoy (or endure). Our jerk on the bus is at the far end of incivility, but he’s on a continuum with litterers, movie-talkers, and the people who stroll three abreast on the narrow sidewalk. Sociologists tell us that something happened in the nineteen-sixties, in the middle of the struggles for equality, self-expression, and self-affirmation from which we’ve all benefitted. What happened is that in many minds boorishness became tied to self assertion. No better way to proclaim that one is worth notice than by pissing people off. And so we get our guy on the bus. How, then, are we to recover civility as a widespread personal virtue—and to recover it, of course, without retreating to a world of etiquette and social hierarchy? I wish I knew. We should laud the efforts of Julie Lalonde, the director of Hollaback! Ottawa, to address harassment (and violence) on our streets and buses. But it seems that Lalonde, along with bus rider Randy Fisher, who is also quoted in “Taking back the 95,” have something different in mind. They appear to be attempting, rather, to extend the idea of the safe campus to the streets of the city. The idea of the safe campus, familiar to anyone who’s been paying attention to incidents and discussions at Carleton and Ottawa U over the last few years, is the idea of a campus on which people who belong to groups designated marginalized or vulnerable need not fear encountering images or ideas offensive to them. A woman who has had an abortion will not, on a safe campus, ever walk past a pro-life demonstration. Trans people will not overhear psychology students inquiring whether there’s a relation between sex-reassignment surgery and self-mutilation. The safe campus is a place hostile to freedom of expression, as people free to say what they want might well say things that challenge aspects of one’s identity, and, if one is vulnerable, hearing such things can be emotionally painful or debilitating, as can any affront to one’s dignity. It’s bad enough that provosts and deans police the content of expression on university campuses. Do we also want the police to police it on the streets? Department of Philosophy Saint Mary’s University At 8:20 pm Tuesday 2 April, just nine hours after it was erected, the free speech wall on display at Queen’s University was removed by university security guards. The guards were acting on orders from Arig Girgrah, the Assistant Dean for Student Affairs at Queen’s. The wall had been erected that morning by Students for Liberty, a Queen’s group concerned to raise awareness of the condition of freedom of expression in Canada. A registered student society, Students for Liberty had earlier been granted permission to maintain the wall until 5 pm Friday 5 April. Queen’s also confiscated the next wall Students for Liberty erected, on 4 April, this time on orders from Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic) Alan Harrison. Well, what did Students for Liberty expect? That no one would write a slur on their wall? That it would remain free of vulgarity and obnoxious sentiments? That despite the discriminatory and harassing language that found its way onto it, the university would let the wall stand? Just as the administration at Queen’s University sees to it that offensive graffiti is removed from the walls around campus, the administration acted responsibly in having the free-speech wall removed as soon as offensive remarks appeared on it. Or so the university and its supporters say. For my part, I think that by removing the wall, Queen’s University demonstrated that it hasn’t a clue what a university is for. But let’s begin with the argument that the university acted well—or, indeed, dutifully—in removing the wall once offensive remarks appeared on it. According to statements made by Provost Harrison and others, and reported in The Journal, the student newspaper at Queen’s, the poster contained hate speech. The presence of hate speech creates an unpleasant public environment for everyone. Furthermore, hate speech causes the people to whom it is directed to feel unwelcomed, which, moreover, might well affect their studies. Finally, were the administration to tolerate hate speech on campus, those whom toward it is directed might become quiet and withdrawn. In any case, as we know, hate propaganda is illegal in Canada, under Section 319 of the Criminal Code. It is also prohibited by Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA), which, recently, in the Whatcott case, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld as constitutional, despite the fact that it conflicts with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Queen’s might have run afoul of a human rights commission, at least, had it not quickly removed hate speech from its campus. The first thing to note in response to these considerations is that whatever offensive remarks the poster contained, they were situated in the context of the free-speech wall. Though those who inscribed them might have meant them, the Students for Liberty didn’t, at least not necessarily. The wall was a piece of politics, or art, or theatre. Or it was an experiment, a piece of research. For that reason, removing it against the will of those who erected it is nothing like erasing offensive graffiti. It is more like closing down a play or a peaceful demonstration or a science project, one that had already received a permit. The argument that suppressing hate speech is permitted in Canada won’t wash, for no matter how hateful some of the contributions to the wall might have been, the wall itself wasn’t hate speech but the protected expression of the Students for Liberty. By the way, does Queen’s distinguish between offensive graffiti and graffiti, and remove only the former? The comparison to offensive graffiti is beside the point, as the policy is against graffiti generally. Still, if the wall contained offensive language, it might have offended people, and thereby made them feel unwanted or silenced them. Even if the wall itself, as a piece of theatre or an experiment, spoke no hate, its effects on campus were harmful and that is reason enough to remove it. Here is where we come to the purpose of a university. One of the purposes of a university is to protect and nourish intellectual community. One of the marks of intellectual community is the commitment of its members to evaluate things dispassionately. (It is no paradox to say that intellectuals are passionately dispassionate.) To evaluate something dispassionately is to ask whether it is true or false, or good or bad, and to seek to gather, through observation, experiment, or critical discussion, the relevant evidence. Members of an intellectual community are concerned to leave each other free to think and say and investigate what he or she wants, for the point of the whole thing is for each of us to hold our conclusions for our own reasons. Those reasons are always up for discussion, of course, but no one is to be required to hold any view. If a university’s administration is serious about protecting and nourishing intellectual community, it will not close a play or halt a demonstration, no matter how offensive the material in the play or demonstration is. It will, instead, try to explain to those who complain how they, as intellectuals, should respond to that material. The administration will encourage them to investigate what offends them and to respond to it thoughtfully, perhaps with a play or demonstration of their own. Indeed, he confirmed them in their vulnerability and in their need for the care of a paternalistic authority. Department of Philosophy Saint Mary’s University That the fetus you are carrying is female is certainly a terrible reason to have an abortion—but, good or bad, your reason is none of the government’s business. It’s simply not the place of our federal Parliament to voice an opinion on the merit of this or that reason behind a woman’s choice to have an abortion. To make this point is not, of course, to applaud the refusal by the House affairs committee to allow MP Mark Warawa to bring M408 to the House of Commons. M408 would have had Parliament “condemn discrimination against females occurring through sex-selection pregnancy termination.” As Andrew Coyne has written in the Citizen, denying MPs the privilege to introduce motions and to speak in the House corrupts Parliament (“How mob rule muzzled Mark Warawa, and all other Canadian MPs,” 30 March). Less party discipline and more respect for the rules and traditions of parliament would serve Canadians well. If Warawa wants to raise the matter of sex-selective abortion in the House of Commons, let him do so. It’s easy enough for MPs to vote against his motion and to explain why they did so. It’s not for Parliament to voice an opinion on women’s reasons for having abortions, for human fetuses are neither in fact persons nor recognized as such in Canadian law. They are not persons for they have no interests; they lack the self-consciousness necessary for having interests, at least until late in the third trimester, and even then their level of self-consciousness compares unfavourably to that of adult rabbits and ducks. (If adult rabbits and ducks may be killed to serve the interests of persons, so may late-term human fetuses.) Since they lack interests, human fetuses cannot be wronged. They cannot, therefore, be wronged by being discriminated against, not on grounds of sex, not on any grounds. Warawa’s motion, then, makes no sense. No fetus is wrongfully discriminated against when it is aborted on account of its being female, so sex-selective pregnancy termination involves no wrongful discrimination for parliament to condemn. Now this is not to say that the fact that some women in Canada chose to abort fetuses because of their sex is no proper concern of civil society or even of the Canadian government. It may very well be a proper matter of concern for you and me, and perhaps our government eventually has some role to play. But no one, no doctor, no ultra-sound technician, no politician should seek to place any barrier between any pregnant woman and an abortion. If a woman asks the sex of her fetus and a professional knows, that professional is duty-bound to answer, whatever he or she fears the woman will do with that knowledge. A fetus cannot be wronged, but a patient or client denied information surely has been. That a woman would have an abortion just because the fetus is female likely speaks to one or another social condition we should all be striving to change. The first is the belief that a daughter is less likely to fulfil one as a parent than a son is. This belief, in turn, might rest on such beliefs as that boys and men engage in more interesting pursuits than girls and women do, that they usually accomplish more of significance in life or gain more status, or that they relate to their parents in more satisfying ways. The second is the desire to serve the tastes and aspirations of one’s husband or family by doing their will. A woman might abort a fetus because it is female not in the belief that raising a daughter would be unfulfilling, but because of her husband’s belief that it would. What should concern us about sex-selective abortion, then, is not the abortion part, but either the beliefs and tastes behind the preference for a boy or the subservience of women to their husbands and families. What to do? In the first case, I can think of nothing better than simply celebrating girls and women as people living rich and accomplished lives. We parents must make it known to others that we enjoy our daughters no less than we do our sons. Of course, all this requires that we work to remove whatever arrangements continue to prevent girls and women from living as they will. In the second case, again the best approach is to lead by example. A society marked by companionate and supportive family relations will extend that mark into the consciousness of all its members. Equality within the family will recommend itself to others through its own merits, so long as it is there to be seen. Why are these projects only for civil society, though, and not also the government? After all, our government has taken a leading role in trying to reform behaviour in connection with smoking and diet and bullying, to name just three. Well, it’s not clear that each example is of a proper concern of government. Laws and policies that restrict smoking in the interest of the health, comfort, or property of those who live, work, or play with smokers have their place, but laws or policies that target smokers for their own good don’t. Whatever role the government takes in addressing the reality of sex-selective abortions, it must not be at the expense of civil liberties or a woman’s freedom to choose. My point is that there’s nothing in sex-selective abortion to bother us but the attitudes towards raising a daughter that that practice expresses. But those attitudes are the private business of individual people. That puts them beyond the proper reach of government. It doesn’t put them beyond the reach of you and me, though. The current furor over remarks made by University of Calgary professor Tom Flanagan reminds us again how very important academic freedom is to the life of our nation. Unfortunately, it also reminds us how shallow the commitment to it is of even our universities. Flanagan, in response to a question during a presentation at the University of Lethbridge Wednesday evening, restated his doubt that those who view child pornography should go to prison. For this, he was dismissed as a commentator on the CBC program Power and Politics, he was dumped by Alberta’s Wild Rose party, and the president of the University of Calgary, speaking in her role as president, asserted that “Child pornography is not a victimless crime” (not something Flanagan denied, by the way). Strangely, Flanagan later apologized “to all who were offended by my statement.” “Strangely,” because he had nothing to apologize for. He was doing what a professor should be doing—raising and commenting on a matter of public concern—and for that he deserves to be commended. In Canada, people who are convicted of viewing child pornography often go to jail. It is entirely in the public interest, then, to ask whether they should go to jail. It is entirely in the public interest, moreover, for people with opinions on the matter to state those opinions. How else will we inquire into the matter? If anything is a matter of public importance requiring investigation and debate, matters of punishment and incarceration are. The true job of a professor is to raise questions and to foster inquiry into them. I say the “true” job, because in many universities the professor’s actual job is becoming more and more that of the instructor who simply leads her charges to competence in some established field. Science instructors train young people to be scientists so that they may take their place in an industrial laboratory, business instructors train young people to take their place in the world of business. A true professor, on the other hand, liberates her students from authority and convention so that they can investigate the world for themselves and come to their own conclusions about it. To ask whether people convicted of viewing child pornography should be sent to jail is to raise a fundamental question that requires us to investigate what, precisely, is the harm caused by viewing child pornography, whether it is a harm that merits punishment, whether punishing it diminishes us in some way, and whether prison rather than some other penalty serves the goals of punishment and deterrence. A true professor teaches her charges to respond to these questions with evidence and calm deliberation, and that is not an easy thing to do. Those who think Professor Flanagan mistaken in suspecting that viewing child pornography shouldn’t be punished with jail time should thank him for raising the question, for now they have an excellent opportunity to explain why jail is appropriate. So far as I can tell, though, they seem more interested in attacking Flanagan rather than in answering him. “I’m disgusted,” no matter how strongly stated, is not an argument. Academic freedom is, in part, the freedom to raise offensive questions and to state disgusting answers without thereby putting one’s career or livelihood in jeopardy. Those who enjoy academic freedom, then, can enquire boldly without having to be personally courageous. But why is it so important to Canadian society that some people, at least, enjoy this freedom? Well, people on the CBC had better not raise certain issues or float certain ideas, or they will lose their venue. If you work at a bank or at a clothing store, even (sadly) if you teach at a high school, you put your job at risk if you even raise certain questions. Without academic freedom, then, there would be few if any venues for the free and fearless investigations many of us wish to make, and on which the prosperity and nobility of a society depends. Those upset that Flanagan would express his leanings toward an unpopular position prefer a nation of enforced conformity in views and values, whether the views are true or false or the values sound or unsound. If I had my way, educators at all levels would enjoy academic freedom. It would be written into their contracts, just as it is for university professors. Journalists would enjoy it, too. Even bank tellers (why not?). But the tide is turning the other way. The task right now, unfortunately, isn’t to extend to others the freedom to raise questions and to offer opinions without putting their jobs at risk. The task, rather, is to protect academic freedom at home. The University of Calgary does not have a good reputation for freedom of expression on campus. The U of C has, in the past, had anti-abortion demonstrators removed and has punished students who criticized teachers. Now, instead of defending Flanagan’s prerogative to raise questions and offer opinions, as it should, the U of C is giving Flanagan the cold shoulder. Even worse, it is, through its president, expressing an opinion on the matter Flanagan raised. That’s bad, because the university is not expressing that opinion as a move in a debate. Quite the contrary. It is expressing an opinion in order to close debate. Participants in the workshop were divided into groups; with each group given questions guiding them to think about the types of conversations that might have been going on at the time of the scandal by the major players involved: the Mayor, Councilors, public servants, HRM CAO, business interests including the concert promoter and the Trade Centre, as well as the general public. The goal of the workshop was to explore a fundamental ethical question: “what makes good people do bad things?” The workshop was not about placing blame. Dr. Stuewe’s goal is to have students understand the deeper structural issues inherent in any public (government) / private (business) relationship, and to have them consider how to prevent boundaries from being overstepped in the future. It was acknowledged that we now live in a world were there will be increasing opportunities for business-government co-sponsored governance, and so, how do we insure the best possible outcomes will be identified, and followed through with transparency. The groups, after some discussion, were then brought back together to de-brief. Haligonians take great pride in the Common, the oldest city park in Canada. The Common is a 250 acre piece of land granted to the town of Halifax by King George III in 1763. Now divided into North and South Common, the sprawling fields of grass sit just off the downtown core, and are widely used by recreationalists, strollers, and as a pedestrian pass-through. Halifax Council decided in 2006 that the Common would be a good place to hold large-scale summer musical concerts. It was commonly felt at the workshop that at the time of the concert announcements, Halifax felt inferior to Moncton’s large-scale concert events. When City Council first announced it was getting into the concert business, there was a great sense of pride amongst mainstream Halifax. Everyone agreed; it would be good for everyone. The Mayor’s political career was potentially on the hook if the concerts failed to make money, as he had generated a lot of buzz for the project. That buzz had led to a great sense of excitement, and after that, no one wanted to burst the bubble. Everyone, it seemed, was wearing rose-colored glasses. The concerts, however, became a major money losing project – with the mayor acting independently to transfer public money to the concert promoter to cover his losses. The workshop participants were directed to explore beyond “blaming” or “naming names”, and the discussions illuminated ideas more profound than small-scale malfeasance with bigger, structural questions emerging: Once financial suspicions were raised, how did the “silo culture of silence” prevent the flow of information? These are all questions which lead to other questions, none of which are easy to address. Governance is not easy. But when structures are put in place that are transparent and democratic, ethical behavior becomes one step closer to realization. Dr. Stuewe will now take the information gathered from the workshop and incorporate it into his on-going development of the case study. How do we live our practical, everyday lives, if we want to live together, side-by-side, in a community that believes in diversity? Not every-one believes in diversity. Some people are quite hostile to the idea. Many people like their communities to be homogenous, conformist, and of that Canadian social model commonly known as “suburban”. So what will diversity mean for Maritimers? What will it look like? But it is quite another thing to open government proceedings with Christian Prayer, or at a university convocation. CCEPA’s panel discussion consisted of Kevin Cox, a United Church Minister and former Journalist; Rev. Dr. Wendell Eisner, Professor of Religious Studies at Saint Mary’s University; Rabbi David Ellis of the Atlantic Jewish Council; and Dr. Mark Mercer, from the Philosophy Department at Saint Mary’s. In one sense, there was the obvious immediate notion that there was no one on the panel who represented the thoughts and interests of any culture outside the last two-hundred years of Judea-Christian-philosophical thought. But in another sense, it was as much a discussion about religious practice in secular spaces as it was about diversity, that it did not matter which religions or philosophers were in attendance. The panel was wrestling with the more fundamental question that is still unresolved in many parts of Canada: should we separate religion from politics? Professor Mercer was the only atheist on the panel, and the only one to strongly contest the idea that it is okay to mix politics and religion, noting that the nativity scene was a ridiculous notion for a secular university like Saint Mary’s to be engaged in. Kevin Cox tried to argue that the nativity scene was, in fact, an inter-faith image that everyone should simply embrace. (His idea being that the nativity scene was evocative of peace and bliss – ideas consistent with all religions.) Rabbi Ellis stressed that more inter-religious education is needed. We all need to take more time to learn about other people, and other cultures, and other belief systems. Knowledge, he argued, is the key to understanding diversity. Rabbi Ellis would later also argue, that rather than eliminate religious observances from secular spaces, there should be a fullness of celebration of all religious holidays in secular spaces. Professor Mercer wanted people to think about the celebratory principles of the North American holiday season – family, children, community, sharing – and see that these are the fundamental principles we should focus on sharing with our neighbours, whoever they may be. Secular Humanism is no less joyful than any other idea of community belief. Mercer argued that removing religion from the holiday season makes the season that much richer, for everyone can participate if they desire to. Mr. Cox countered that without Christ, the holiday would be banal and boring. Everyone agreed that all religious observers – no matter their particular religious views – should be free from hassle to observe as they wish. That this idea of freedom was a fundamental principle of “being Canadian”. All the panelists agreed that there needs to be more discussion about the role of religion and politics in mainstream society. Religion, politics, and diversity, are going to be large and awkward discussions Canadians are going to increasingly encounter over the next couple of decades as more and more people from outside of Europe immigrate to Canada.

WHAT WE NEED 7 to 9 hours of sleep is average Do you turn in at 10 p.m. and rise rested at 6 a.m. without fail? We hear again and again that eight hours of sleep is optimal, but research shows that many people do fine on less, and others feel sluggish and cranky without more. In general, experts say, seven to nine hours of sleep is best for adults, but that’s just an average. “It’s really a bell-shaped curve,” said Dr. James Fulop, a neurologist and medical director of OhioHealth Sleep Services. “Some people claim they only need five hours, and then you’ve got those who sleep 10, 11, 12 hours, and they need that if they can get it, but seven or eight seems to be the base.” The National Sleep Foundation reports that there’s no magic number for hours of sleep, and it stresses that sleep is highly individualized. However, the foundation warns that sleep deficits are universally dangerous. A lack of sleep can lead to motor-vehicle crashes and can increase the chance that a person will become obese or suffer from diabetes, heart problems or psychiatric conditions such as depression and addiction, according to the foundation.Sleepiness often contributes to inattentiveness, slow reaction times and inability to remember new information. Before electricity, many people slept for three to four hours, woke up for an hour or two, then went back to sleep for three to four hours, said Dr. Michael Saribalas, a psychiatrist who operates a sleep clinic at Easton Town Center. Some people really do require only five or six hours; others force themselves into that, which is a mistake, he said. Saribalas said consistency is important for everyone. Someone who usually sleeps eight hours is going to have to adjust to a night’s sleep with just seven, and it might take a week for the body to catch up, he said. The good news for short-sleepers is that they have more time to do things during the day, but recent research shows there’s a dark side to that, too, Fulop said. “The fact is, they die sooner than everybody else,” he said. “The science is pretty firm, and we’re trying to figure it out.”The trouble is, someone who naturally awakens after six hours of sleep can’t easily force the extra hour or two. The amount of sleep people need does vary throughout their development (we all know that babies and teens need lots of rest), but adults mostly require the same amount throughout adulthood, Fulop said. Sometimes, as people age, they find themselves rising earlier, but they also might go to bed earlier in the evening or nap to compensate, he said. “Sometimes, they aren’t as capable of getting it in one stretch.”

What is a mineral reporting code? The mining industry depends on financial investment, but investors need to understand the risks involved in estimating mineral resources or ore reserves. Professional organisations in several different countries have published codes that set minimum standards for public reporting of mineral resources and ore reserves. A common characteristic of a mineral reporting code is a requirement for technical reports to be signed off by ‘Competent’ or ‘Qualified’ Persons. The Competent Person must meet criteria relating to experience and competence and be a member of a relevant professional organisation. The Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves (the JORC Code) was first published in 1989 by the Joint Ore Reserves Committee (JORC). The JORC Code sets the minimum standards, recommendations and guidelines for Public Reporting in Australasia of mineral resources and ore reserves. In 1994 the Combined Reserves International Reporting Standards Committee (CRIRSCO) was formed, initially as a working group of the Council of Mining and Metallurgical Institutes (CMMI), to create a set of standard international definitions for reporting mineral resources and ore reserves, modeled on those of the JORC Code. The five participating countries of CRIRSCO (Australia, Canada, South Africa and UK) reached agreement on standard definitions in 1997 and in 1999 the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe incorporated the CRIRSCO/CMMI definitions into the International Framework Classification for Reserves and Resources. Since 1999 an updated version of the JORC Code has been published and similar codes have been published by professional bodies in South Africa, USA, Canada, Chile and Peru. In 2001 the Geological Society, European Federation of Geologists, Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and the Institute of Geologists of Ireland jointly published the Reporting Code for the UK, Ireland and Europe. The Code is binding for Fellows of the Geological Society and members of the other bodies. Recognition of the Geological Society by International Stock Exchanges In Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada the Codes for these countries have been adopted by and included in the listing rules of their respective Stock Exchanges. To meet the criteria for ‘Competent Person’ under these Codes, the individual must be a member of a recognised professional organisation. The Geological Society is a recognised overseas professional body in all four countries. Fellows of the Geological Society can qualify as Competent Persons in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa; and Chartered Geologists are eligible to be Qualified Persons in Canada. In each country, to qualify as a Competent/Qualified Person the experience and competence criteria must also be met.

Poison Ivy, Oak, or Sumac Antihistamine pills are used to relieve the symptoms of the rash from poison ivy, oak, or sumac. Prescription medicines, such as corticosteroids, may be used for severe rashes. Medicines are also used to make the rash less severe. - Reference Antihistamine Opens New Window pills can help Reference relieve itching and dry blisters. Examples include Benadryl (diphenhydramine), which is an over-the-counter medicine, and Vistaril (hydroxyzine), which you get by prescription. - Reference Corticosteroids may be used to treat a moderate or severe rash. Corticosteroids may be given as pills, products that are spread on the skin (creams, ointments, gels), or shots. - Reference Barrier creams and lotions help prevent the plant oil (urushiol) from coming in contact with the skin or reduce the severity of a reaction. These creams vary in their potency and are not always effective. You may be able to use a product that dissolves urushiol, such as Tecnu or Zanfel. These products are used to wash the oil off your skin or other objects. They may reduce the severity of a reaction or prevent one. The most common complication of poison ivy, oak, or sumac rash is a secondary Reference infection Opens New Window, usually caused by scratching. When this occurs, your doctor will probably prescribe a type of topical Reference antibiotic Opens New Window cream if the infection is in a small area. Otherwise, you may need systemic antibiotics, given as pills or shots. What To Think About The following medicines should not be used for poison ivy, oak, or sumac rash, because they can cause allergy problems of their own: - Antihistamines applied to the skin, such as diphenhydramine (found in Benadryl cream, spray, or gel). - Anesthetics applied to the skin containing benzocaine (such as Lanacane). - Antibiotics containing neomycin (such as Neosporin or Poly-Pred).

Carrier Corporation, Tyler, makes thousands of the "U" shaped beat exchanger tubes each year. To keep the walls of the heat exchanger tube from collapsing, a "ball mandrel" was inserted part way into the tube before it was bent around a circular die. The process had many drawbacks. The mandrels were expensive and the steel regularly destroyed the mandrel. The lubricant oil used cost $500/week, plus added costs for disposal. The process was difficult to control and therefore had a high scrap rate. The solution is to add wrinkles to the tubes, much like hospital soda straws with a wrinkled section. A mandrel is still used to keep the tube walls from collapsing when it first starts to bend, but the mandrel is now made from hard plastic and costs $10 instead of $400. The new buuet-shaped die around which the tube is bent has grooves cut into it every half-inch. As the tube is bent, the metal actually begins to flow like a very thick liquid and fits in the grooves that forms the wrinkles, which relieves the stress that builds up as the tube bends. Equipment to perform this process was purchased from Eaton Leonard Corporation in Carlsbad California. The new method totally eliminated the use of expensive lubricants and therefore its disposal.

Modeling habitat capability for the eastern Indigo snake in the Altamaha River corridor, Georgia Dr. Kevin McGarigal The Eastern Indigo Snake, Drymarchon couperi, is becoming increasingly threatened throughout its current range in the southeastern United States due primarily to habitat loss and degradation. Today, the range of the Indigo snake is limited to Florida and the southeastern Coastal Plain of Georgia, and is listed as Threatened since 1978 under the Endangered Species Act throughout its range (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2008). The objective of this study is to develop an expert habitat capability model for the eastern Indigo snake (Drymarchon couperi) in the Altamaha River corridor area, Georgia, to aid in identifying and prioritizing lands for Indigo snake habitat conservation. We will be using HABIT@, a multi-scale GIS-based system for modeling wildlife habitat developed in the landscape ecology lab at the University of Massachusetts.

aerospace industries. Image sourced from UTC The National Building Museum honored the United Technologies Corp. (UTC) in a gala held in Washington, D.C. on June 4 for the company’s energy-efficient building products and for creating energy and environmental improvements in its manufacturing operations. In his speech in the awarding ceremony, Louis Chenevert, President and Chief Executive Officer of UTC, said “the building sector consumes about 40 percent of the energy used in the U.S. and is responsible for nearly 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. With products and technology available today, energy consumption in buildings could be cut by almost 70 percent, which is equivalent to eliminating the energy consumption of the entire U.S. transportation sector.” The company manufactures energy-efficient products for its customers, including Carrier’s new Evergreen cooling technology that uses 40% less energy and Otis ReGen elevators that consume up to 75% less energy than most conventional models. Other products include access control systems that manage resources efficiently, sustainable onsite power generation, fire suppression systems, and custom customer-driven sustainable solutions. UTC is still committed to promote energy efficiency and positive environmental performance in all its business and manufacturing options. The company has set its first environmental goals in 1992, and has reduced its energy consumption by 22% and water consumption by 50% since 1997. United Technologies Corp. (UTC) manufactures energy-efficient products and services for the building and aerospace industries. The company has revenues of $58.7 billion in 2008. UTC is also a founding member of the US Green Building Council and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. The company’s headquarters is located in Hartford, Connecticut.

1919 in New Zealand Regal and Vice Regal The 19th New Zealand Parliament concludes. The election held in November sees the Reform Party returned with an increased majority (47 of the 80 seats). Women are eligible to stand for Parliament for the first time. - Speaker of the House - Frederic Lang (Reform Party) - Prime Minister - William Massey (Reform Party) - Minister of Finance - Joseph Ward until 21 August, then James Allen Parliamentary opposition Main centre leaders - Mayor of Auckland - James Gunson - Mayor of Hamilton - John Robert Fow then Percy Harold Watts - Mayor of Wellington - John Luke - Mayor of Christchurch - Henry Holland then Henry Thacker - Mayor of Dunedin - James John Clark then William Begg - January: George Bolt ascends to a record height of 6,500 feet (2,000 m). - 1 February: Cecil McKenzie Hill, chief instructor for the Canterbury Aviation Company, is killed in an air accident while flying over Riccarton Racecourse. This is the first aircraft fatality in New Zealand. - 4 February: New Zealand Rifle Brigade (Earl of Liverpool's Own) disbanded. - 31 May: George Bolt flies from Auckland to Russell in a Boeing and Westervelt floatplane. The distance of 233 kilometres (145 mi) is a record for a flight in New Zealand. - 16 December: George Bolt makes the first experimental airmail flight in New Zealand. He flies from Auckland to Dargaville and back again on the same day, a total distance of approximately 320 kilometres (200 mi). - December: Ministry of External Affairs established. James Allen is the first Minister. Arts and literature See: 1919 in music Appointments and awards - Archbishop of New Zealand - Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, see appointments to Diocese - The National Chess championship was not held (the influenza epidemic was still subsiding at its traditional new year dates). - Plunket Shield: 25–29 December, Hagley Oval, Christchurch: Canterbury defeated Wellington by 7 wickets. See 1920 in New Zealand#Cricket for remaining matches in this Plunket Shield competition. - The ninth New Zealand Open championship was won by E.S. Douglas after a playoff against Sloan Morpeth (his third victory). - The 23rd National Amateur Championships were held in Napier - Men: H.E. Crosse (Napier) - 2nd title - Women: Miss N.E. Wright Horse racing Harness racing Thoroughbred racing Rugby union - Wellington successfully defended the Ranfurly Shield against six challengers; Canterbury (21-8), Taranaki (18-10), Canterbury (in Christchurch)(23-9), Auckland (24-3), and Wanganui (30-3). Provincial league champions: - Auckland: North Shore - Canterbury: Linwood, Excelsior (shared) - Hawke's Bay: Waipukurau - Otago: Northern - Southland: No competition - Wanganui: Eastbrooke - Wellington: YMCA Rugby league - 2 June: Bert Walker, CMG, politician - 8 June: Guy Overton, cricketer - 17 July: Alex Moir, cricketer - 20 July: Edmund Hillary, mountaineer - 26 July: Angus Tait, electronics entrepreneur - 5 September: John Te Rangianiwaniwa Rangihau, academic and Māori leader - 6 November: Allen Lissette, cricketer - Lance Adams-Schneider, politician. - Colin McCahon, painter - Jack Ridley, politician. - Gordon Walters, painter

Paul Frederic Bowles (December 30, 1910 – November 18, 1999) was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making various trips to Paris in the 1930s. He studied music with Aaron Copland, and in New York wrote music for various theatrical productions, as well as other compositions. He achieved critical and popular success with the publication in 1949 of his first novel The Sheltering Sky, set in what was known as French North Africa, which he had visited in 1931. In 1947 Bowles settled in Tangier, Morocco, and his wife, Jane Bowles followed in 1948. Except for winters spent in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) during the early 1950s, Tangier was his home for the next fifty-two years, the remainder of his life. Paul Bowles died in 1999 at the age of 88. His ashes are buried in Lakemont Cemetery in upstate New York. 1910–1930: Family and education Paul Bowles was born in Jamaica, Queens, New York City as the only child of Rena (née Winnewisser) and Claude Dietz Bowles, a dentist. His childhood was materially comfortable, but his father was a cold and domineering parent, opposed to any form of play or entertainment, feared by both his son and wife. According to family legend, he had tried to kill his newborn son by leaving him exposed on a window-ledge during a snowstorm; the story may not be true, but Bowles believed it was, and it encapsulates his relationship with his father. Such warmth as there was in his life as a child came from his mother, who read Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe to him – it was to the latter that he later attributed his own desire to write stories such as "The Delicate Prey", "A Distant Episode", and "Pages from Cold Point" Bowles could read by the time he was three and within the year was writing stories. Soon, he wrote surrealistic poetry and music. In 1922, at age eleven, he bought his first book of poetry, Arthur Waley's A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, and at age seventeen one of his poems, "Spire Song", was accepted for publication in the twelfth volume of Transition, a literary journal based in Paris that served as a forum for some of the greatest proponents of modernism — Djuna Barnes, James Joyce, Paul Éluard, Gertrude Stein and others. His interest in music also dated from his childhood, when his father bought a phonograph and classical records (Bowles was interested in jazz but such records were forbidden in the house). His family bought a piano and the young Bowles studied musical theory, singing, and piano. When he was 15 a performance of Stravinsky's The Firebird at Carnegie Hall made a profound impression: "Hearing The Firebird made me determined to continue improvising on the piano when my father was out of the house, and to notate my own music with an increasing degree of knowing that I had happened upon a new and exciting mode of expression." Bowles entered the University of Virginia in 1928, where his interests included T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Prokofiev, Duke Ellington, Gregorian chants, and the blues. He also heard music by George Antheil and Henry Cowell. In April 1929 he dropped out without informing his parents and sailed with a one-way ticket for Paris and no intention of ever returning – not, he said later, running away, but "running toward something, although I didn't know what at the time." Bowles spent the next months working for the Paris Herald Tribune and developing a friendship with Tristan Tzara. Nevertheless, by July he returned to New York and took a job at Duttons Bookshop in Manhattan, where he began work on an unfinished book of fiction, Without Stopping (not to be confused with his later autobiography of the same title). At the insistence of his parents he returned to the University of Virginia, but left after one semester to go back to Paris with Aaron Copland, with whom he had been studying composition in New York. It was during the autumn of 1930 in Paris that Bowles began work on his own first musical composition, the "Sonata for Oboe and Clarinet", which he finished the following year and which premiered in New York at the Aeolian Hall on Wigmore St, 16 December 1931, the whole concert (which also included work by Copland and Virgil Thomson) was "panned" by New York critics. (Bowles' first-known, completed compositional work was a translation of some Kurt Schwitters vocal pieces to piano music in Berlin). 1931–1946: France and New York In France, Bowles became a part of Gertrude Stein's literary and artistic circle. On her advice he made his first visit to Tangier with Aaron Copland in the summer of 1931. They took a house on the Mountain above Tangier Bay. Morocco was later to become the home of Bowles (and the inspiration for many of his short stories). From there he traveled back to Berlin, where he met Stephen Spender and Christopher Isherwood (Isherwood being so taken with him that he named his character Sally Bowles for him), before returning to North Africa the next year to travel throughout other parts of Morocco, the Sahara, Algeria and Tunisia. In 1937 he returned to New York, and over the next decade established a solid reputation as a composer, collaborating with Orson Welles, Tennessee Williams and others on music for stage productions as well as orchestral pieces. In 1938 he married the author and playwright Jane Auer. It was an unconventional marriage: their intimate relationships were with people of their own sex, but they maintained close ties to each other, and despite being frequently anthologised as a gay writer Bowles always regarded such typecasting as both absurd and irrelevant. After a brief sojourn in France they were prominent among the literary figures of New York throughout the 1940s, with Paul working under Virgil Thomson as a music critic at the New York Herald Tribune. His light opera The Wind Remains, based on a poem by García Lorca, was performed in 1943 with choreography by Merce Cunningham and conducted by Leonard Bernstein. His translation of Sartre's play Huis Clos ("No Exit"), directed by John Huston, won a Drama Critic's Award in 1943. In 1945 he began writing prose again, beginning with a few short stories including A Distant Episode. His wife Jane, he said, was the main influence upon his taking up fiction as an adult, through the publication of her first novel, Two Serious Ladies (1943). 1947–1956: Early years in Tangier In 1947 Paul Bowles received a contract for a novel from Doubleday and moved permanently to Tangier, where Jane joined him in 1948. Bowles commented I was a composer for as long as I've been a writer. I came here because I wanted to write a novel. I had a commission to do it. I was sick of writing music for other people — Joseph Losey, Orson Welles, a whole lot of other people, endless. Bowles traveled alone into the Algerian Sahara to work on the novel. Bowles commented: "I wrote in bed in hotels in the desert." He drew inspiration from personal experience, noting years later that "Whatever one writes is in a sense autobiographical, of course. Not factually so, but poetically so." The Sheltering Sky — the title came from a song, "Down Among the Sheltering Palms", which Bowles had heard every summer as a child — was first published by John Lehmann in England in September 1949 after Doubleday rejected the manuscript. Bowles commented "I sent it out to Doubleday and they refused it. They said "We asked for a novel." They didn't consider it a novel. I had to give back my advance. My agent told me later they called the editor on the carpet for having refused the book — only after they saw that it was selling fast. It only had to do with sales. They didn't bother to read it." A belated first American edition by New Directions appeared the following month. The plot follows three Americans, Port, his wife Kit and their friend, Tunner, as they journey through the Algerian desert, culminating in the death of one (Port) and the descent into madness of another (Kit). The reviewer for Time magazine commented that the ends visited upon the two main characters "seem appropriate but by no means tragic", but that "Bowles scores cleanly with his minor characters: Arab pimps and prostitutes, French officers in garrison towns, [and] a stupidly tiresome pair of tourists—mother & son." Tennessee Williams, in The New York Times, was far more positive, commenting that the book was like a summer thunderstorm, "pulsing with interior flashes of fire". The book quickly rose to the New York Times best-seller list, going through three printings in two months. The Sheltering Sky was followed in 1950 by a first collection of short stories. Titled A Little Stone (John Lehmann, London, August 1950), which excluded two of Bowles' most famous short stories, "Pages From Cold Point" and "The Delicate Prey", on the advice of Cyril Connolly and Somerset Maugham, that if they were included in the collection distribution and/or censorship difficulties might ensue.:22 The American edition by Random House, The Delicate Prey and Other Stories, followed later in November 1950 and contained the two stories that had been excluded from the UK edition. When responding to the claim that almost all of the characters in "The Delicate Prey" were victimized by either physical or psychological violence, Bowles responded: "Yes, I suppose. The violence served a therapeutic purpose. It's unsettling to think that at any moment life can flare up into senseless violence. But it can and does, and people need to be ready for it. What you make for others is first of all what you make for yourself. If I’m persuaded that our life is predicated upon violence, that the entire structure of what we call civilization, the scaffolding that we’ve built up over the millennia, can collapse at any moment, then whatever I write is going to be affected by that assumption. The process of life presupposes violence, in the plant world the same as the animal world. But among the animals only man can conceptualize violence. Only man can enjoy the idea of destruction." A second novel, Let It Come Down (John Lehmann, London, February 1952), like The Sheltering Sky, was set in North Africa (this time explicitly Tangier) and dealt with the disintegration of an American (Nelson Dyar), who was unprepared for the encounter with an alien culture. The first American edition by Random House followed later in the month. A third novel, The Spider's House, (Random House, New York, November 1955) was set in Fez (immediately prior to Morocco's independence and sovereignty in 1956, away from the French Protectorate) and charted the relationships among three expatriates and a young Moroccan: John Stenham, Alain Moss, Lee Veyron and Amar. Reviewers noted that it marked a departure from Bowles' earlier fiction in that it introduced a contemporary political theme, the conflict between Moroccan nationalism and French colonialism. The UK edition (Macdonald) followed in January 1957. While Bowles was now concentrating on his career as a writer, he composed incidental music for nine plays presented by the American School of Tangier. The Bowleses became fixtures of the American and European expatriate scene in Tangier. Visitors included Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal. The Beat writers Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Gregory Corso followed in the mid-1950s and early 1960s. In 1951, Bowles was introduced to the Master Musicians of Jajouka, having first heard the musicians when he and Brion Gysin attended a festival or moussem at Sidi Kacem. Bowles' continued association with the Master Musicians of Jajouka and their hereditary leader Bachir Attar is described in Paul Bowles' book, a diary entitled Days: A Tangier Journal. In 1957 Jane Bowles suffered a mild stroke, which marked the beginning of a long and painful decline in her health which was to preoccupy Paul Bowles until Jane's death in 1973. This period also saw the first years of full Moroccan independence and Bowles, with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and sponsorship from the US Library of Congress, spent the months of August to September 1959 traveling throughout Morocco with Christopher Wanklyn and Mohammed Larbi recording traditional Moroccan music. From 1959–1961, Paul Bowles recorded in Morocco a wide variety of music from the different ethnic groups of that country, including the Jewish communities of Meknes and Essaouira. The majority of these recordings are currently being transferred to the digital medium at George Blood Audio and Video in Philadelphia. Another major project of these years was translating Moroccan authors and story-tellers including Mohamed Choukri, Ahmed Yacoubi, Larbi Layachi (under the pseudonym Driss ben Hamed Charhadi), and Mohammed Mrabet. In the autumn of 1968, at the invitation of his friend Oliver Evans, Bowles spent one semester at the English Department of the San Fernando Valley State College, (now California State University, Northridge), teaching "Advanced Narrative Writing and the Modern European Novel." In 1970 Bowles and Daniel Halpern started the Tangier literary magazine Antaeus which was to feature many new authors, such as Lee Prosser, as well as more established authors such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti and his own work, such as "Afternoon with Antaeus", some fragments of an unfinished novel by his wife Jane Bowles along with excerpts from "The Summer House", and works by Daniel Halpern and others. Antaeus was published until 1994. After the death of Jane Bowles on 4 May 1973 in Málaga, Spain, Bowles continued to live in Tangier, writing and receiving visitors to his modest apartment. In 1985 he published his translated version of one short story "The Circular Ruins" of Jorge Luis Borges which was published in a book of sixteen story translations (all by Bowles) called "She Woke Me Up So I Killed Her". This Borges story had already been translated and published by the three main Borges translators: Anthony Kerrigan, Anthony Bonner and James E. Irby and it is interesting to note the difference of styles amongst these four different translations. Bowles's version is in typical Bowles prose style form and is readily distinguishable from the other three, which have a more conservative idiomatic form of translation. In the summers of 1980 and 1982, Paul Bowles conducted Writing Workshops in Morocco, (under the auspices of the School of Visual Arts in New York) at the American School of Tangier which were both very successful, so much so that several of his former students including Rodrigo Rey Rosa who was the 2004 Winner of the Miguel Ángel Asturias National Prize in Literature and who is also the literary heir of the estate of Paul Bowles and Mark Terrill went on to become successful authors. In 1988, when Bowles was asked what his social life was like, he replied "I don't know what a social life is... My social life is restricted to those who serve me and give me meals, and those who want to interview me", and in the same interview when asked how he would summarize his achievement, replied "I've written some books and some music. That's what I've achieved." Bowles made a cameo appearance at the beginning and end of Bernardo Bertolucci's film version of The Sheltering Sky in 1990. Bowles music was mostly forgotten until the 1990s when a new generation of American musicians and singers became interested in this work again. These charming, witty pieces are a treasure to be savored by art song enthusiasts. In 1995, Paul Bowles made a rare and final return to New York for a special Paul Bowles Festival celebrating his music at Lincoln Center under the conductorship of Jonathan Sheffer with the Eos Orchestra and later a symposium and interview held at the New School for Social Research. Bowles was interviewed by Paul Theroux in 1994, documented in the last chapter of Theroux's travel book, The Pillars of Hercules. In 1998, Bowles' wit and intellect remained as sharp as ever. He continued to welcome whomever turned up at his door into his apartment near the old American consulate in Tangier. However, on the advice of his doctors and friends, he began to limit interviews. One of his final reminiscences about his literary life occurred during an interview with Stephen Morison, Jr., a frequent visitor and friend who was teaching at the American School of Tangier at the time. The interview was conducted on July 8, 1998 and appeared in the July/August 1999 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. His final formal interview took place on June 6, 1999; it was conducted by Irene Herrmann, the executrix of the Paul Bowles Music Estate, focused on his musical career, and was published in September 2003. Bowles died of heart failure at the Italian Hospital in Tangier on November 18, 1999 at the age of 88. He had been ill for some time with respiratory problems. His ashes were buried in Lakemont, New York, next to the graves of his parents and grandparents. Paul Bowles lived for 52 of his 88 years in Tangier. Not surprisingly, he became identified with the city: during his life visitors would seek him out, and on his death obituary-writers without fail linked his life to his residency: he became a symbolic American expatriate, and the city became the symbol of his expatriate status. At the time of his first visit with Aaron Copland in 1931 Tangier had an anomalous status, a Moroccan city which was not Moroccan, with a population at once Berber, Arab, Spanish, and European, speaking Spanish, French, Berber and Arabic, under the control of a consortium of foreign powers, one of them the United States. Paul Bowles was entranced. On his return in 1947 the city had already changed, but not enough to rob it of its aura of strangeness and wonder. In 1955 there were anti-European riots, and in 1956 the city was returned to full Moroccan control. Paul Bowles' reputation as a composer was ultimately overshadowed by his writing. He studied with Aaron Copland. He wrote chamber music and incidental music for the stage. The score of his 1955 opera Yerma is especially memorable and gets much radio-play. He collected Moroccan folk music. His compositions are being re-released. Bowles' recording of Moroccan music Bowles was a pioneer in the field of North African ethnomusicology with his field recordings from 1959 to 1961 of traditional Moroccan music for the US Library of Congress. The collection includes dance music, secular music, music for Ramadan and other festivals, and music for animistic rituals. The motivation for the recordings was Bowles' realisation that modern culture would inevitably have an impact on traditional music. There was also a political element to his work, with Bowles commenting: "Instrumentalists and singers have come into being in lieu of chroniclers and poets, and even during the most recent chapter in the country's evolution – the war for independence and the setting up of the present regime – each phase of the struggle has been celebrated in song." The total collection of this recorded music is known as "The Paul Bowles Collection" and is archived in the US Library of Congress, Reference No. 72-750123. The Archival Manuscript Material (Collection) contains 97 x 2 track 7" reel-to-reel tapes, containing approximately sixty hours of traditional folk, art and popular music, one two box of manuscripts, 18 photographs and a map along with the 2 LP recordings called 'Music of Morocco' (AFS L63-64). In the 1960s Bowles began translating stories from the oral tradition of native Moroccan storytellers. His most noteworthy collaborations included Mohammed Mrabet, Driss Ben Hamed Charhadi (Larbi Layachi), Mohamed Choukri, Abdeslam Boulaich, and Ahmed Yacoubi. He also translated Rodrigo Rey Rosa, Jorge Luis Borges, Jean-Paul Sartre, Isabelle Eberhardt, Guy Frison-Roche, André Pieyre de Mandiargues, Ramon Gomez de la Serna, Giorgio de Chirico, Si Lakhdar, E. Laoust, Ramon Beteta, Gabino Chan, Bertrand Flornoy, Jean Ferry, Denise Moran, Paul Colinet, Paul Magritte, Popul Buj, Francis Ponge, Bluet d'Acheres and Ramon Sender Paul Bowles was one of the artists whose work has shaped 20th century literature and music. In the Introduction to Bowles's "Collected Stories" (1979) Gore Vidal ranked his short stories "among the best ever written by an American", writing: the floor to this ramshackle civilization that we have built cannot bear much longer our weight. It was Bowles's genius to suggest the horrors which lie beneath that floor, as fragile, in its way, as the sky that shelters us from a devouring vastness". His music, in contrast, is "as full of light as the fiction [is] of dark...almost as if the composer were a totally different person from the writer." During the early 1930s he studied composition (intermittently) with Aaron Copland; his music from this period "is reminiscent of Satie and Poulenc." Returning to New York in the mid-30s, he became one of the preeminent composers of American theater music, producing works for William Saroyan, Tennessee Williams, and others, "show[ing] exceptional skill and imagination in capturing the mood, emotion, and ambience of each play to which he was assigned." In his own words, incidental music allowed Bowles to present "climaxless music, hypnotic music in one of the exact senses of the word, in that it makes its effect without the spectator being made aware of it." At the same time he continued to write concert music, his style assimilating some of the melodic, rhythmic, and other stylistic elements of African, Mexican, and Central American music. In 1991 Paul Bowles was awarded the Rea Award for the Short Story, an award that is made annually "to a writer who has made a significant contribution to the short story as an art form". The jury gave the following citation: "Paul Bowles is a storyteller of the utmost purity and integrity. He writes of a world before God became man; a world in which men and women in extremis are seen as components in a larger, more elemental drama. His prose is crystalline and his voice unique. Among living American masters of the short story, Paul Bowles is sui generis." His works were added to the Library of America (aimed at preparing scholarly editions of American literary classics and keeping them permanently in print) in 2002. In addition to his chamber and stage compositions, Bowles published fourteen short story collections, three volumes of poetry, numerous translations, numerous travel articles, and an autobiography. Travel, autobiography and letters - 1957 – Yallah, text by Paul Bowles, photos by Peter W. Haeberlin (travel) - 1963 – Their Heads are Green and Their Hands Are Blue (travel) - 1972 – Without stopping (autobiography) - 1990 – Two Years Beside The Strait (autobiography) - 1991 – Days: Tangier Journal (autobiography) - 1993 – 17, Quai Voltaire (autobiography of Paris, 1931,1932) - 1994 – Photographs – "How Could I Send a Picture into the Desert?" (Paul Bowles & Simon Bischoff) - 1995 – In Touch – The Letters of Paul Bowles (edited by Jeffrey Miller) Film appearances and interviews - Paul Bowles in Morocco (1970), produced and directed by Gary Conklin 57 minutes - Paul Bowles": South Bank Show London Studios (1988), produced by ITV, directed by Melvyn Bragg, 54 minutes - In 1990 Bernardo Bertolucci adapted The Sheltering Sky into a film in which Bowles has a cameo role and provides partial narration. 132 minutes - "Things Gone and Things Still Here" 1991, Directed by award winning BBC Filmmaker Clement Barclay. This film tries to decode the world of Paul Bowles in a one hour documentary. Chicago Film festival winner. - "Paul Bowles The Complete Outsider" 1993, by Catherine Hiller Marnow and Regina Weinreich 57 minutes. - "Halfmoon" 1995, four stories by Paul Bowles, Frieder Schlaich and Irenve von Alberti. First Run Features, 91 minutes - "Halbmond" 1995, German version of "Halfmoon", Frieder Schlaich and Irenve von Alberti. First Run Features, 90 minutes - "Let It Come Down" 1998, Requisite Productions, Zeitgeist Films, pub. 72 minutes, not rated. – this film is likely the definitive portrait of the author late in life. Directed by Jennifer Baichwal, includes footage of the final meeting between Bowles, William Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg which took place in 1995 in New York. 72 minutes - "Night Waltz" 2002, Owsley Brown Film of the music of Paul Bowles, with Phillip Ramey and an Interview with Jonathan Sheffer, conductor of the Eos Orchestra. 77 minutes - Carr, Virginia Spencer. Paul Bowles: A Life. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 2009, p. 1. - Virginian Spencer Carr, University of Delaware Special Collections: Paul Bowles: An Introduction - New York Times obituary for Paul Bowles, 19 November 1999 - Allen Hibbard, "Paul Bowles: A Biographical Essay" - Book Factory, "Life and Works" - Holland, Patrick (2002). "Bowles, Paul", glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture. Retrieved June 12, 2008. - Philip Ramey, "A Talk With Paul Bowles" - Warnow, Catherine; Weinreich, Regina (1993) , "Paul Bowles: The Complete Outsider", in Caponi, Gena Dagel, Conversations with Paul Bowles, pp. 214–5 Unknown parameter - McInerney, Jay (September 1985), Paul Bowles in Exile, Vanity Fair - Seidner. , ‘’BOMB Magazine’’ - Bowles, Paul, Without Stopping: An Autobiography, p. 275. - Bowles, Paul, Without Stopping: An Autobiography, p. 292. - Caponi, Gena Dagel (1993), "Paul Bowles in Exile", Conversations with Paul Bowles, p. 188 Unknown parameter - Time, December 1949. - The New York Times, December 4, 1949. - Miller, Jeffrey, Paul Bowles: A Descriptive Bibliography. - "Paul Bowles", The Paris Review Interviews, p. 190. - "Paul Bowles: The Art of Fiction", The Paris Review 81 (67), Fall 1981. - The Spider's House (first ed.), NY, USA: Random House, November 1955. - ["Their Heads are Green and Their Hands are Blue" (Random House, 1963): "The Rif to Music" pages 97 to 141] - ["Without Stopping" (Putnam, 1972): page 368] - Placing the Placeless: A Conversation with Rodrigo Rey Rosa by Jeffrey Gray - He is the literary heir of the estate of Paul Bowles and Jane Bowles - Pinstripe Fedora: Issue #3 - ["Paul Bowles: The Complete Outsider" Interview with Catherine Warnow and Regina Weinreich/1988 Published in "Conversations with Paul Bowles" by Gena Dagel Caponi 1993, page 217] - Art Song of Williamsburg - Jonathan Sheffer & the Eos Orchestra - The last interview with Paul Bowles - The US Library of Congress Recordings were inaugurated to act as a "repository for ethnographic documentation appealing to folklorists and cultural documentarians working in this country and in foreign lands as well." Folklife Center News, Spring 2003, page 5 - [Page 1 of a 9-page booklet contained within the double LP "Music of Morocco", AFS L63-64)] - Collections & Research Services: The Archive of Folk Culture - University of California, Berkeley Library, Biographies - Gore Vidal, Introduction to The Collected Stories, 1979, reprinted 1997. - Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno, "An Invisible Spectator: A Biography of Paul Bowles", (1999) - University of Delaware Library: Paul Bowles Collection - Paul Bowles, Biographical Dictionary of American Composers. - Rea Award for the Short Story

The phrase “Horatio Alger story” is used on a daily basis to describe someone whose hard work and perseverance leads to some unlikely triumph over great adversity. The writer to whom the phrase refers had a profound effect on 19th century life, as boys and young men found lessons within his many novels. While Horatio Alger's name is enshrined as a figure of speech, he’s not well remembered as a person. That’s partly because his own life was deeply troubled. And we now know it was marred by a serious scandal. It appears Alger’s own writings may have been an attempt to either obscure or atone for disturbing criminal behavior. Student and Minister The son of a Unitarian minister, Horatio Alger was born on January 13, 1832, in what today is Revere, Massachusetts. As a boy, Alger was known for religious devotion, and when he entered Harvard College in 1848 it was assumed he would follow his father into the ministry. At Harvard, Alger paid for his first year’s tuition by serving as an errand boy for the college president. He excelled during his four years in college, but after graduation in 1852 his life was unsettled. After entering Harvard Divinity School he left to pursue a career in journalism, but eventually returned to religious studies. He graduated from the Divinity School in 1860. Apparently unhappy with work as a minister, Alger left on a long trip to Europe. He arranged to defray expenses by writing articles for the New York Sun, but grew disappointed with erratic and low pay. He returned to the United States, where he was drafted for the Civil War but not inducted as he was barely over five feet tall. In December 1864 Alger found a position as a minister in Brewster, Massachusetts. And he began submitting stories to a magazine for juveniles, Student and Schoolmate. Horatio Alger Was Accused In a Scandal In 1866 Alger was involved in a local scandal when two boys, aged 13 and 16, accused him of molesting them. The Unitarian church convened a committee to investigate the charges, which were found to be credible. The report by the investigators determined that Alger, while with the boys, had been “practicing on them, at different times, deeds that are too revolting to relate.” Alger didn’t deny the accusations. He agreed to leave the ministry and quickly left Brewster. No criminal charges were filed, and all parties agreed to suppress the scandal. Alger soon settled in New York City, where he continued submitting material to Student and Schoolmate. A serialized novel, Ragged Dick, the story of a young bootblack who becomes a success in business, became very popular. And it led to a series of similar books. While in New York, Alger was often in contact with young newsboys and bootblacks who stayed in buildings operated by the Children’s Aid Society. He became a prominent advocate for homeless and impoverished children, and it seems apparent that no one in New York knew of the scandal in Massachusetts. In New York he lived a rootless existence, generally moving from one rooming house to another. Alger's Characters Succeeded Through Hard Work Alger churned out a cascade of novels, with such titles as Fame and Fortune, Mark the Match Boy, Ben the Luggage Boy, and Rufus and Rose. He also wrote several series of novels, such as the “Luck and Pluck Series” and the “Brave and Bold Series.” Much of Alger’s written work follows a basic template. A typical Alger character is youthful and downtrodden, but somehow has an optimistic attitude. And through hard work and strokes of good luck, he rises from the streets. It’s noteworthy that when the term “Horatio Alger story” is used today, it’s generally invoked to describe someone who has become very wealthy. Yet Alger’s characters don't actually attain great riches. They escape from poverty and become members of mainstream society. Writing with astounding speed, Alger produced more than 500 novels. Critics have noted that his haste is evident. Plots and events are duplicated, and at times Alger was virtually a parody of an obsessive writer grinding out bad books. None of that mattered in the marketplace. The many novels Alger wrote for children sold very well, and it has been estimated that more than 20 million copies of his books were published in his lifetime. In later life Alger attempted to write for an adult audience, but his efforts were generally not successful. And despite the vast popularity of his many children's novels, Alger did not become wealthy himself. He later supported himself by tutoring the children of wealthy New Yorkers. One of his students was future Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo. When Alger died, in 1899, he was apparently impoverished, living with his sister in Massachusetts. After his death, his sister destroyed all of his papers, a huge impediment to any biographer. A Mysterious Life Alger’s peculiar life story took a strange turn after death, when the first biography of him appeared in 1928. A young writer named Herbert Mayes published the book, which was purportedly based on an Alger diary which had been found. For many years the book by Mayes was considered a definitive source on Horatio Alger, and it was cited by literary scholars. Yet in the 1970s Mayes finally admitted that the book had been a hoax, meant to be taken as a joke. The Horatio Alger diary did not exist. Neither did various Alger mistresses. Mayes had created them. When Mayes himself passed away in 1987 at the age of 87, his obituary in the New York Times only mentioned in passing the disputed Alger biography published nearly 60 years earlier. The obituary did mention that Herbert Mayes had grown up in a New York tenement, began working as a messenger and stenographer in his teens, and eventually talked his way into a job as an editor. He went on to become the editor of such magazines as McCall’s and Good Housekeeping, and became something of a legend in the American magazine business. The young man who had perpetrated the hoax biography of Horatio Alger would himself become a classic “Horatio Alger story.”

An abrupt shift from the Hispanic pastoral to single-purpose American entrepreneurism during the Gold Rush marked the beginning of a spectacular cattle boom throughout California. Prior to 1848 California cattle were commercially valuable only for their hides and tallow, and the average price of full-grown steers seldom rose above four dollars a head. The Gold Rush created an enormous and ever-expanding demand for beef, raising the price of cattle to levels never before dreamed of in the isolated territory, destroying the existing balance of economic and cultural values, and transforming the ungainly Spanish black cattle into four-legged gold nuggets. In response to the urgent demand for livestock in the mines and the new cities of San Francisco and Sacramento, the custom of slaughtering cattle for their hides and tallow immediately gave way to the more profitable practice of driving the animals to market to sell as beef on the hoof. Tens of thousands of cattle were driven up the coast valleys and the San Joaquin Valley to market, until the extension of Southern Pacific rail lines to southern California made the practice obsolete. The cattle lived off the country they traveled through, usually after the completion of winter rains when the new grass was well established. The average herd of 700 to 1,000 animals might be a month on the trail from the southern ranchos, traveling about 10 or 15 miles a day. The owner might lease land near the market area where the stock could rest and fatten at the conclusion of the drive, or would sell cattle to agents or buyers who traveled out from the larger cities to inspect and purchase entire herds at the point of departure. Cattle prices rose immediately in response to the unprecedented demand, and continued to rise for nearly seven years. Beef cattle sold for as much as $75 a head in San Francisco, or up to $30 or $40 per head when purchased at a distant rancho. Newcomers told of the extravagance with which the Californios disposed of their new-found wealth, and expressed shock and dire warnings that their improvidence in failing to restock their herds would cause them grief in the near future. In fact, the Californio corner on the beef market was soon disrupted with the arrival of midwestern and eastern beef brought in from Missouri by entrepreneuring young drovers. By the end of 1853, 62,000 head had entered the state over the main immigrant roads, and were pastured in the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys while awaiting market. The growth of the sheep industry in California during the same time period also contributed to the decline in cattle prices by the close of 1855. By 1856, prices had dropped to $16-$18 per head. Rancheros found themselves heavily in debt and totally unprepared for the staggering interest rates charged by American lenders. Mortgaged ranchos were lost, and the Hispanic identity of California diminished as the subdivided ranchos changed in character to predominantly New England style farmsteads. The intolerable economic situation was worsened by a succession of disastrous seasons bringing unprecedented floods and killing droughts. California was ideal cattle country, with unending miles of green grass carpeting the hills with the annual winter rains. When the rains ceased in April, cattle found an abundance of nutritious pasture in the dry alfilaria and burr clover that covered the ranges. Beginning in 1862, however, a series of climatic misfortunes paved the way for a major revolution in the dominant economy of the state. Prolonged rains began in December 1861, causing floods that paralyzed business and travel and drowned thousands of head of cattle, destroying possibly a fourth of the state's taxable wealth. The Central Valley became an inland sea with runoff from the coast ranges and Sierra Nevada. The loss of cattle throughout the state ran to about 200,000. When the rains finally ceased, they had produced a rich and luxuriant pasturage that fattened cattle and increased stock in an already overburdened market. The great flood, however, was followed by two years of unparalleled drought. Cattle prices dropped lower and lower as the drought continued, and enterprises such as wealthy stockmen Miller and Lux purchased starved cattle from the ranchos at $8 per head. A few months later, cattle were routinely slaughtered for the trifling value of their horns and hides. Only those who had the means and mobility to drive their cattle to the Sierra Nevada, or in the case of Miller and Lux, to Oregon, were spared nearly absolute losses. In addition to losses caused directly by the drought, thousands of weakened cattle fell easy prey to mountain lions, bears, and coyotes. When the drought ended, the cattle business had passed from dominance in California's economy. Henry Miller was a German immigrant who completed his butcher apprenticeship and left for New York in 1846 as Heinrich Kreiser, worked in New York at the butcher trade, and arrived in California in 1850 as Henry Miller, a name borrowed from the non-transferable steamer ticket he had purchased from a friend in New York. Miller built up a thriving butcher business in San Francisco, purchasing cattle at first from the stockyards in the city, then from stockranchers in the Santa Clara Valley, San Joaquin Valley, and the San Francisco peninsula. He went into partnership with Charles Lux, a former competitor, in 1858, and became the field agent and purchaser for the company while Lux managed the business office in San Francisco. Miller's first land purchase was the Rancho Santa Rita in Merced County from the outfit that had purchased it from the original Mexican grantee. Miller's pattern for later large purchases was to buy out one heir of a rancho, raise cattle on the land as tenant in common with the remaining heirs, then buy the others out. Miller also loaned money to struggling cattle ranchers on future profits, foreclosing on the loans when sales did not meet expectations. The corporation acquired vast blocks of the public domain using ingenious ways of circumventing the letter and spirit of the Homestead Act, and accepted government land script as currency from former soldiers. Miller paid employees of the corporation to file homestead claims under agreement to sell it to him when proved up. Deed records in Merced County indicate that Miller and Lux were Grantees in 287 instances of land transfers, most in 160 acre Homestead blocks, between 1863 and 1887. Under application of the Swamp Lands Act to California in 1850, Miller was reimbursed for the purchase of a continuous strip of land from the Santa Rita to Orestimba Ranch as overflow lands along the San Joaquin River. Miller and Lux monopolized cattle grazing lands on the west side of the San Joaquin, and employed descendants of the earliest Mexican families on the ranch holdings. Consequently, the western part of the San Joaquin Valley retained its Mexican period lifestyle much longer than did many other parts of California after American domination. The Miller and Lux holdings in Monterey County included all of Peachtree Valley, and in Kern County they shared the title of the county's largest landowners with the Kern County Land Company of Haggin and Tevis. Both corporations were responsible for nearly all of the major drainage projects and canal systems of the southern San Joaquin Valley. A major water rights decision in favor of Miller and Lux grew from a celebrated battle between the two giants over Kern County water use in 1886. That litigation set the state water rights doctrine in favor of riparian rights over that of the right of prior appropriation, and set the stage for development of irrigation districts in the valleys to deal with water use and distribution. The shift in economic dominance from cattle raising to grain farming was marked by a shift in political clout from the stockmen to the farmers with the passage of the "No-Fence Law" in 1872. This was actually the repeal of the Trespass Act of 1850, which had required farmers to protect their planted fields from free-ranging cattle with the construction of a fence 4 1/2 feet high of stone, or 5 1/2 feet high of lumber or rails, or a 5 foot hedge if they wished to receive payment for damage done to crops by ranging cattle. The repeal of the Act required that the stockman fence his stock in, rather than the farmer fence them out. The law did not apply uniformly to all California counties; predictably, those within the overview area that depended greatly on stockraising were exempt, likely because of the enormous expense of fencing large grazing tracts. It was this law that stimulated the tremendous increase in barbed wire patents during the 1870s, making fencing a more feasible financial burden for the cattleman than it had traditionally been.

Human evolution: Now "the Hobbit" may revise "major tenets of human evolution"? New analyses reveal the mini human species to be even stranger than previously thought and hint that major tenets of human evolution need revision.Really? Not only was H. floresiensis being held up as the first example of a human following the so-called island rule, but it also seemed to reverse a trend toward ever larger brain size over the course of human evolution. Furthermore, the same deposits in which the small-bodied, small-brained individuals were found also yielded stone tools for hunting and butchering animals, as well as remainders of fires for cooking them—rather advanced behaviors for a creature with a brain the size of a chimpanzee’s. And astonishingly, LB1 lived just 18,000 years ago—thousands of years after our other late-surviving relatives, the Neandertals and H. erectus, disappearedMore about the Hobbit (Flores man or homo Floriensis) controversy here. It's never been clear to me that Flores man is a separate species. I think some people just need them to have been one, and they seize on anything that advances their case. Fortunately for them, no Florensians are alive today, so we can't answer the fundamental question of whether they could produce live, eventually fertile children with other humans. Anyway, a friend writes to remind me that agnostic Australian philosopher David Stove, author of Darwinian Fairytales, pointed out some while ago: If you discovered tomorrow a new and most un-Darwinian-looking species of animals, in which every adult pair produced on average a hundred offspring, but the father always killed all of them very young, except one which was chosen by some random process, it would take an armor-plated neo-Darwinian no more than two minutes to “prove” that this reproductive strategy, despite its superficially inadvisability, is actually the optimum one for that species. And what is more impressive still, he will be able to do the same thing again later, if it turns out that the species had been misdescribed at first, and that in fact the father always lets three of his hundred offspring live. In neo-Darwinianism's house there are many mansions: so many, indeed, that if a certain awkward fact will not fit into one mansion, there is sure to be another one into which it will fit to admiration.It would be wisest to believe nothing and nobody about any of these speculations. All we know is, some intriguing skeletons were found, and the people they once belonged to lived pretty much as other humans did at the time, despite very small brains. Thus, human brain size is not well correlated with performance of basic hunter gatherer tasks. That in itself is not surprising. Check the brain absent stories here, for example. The human brain is very plastic.

In a barium swallow the patient swallows a variety of liquids and foods mixed with barium, a substance that allows the radiologist and speech pathologist to see the swallowing process. While the patient is swallowing, the radiologist takes video X-rays of the mouth and throat that show how food passes from the mouth through the throat and into the esophagus. If barium enters the windpipe (aspiration), it shows that the patient is at risk for developing lung infections. During the test, a speech pathologist may ask patients to alter their head position, such as tucking the chin, or to try various techniques, such as holding their breath, to improve swallowing. No preparation is required for this painless test, which takes about 10-15 minutes. The modified barium swallow is given to: - Patients with difficulty swallowing liquid, food, or medications - Stroke patients with difficulty swallowing and those with coughing, choking, or throat clearing during meals - Patients with a history of upper respiratory infections, unexplained fevers (including low-grade fever), or aspiration pneumonia - Patients who feel a fullness in their throat or pain upon swallowing - Patients with a history of swallowing difficulty who have Parkinson's Disease, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis or ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) - Patients with a tracheotomy who might be able to tolerate oral feedings or dietary changes - Patients receiving nutrition with a gastronomy tube or nasogastric tube, to determine if they can tolerate oral feedings

New leaders hold key to Asia-Pacific ties Publication Date : 10-01-2013 Essential place for diplomacy will be Japan A flurry of leadership changes in Asia-Pacific countries last year could shake up diplomacy in the region, presenting both a fresh chance to break deadlocks and the risk that regional tensions will continue to increase, experts said. Most of the new leaders have signaled a readiness to repair ties that have been overshadowed by territorial and historic issues as well as the "pivot toward Asia" being pursued by external powers. But it remains unclear whether the changes that will come about this year will be for the better, experts added. Last year saw leadership changes in Russia, the United States, China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK). The essential place for diplomacy in 2013 will be Japan. It is the only one of those countries in which an opposition party took power last year and thus the only one in which sweeping changes are likely to be made to its foreign policy, said Qu Xing, president of the China Institute of International Studies. Shinzo Abe, the new Japanese Prime Minister, has taken centre stage. His country is now in a logjam over territorial disputes with three of its neighbours: China, the ROK and Russia. Abe's "scarily right-wing" stance now has Asia and the world on alert, according to the Economist. "To describe the new government as 'conservative' hardly captures its true character," the Economist wrote in a recent article. "This is a cabinet of 'radical nationalists'." Abe has made no secret of his wish to challenge post-war arrangements by taking steps such as rewriting Japan's pacifist constitution, increasing military spending, changing the name of the country's Self-Defence Forces to the national defence forces and replacing a 1995 apology for suffering Japan caused in Asia during World War II with an unspecified "forward-looking statement". Yet, despite his tough talk, Abe may take a more pragmatic approach to improving Japan's disheartening relations with its neighbours, said Wang Junsheng, a researcher in East Asian studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The BBC recently reported that in 2007, during his first term as prime minister, Abe had worked to repair Japan's tattered relations with China, and it said he may try to do so again. Abe's Democratic Party of Japan will probably also have an easier time trying to mend fences with China. The party, in its more than half a century in power, has had time to develop sound communication channels and contacts with China, said Zhou Weihong, a Japan specialist at Beijing Foreign Studies University, according to Agence France-Presse. Shi Yinhong, an expert on international politics at Renmin University of China, said Abe has positioned China as "Tokyo's top target in Asia", making it difficult for the countries to take anything but a confrontational stance toward each other. Tokyo's relations with Beijing soured in September after it illegally "purchased" the Diaoyu Islands, which have belonged to China for centuries. Meanwhile, the Abe administration is working with the ROK and Southeast Asia to encircle China. Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida started on a trip to the Philippines, Singapore, Brunei and Australia yesterday, and Abe himself is scheduled to make his first trips abroad as prime minister by travelling to Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia. Some of these countries have competing claims with China over parts of the South China Sea. Abe also intends to visit Russia in April or May to talk to Russian President Vladimir Putin about disputes over the sovereignty of four Pacific islands, called the Northern Territories in Japan and Southern Kuril Islands in Russia. Last week, Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso concluded a visit to Myanmar and former Japanese finance minister Fukushiro Nukaga wrapped up a trip to the ROK in which he acted as the prime minister's special envoy. ROK Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan said on Friday that he remains cautious about the prospects of improving his country's strained ties with Japan. Various signs have emerged suggesting how difficult a rapprochement will be to bring about. A 63-year-old ROK activist recently stabbed himself in Seoul, Yonhap News Agency reported, in a protest over the envoy's visit. The Nation newspaper in Bangkok warned in an editorial on December 31 that the future of Asia could be endangered if China, Japan and the ROK continue to be uncomfortable with one another. Asia will continue to loom large on Washington's policy horizon this year. US President Barack Obama will find himself freer in his final term in office to aggressively pursue his policy of pivoting toward Asia. The US, the biggest external power for the Asia-Pacific region, does not want to see Asia slip out of control or China threaten its global influence, Wang Junsheng said. "Both the US and Russia will be paying a lot of attention to the Far East," Shi Yinhong said. "The former will do so mainly out of economic interests and the latter mainly for strategic reasons, including keeping China's rapid growth in check." Putin, who was sworn in for a third term as Russian president in May, has pledged to develop Russia's depressed eastern Siberian and far east regions by having the country become more involved with economies in Asia, which include China, Japan and the ROK. The plans call for new laws and tax reforms, among other changes. Shi said the territorial disputes between Russia and Japan may even come to be perceived as being negligible against the backdrop of the potential benefits of economic cooperation. Obama, meanwhile, has placed a priority on maintaining the security of the Asia-Pacific region, proposing to do so by strengthening the United States' long-standing alliances with Japan and the ROK, as well as reaching out to new potential partners such as Vietnam. Obama is looking to other places in the region as well. Fresh from his re-election victory in November, he became the first sitting US president to visit Myanmar. Washington's tactics here result from the belief that the best way to manage China will be to establish a system that encourages it to play by the rules set collectively by its neighbours, Ernest Z. Bower, senior adviser and chair for Southeast Asia Studies at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said in an article. Yet, despite repeated statements about the "constructive role" China can play in Asia, the increasing US military presence and frequent drills with other countries have aggravated regional tensions. The US can only play a small role in repairing Tokyo and Seoul's strained relations in the face of strong public opposition to a reconcilliation from the ROK, Wang said. The new ROK chief, Park Geun-hye, who is perceived as not being as hard-line as her predecessor, has urged Japan to "squarely face" the two nations' shared history. Experts said Obama may take lessons from his first term as president and adjust his Asian "rebalancing" policy, but Washington's greater emphasis on Asia in the next four years will further complicate regional difficulties. The place that has the greatest potential for progress in Asia-Pacific diplomacy this year is the Korean Peninsula, experts said. Park and her counterpart in Pyongyang, Kim Jong-un, have expressed a willingness to ease tensions between their countries and leave behind their differences, the experts added. Kim Jong-un, after succeeding his late father, Kim Jong-il, at the end of 2011, has provided evidence that he has a softer side than his father. The young leader has attended a concert featuring Disney characters, visited a kindergarten and a park with his wife and revived Kim Il-sung's former practice of addressing the nation on New Year's Day. His speech on improving the poor country's economy and relations with the ROK has led to speculation that Pyongyang is planning to change direction in 2013. But Evans J.R. Revere, senior director with the global strategy firm Albright Stonebridge Group, said in an article that Kim Jong-un's statements are merely the latest manifestation of his ability to "channel" his late grandfather, noting that he has adopted many of Kim Il-sung's mannerisms, style of dress, gregarious way of dealing with subordinates and even his haircut. The consistency of Pyongyang's foreign policies was seen in the two rockets it launched in 2012, which were criticised by much of the international community. Now, though, many countries are expecting to see a long-awaited breakthrough in talks over Pyongyang's nuclear programme and the Korean Peninsula's stability. If so, it is unlikely that Pyongyang will come under further sanctions, as long as it ceases to conduct nuclear tests, Shi said. The Six-Party Talks, which involved the six countries that saw leadership changes last year, began in 2003 but stalled in December 2008 amid frictions between Washington and Pyongyang. Park stressed the importance of rebuilding trust between Seoul and Pyongyang, although she said her country must remain firm on certain issues. Obama declared in November that the US would reach out to Pyongyang if it ended its nuclear weapons programme. John Kerry, Obama's nominee for US secretary of state, is expected to be softer on Pyongyang than his predecessor Hillary Clinton, according to the ROK newspaper The Hankyoreh. Improved relations between China and the ROK may also help to ease tensions in the region, said Steve Tsang, professor of Contemporary Chinese Studies and director of the University of Nottingham's China policy institute. Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Peking University, said Beijing is faced with grim diplomatic prospects and needs to adopt flexible policies that can lessen the chances of getting into a conflict while still working to protect its legitimate interests. Xi Jinping, the newly elected head of the Communist Party of China, has not elaborated exclusively on foreign policy during his first weeks in office. But remarks he made during his first meeting with foreigners - a group of foreign experts - in December, have been widely perceived as sending a strong signal that China cherishes its ties with foreign countries and people, and will continue on its road of opening-up and cooperating with the outside world. He also said countries should take the legitimate concerns of other countries into account when they pursue their own interests. Speaking of the Diaoyu Islands dispute with Japan, for instance, Xi urged Japan in September to control its behaviour and stop saying or doing things that could undermine China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Kyodo News Agency said Xi's remarks about Japan suggest Beijing will not back down on the issue - at least for a while.

The BWTC forms the focal point of a master plan to rejuvenate the 30-year-old existing hotel and shopping mall on the site. The planning of the site became constrained by the existing buildings and the road network around the site. By extending the main axis of the existing shopping mall towards the sea and creating a secondary axis from the Hotel, “Retail Streets” were established. The twin towers’ natural location was therefore positioned on the main axis, facing the Arabian Gulf and creating the entrance for the development. The inspiration for the 42-story twin towers originated from regional “Wind Towers” and their ability to funnel wind, and the vast sails of the traditional Arabian Dhow as they harness the breeze in driving them forward. After careful Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling and extensive wind tunnel testing, the towers’ shape was literally carved out by the wind to create optimum airflow around the buildings. The elliptical plan forms act as aerofoils (see plans on page 91), funneling the onshore breeze between them, creating a negative pressure behind, thus accelerating wind velocity between the two towers. Vertically, the sculpting of the towers is also a function of airflow dynamics.

Data centers over time, have proven to be very useful to the technologically upgraded world. They house a vast number of servers, computer storage devices and other equipments required by the IT sector. They have reduced our commute times, lessened our reliance on physical copies of documents, and increased the speed of connectivity. Technology comes with its own benefits and flaws. These data centers run full time and hence consume a lot of energy. Analysts have confirmed that out of all the energy that is supplied, about 90% is wasted. Investigative reports by analysts on the top notch IT companies and web hosting providers confirm the wastage of energy. It has been seen that some of the servers in these data centers were not being used, hence consuming unnecessary energy. These companies have not taken any measures to overcome such problems. Apart from the energy wastage, data centers also contribute to landfill contamination, green house gas emissions, air pollution, and accumulation of e-waste. The carbon foot-print created by these companies and their data centers has reached unimaginable limits. Reports from the National Data Center Energy Efficiency Information Program (NDCEEIP) show that in the year 2006, data centers have consumed 61 billion kilowatt hour. This number nearly doubled the following year, and has only been increasing every year. This statistics is of the data centers in the U.S. alone. The world-wide data center energy consumption is definitely way beyond statistics. These data centers have also acquired farmlands in the rural areas, which is otherwise used for agriculture. For e.g. Microsoft recently announced the opening of their new data center in Quincy, Washington. The facility is over 450,000 square feet in size and has cost Microsoft a whopping $550 million. This digital farm of Microsoft sits on a potato farming area which was the main profession of about 6000 people. This area earlier was the center of food processing and packing industries. This particular data center has left all these people unemployed. According to a local survey, this data center consumes about 48 megawatt of power, enough to power about 40,000 homes. It also said that these tech farms rake in about 30% more energy than all of the houses and industries combined. This is not the case with only Microsoft. Even companies like Yahoo, Amazon, and Facebook have caused serious damages. People and communities who are not benefited by these developments bear the brunt of the damages. These companies promise to improve infrastructure in the community, but the real question is if the economic benefits these areas receive really worth the cost. The solution to these problems is not new and is unimpeachable. There are creative ways of increasing the efficiency and reliability of data centers. Constructing green data centers is definitely expensive, but should be the primary focus. It would reduce operating and maintenance expenses and be environmentally responsible. Usage of alternative energy could alleviate the problem. At the end of the day, it is worth all the efforts to develop a green data center.

Every freshman at my undergraduate university was given two things: a laptop and a copy of the same paperback book. My year, the paperback they chose was The Things They Carried. It was a gritty book that included meditations on dying in a field of shit and descriptions of bodies blown apart by grenades. The smell of “moldering flesh” was supposed to provide students with an idea of what it might have been like to have been a soldier in Vietnam. As a young college student who was desperate to be seen as edgy and intellectual, I ate it up. I loved the darkness of his writing – the way that descriptions of mundane objects “packets of Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, sewing kits, Military Payment Certifications, C rations, and two or three canteens of water” could become political statements. I loved his willingness to shock, to intersperse his writings with swear words and thick descriptions of death. When the college was able to convince him to come to campus, I was thrilled. The reality of meeting him, however, would not be what I had expected. I had envisioned a man who would provide me with constant insight into the human condition and who would immediately recognize in me a kindred spirit. What I got instead was a middle-aged man who desperately wanted a cigarette and could barely keep his fingers still because of his desire. He was contemptuous of everyone he met and sat back in his chair, counting the moments until he could blow off the gig and have a smoke. I had expected David Thoreau or perhaps the professor from the Dead Poet’s Society and instead got an ass. I was reminded of my experience when I started reading Veda Hale’s biography of Maureen Whipple, Swell Suffering. Whipple was the author of The Giant Joshua, a novel about nineteenth-century Mormon polygamy that The Chicago Tribune called an “engrossing record of pioneering” and The New York Times feted as “an Arresting Piece of Work.” In her biography, Hale compares Whipple with Margaret Mitchell who wrote Gone with the Wind. Both women produced epic novels that dealt with the defining dramas of the nineteenth century. While Mitchell focused on the Civil War, which had torn apart the South, Whipple told the story of her pioneer ancestors who had struggled to live as polygamists. At the heart of both novels were female protagonists who often seemed to be involved in dramas not of their own making. Each novel would also be the only product of their author’s creativity. Both women struggled to write after they published their first book, perhaps fearing that whatever they produced after their critically acclaimed novels would never be as good. Hale first met Whipple in 1990 when the older woman was living in a nursing home in St. George. Her descriptions of that first meeting are filled with a sense of awe and wonder. “It was in her eyes,” Hale writes. “Light gray, they could shine with an easy softness one moment and flicker with static the next. They could also hold a gaze easily, convincing you she understood more about you than you cared for her to know—perhaps even more than you knew about yourself.” At other points in the prologue, Hale describes Whipple as sensitive and gifted. She suggests that The Joshua Tree is “perhaps the best Mormon novel of the twentieth century.” As the biography progresses, however, the reader gets the sense that Hale was ultimately disappointed and even frustrated with Whipple. What emerges from her biography is not a sympathetic portrait of a Mormon genius. Instead, Hale often describes Whipple as a needy woman who constantly blamed her failures and inability to succeed on other people. In Hale’s hands, Whipple becomes a whiny, demanding woman who was unable to connect with other people and who failed to capitalize on the opportunities she was given. Instead, it is a story of a deeply flawed woman who blamed others for her failures and pitied herself whenever things didn’t turn out the way she wanted. As a result, it’s an unsatisfying biography in many ways. The reasons why it is so, however, have less to do with Hale’s skills as a writer and more to do with the complexity of authorship and of human nature itself.

The goal of this talk is to contribute to the debate on a pair of questions that are on the mind of many mathematics educators—teachers, teacher leaders, curriculum developers, and researchers who study the processes of learning and teaching—namely: (1) What is the mathematics that we should teach in school? (2) How should we teach it? Clearly, one presentation is not sufficient to address these colossal questions, which are inextricably linked to other difficult questions—about student learning, teacher knowledge, school culture, societal need, and educational policy, to mention a few. The goal the talk, thus, is merely to articulate a pedagogical stance on these two questions. The stance is not limited to a particular mathematical area or grade level; rather, it encompasses the learning and teaching of mathematics in general. This stance is oriented within a theoretical framework, called DNR-based instruction in mathematics (DNR, for short). The initials D, N, ard R stand for three foundational instructional principles in the framework: duality, necessity, and repeated reasoning. DNR can be thought of as a system consisting of three categories of constructs: premises—explicit assumptions underlying the DNR concepts and claims; concepts—constructs defined and oriented within these premises; and instructional principles—claims about the potential effect of teaching actions on student learning.

If we don’t think about the end of a thing, we rarely get the beginning or middle right. If we don’t think about where a journey is going, we rarely point ourselves in the right direction. A lot of words are said in the our religion. A lot of energies are focused. A lot of interpretations of what is the right and true way to be Christian. But if we say those words, focus those energies, or make those interpretations without reference to the whole point of the spiritual life, odds are we won’t get them right. And look around, good Christian. We’re not getting much right these days. So in today’s lesson, let’s think together, a bit, about the point of this whole journey. Continue reading History is a funny thing. People tend to remain the same, but cultures don’t. As Christians, we have missed an important part of our history. We started in a Middle-Eastern, Hebrew worldview, but around 325 AD, we migrated into a Greco-Roman one. And scriptures written in one worldview, don’t always translate well into the other. In this lesson, I suggest that Jesus’ story about the sheep and goats didn’t translate well at all. Since it has been so influential in the way we Christians see our world, we ought to have a second look at it. Continue reading We long for a world (albeit an impractical one) where everyone gets along and there are no wars or suffering. We comfort ourselves about not having this as our reality by turning Jesus into a “poet”. His words are often interpreted almost as if they were dreams or lofty goals. When Jesus describes “eternal life”, we think of it in a similar manner as being something supernatural and not available in the present. But the phrase “eternal life” should actually be translated as “life that springs from the eternal” and part of this is the journey from two-ness to one-ness. Jesus prays in John 17 that we “would be one with the Father”. The oneness with God is the deepest dimension of each of us. Continue reading I have been on a 16-day long walk along the MST. The purpose was solitude, quiet and prayer. I tell my story of my walk and the few people I met along the way to the kids at NRCC. by … Continue reading Belonging in the Dance by George Fuller [Download mp3] I’m going on a walk. (details). The purpose of the walk is the ancient practice of solitude. It is one of the contemplative practices we talk about that works with the deconstructive process that is part of the Journey to … Continue reading “Timeless truth I speak to you: Unless a grain of wheat falls and dies in the ground, it remains alone, but if it dies, it yields much fruit.” If the death to ego-as-self is an inevitable part of the spiritual journey, is there a way we could work with it, instead of resisting it when it comes? I think so. Continue reading Doug Hammack, George Fuller and Scott Shackleton give us some insight into where we are currently and where we plan to be going as a community. [Download mp3]