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first and scale those that seem promising. Some of the solutions will fail, but that’s great because we got some very useful information. Fostering an experimental mindset in an organisation is a great investment.
You know that five-year strategic plan your team gave input on two years ago? How many times have you revisited it since it was published? The interventions that you are designing will have ripples and effects, some negative and some positive. Life is happening and things are constantly changing, so your strategic plan needs to be malleable and adaptable. The Asia Foundation has a fabulous resource on how to revisit your strategy, called Strategy Testing.
As we all know, one of the best ways to learn is exchanging ideas with others about what we did and what happened. One of the things that often surprises me is how little organisations know about what their colleagues are doing in other countries, but even in other departments. The best way to further test an innovation is to try it somewhere else in the organisation that has similar conditions. Fostering an environment of knowledge exchange internally is vital. Often, there is also latent knowledge and expertise across teams that can help you further design your project. Sharing project processes and outcomes externally is just as crucial. A great example of this is how the global Johns Hopkins projects Breakthrough RESEARCH and Breakthrough ACTION have created a mega resource for learning across disciplines and countries on how to apply behavioural science in global development.
For more, I highly recommend the article by Naru & Laffan (2021) on their experience fostering a behavioural mindset in the OECD, which can be found in the 2021 Behavioural Economics Guide.
Have you recently adopted any of these mindsets? What has your experience been? Share your thoughts with me here!The days get shorter. The temperatures get cooler. You spend less time outside and there is less opportunity to soak up that Vitamin D your body and brain need.
Many people, especially those who are vulnerable to depression, can have symptoms relating to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) throughout the year. However, it is more commonly experienced in the fall and winter months.
“SAD is something people may experience during that particular time of year or season when there’s less sunlight,” said Palmetto Infusion Patient Advocate and Licensed Social Worker, Chrissie Jenkins. “It is certainly something that people who already struggle, unfortunately, with depressive tendencies may notice to be more pronounced and disruptive. They just have an extra challenging time during this season.”
Some symptoms of winter-pattern SAD, in addition to major depression symptoms, can include Oversleeping (hypersomnia); overeating, particularly with a craving for carbohydrates; brain fog; weight gain; and social withdrawal (feeling like “hibernating”).
While scientists do not fully understand what causes SAD, there is a belief that lack of sunlight and its effects on Vitamin D levels and brain chemicals, such as serotonin and melatonin play a part, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
Research suggests sunlight controls the levels of molecules that help maintain normal serotonin levels.1 Serotonin, of course, is the main neurotransmitter regulating mood. Research also suggests that in people with SAD, this regulation does not function properly, resulting in decreased levels during late fall and winter.
According to Jenkins, it is not just serotonin levels that take a hit from less sunlight, but also Vitamin D levels and melatonin. In addition to Vitamin D consumed with diet, the body produces Vitamin D when exposed to sunlight on the skin. With less daylight in the winter, people with SAD may have lower vitamin D levels, which may further hinder serotonin activity, according to NIMH.
Other research concludes there could be too much melatonin produced in those with SAD.2 Melatonin is a hormone that is central to maintaining the normal sleep-wake cycle. Overproduction of melatonin can increase sleepiness.
There are a few options you can consider to mitigate symptoms.
- Talk to your doctor. Holistic approaches do not work for everyone. If you find you cannot manage symptoms of SAD and have consistent low mood, talk to your doctor about the possibility of starting an antidepressant.
- Go for a brisk walk. If you are able, take your lunch break outside and go for a walk around the block. If you are unable to get outdoors, try using a treadmill or other exercise equipment set close to a window.
- Try box light therapy. “These are nonmedical devices that can be purchased rather affordably online,” said Jenkins. “When you do not have the opportunity to get as much natural light, this device helps simulate a light like natural light, which will help boost those chemical levels. You can do this in the comfort of your own home, too!”
- Manage your time. “The best advice I can give is to be very protective and mindful of the value and quality of your time and wellbeing,” said Jenkins. “Going into something, like holiday gatherings, you must be realistic with yourself and work at managing and prioritizing increased expectations. For instance, you could have been invited to four or five holiday events. Instead of burning yourself out by going to all of them, pick just one or two that you feel are the most meaningful and purposeful. This way you are not overcommitting yourself to things that may end up taking a toll on your comfort level, energy reserves, and life satisfaction.”
- Be mindful of your food and alcohol consumption. Typically, around the holiday season, there are more opportunities to overeat and consume more carbohydrates, sweets, and alcohol than you may normally. “It’s okay to enjoy yourself and indulge with special sweet treats but try to be mindful of moderation and balance while you celebrate,” said Jenkins.
“The amount of sleep we get does greatly affect our mood and patience. The types of food we consume, such as lots of refined sugar, can give us these hard crashes that leave us feeling depleted and miserable,” said Jenkins. “There are many practical tips that we can all easily practice to minimize the effects of SAD. These are just some of the tools to consider applying.”
While SAD can disrupt your normal routine for a few months if you are experiencing these symptoms consistently or any symptoms associated with depression, contact your physician for help.
If you are a patient of Palmetto Infusion or AccuRX Infusion and are experiencing a need or area of concern, Chrissie Jenkins is available to listen to and offer guidance, support, and direction. You can contact her confidentially at no charge by calling 843-314-5908 or by emailing [email protected].
1. Lambert GW, Reid C, Kaye DM, Jennings GL, Esler MD. Effect of sunlight and season on serotonin turnover in the brain. Lancet. 2002 Dec 7;360(9348):1840-2. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(02)11737-5. PMID: 12480364.
2. Melrose S. Seasonal Affective Disorder: An Overview of Assessment and Treatment Approaches. Depress Res Treat. 2015;2015:178564. doi: 10.1155/2015/178564. Epub 2015 Nov 25. PMID: 26688752; PMCID: PMC4673349.The Power of Lifelong Learning: How Self-Education Can Transform Your Life
In a world that’s constantly evolving, the value of learning doesn’t end when you leave school or earn a degree. In fact, it’s just the beginning. Lifelong learning, also known as self-education, is a powerful tool that can transform your life in countless ways. In this article, we’ll explore the importance of self-education and how it can benefit you in both personal and professional spheres.
1. Unlocking Your Potential
The journey of self-education begins with a simple but profound realization: you have the power to learn anything you desire. From acquiring new skills and knowledge to exploring your passions and interests, the possibilities are endless. When you embrace self-education, you unlock your potential and tap into your innate curiosity.
2. Adaptation in a Changing World
The world is in a constant state of flux, with technology, industries, and trends evolving at a rapid pace. To thrive in such an environment, adaptability is essential. Self-education equips you with the ability to adapt to these changes. Whether it’s mastering a new software program or staying updated on the latest industry trends, your commitment to learning keeps you relevant and competitive.
3. Expanding Your Horizons
One of the most beautiful aspects of self-education is the opportunity to explore diverse subjects and perspectives. You’re not bound by a rigid curriculum or course requirements. Instead, you have the freedom to delve into a wide range of topics, from art and history to science and philosophy. This expansion of horizons enriches your life and broadens your understanding of the world.
4. Self-Improvement and Personal Growth
Self-education is not just about acquiring external knowledge; it’s also a journey of self-improvement. As you learn and grow, you become more confident, adaptable, and open-minded. You develop critical thinking skills and gain a deeper understanding of yourself and others. This personal growth is invaluable and can positively impact every aspect of your life.
5. Career Advancement
In today’s competitive job market, continuous learning is often a prerequisite for career advancement. Whether you’re aiming for a promotion, considering a career change, or starting your own business, self-education plays a vital role. It allows you to acquire new skills, certifications, and knowledge that can set you apart from the competition.
6. Fulfillment and Passion Pursuit
Self-education isn’t just about meeting external goals; it’s also about pursuing your passions and finding fulfillment. When you invest time in learning about subjects that genuinely interest you, it brings a sense of joy and purpose to your life. Whether it’s painting, cooking, or learning a new language, self-education allows you to follow your heart’s desires.
7. Overcoming Challenges
Self-education is not without its challenges. It requires discipline, time management, and a commitment to lifelong learning. However, these challenges are opportunities for personal growth and resilience. As you overcome obstacles on your educational journey, you develop valuable life skills that serve you well in all areas of your life.
8. Connection and Community
The pursuit of knowledge often leads to connections with like-minded individuals. Whether you join online forums, attend workshops, or participate in local clubs, self-education can foster a sense of community. These connections can provide support, encouragement, and opportunities for collaborative learning.
In a rapidly changing world, self-education is not just a choice; it’s a necessity. It empowers you to take control of your personal and professional development, opening doors to endless possibilities. By embracing the mindset of a lifelong learner, you can continuously grow, adapt, and thrive. So, seize the opportunity to explore, discover, and transform your life through self-education. Your journey begins today.Pluto isn't quite as lonely as scientists had thought.
Astronomers have discovered another dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, the ring of icy objects beyond Neptune. But this newfound world, dubbed 2015 RR245, is much more distant than Pluto, orbiting the sun once every 700 Earth years, scientists said. (Pluto completes one lap around the sun every 248 Earth years.) You can see an animation of the new dwarf planet's orbit here.
"The icy worlds beyond Neptune trace how the giant planets formed and then moved out from the sun," discovery team member Michele Bannister, of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, said in a statement. "They let us piece together the history of our solar system." [Meet the Solar System's Dwarf Planets]
"But almost all of these icy worlds are painfully small and faint; it's really exciting to find one that's large and bright enough that we can study it in detail," Bannister added.
The exact size of 2015 RR245 is not yet known, but the researchers think it's about 435 miles (700 kilometers) wide. Pluto is the largest resident of the Kuiper Belt, with a diameter of 1,474 miles (2,371 km).
The research team first spotted 2015 RR245 in February of this year, while poring over images that the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii took in September 2015 as part of the ongoing Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS).
"There it was on the screen — this dot of light moving so slowly that it had to be at least twice as far as Neptune from the sun," Bannister said.
OSSOS has discovered more than 500 objects beyond Neptune's orbit, but 2015 RR245 is the first dwarf planet that the survey has found, the scientists said.
Dwarf planets are massive enough to be crushed into spheres by their own gravity, but they have not "cleared their neighborhood" of other objects, which differentiates them from "normal" planets such as Earth and Saturn. This definition, which was devised by the International Astronomical Union in 2006, led to Pluto's controversial reclassification as a dwarf planet.
Astronomers are still working out the details of 2015 RR245's highly elliptical orbit, but the object appears to come as close to the sun as 34 astronomical units (AU), and farther away than 120 AU. (One AU is the average Earth-sun distance — about 93 million miles, or 150 million km.)
2015 RR245 — which will get a catchier, official name at some point — will make its closest approach to the sun in 2096, the researchers said.
Other confirmed dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt region include Pluto, Eris, Haumea and Makemake. Several other objects in this distant realm, including Sedna, Quaoar and 2007 OR10, probably meet the dwarf-planet criteria as well, scientists have said.The Kinghorn, a barge carrying a cargo of wheat to Montreal, sank on April 27, 1897 during a storm on the St. Lawrence River. While 120 years have passed since the sinking it remains an accessible dive site. It is resting in 90 feet of water in front of the Rockport, Ontario dock. The wreck is 400 feet from shore. The Kinghorn, along with six other barges, were being towed by a tug named the Hiram Walker.Fundamentals of Android App Development
Android Development for Beginners to Learn Android Technology, SQLite, Firebase and Unity
About the Book
Android, SQLite, Google Firebase and Unity (Game Development)
â— Uncover the basics of Android App Development.
â— Get to know more about the Database Structure of SQLite (Android database).
â— A quick start guide that will help beginners understand the structure of Android Development (Programming).
This hands-on book will teach you how to structure your android app, design flexible and interactive interfaces. It will help you develop your app on various platforms such as smartphones and tablets.
The book uses SQLite as it is a very lightweight database, with no installation required, zero-configuration, and no server required. SQLite is widely used as a database of choice in mobile apps, cameras, home electronic devices, and other embedded systems. Then you will see how to work with Google Firebase, Google’s mobile platform, which helps you quickly develop high-quality apps. You will see how it supports a real-time database for your apps. It will also show how to use Unity, a cross-platform game engine. It will help you develop 3D games with high quality as per your requirement.
What will you learn
â— Get familiar with the fundamentals of Android App Development
â— Use SQLite Database in Android development
â— Learn how to use Google Firebase Services
â— Understand how to work with Unity for Android Game Development
â— Create an Android Project towards the end of the book
Who this book is for
This book is more beneficial for young college students, Java Developer, any software engineer who is interested in android programming or mobile app development. This book is also for a person who wants to learn android programming.
Table of Contents
1. Android Basic
2. SQL Lite
BPB is Asia's largest publishers of Computer & IT books. For the last 63 years BPB has been a friend, philosopher and guide for programmers, developers, hardware technicians, IT Professionals who have made things happen in the IT World.
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Master prominent technologies at full length and become a valued certified professional.Explore NowFor more on the latest information on accreditation released by the Department, please click here.
History and Context of Accreditation in the United States
| Also refer to: Overview of Accreditation in the United States |
In the United States, institutions of higher education are permitted to operate with considerable independence and autonomy. The United States has no Ministry of Education or other centralized federal authority exercising control over the quality of postsecondary educational institutions, and the states assume varying degrees of control over education. As a consequence, American educational institutions can vary widely in the character and quality of their programs. To ensure a basic level of quality, the practice of accreditation arose in the United States as a means of conducting nongovernmental, peer evaluation of educational institutions and programs. With the passage of the HEA in 1965, Congress expanded the role of accrediting agencies by entrusting them with ensuring academic quality of the educational institutions at which federal student aid funds may be used subject to oversight by the federal government through the recognition process. Private educational associations have adopted criteria intended to reflect the qualities of a sound educational program and have developed procedures for evaluating institutions or programs to determine whether or not they are operating at basic levels of quality. Although accrediting agencies promulgate standards to ensure institutional quality, agencies have no legal control over educational institutions or programs.
Under the HEA, the Department does not have the authority to recognize accrediting agencies for the accreditation of private or public elementary and secondary schools. If an accrediting agency which is recognized by the Department for higher education also accredits elementary and secondary schools, the Department's recognition applies only to the agencies' accreditation of postsecondary institutions or programs.
Some Important Functions of Accreditation
- Assess the quality of academic programs at institutions of higher education
- Create a culture of continuous improvement of academic quality at colleges and universities and stimulate a general raising of standards among educational institutions
- Involve faculty and staff comprehensively in institutional evaluation and planning
Note: Accreditation does not provide automatic acceptance by an institution of credit earned at another institution, nor does it give assurance of acceptance of graduates by employers. Students should contact the receiving institution to help determine whether credits are transferrable. Acceptance of credit or graduates is always the prerogative of the receiving institution or employer. For these reasons, besides ascertaining the accredited status of an institution or program, students should take additional measures to determine, prior to enrollment, whether their educational goals will be met through attendance at a particular institution. Those measures should include inquiries to institutions to which transfer might be desired or to prospective employers, as well as any private or governmental entity responsible for licensing or certifying graduates to work in the field for which the educational program is intended.
Primary Accrediting Activities
- Standards: The agency, in collaboration with educational institutions and/or programs, establishes standards.
- Self-study: The institution or program seeking accreditation prepares an in-depth self-evaluation report that measures its performance against the standards established by the agency.
- On-site evaluation: A team of peers selected by the agency reviews the institution or program on-site to determine first-hand if the applicant meets the established standards.
- Decision and publication: Upon being satisfied that the applicant meets its standards, the accrediting agency grants accreditation or preaccreditation status and lists the institution or program in an official publication with other similarly accredited or preaccredited institutions or programs.
- Monitoring: An accrediting agency monitors each accredited institution or program throughout the period of accreditation granted to verify that it continues to meet the accreditor's standards.
- Reevaluation: The agency periodically reevaluates each institution or program that it lists to ascertain whether continuation of its accredited or preaccredited status is warranted.
Types of Accreditation
There are two basic types of educational accreditation, one referred to as "institutional" and the other referred to as "specialized" or "programmatic."
Institutional accreditation applies to an entire institution, indicating that each of an institution's parts is contributing to the achievement of the institution's objectives.
Specialized or programmatic accreditation normally applies to programs, departments, or schools that are parts of an institution. The accredited unit may be as large as a college or school within a university or as small as a curriculum within a discipline. Most of the specialized or programmatic agencies review units within an institution of higher education that is accredited by an institutional accrediting agency. However, certain agencies also accredit professional schools and other specialized or vocational institutions of higher education that are freestanding in their operations. Thus, a "specialized" or "programmatic" agency may also function in the capacity of an "institutional" agency. Some of these "institutions" are found within non-educational settings, such as hospitals.
The Accreditation Group (AG)
The Accreditation Group has been established within the Department of Education to deal with accreditation matters. Located in the Office of Postsecondary Education, the Group carries out the following major functions with respect to accreditation:
- Continuously reviews standards, policies, procedures, and issues in the area of the Department's accreditation responsibilities.
- Administers the process by which accrediting agencies and state approval agencies secure initial and renewed recognition by the Secretary.
- Serves as the Department's liaison with accrediting agencies and state approval agencies.
- Consults with institutions, associations, state agencies, other federal agencies, and Congress regarding accreditation.
- Interprets and disseminates policy relative to accreditation issues for the Department.
- Conducts appropriate research and investigates complaints against recognized accrediting agencies and state approval agencies.
- Interacts with the NACIQI during the recognition process. Also provides limited administrative support to NACIQI members.
- Works directly with the National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation. Also provides administrative support to NCFMEA members. AG staff reviews the medical education standards used in foreign countries for comparability with the medical education standards used to accredit medical school in the US.
- AG staff reviews applications (6) foreign veterinary accrediting agencies to determine if their accreditation standards are acceptable.
- AG staff also periodically reviews military degree programs in accordance with Federal degree granting authority regulations.
U. S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW #270-12
Washington, DC 20202
Telephone: (202) 453-7615
Summary of the Recognition Process for Accrediting Agencies
The process for the recognition of accrediting agencies is set forth in 34 CFR Part 602 Subpart C. Summary of the application and recognition process is provided below.
Accrediting agencies desiring recognition by the Secretary of Education must apply and demonstrate their compliance with the criteria for recognition set forth in 34 CFR Part 602 Subpart B. An accrediting agency's application for recognition generally consists of a statement of the agency's requested scope of recognition, evidence of the agency' compliance with the criteria for recognition set forth in part 602, and supporting documentation (state approval agencies are review using different criteria).
An agencies' application for initial recognition or renewal of recognition consists of a narrative statement, organized on a criterion-by-criterion basis, showing how the agency complies with the regulatory criteria. Depending on the recognition criterion, the narrative may be detailed or streamlined, and in all cases must be accompanied by clearly referenced supporting documentation demonstrating that the agency meets the requirement. Below is an example of some (not all) of the documentation that agencies must include to support its application for renewal and initial accreditation:
- Accreditation standards and procedures
- Operational policies and procedures
- Most recent externally audited financial statement.
- Published list of accredited institutions or programs.
- Self-study guidelines
- Guidance and training materials for on-site evaluation team members
- Sample completed self-studies.
- Sample on-site evaluation reports
- Sample institution or program responses to on-site evaluation reports
- Sample minutes of decision meetings, and decision letters
- Agency's constitution and bylaws
- List of complaints received by the agency against accredited programs or institutions.
Application for Initial Recognition
Recognition is granted by the Secretary to an agency that meets certain federal eligibility requirements and can demonstrate compliance with all of the criteria for recognition, establishing through its accrediting actions and decisions that it is a reliable authority regarding the quality of education offered by the institutions or programs it accredits. The Accreditation Group accepts applications for initial recognition after consultation and based on workload.
Agencies seeking initial recognition should contact the AG to discuss the basic eligibility requirements and the application process. If the Department staff believes the accreditor meets the basic eligibility requirements, the agency will be provided with the information needed to submit an application through the Department's electronic system.
To request consideration at a particular meeting of the NACIQI, an agency seeking initial recognition must submit its application as directed by the AG.
An agency considering applying for initial recognition is encouraged to contact the Accreditation Group as early as possible to discuss its possible application and to afford staff the opportunity to observe several accreditation activities and to conduct file reviews. Because observation of an agency's on-site evaluations and decision meetings by staff is a critical component of the review of the agency's application, it is imperative that an agency seeking initial recognition submit a list of scheduled evaluations and decision meetings with its application for recognition. If an agency does not provide AG staff with an opportunity to observe an adequate number of on-site evaluations, decision meetings (typically 2-3 of each), and file reviews before the NACIQI meeting at which the agency requests consideration of its application, AG staff will not finalize the agency's application for initial recognition.
Agencies seeking initial recognition are reminded that recognition by the Secretary is not a prerequisite for an accrediting agency to function as an accrediting body, i.e., an agency does not have to obtain federal recognition before it begins to accredit institutions or programs. An agency seeking recognition must demonstrate that its accreditation is a required element in enabling at least one of the institutions or programs it accredits to establish eligibility to participate in one or more federal programs. Beyond that basic eligibility requirement, a new agency will need to have had at least two years' experience functioning as an agency - establishing standards, evaluating institutions or programs for compliance with those standards, and making accrediting decisions based on those standards - before it submits its application for recognition. Staff will also consider whether the new agency has been organized under conditions that reasonably ensure its stability and permanence.
Application for Continued Recognition
Accrediting agencies that have been granted recognition by the Secretary are officially notified of the expiration date of their recognition period in a letter each time recognition is granted or renewed. They should plan to submit their applications for renewal of recognition approximately two years (new regulatory requirement) in advance of the summer or winter meeting of the NACIQI that precedes that expiration date. As with the initial application, Accreditation Group observation of accrediting activities (e.g., decision meetings, on-site evaluations, file reviews, etc.) is an important component of the renewal process.
Staff Analysis of an Agency's Application
The application review process conducted by the Department includes analysis of the application and observation of some of the agency's on-site evaluations, decision-making activities by AG staff. AG Staff members will conduct file reviews. AG staff may hold meetings with agency staff. AG staff may also conduct interviews with other persons and organizations concerning the agency's approval process in order to obtain further information relating to the agency's compliance with the Criteria for Recognition. Department staff then prepares a written analysis of the agency's application for recognition, which includes a recommendation on recognition.
Hearing Before the Advisory Committee
When Department staff completes its evaluation of an agency's application for recognition, the agency's application is placed on the meeting agenda of the NACIQI. NACIQI is a federal advisory committee that operates according to the requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Its 18 members are appointed equally by the Secretary, House of Representatives, and the Senate. In preparation for the meeting, NACIQI is provided with the agency's application and supporting documentation; the final AG staff analysis of the application; the AG staff's recommendation on recognition; all information relied upon by AG staff in developing the analysis. Any response by the agency to the draft staff analysis, and any written third-party comments the Department timely received about the agency and agency response to the third-party comments.
NACIQI meets at least twice a year to review applications for recognition submitted by accreditors. The usual times for NACIQI meetings are summer (July) and winter (February). Each member of NACIQI receives every AG staff analysis of an application for recognition and all the other materials mentioned in the preceding paragraph. The Executive Director of NACIQI usually assigns two or more individuals to serve as principal readers for each application.
An agency that applies for recognition is invited to make an oral presentation before the NACIQI. NACIQI also hears oral presentations from third parties who request to be heard. Department staff is available throughout NACIQI meetings to respond to questions. NACIQI conducts its business in public, and a transcript of the proceedings is made.
Determination by the Senior Department Official
After each meeting, NACIQI's and Department staff's recommendations concerning recognition are forwarded to the Senior Department Official, who makes the decision regarding recognition. An agency that disagrees with the decision of the Senior Department Official may appeal to the Secretary. The Secretary's decision can also be contested in the Federal court. Agencies may be granted initial recognition or renewal of recognition for a period of up to five years (four years for state approval agencies).
Application for an Expansion of Scope
An application for expansion of an agency's scope of recognition may be included as an integral part of an application for renewal of recognition or it may be submitted separately. If an expansion of scope is sought prior to the agency's next regularly scheduled review, accrediting agency personnel should consult with the Accreditation Group staff concerning the application format.
The State Liaison team within the Accreditation
The State Liaison team within the Accreditation Group is composed of four currently assigned Accreditation Group analysts, and have the following responsibilities:
- Provide technical guidance to state officials on the Higher Education Act of 1965 as amended (HEA) and Department regulations in 34 CFR §§ 602 and 603.
- Participate in meetings and conferences designed to promote and advance dialogue with state higher educational organizations regarding state and federal statutory and regulatory. requirements governing authorization, licensure, and accreditation of Title IV institutions.
- Respond to routine controlled correspondence, and phone inquiries from state officials, and coordinate with the appropriate staff analyst or ED office.
- Identify higher education issues that needed to be brought to the attention of the Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education and initiating public forums for discussion and dialogue among members of the higher education community.
- Build and/or update a directory which would list each state's key higher education staff (including SHEEOS), and state licensure officers along with their contact information.
- Work closely with state officials and accrediting agencies on school closures regarding the following:
- Adequacy of teach-out plans and teach-out agreements.
- Confer with state officials and accrediting agencies regarding the status of institutions included in teach-out plans and agreements.
As a courtesy obtain information from state officials regarding student records and where student records are stored for the closed institution.Explore Careers in Social Sciences
Today’s world depends heavily on the social sciences, which explore fascinating insights into the “how and why” of everyday lives. Working in the social sciences allows you to engage your critical thinking abilities and gain insight into people and society.
A degree in social science can be ideal for you if you are curious to learn more, like to debate important issues, and are not afraid to ask questions. A profession in social science invites you to investigate a wide range of subjects while connecting ideas from sociology, social policy, and politics. You might be the ideal candidate if you’re interested in learning more about the ideas linked to societal responses to inequality and prejudice. Learn more about why Social science is the best career for you here at Eduvision.“Languages are true analytical methods” -Antoine Lavoisier
A molecule is a conglomeration of atoms. A conglomeration of atoms is called a molecule. An arrangement of atoms must be “sufficiently stable” to form a molecule. A neon molecule, however, contains one atom. A molecule, of course, can be divided into “atomic volumes”. Therefore, a molecule can be reduced.
But a cherry pie cut in half does not make the pie a cherry. A pie is an objective agreement of one gathering of substances. Just as a molecule is a gathering of atoms, or one atom.
In terms of logic, A equals B in its entirety. A molecule is a small unit of mass, thereby defined.
There again, one hour contains 60 minutes. An hour is 60 minutes. An hour can become 1/2 an hour and 1/4 of an hour and so on. But an hour does not become a minute. The passing of that hour relative to circumstances. So that 1/2 of a molecule does not make it an atom, but it reduces its mass.
Quantum chemistry attends to the particulars of molecules and atoms to make sense of the invisible. A certain sense of organization and familiarity with the invisible helps the chemist understand. In other words, a molecule could be called a “clump”, instead of a molecule. Molecule in french means, “extremely minute particle”. That particle has organization of some type and it makes sense within its environment and the sense which it makes is relative to another particle.
A molecule is proof that even at the most basic level of life, something is attempting to make sense. What if you went to the grocery store to buy cereal and instead of it being in a measured box, it was strewn among the onions? Wierd, right? So how wierd would it be for atoms to be strewn about without molecular structure? Without the appropriate chemical or electrical occurences which account for the structure?
In the interest of sane organization, which helps the world make a little sense, I say that molecules cannot be changed to atoms. Just as a baseball team cannot be changed to one player, though it can seem that way by persuasions of media.
In the case of the polar molecule, water, it is the atoms which make the molecule a molecule by not just the atoms but by positive charge on one side and negative on the other. There is a certain structure to a molecule and that structure in its entirety is called a molecule.
If this riddle does nothing else, it emphasizes the critical importance of language and the organization of definitions and how it allows for understanding beyond our immediate empirical experiences.Demonstratives or An cat ud thall
Soo... now we've done the more difficult adverbs, we can move on to the demonstratives. Again, Gaelic has the three way split to indicate that which is close to the speaker (proximal), close to the addressee (medial), and a long way from either (distal). Again, Doraemon is here to illustrate:
You simply add seo [ʃɔ], sin [ʃin], and ud [əd] to whichever noun you wish. They can't appear on their own, so linguists call them enclitics because they must latch on to a host noun. Note that the distinction between precise and fuzzy locations, (cf. an-sin vs. thall) largely does not enter this arena. The idea of fuzzy locations includes both far off and near by locations so thall is a "fuzzy location distant from the speaker" and a-bhos is a "fuzzy location near the speaker". However, the one thing you can do is to add thall to ud to give the meaning of "that thing over there", for example, a' phoit ud thall. You can not do that with sin, neither can you add a-bhos to seo.
So, you might ask, where does siud come into it? Good question. It comes into play when you build sentences which are seemingly missing a verb, such as seo mo mhàthair which gets translated into English as 'this is my mother'.
As you all know, in Gaelic, that's the easiest way of building a declarative sentence about existence, without getting into hot water about choice of verbs etc. I suspect that the s- in siud [ʃid] is simply an analogy to seo and sin to try and make ud fit in with seo and sin. However, it might just be the verb, is, itself. I'll try to find out, so watch this space. At any rate, that's how you use siud in a declarative sentence about existence: 'that's a pot', 'this is a cat', 'this is a boy' etc. Incidentally, this also works with definite nouns, for example, seo an cat 'this is the cat'. Just in case you were wondering.
|᚛ Pronunciation - Phonetics - Phonology - Morphology - Tense - Syntax - Corpus - Registers - Dialects - History - Terms and abbreviations ᚜|A personal budget is simply a written list of expected income and anticipated expenses for a given period of time. Personal budgeting can be broken down yearly, quarterly, monthly and/or weekly. The most important thing is that it’s easy to understand and follow. The most common time frame used is monthly, so we’ve created the following step-by-step guideline to set up a monthly personal budget.
- List all anticipated income.
- List all payments with a fixed due date and the date they are due.
- List all payments with a variable due date also listing the date they are due
- Separate the debts by categories, Home, Travel, Utilities, Entertainment, Miscellaneous and Savings.
Now that you have a listing of all expenses that will need to be paid in the month. The next step in personal budgeting is to organize these so that you insure all of your payments will be made on time.
- Write out the dates of each expected pay period and when the funds will be available to you.
- Take all of the categories that you have created and subdivide them by the dates that they are due.
- Allow time for mailing and list each payment you need to make under the pay period that the funds need to be paid from. (You may have too much going out one week at this stage but that’s okay you can make changes later)
- Compare the totals of both income and expenses for each week, if there is more going out in one pay period than is coming in, you may need to try to change some of the dates that the bills are due. Most creditors will cooperate with you on this if it’s a fixed payment schedule. If the due date cannot be changed, you will need to carry a rolling balance from the previous or last pay periods. If you can see that you have more funds in an early pay period [beginning of the month] than a later one, you can carry the funds throughout the week to meet the expenses in the following weeks.
- Now that you have a layout
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notes on the Ring, but in the finished cycle of operas.
In the first draft of the Siegfrieds Tod libretto (see Part One of this essay), Siegfried enters Valhalla at the drama’s climax, and a sort of anarchist utopia is established on earth. In the 1848 “Sketch” of the Ring, Wagner has Brünnhilde cry to the Nibelungs “Not Alberich shall receive [the ring]; no more shall he enslave you, but he himself be free as ye.” Here we detect an influence of Hegel’s “master-slave dialectic”: the master is actually unfree; he only attains true freedom for himself when all are free.
However, as was the case with many anarchists and socialists at the time, Wagner was simultaneously an odd kind of Radical Traditionalist: he believed that the sort of society he wanted to bring about had once existed on earth, in a Golden Age long gone by, when men lived free of gods and masters, and greed and war. Now, we may marvel at the naiveté of this and wish that Wagner had never held this position, but for the moment let us just note that such a tendency, for all its flaws, is quintessentially Western. It is Western both in its intense self-criticism – its radical critique of the present state of Western culture – and in its dream of a perfected, future society.
However, Wagner did come to shed this naïve anarchism and to radically reconceive the meaning of his own work. And the event that led to this was his encounter with Arthur Schopenhauer’s World as Will and Representation (published in 1818, 1844). In this work, which is one of the most accessible in all of German philosophy, Schopenhauer argues that the world is a manifestation of an infinite, striving force he called Will. The different species and natural kinds are all “grades of the Will’s manifestation.” These form a hierarchy, which works out to be more or less identical to the “great chain of being” we find in Aristotle, Schelling, and Hegel. At the top, of course, is man, the most perfect objectification of Will. Man is capable of knowing that he is Will – and thus, through man, Will confronts itself. This grand vision, however, is profoundly pessimistic. Schopenhauer thought that when mankind confronted itself as Will – or when Will confronted itself (it comes to the same thing) – the result would be horror and a rejection of life. And Schopenhauer urged that on us.
It would be no exaggeration to say that Wagner fell completely under the spell of Schopenhauer’s pessimistic vision. He read The World as Will and Representation four times in its entirety in 1854, during the period of time when he was writing the music of Die Walküre. Schopenhauer completely cured Wagner of his revolutionary optimism – and led him to rethink the Ring. However, the way that he did so is unusual. Wagner actually changed very little in the libretti of the Ring (mainly only tinkering a bit with Brünnhilde’s final speech in Act Three of Götterdammerung). Instead, he came to realize that the Schopenhauerean perspective was present in the work all along, and that the revolutionary ideology in terms of which he had consciously conceived it was forced and inauthentic. Wagner wrote the following in a letter to Liszt years later: “I looked at my poem and saw to my astonishment that what convinced me in Schopenhauer was already there, in my poetic concept. Only then did I really understand my Wotan. I was deeply moved. For years after that, Schopenhauer’s book was never far from me. Its ever-growing influence on me and my life was extraordinary and decisive.”
In short, for Wagner the Ring simply ceased to be a clarion call for a better world, a world without greed and power lust. Instead, it became a reflection on the tragic nature of life; on the ineradicability of greed and power lust, and the folly of optimism. And we will see that this is not a case of Wagner simply superimposing a new interpretation on a work already finished. He was, indeed, correct to think that this is the interpretation best supported by the work itself.
However, there is much more to the Ring than just a pessimistic commentary on life, as I shall discuss. And I will have more to say about Schopenhauer later on, but for now we need to consider another source for Wagner’s change of mind, one that usually goes entirely overlooked. Wagnerians normally attribute the shift in Wagner’s thinking entirely to his encounter with Schopenhauer. But we must also consider the possibility that Wagner was responding to the peculiar logic of the mythic material he was adapting; that it came to possess him, and to alter his outlook. Wagner himself gives us plenty of reason to suspect this. Here, in a passage worth quoting at length, is Wagner in his autobiography speaking of his encounter with Grimm’s Deutsche Mythologie:
All who know the work can understand how the unusual wealth of its contents, gathered from every side, and meant almost exclusively for the student, would react upon me, whose mind was everywhere seeking for something definite and distinct. Formed from the scanty fragments of a perished world, of which scarcely any monuments remained recognizable and intact, I here found a heterogeneous building, which at first glance seemed but a rugged rock clothed in straggling brambles. Nothing was finished, only here and there could the slightest resemblance to an architectonic line be traced, so that I often felt tempted to relinquish the thankless task of trying to build from such materials. And yet I was enchained by a wondrous magic. The baldest legend spoke to me of its ancient home, and soon my whole imagination thrilled with images; long-lost forms for which I had sought so eagerly shaped themselves ever more and more clearly into realities that lived again. There rose up soon before my mind a whole world of figures, which revealed themselves as so strangely plastic and primitive, that, when I saw them clearly before me and heard their voices in my heart, I could not account for the almost tangible familiarity and assurance of their demeanor. The effect they produced upon the inner state of my soul I can only describe as an entire rebirth. Just as we feel a tender joy over a child’s first bright smile of recognition, so now my own eyes flashed with rapture as I saw a world, revealed, as it were, by miracle, in which I had hitherto moved blindly as the babe in its mother’s womb.
The mythological material Wagner found in Grimm and the traditional sources touched a chord deep in his Germanic soul, and awakened him in new ways. As M. Owen Lee notes, “Like those novelists who tell us that their characters ‘take over’ the writing and determine their own fates, Wagner acknowledged that his Ring was shaping itself from some source beyond his conscious control.” And the main character of the Ring, of course, is Wotan. Essentially, in writing the Ring Wagner came to be possessed by the spirit of Wotan.
He wrote to his friend Röckel, another anarchist revolutionary, “I started my poem with an optimistic view of the world... and I hardly noticed, when I was outlining it, that I was unconsciously following a quite different and much more profound intuition. I was seeing, not a single moment in the world’s evolution [the supersession of capitalism by anarchistic socialism], but the essence of the world, the world in all of its moments.” In Schopenhauer, Wagner found a vocabulary in terms of which he could interpret this “intuition” – but the intuition did not originate with Schopenhauer. It was borne of Wagner’s study of Germanic myth, and his insight into the “essence of the world” was a product of its spirit.
The myths always say more than any writer makes them say. But Wagner comes closer than anyone to providing the complete mytho-poetic speech for the West. Through his profound engagement with the figure of Wotan, Wagner manages to express the essence of the Western spirit; the spirit of “Faustian man.” In another essay (“Ásatrú and the Political”) I wrote the following:
Oswald Spengler aptly described the soul of Northern European man as “Faustian.” He tells us that the “prime-symbol” of the Faustian is “pure and limitless space”:
Far apart as may seem the Christian hymnology of the south and the Eddas of the still heathen north, they are alike in the implicit space-endlessness of prosody, rhythmic syntax and imagery. Read the Dies Irae together with the Völuspá, which is little earlier; there is the same adamantine will to overcome and break all resistances of the visible.
The Faustian soul is characterized by a solemn inwardness, tending towards solitude and melancholy – but matched by a ceaseless, outward-striving will. European man has always sought to go beyond: to explore, to find adventures in other lands, to conquer, to peer into the mysterious depths of things, to find new ways to control and manipulate his environment. This is not to say that these qualities are never found in other peoples, but – as Spengler recognized – they are most pronounced and developed in Northern European man.
In telling the story of Wotan, the Ring tells the story of the Faustian West. In the same essay I wrote:
We find the Faustian spirit in our gods. Ódhinn is the ceaseless wanderer, and the leader of the wild hunt. From his throne, called Hlidskjalf, he can survey the entire world. His two ravens, Huginn and Muninn (Thought and Memory) fly over the earth, bringing news of all things back to him. But there are secrets concealed even from Ódhinn, and beings (such as the Norns) over which he has no power. Like us, he burns with a desire to know the hidden and to control his fate. So he hung on the windy tree, nights all nine, and won the secret of the runes – the hidden lore that explains all things. He sought wisdom too from Mimir’s well (the well of memory) and sacrificed an eye to drink from it. We are Ódhinn, and he is the embodiment of the Faustian spirit.
Wagner wrote to Röckel in 1854: “Observe [Wotan] closely! He resembles us to a tee.” What Wagner means here is that Wotan represents “modern man” (he goes on to describe Wotan as “the sum total of present-day intelligence,” and to contrast him with Siegfried, who is the “man of the future”). But here Wagner falls into the unconscious universalism that is characteristic of Western thinkers: the tendency to project Western features onto humanity as a whole. Obviously, however, Wotan does not resemble “modern man” in, for example, the China, India, or Africa of 1854 (or even of today).
In a similarly universalistic vein, Lee writes that “Wotan represents not so much the notion of God as what there is in man that has godlike potential.” But this is not fully accurate either. What Wotan represents is the striving of Western man for the infinite, for the transcendence of all boundaries; his striving, indeed, to become God. Wotan represents human consciousness in its Faustian inflection: the restless search for total knowledge, coupled with the desire to manipulate and to control all of nature. These are two sides of the same coin. But what Wotan depicts above all else is Faustian, Western man achieving self-consciousness: coming to full awareness of his nature – and willing his own end.
Cooke notes that “it has been mainly Europeans, or men of European origin, who have dominated and despoiled nature on a large scale; and in The Rhinegold Wagner was adapting North European myths to present an artistic diagnosis of the ills of European civilization.” Before we react in knee-jerk fashion against this seemingly “anti-Western” statement of Cooke’s, let us just pause to note that he is right.
And as a further piece of evidence to support the claim that it is really Western man that is represented in the figure of Wotan, not man in general, let us consider this quote from Wagner’s essay Art and Climate (1841):
Yet where climatic nature draws man beneath the all-sheltering influence of her rankest prodigality, and rocks him in her bosom as a mother rocks her child,—where we must therefore place the cradle of newborn mankind—there has man remained a child forever—as in the tropics,—with all an infant’s good and evil qualities. First where she drew this all-conditioning, over-tender influence back, when she handed man, like a prudent mother her adult son, to himself and his own free self-devisings,—where man, then, mid the waning warmth of the directly fostering care of climate, was forced to cater for himself,—do we see him ripening to the full unfoldment of his being. Only through the force of such a Need as surrounding Nature did not, like an over-careful mother, both listen for and still at once ere it had scarcely risen, but for whose appeasement he must himself provide, did he gain consciousness not only of that need but also of his power. This consciousness he reached through learning the distinction between himself and from whom he now must wrest it, became the object of his observation, inquiry, and dominion.
In short, only an inhospitable climate would have caused man to individuate himself from nature. We do not find this happening, to use Wagner’s example, in the Tropics, and so we do not find real history in the Tropics, or art, literature, science, or philosophy on anything other than an extremely rudimentary level. What inhospitable climate does Wagner have in mind, and where, thus, did history begin? He tells us on the next page of the essay:
Not, therefore, in the teeming Tropics, not in the sensuous flower land of India, was born true art; but on the naked, sea-splashed rocks of Hellas, upon the stony soil and beneath the scanty shadows of the olive trees of Attica, was set her cradle:—for here, amid privations, strove Hercules and suffered – here was the first true man begotten
And so it is Wagner’s view that it is primarily European man who succeeded in separating himself from nature – and who then turned on nature, so to speak, and sought to dominate her. Thus, if Wotan represents this aspect of “man,” it is truly European man that is meant here. Wagner is critical of this Western “will to power,” but he also seems to be aware that it is the source of all of our achievements. The early Wagner sought to reform the West; to heal the division Western man had made between himself and nature. The later Wagner saw our nature as inherently tragic, and offered, as we shall see, a different answer. And of course, Wagner was strongly influenced by Greek drama, in which the tragic nature of (Western) man is central. Oedipus, for example, represents the Western spirit: striving ceaselessly and heedlessly to know, until he is destroyed by knowing.
Wotan – Western man – is the tragic character of the Ring, and his tragic flaw is his restless, and reckless pursuit of knowledge and power.
Sketch, 311.
For more information see my review of Ricardo Duchesne’s The Uniqueness of Western Civilization (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2011): https://www.counter-currents.com/2013/04/ricardo-duchesnes-the-uniqueness-of-western-civilization/. Or better yet see the book itself.
See Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1, trans. E.F.J. Payne (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 1969), see especially pages 153-154. The Idea that through man Will confronts itself is implicit in Schopenhauer’s theory of art.
Quoted in M. Owen Lee, Wagner’s Ring: Turning the Sky Around (New York: Limelight Editions, 1998), 53.
Richard Wagner, My Life, trans. Andrew Gray (New York: Da Capo Press, 1992), 260.
Lee, 26.
Quoted in Lee, 53.
Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, Vol. I, trans. Charles Francis Atkinson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926), 185-186
See also my review of Ricardo Duchesne’s The Uniqueness of Western Civilization (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2011): https://www.counter-currents.com/2013/04/ricardo-duchesnes-the-uniqueness-of-western-civilization/.
Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (New York: W.W. Norton, 1988), 308.
Lee, 56-57. In a way, Lee inadvertently hits on a very important point made by Edred Thosson: that the “Odinist” does not worship Odin; instead, he strives to become him.
Cooke, 252. Italics in original.
In Ellis, 252.REUTERS / GETTY
The mission, set to launch in 2020, will be Beijing’s first to the Red Planet.
Space boffins have released the computer-generated images as the country’s space programme moves at rocket-speed.
But doubts have reportedly been cast about the motives for the mission – which Chinese officials insist is for peaceful purposes.
The US Defence Department is said to have expressed concerns about China’s rapidly growing space capabilities.
And officials fear Beijing is concentrating on “activities aimed to prevent adversaries from using space-based assets in a crisis”.
It comes as the US Congress has reportedly banned NASA from working with Chinese space experts amid security worries.
“The challenges we face are unprecedented”Zhang Rongqiao, chief architect
The new 441Ib (200kg) rover is powered by four solar panels which give it a “butterfly” appearance and is mounted on six wheels.
It is set to be deployed in July or August 2020 for three months, in the hope of sighting water or ice and gathering information on the Red Planet’s soil and atmosphere.
The device is 132lb (60kg) heavier than a Chinese rover planted on the moon in 2013 - with astronauts set to launch a space mission later this year.
And ambitious plans reveal how they hope to launched manned visits in 2036.
Zhang Rongqiao, chief architect of the project, told how "the challenges we face are unprecedented".
As part of the mission announcement, the public have been invited to suggest a name and logo for the new rover.
It follows a number of setbacks which scuppered China’s plans to travel to Mars on a Russian spacecraft in 2011.
China became the third country to put a man in space, following the USA and Russia, in 2003.The advantages of exoskeletons include enhanced leverage for muscular movements and protective covering for muscles and internal organs, while their disadvantages include heightened vulnerability during the molting process and restrictive in terms of sizes and weights. Exoskeletons are the stiffened, resilient structures that form the external covering of arthropods. The members of Phylum Arthropoda, having insects as the largest group, are the most diverse organisms on Earth.Continue Reading
The exoskeletons, also referred to as "integuments," are divided into four functional sections: epidermis, basement membrane, procuticle and epicuticle. The epidermis secretes the cuticle layers and forms a portion of the basement membrane, which separates the exoskeleton from the main body cavity. Directly below the epidermis lies the procuticle, consisting of a tough fibrous and protein-based substance called chitin. The chitin-rich procuticle either develops into rigid, outer layers called "exocuticle" or into soft, inner tiers called "endocuticle."
The epicuticle, located on the topmost area of the cuticle layers, guards against foreign invasion. This region has an innermost stratum called the "cuticulin layer" that contains lipoproteins and fatty acids. Another layer made up of wax molecules occupies the area above the cuticulin layer. The wax serves as an impermeable barrier against dehydration. The majority of insects often have another protective layer called a "cement layer" that prevents the waxy material from being abraded. Although the materials comprising the exoskeleton are relatively light, the size of arthropods are limited by this structure and they are forced to constantly shed it.Learn more about ZoologyWednesday: Designing Designing Interfaces: How Not To Write A Pattern Catalog
Presenter: Jenifer Tidwell
Jenifer Tidwell, author of Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design, shared her motivations and the lessons she learned as she wrote her book.
One of the few conference sessions that actually related to patterns, this session promised to be interesting. Given everyone’s varying definitions and usage of patterns, I think it would have been helpful if Jenifer had started off this session with a clear definition of what a pattern is and how designers can use a pattern catalog. Afterward, when I spoke with attendees, I found not everyone was on quite the same page with the speaker when her talk began. Well into the session, Jenifer finally did define what she means by a pattern.
a suggestion, not a requirement
a product, not a process
able to capture relationships among elements
usable across platforms
able to clearly improve the user experience
Jenifer’s guidelines for preparing to write a pattern include the following:
Notice a recurring design element.
Work up and down the abstraction ladder.
Understand why the pattern works.
Figure out the appropriate context for the pattern—when you should or should not use it.
Name the pattern.
As a repository for design wisdom, pattern catalogs are important, because they can serve as job aids and teaching or learning tools for both novices and experienced designers. Jenifer shared several important tips and techniques for creating design pattern catalogs, as follows:
1. Design the pattern catalog for use.
Prefer the concrete to the abstract.
Use a simple and accessible organizational model. The organization doesn’t have to be perfect, just functional.
Provide examples—what, use when, why, how—as well as context, problems, forces, solutions, resulting context, diagrams, and notes.
Help users find the patterns they need. Make sure patterns link to each other, showing relationships such as is a, leads to, alternative to, and works well with.
2. Focus on your users.
Not all designers will use the pattern catalog. So don’t try to create a one-size-fits-all solution. Focus on one audience.
Use the vocabulary they know.
Use familiar examples.
3. Do not try to capture all design knowledge in the form of patterns.
Others types of information include
style guides and standards
genres and idioms
4. Think hard about contexts of use.
Avoid documenting the obvious, failing to provide any new insights.
Providing a pattern’s context of use will help you to add value and avoid the obvious.
5. Visual examples are critical.
Explain in pictures, not just words.
Pictures help you define the pattern and offer evidence.
6. Find out how designers are really going to use a pattern.
Once you’ve created the pattern catalog and put it into practice, follow up with users.
Conduct a survey and learn how designers are using the catalog. Collect suggestions for its improvement.
Wednesday: Training Up To Senior: Bridging the Gulf Between Internships and Senior UCD Positions
Panelists: Kaaren Hanson, Paul Sherman, Stephanie Rosenbaum, and Kelly Braun
The usability industry has grown rapidly in the past several years, and it has become clear that there are not enough experienced user-centered design (UCD) practitioners. During this panel, Kaaren Hanson of Intuit, Paul Sherman of Sage Software, Stephanie Rosenbaum of Tec-Ed, and Kelly Braun of PayPal shared their perspectives as hiring managers from four different organizations and facilitated a conversation with the audience about what has and has not worked in addressing this problem. The highlights of the discussion were as follows:
What Has Worked
To develop senior UCD practitioners on their staffs, managers should:
Hire the right employees.
Use contractors until the staff comes up to speed. They often have more experience than staff. Some stay on for several years.
Hire graduates from top design schools.
Hire subject-matter experts as designers, then teach them UCD.
Hire both process-oriented and creative, intuitive people.
Hire people who can take initiative and be change agents.
Join on-campus initiatives to identify and engage new team members early.
Train existing employees.
Enroll UX team members in certification programs.
Train developers and technical communicators in basic UCD skills.
Use “train-the-trainer” certification programs.
Send staff to a negotiation skills course.
Create suitcase training courses for your team to reduce costs.
Let newer employees help train new hires. It solidifies their new-found knowledge.
Create the right environment for employees.
Give people a variety of opportunities to grow their skills more quickly.
Give people lots of room to grow, as Google does.
Give top employees more opportunities and encourage them to mentor others.
Emphasize sharing of information and openness to feedback.
What Hasn’t Worked
Problems managers of UCD practitioners should avoid:
Hiring people with inadequate training. Some academic programs are several years behind the times, or the training they offer is not deep enough. Understand what the programs are and recruit at the higher-quality schools. Industry must tell academia what we need.
Hiring senior team members who don’t have experience in work, business, and politics is a mistake.
Candidates need internship experience before their first job. Hiring someone fresh out of school without this basic experience is not a good strategy. Not enough companies are offering internships to students. So many of the entry-level candidates are under prepared.
Hiring managers find it hard to identify real problems during an interview process.
A culture that fails to foster employees’ taking initiative doesn’t allow them to blossom.
Organizations that lack collaborative-culture skills and communities of practice are not conducive to doing the best work.
It’s difficult to retain creative employees. “Tweeners,” or people with multiple skill sets, might want to move between roles on the team. As creative staff, designers can get bored and need new headspace every couple of years. Motivating people to stay with the organization long term without negatively impacting organizational needs is a challenge.
What Can I Do To Move Myself Up to Senior?
To develop senior-level skills, a junior UCD practitioner should:
Cross-train wherever possible. Develop business savvy and other UX skills and understand the system development lifecycle.
Keep your mouth shut. Listen as much as possible!
Seek a mentor for support.
Learn what you can where you are.
Work at a consulting company to gain a lot of experience quickly.
Start where you can, then grow your role into what you want it to become. In young professions, job definitions are not cast in concrete.
Fight your way onto projects.
Learn teamwork outside a school setting.
Volunteer with the UPA or other UX-related organizations.
Thursday: So You Want To Be A Rock Star (Usability Consultant)
Panelists: Aaron Marcus, Janice James, Theo Mandel, Larry Marine, and Nicholas Simonelli
Recognizing that forming and operating a UX consultancy is a challenging process, “five veteran practitioners with a total of approximately 100 years of practice” discussed the pros and cons of striking out on your own. The panelists represented a broad range of consulting experiences—from single-person consultancies to small firms to medium-sized, multi-location firms and included:
Aaron Marcus, President of Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc.
Janice James, Director of User Experience at Perficient, Inc.
Theo Mandel, CEO and Principal Consultant at Interface Design and Development, LLC
Larry Marine of Intuitive Design
Nicholas Simonelli, President of Performance Research and Design, Inc.
While the majority of the session comprised a question-and-answer exchange between the audience and the panelists, in the background, slides provided a valuable list of considerations for contemplating this career path. The following captures the considerations covered in both the slides as well as the conversation that ensued.
Why start a consultancy?
Your goals might include the following:
personal goals—money, time, flexibility, location, family, and so on
business goals—strategy, focus, new opportunities, and so on
When is the right time to start a consultancy? How much experience do you need before heading into consultancy?
To make sure you’re ready for consulting:
First, consider taking an interim job with a consulting company before starting your own consultancy.
Build your presence in the UX community by writing books and articles, giving presentations, and participating in organizations.
Create a financial backup plan.
How do you start your consultancy?
Things to consider include:
whether you’re coming from academia or the corporate world
having a separate office versus an office in your home
your consultancy’s image—an individual versus a company
your company name, logo, and tagline
setting up shop
finding clients before you begin
dealing with business and taxes
getting business insurance—general and professional liability insurance; $1M umbrella policies
your consulting model—fixed bid, project based with minimum and maximum, or time and materials
consulting projects—one-shot, long-term, or repeat business
project location—onsite versus remote work
logistics of working remotely—time differences, conference calls, using WebEx or wikis, and so on
business tools—remote usability testing with Morae and so on
creating your Web site, blog, marketing collateral, business cards, press releases, and ads
networking and participating in industry organizations and conferences
Where should you set up your consultancy?
home office pros and cons—office in your home or home in your office?
need for lab space and other facilities
Who will work in your consultancy? What structure will you use?
Decide whether you want to be
a sole proprietor
consulting firm with employees
principal consultant with employees and/or contractors
a consultancy with employees versus contractors versus a consortium
a physical or virtual company
a full-service consultancy or focus on one of aspect of usability, specialty, or methodology—for example, usability evaluation and testing
How can you get and keep clients? How do you decide what clients and industries to target?
Things you need to do to get new clients and keep your old or current clients include:
marketing yourself as a consultant or company
advertising—online, print, and so on
networking with clients and colleagues
getting referrals from colleagues and clients
garnering publicity or press—books, articles, presentations, press releases, and quotations
participating in industry organizations and conferences
managing the client relationship—contracts, SOWs (Statements of Work), NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements)
How do you make money? How do you decide what to charge?
Things to think about:
using hourly rates versus fixed-bid pricing
charging different rates for different clients or services
charging for travel time—whether to charge for your time sitting on an airplane
using retainers, incentives, and bonuses
billing clients and collecting money
Tips for financial success:
Early-payment discounts work.
Some companies have 45-day to 60-day payment cycles. Plan for this.
Consider asking for a percentage of the payment up front
What do you need to do to start and sustain your business?
Getting started and sustaining your business:
Develop your Web site and collateral.
Do your business analysis.
Understand what it will take to cover the costs of insurance, materials, and resources, plus give yourself a salary.
Don’t confuse the company’s profitability with your own salary. Make sure to include both in your analysis.
Do not operate as a sole proprietor. Set yourself up as an employee of your own company.
Assume you’ll spend some percentage of your time marketing, educating your client audience, and looking for new work.
Unless you already have a client lined up when you first get started, you will be unemployed for a while.
How do you grow your business? What is your three-to-five year plan?
To grow your business:
Set short-term and long-term goals. Make a one-year and a five-year plan.
Stay in an industry niche or branch into new areas.
Work with new technologies or industries.
Establish, copyright, trademark, and patent methods, services, and products.
Participate in industry organizations. Attend, network at, and present at conferences such as the UPA, STC, CHI, HFES, AIGA, vertical market chapters, and so on.
fighting the consultant image—Sometimes it works to your disadvantage.
leveraging the consulting image—Sometimes it works to your benefit. There are many examples where employees were trying to make the right decisions, but management wouldn’t listen, then management finally did listen to the same advice from a consultant.
juggling client work
juggling work versus home and family
working with clients
frustrations of project management
frustrations of running a business
How do you include product development in the mix?
How do you deal with competitors?
frustrations of having employees
How do you handle staff?
There is a moral responsibility to take care of the people who work for you. You aren’t just looking out for yourself.
Payroll paperwork involves a lot of work. It is highly recommended that you outsource payroll and human-resources (HR) management to payroll and HR firms.
Where do you hire staff from?
What do you do with difficult staff?
Should you offer internships and train people up or hire only experienced people?
What are your training policies?
Friday: Closing Plenary: Oh Them? Designing for the Other 4 Billion Users I Forgot About
Presenter: Patrick Whitney
Patrick Whitney, Director of the IIT Institute of Design, shown in Figure 1, offered the parting thoughts for the UPA 2007 conference. His talk was a call to action for UX professionals to pay attention to the needs of the people who are at the base of the economic pyramid, where over 60% of the world’s population lives on under $2 a day.
Patrick began by considering the shift that has happened in the relationship between companies and the consumers that use their products. Henry Ford’s statement in 1930s, “Give them what color they want, as long as it’s black,” reflects the old way—when producers were in control. But now, the consumers are in control. As well articulated by an anonymous Wal-Mart customer, producers have received increasing pressure to “Give me what I want, when I want it, in my style, and close to free.” But, as we move forward, we have begun to realize the huge social and economic opportunity in designing for people at the bottom of the pyramid. The question becomes how and what do you design for these markets in light of all the issues around poverty—such as lack of infrastructure, scarcity of water, no land rights, inflow of rural migrants, overcrowding, and so on. Despite these challenges, China has become the “factory to the world” and India the “business-processing outsourcing center of the world.” The growth in these countries as well as in other emerging markets like Brazil and Russia is expanding the middle class by one billion people—a community larger than the top of the pyramid, a community that cannot be ignored.
Next, Patrick examined past and current business models and the opportunities they present, as well as proposed new models based on research conducted at IIT. When producers were in control, the focus was on economies of scale, emphasizing mass production and standardization. With consumers at the center, business success is a balancing act between desirability to users, technical feasibility, and economic forces. In the more traditional models, the major growth opportunities occur during mergers and acquisitions, when companies develop new products and innovations, or when you figure out how to sell existing products to people at the base of the pyramid.
However, an innovation gap exists. Most companies know how to make things, but the hard part is deciding what they should make. The way to address this innovation gap is to take a step back and observe the patterns of daily life—live, work, learn, play. To facilitate this process, Patrick reminded us that we need methods and tools “for developing consumer insights that are as powerful as our methods for developing technology and business models,” particularly those that do not require significant financial investment.
During the China Interactive Home project, the IIT team developed field notebooks as a mechanism for conducting research remotely that yielded rich, consistent data. They could distribute these rigorously structured notebooks in a region, to people who are not necessarily trained in user experience. Teachers and community leaders who are good at talking to others could easily conduct the research, document the data through photos and text—design factors, design criteria, activities, time, people, objects, environment, messages, services, and comments—then FedEx the notebooks back to the research team. At 20% of the cost, these notebooks provided 80% of the data and a variety of insights into the product opportunities that exist in China, particularly
buying fresh food
families staying in touch
helping kids learn
Subsequently, they conducted studies utilizing this method in India, where the average Indian home is 12x12 feet and contains a single floor a family uses for cooking, sleeping, and conducting a home-based business.
The insights from this project led Patrick and his team to iterate on their proposed business model for designing for emerging markets. In addition, they identified specific issues around the quality of and access to water, support for micro-businesses, and housing, which resulted in product or economic designs like Mobile H20, GuildNet, and StepOne Homes.
Patrick and the team at IIT Institute of Design are also working on a user insight tool that will help companies archive, catalog, and later use their research in a new culture, regardless of the particular project for which they originally conducted the research. Having a tool that captures information about the people, objects, environment, messages, and services will help practitioners determine where the breakthrough opportunities are. Patrick, let me know when you’ve finished the tool. I’d love to get my hands on a copy!
Posters, Idea Markets, and Special Interest Groups
Throughout the conference, other types of sessions encouraged knowledge exchange, active engagement, and networking. On Tuesday evening, a special poster review session took place during the welcome reception. And, for those who could not attend the poster review, the posters remained on display in the highly visible location for the remainder of the week shown in Figure 2, offering plenty of exposure and opportunity for discussion.
The active discourse continued Wednesday afternoon at the first Idea Market, where facilitators posed burning questions to participants. An Idea Market is a brainstorming free-for-all. Attendees buzz from station to station and share their ideas on selected topics. Being a session facilitators is a great way to get a quick
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1864 to 1869 and 1942 to 1943, will allow people with Irish ancestors to more fully investigate their genealogy and heritage.
Regina Doherty, Minister for Social Protection, described the work of digitization and increasing access to these files “one of the State’s essential services and one of the greatest resources for those establishing their family histories. Providing this open and free access to older records and register entries will further support the efforts of many family historians throughout the world,” according to the Irish Times.
Included in the cache are some notable documents, including the death certificate for poet Patrick Kavanagh, who died November 30, 1967, as well as that of his rival Brendan Behan, who died March 20, 1964.
Next steps, according to the General Register Office are to digitize death certificates in full back to 1864, as well as plans to update marriage records dating back to 1845.CSIRO, the national science agency of Australia, is building the largest solar-power tower of its type in the world at the National Solar Energy Centre in Newcastle, New South Wales.
The site will consist of around 450 mirrors (heliostats) that will direct solar heat onto a 30m-high tower to produce super-heated compressed air for a Brayton Cycle turbine.
‘The new technology will pave the way for the solar power of the future – solar power that only requires the sun and air to create electricity,’ said Dr Alex Wonhas, director of CSIRO’s Energy Transformed Flagship.
‘Most solar thermal power stations require water to operate a steam turbine to produce electricity,’ added Wonhas. ’Our Brayton Cycle technology does not need water. This technology is therefore ideally suited to many parts of Australia that only receive minimal rainfall.’
CSIRO received $5m (£3.3m) in funding from the Australian Solar Institute (ASI) – an Australian government initiative – to build the field and conduct research over two years.
The site for the solar tower will cover an area of 4,000m2 and will be capable of operating at temperatures higher than 900ºC.
The site is expected to be operational by March 2011 and is being built adjacent to an existing solar tower field.A biological recirculating aquaculture system that uses aeration and particle removal.
The Kaldnes RAS (recirculating aquaculture system) is a biological aquaculture treatment system that reuses water alongside continual treatment/delivery to cultured organisms. By using aeration and particle removal, it maximises production while reducing pollution, energy and water consumption.
Kaldnes RAS offers particle control down to nanofiltration, along with maximum utilisation of added oxygen in the smallest footprint possible.
Recirculating Aquaculture System Advantages
Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS) offer a number of benefits over flow-through or pond aquaculture systems:
- Water is conserved, reducing environmental impact and supporting sustainability.
- Fish are healthier and less prone to disease.
- Effluent and waste control is simplified as less waste is created.
- High fish stock density reduces the amount of land needed, lowering costs.
- Whole system can be monitored and controlled remotely.125 Descriptive Essay Topics: The Simplest Way Writing a Descriptive Essay
Assignments and essays that are descriptive problems every student faces during studying period. Even in the event it is extremely hard to perform everything your professor provided you, you’ve kept to master how to write in different designs, meet all the demands, including most of the essentials you must have in your text. All of us have our very own tips and tricks to hold through the project duration, so we each one is professionals within our type that is own of.
He would probably recall a descriptive essay if you ask a college student to name the easiest type of paper. But exactly what is a descriptive essay and why is it so easy to compose? Or maybe you need to discover the website that is best to complete assignments? We’re here to help you out on that question and give you extra essay that is descriptive to make your college life easier.
Exactly what is a Descriptive Essay and How Does it Differ from a straightforward Description?
The goal that is main of description essay would be to explain something, be it an individual, a predicament or just one thing you intend to inform people about. While writing this kind of descriptive essay, you need to write the written text utilizing your experience that is own and. No researches, no opinions that are outer just your brain, and your head. Just information that is sensory used to know the descriptive topic. The description regarding the things is obvious and simple. Imagination, though, creates pictures in the mind for the reader, helping to make this experience unique and personified.
It could sound right to start out the introduction by having a description of the context of the topic on that the description that is entire concentrate. Doing this puts things into perspective for your reader.
How exactly does it vary from a description? a description that is simple be just a few sentences or one long paragraph when a descriptive essay frequently contains five paragraphs. This has its design and carries a thesis in a introduction, three human body paragraphs, and a summary.
How exactly to Write a Descriptive Essay?
When it comes to composing, you should know associated with the structure as it varies from all the other kinds of descriptive essay. To begin with, you should pick the topic through the descriptive message topics you’ll be interested in. Then, you’re free to plan down your components. Once we already mentioned, an essay that is descriptive five parts:
- Introduction. In the introduction you ought to include your thesis statement and dwell regarding the subject. That’s the component, which will grab the attention associated with the reader, so it must be written simply and smooth, giving some background that is essential for your reader to comprehend your subject better. Do not forget to produce a transition from the background data and your thesis statement. In descriptive essays, the thesis typically takes up one sentence that is full.
- 3 body paragraphs. Three human anatomy paragraphs need evidences which will show your thesis. When you’re fighting this part, utilize five simple tables to set up sensory information you have about your subject and then pick them from the comfort of your records to prove your thesis.
- Summary. This part that is last of paper concludes everything and provides a directory of it. You ought to have your remarks that are last this component and rephrase your thesis statement.
Prior to starting on your own essay that is descriptive about place or perhaps a individual, you need to know everything you can write on and explain it in general. Check out of the a few ideas:
- favorite trip an such like.
First of all, think of what you’d prefer to reveal and pick an interest from descriptive speech topics, social issues topics or procedure essay subjects that will match the theme. Possess some inspiration through the essays of others. Search around for descriptive writing topics and prompts if you can’t think about something unique for yourself. Expository essays are easy to compose when you have enough motivation on the chosen descriptive topic.
How to begin a descriptive essay?
If you find yourself struggling after getting some descriptive essay a few ideas, think of the primary statement you can use in your creation. This task may be the one which make down your main thesis statement and keywords that will explain your descriptive topic. Once we stated previously, make five tables for five sensory faculties. This arrangement can certainly make it less complicated to transfer your data towards the step that is next.
Develop a draft of your expository essay
Take the time to create a draft that will become a version that is close of descriptive essay. Choose all the key words you need to include them in to the five paragraphs. Don’t forget to make three points to prove your thesis statement and explain your topic. Make just an example that will be extended by one other details you’ll add during the alternative.
Incorporating details to your descriptive essay with all the help of enriched English vocabulary and online dictionaries
It is okay if you have restricted language because this task will include more value to your expository writing. Include anything you want and describe it correctly so that your audience will be thinking about what you had written. Create an image in the sensory words to their head you will find in online dictionaries like Oxford, Cambridge or Macmillan people. Make sure that they’ll touch on your descriptive topic and prolong the physical body paragraphs.
Make time to revise and modify the paper with the help of various free online grammar checking tools
Before you check your descriptive essays for errors by rereading it, remember to use online grammar checking tools to have your back covered in case your eyes miss one thing. You can make use of sentence structure corrector by EduBirdie simply by uploading your text there. You might be additionally free to utilize paraphrase tool and also make a paper unique or purchase it at on line email composing solution just in case you want another person to check on it before you do so by yourself.
Edit the descriptive essay
Before you start editing your paper, take a long break. You can always day your pals, take a walk, and also a nap or a of good sleep night. Your brain must be fresh before you keep coming back and reread your essay. Take all of the right time you need, read it out loud, add or remove sentences, verify that you have got put every thing properly. It is useful to double-check grammar just in case tools that are online one thing. Would your paper seem sensible if perhaps you were your reader? Perhaps you’ll have to rewrite paragraphs that are whole they might make more sense and convey the descriptive topic better.
Struggling with essay research?
Our authors have already assisted 2,000+ students conquer their research goals. Allow them to allow you to.
Tip: Ask your family member or perhaps a friend to listen to your essay that is descriptive them to criticize everything you’ve written. It shall assist your practice in the future.
The 125 Descriptive Essay Topics for Every Struggling Pupil
When you can’t choose your descriptive subject, you can find descriptive writing subjects on the net and select one for your theme. There are numerous things you can come up with as a writer if it will be about a place you’ve visited, a person you know or something completely different so you have to decide. In any case, here are our subjects for descriptive essay for the students that are struggling.
Topics to describe someplace
- My favorite destination within my hometown
- A room that is favorite the house
- The house I was raised in
- My perfect getaway
- I wish We lived in that household
- My perfect room
- The area I would like to see
- My dream apartment
- The best class room
- I love studying in this cafe
- My favorite restaurant to see
- A dream was had by me about any of it spot
- This store is my personal favorite to look in
- We walk my dog in this park
- A museum that we visited recently
- The road I love to circumambulate
- What I see from my screen
- A city I acquired lost in
If you wish to explain a person
- My mom is the most person that is creative
- Dad is the most person that is interesting
- A person I research to
- My favorite singer
- My favorite dancer
- An athlete that made me like activities
- My friend that is best
- I’d like to satisfy this celebrity
- My animal
- Meet with the composer of the essay
- They are missed by me
- This is an typical human
- I’d like to meet up with this individual in the past
- A perfect companion for me personally
- I love this in a person
- Why is me personally appreciate an individual
- A complete stranger that caught my eye
- Why I really like my boyfriend (gf)
Your memories and subjects about your experience
- This is my perfect date
- The i visited another country day
- The way I rode a horse for the time that is first
- Once I discovered the best hobby
- How I decided whom i do want to become
- My perfect journey
- Most useful childhood memory
- The way I spent my time with my grandparents
- Exactly How my moms and dads raised me
- Best memory with my closest buddy
- The day that is first of
- When I became a freshman
- The most readily useful celebration of my entire life
- The way that is best we invested my weekends
- My many birthday that is interesting
- What I keep in mind from my 12th birthday
- My animal in childhood
- The i attended a dentist day
- My first crush
- The last play I’ve seen
- The most readily useful concert I went to
- This made me frightened
- This made me excited
- We miss this day
- My funniest memory
- The time I came across my friend
Things and object in your life
- My thing that is favorite to with
- My favorite TV show
- An thing that is expensive want to have
- My research basics
- My anti-stress toy
- What I also have in my own pocket
- Furniture that helps me relax
- My sleep makes me feel comfortable
- My childhood toy
- Why I love my smartphone
- This thing is unique if you ask me
- A doll I nevertheless perform with
- My very first car
- We gather these things
- I’d send this to your future
- We never leave the house without our
- I’d send this to the past
- Explaining a smartphone to someone through the ’60s
- I like my laptop computer
- The best food
- I enjoy cook our
- My family treasures
- What’s in my pocket
- What’s in my bag
- My favorite tattoo
Hobbies, procedures, and occupations
- My future job
- Something I love to do in my spare time
- My friend’s pastime
- The way my loved ones members unwind
- My personal favorite club
- My dream work
- My brand new pastime
- The way in which I start my early morning
- Day how I usually end my
- Getting ready for a date
- Composing my very first story
- Learning one thing new
- Moving an exam
- The way I learn
- How the gym is visited by me
- Drawing a portrait
- Just how to bake a cake
- When you really need to finish your relationship
- How to escape a robber
- Exactly What assists me relax
Behavior and character
- I prefer this trait in someone
- We hate this trait in an individual
- An feeling we hate to feel
- How I react to a surprise
- What makes me laugh
- Ways to get my attention
- Why is me feel afraid
- Making my children people excited
- My animal peeve
- An addiction I have
- Something I quit doing
- My life as being a vegan
- Exactly What influences me personally being a individual
- Once I feel sad
- Once I want to give up
- The way I have motivated
- What annoys me
- Characteristics that my pal have commonly
Remember that your descriptive topic reflexes the reason that is main you made a decision to compose your essay. You need to convey your own feelings and explain this main indicate your visitors. Follow the structure, use your ideas and every thing will be alright along with your future essay. You should use paper help at Edubirdie or sentence generator that is topic! Our professional authors will be happy to assist you along with your research. All the best!The Republic of Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) is a representative presidential democracy. The country was established as an independent republic in 1960 having a centralized government within the constitutional framework. During the leadership of the first president, the country flourished economically despite the dictatorial regime featuring intolerance for the opposition. Towards the end of the 20th century, calls for democracy led to political tensions within the country culminating in the first Ivorian civil war in 1999. The civil war led to the adoption of a new constitution in 2000, which established a unitary government. However, the political condition in the country failed to change resulting in the second Ivorian civil war in 2011. The two civil wars are associated with the transition of Cote d’Ivoire from a despotic regime to a democracy rather than hostility between ethnic factions. The second civil war prompted the establishment of a transitional government and the adoption of the new constitution in 2016.
The Executive Branch Of The Government Of Côte D'Ivoire
The government exercises executive power in the republic with the president serving as the chief of state and government. He appoints cabinet members including the prime minister and the vice president. All cabinet members are answerable to the president. The Ivorian president, elected by a two round system, serves for five-year terms and may vie for the presidency as many times as he wishes. By agreement of the UN Security Council and the African Union, the current prime minister is an appointee of the international community.
The Legislative Branch Of The Government Of Côte D'Ivoire
Currently, the legislature exists as a unicameral body of 225 members. The national assembly members serve for five-year terms. Parliamentary elections are by a simple majority vote system in the single and multi-seat constituencies. The main responsibility of the Parliament is passing legislation from the president and sometimes introducing new legislations. A bicameral parliament will replace the current parliament, where the national assembly will serve as the lower house while the Senate will be the upper house. The Senate will consist of 120 members 40 of whom will be appointed by the president, and the rest will be elected by municipal and regional council members.
The Judicial Branch Of The Government Of Côte D'Ivoire
Cote d’Ivoire is established through a civil law system reflecting the French civil law system. The constitution establishes the judiciary as an independent branch of the government but places it under the authority of the president. The Supreme Court is the highest in the court system whose judges the president appoints. Also in the Ivorian court system are the courts of appeal, courts of the first instance and peace courts. Also within the judicial system is the high court of justice, which tries government officials.
The New Constitution
In a bid to avoid the occurrence of another war in the country, the government introduced the 2016 constitution, which had the approval of the majority of the voters in the country. The constitution establishes the country as a democracy with a joint presidential and vice presidential election, a bicameral parliament and grants the rights and freedoms to all citizens including minority groups. The first elections under the new constitution are scheduled for 2020. The constitution also requires presidential candidates to be a full Ivorian citizen and aged at least 35 years. The presidential term will also be limited to a maximum of two five-year terms.
Your MLA Citation
Your APA Citation
Your Chicago Citation
Your Harvard CitationRemember to italicize the title of this article in your Harvard citation.The following are excerpts from an article in Cycling Industry News by Mark Sutton:
A university of Colorado Boulder study has buried the myth that electric bike users are “cheating”, demonstrating that riders do indeed get an “effective workout” and the health benefits associated with pedal powered bikes.
Published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, the findings lent weight to a decision on whether or not to allow electric bikes on bike paths in the city of Boulder, which partially funded the study alongside the National Institutes of Health.
In delivering the study, researchers recruited a pool of twenty sedentary commuters, conducting tests of their overall health, blood glucose regulation, and fitness. These commuters were then asked to shift their transport to work to the e-Bike fleet, using a speed and intensity setting of their choice for a minimum of 40 minutes three times per week. Each wore a heart monitor and GPS.
After a month, volunteers revisited the lab and had the very same tests conducted again. Notable improvements to the 20 subjects’ cardiovascular health were evident, with improved aerobic capacity and blood sugar control noted in all cases.
“Commuting with a pedelec can help individuals incorporate physical activity into their day without requiring them to set aside time specifically for exercise,” said James Peterman, a graduate researcher in the Department of Integrative Physiology at CU Boulder and lead author of the new study.
In the study’s conclusion the researchers write: “Participants rode a pedelec in the real world at a self-selected moderate intensity, which helped them meet physical activity recommendations. Pedelecs are an effective form of active transportation that can improve some cardio-metabolic risk factors within only 4 weeks.”
There you have it; electric bikes, besides being good for the environment, are also good for the people who ride them. Let us help you help yourself as well as the world around you. Come test ride an electric bike. It’s simple, easy, and SO much fun!Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet KH, MRS (1792-1871) was the son of Sir William Herschel and, like his father, was both an outstanding astronomer and devout Christian. He discovered over 500 new nebulae and performed the prodigious task of cataloging the stars and nebulae of both northern and southern hemispheres. Concerning the Bible, he said:
All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more and more strongly the truths come from on high and contained in the sacred writings.
Excerpted from Men of Science, Men of God by Henry M. Morris. Copyright 1982, 1988 by Henry M. Morris. Used by permission.Did you know?
Do something today your future self will thank you for tomorrow.
Know the Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen List! Which foods should you buy organic, and which can you safely buy conventional? The Environmental Working Group ranks pesticide contamination of popular fruits and vegetables based on more than 36,000 samples of produce tested by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. The list includes the Dirty Dozen, the produce with the highest amount of pesticide residue, and the Clean Fifteen, the produce that is least likely to contain pesticide residue.
Snap a picture of the lists above and always have it handy when you are grocery shopping.
Share this Post|Most recent IBA monitoring assessment|
|Year of assessment||Threat score (pressure)||Condition score (state)||Action score (response)|
|2005||low||not assessed||not assessed|
|For more information about IBA monitoring please click here|
Mountains with quartziferous scarps of great dimensions located between the towns of Castelo Branco and Portalegre. Mountains are crossed by River Tejo and River Ocreza with high steep valleys. Pine-woods non native and some mediterranean shrubland. It is also important the existence of a great amount of Junniperus.
This site holds the greatest colony of Gyps fulvus in Portugal and other cliff-nesting species like ciconia nigra and Hieraatus fasciatus.Also it is possible to found Oenanthe leucura.
BirdLife International (2019) Important Bird Areas factsheet: Portas de Ródão e Vale Mourão. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 22/08/2019.The May 11 meeting of the RASC Mississauga Centre will feature a talk on the Earth's moon.
Talk Title: Earth's Battered Moon: Understanding how impacts from space have shaped our planet
Speaker: Sara Mazrouei, PhD Candidate in Planetary Geology, University of Toronto
Just like the Earth, the Moon is about 4.5 billion years old. It has been and continues to be constantly bombarded by meteorites. Some suggest that this rate of bombardment has remained constant in the past couple of billion years. The Moon’s surface without any substantial atmosphere or tectonic activity serves as a time capsule, helping us detangle Earth’s history. The only way to see if the bombardment rate has changed is to have an age for every single crater, an extremely difficult task using traditional crater dating methods. Recently, it has been shown that the rockiness of large craters’ ejecta provides an alternative means for estimating the ages of Copernican craters (younger than roughly one billion years old). This talk will focus on exploring the rate of bombardment in the past billion years.
Sara Mazrouei has been interested in outer space since an early age.
"To pursue my passion, I enrolled in the Space Science program at York University and continued to do my master's there. That is where I became more interested in planetary science. After finishing my master's, I worked as a Young Graduate Trainee at the European Space Agency for a year and then started my doctorate at U of T. I'm doing my PhD at the department of Earth Sciences, using remote sensing techniques to understand the age of impact craters on the Moon. From that data, we can extrapolate the frequency and scale of meteorite impacts on the Earth over time, which is an important part of our planetary history."
Sara Mazrouei's thesis focuses on the cratering rate on the Moon. She is a science team member on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's Diviner team. Sara received her MSc. from York University, where she studied rocks on asteroid Itokawa using data from the Japanese Hayabusa mission. In between her master's and PhD studies, Sara worked at the European Space Agency, calibrating radio science data from the Venus Express.
The meeting will be held from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. at The University of Toronto,Mississauga Campus, in lecture hall SE2074 in the William Davis Building. The meeting is open to the public and is free.
Enter off of Mississauga Road. Park in lot 4 or the parkade, across from the fitness centre south of theDavis Building. Enter through the Fitness centre, walk up the stairs untilyou reach the main corridor then turn right. (If you need an elevator,follow the corridor to the right of the stairs, then go up to the mainfloor.) Look for the Mississauga Centre sign in front of the lecture room. Directions
Post meeting plans: we usually continue the discussion post-meeting at a local bar – please join us!Geothermal Systems Heating and coolinggreenhouses and buildings consume large amounts of energy; a factor where their cost can be prohibitive for greenhouse climate management. Geothermal system’s pumps provide winter heating and summer cooling, especially important in greenhouse food production in the the northeast climate. After initial installation, consume no energy.
Solar Thermal Water absorbs heat slowly but holds it to release slowly as well. Aquaculture and hydroponics as food growing methods increase temperatures in the greenhouse enough to maintain ambient food production conditions. Protein production by growing fish in the greenhouse will also sequester carbon and contribute to the fertilization of other crops.
Local Energy Production We have designed a solar photo bioreactor to grow algae for the production of biodiesel. Using algae as a feedstock for biodiesel conserves water and land tranditionally used for food production. It is also sustainable and sequesters carbon dioxide. Including local food production is important to our model of sustainability. Local production of biodiesel decentralizes fuel production and enhances its potential for use in local transportation, heating, and other operating energy needs.The Impact of Climate Change on Water Supply in the Sahel Region: The case of Burkina Faso
Over the last few decades, Burkina Faso, partly due to its geographical location, has experienced strong seasonal and annual climatic variations that place pressure on limited water resources. Climate variability is a major constraint on food security, health, environment, and poverty reduction due to a high dependence on the agricultural sector, which is 86% of the GDP. Available water resources are highly vulnerable to changes in rain, temperature and wind patterns. This has become a major challenge in the operations of the national utility, Office National de l’Eau et de l’Assainissement (ONEA), supplying drinking water for 43 urban centers in the country, including Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou which has an estimated population of over 20 million people (figures from www.wordometers.info). According to ONEA, an IWA member since 2015, the major climate related risks to water supply faced by the country are droughts, floods and erosion. These risks do not just affect the quality and quantity of the resources but also result in damage to infrastructure, rendering them temporarily inoperative, leading to an increased risk of contamination or untimely distribution of water. In 2016, floods affected about 9 regions with a total of 27,826 people. Drought has also affected a cumulative number of about 12.4 million people between 1969 and 2014. Erosion, which occurs during both flood and drought events, silts up rivers causing deterioration of water quality by not only increasing the turbidity of the water but also by run-off of pollutants even in underground aquifers. Considering the country’s climate profile, it is appropriate to ensure proper planning to better address the impacts of the changing climate to manage the operations of the water utility and ensure equal access to water supply for a fast growing population.
Despite the challenges brought about by flooding and drought, ONEA is committed to providing equitable access to adequate water supply and effectively managing the limited water resources in order to contribute to sustainable development through several programmes. Water Safety Plans (WSP), a comprehensive risk assessment and risk management approach that encompasses all steps in water supply from catchment to consumer, is one such programme recommended by the World Health Organization and (WHO) and the International Water Association (IWA), and adopted by ONEA to help ensure their water service provision. Most of the major river banks in the country have a high concentration of commercial activities such as farming and mining. Through the use of fertilizers and pesticides, water is easily contaminated causing negative effects for fish stocks, human and animal health. Implementing WSP ultimately ensures a supply of safety and acceptable drinking water supply.
Mr. Olivier Yameogo, Water Quality Manager with ONEA, believes WSP plays a key role in operational planning and investments. He added that, it is the most effective way for ONEA to ensure the safety of the water supply by applying an overall risk assessment and management strategy, covering all stages of the supply system from catchment to the consumer and believes its integration of health security into planning is essential. Water professionals need tools that allow them to manage and plan for climate risks. DHI, a member of IWA has, together with the association, developed a methodology with a package of technical applications to help basin stakeholders, such as water utilities, better integrate climate information and future changes into planning. IWA has used its position as a leading association for water professionals to disseminate the portal and its technical application to IWA members, such as ONEA.
The Flood and Drought Portal (http://www.flooddroughtmonitor.com/), developed under the Flood and Drought Management Tools (FDMT) project, provides ONEA with a way integrate information about floods, droughts and future scenarios into WSP. Olivier made the point that the project has been beneficial to ONEA to address the issue around access to climate data, where knowledge and collection has been insufficient at the national level. Through the portal, ONEA is able to get free, reliable and near real-time climate data (rainfall, temperature, evapotranspiration, etc.). This information is necessary for ONEA to evaluate the risks to their water supply system and to propose reliable control measures, steps which are taken during the development and implementation of their WSP. A WSP supporting application is also available in the Flood and Drought Portal, which provides ONEA with a means of developing and documenting their WSP. For ONEA, this is just the beginning of the best to come. They believe their capacity and that of other stakeholders should continue to build around the Flood and Drought Portal to allow for better planning of operations and future investments.
About the Flood and Drought Management Tools project
The Flood and Drought Management Tools (FDMT) project, a Global Environment Facility (GEF) International Waters (IW) funded project, implemented by the UN Environment, with the International Water Association (IWA) and DHI as the executing agencies. The project is developing online technical applications to support planning from the transboundary basin to water utility level by including better information on floods and droughts. The project is being implemented from 2014 – 2018, with 3 pilot basins (Volta, Lake Victoria and Chao Phraya) participating in development and testing of the methodology and technical applications.
For more information on the Flood and Drought Management Tools project, visit: http://fdmt.iwlearn.org.
About Olivier Wendlassida Yameogo
Olivier Wendlassida Yameogo currently holds the position of Head of Water Quality Service of the National Office for Water and Sanitation (ONEA). His main mission in the institution is to monitor the quality of the water produced and distributed and to monitor the performance of the production and purification works.
The short-term goal is to improve the quality of drinking water in Burkina Faso by implementing strategies such as water safety management plans and improving planning for climate effects (floods and droughts) to make meaningful access to drinking water a fundamental right recognised by the United Nations General Assembly since 2010.Interesting & Informative Information
How can I get inspired? What is good practice? How can parents contribute?
Frequently asked questions from students & parents regarding lessons, motivation and practice
From "The Practice of Practising" by Concert Pianist, Stephen Hough, to health benefits of learning piano.
Articles that are interesting & relevant for students & parents
Listening is educational & inspirational for students, parents, & musicians of all levels.
Discover Classical Music in Calgary
Benjamin Zander has two infectious passions: classical music, and helping us all realize our untapped love for it -- and by extension, our untapped love for all new possibilities, new experiences, new connections.
"Everybody loves classical music -- they just haven't found out about it yet."
"I realized my job was to awaken possibility in other people."
"I've never subscribed to the idea that you can't find the time to do something like this..."
The pianist explains how just 20 minutes of practice a day can improve your technique.
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-playing...
When you listen to music, multiple areas of your brain become engaged and active. But when you actually play an instrument, that activity becomes more like a full-body brain workout. What's going on? Anita Collins explains the fireworks that go off in musicians' brains when they play, and examines some of the long-term positive effects of this mental workout.
Lesson by Anita Collins, animation by Sharon Colman Graham.
Like an actor's script, a sheet of music instructs a musician on what to play (the pitch) and when to play it (the rhythm). Sheet music may look complicated, but once you've gotten the hang of a few simple elements like notes, bars and clefs, you're ready to rock. Tim Hansen hits the instrumental basics you need to read music.
Music and science: one and the same? Concert pianist Jocelyn Swigger illustrates the behind-the-scenes process of memorizing at the piano, revealing surprising parallels between practicing music and science.
Find out which piano is better, an upright or baby grand grand piano. There are many different qualities that separate these two types of pianos.Quercus wislizeni (syn. Quercus wislizeni) Fagaceae
Interior Live Oak, Chapparal Oak kwer-KUS wis-liz-EN-eye
- Broadleaf evergreen tree 30-75 ft (9–23 m) tall, erect, usually single stemmed, short furrowed trunk, ascending or spreading branches, folage may reach the ground; it may also assume a shrub-like form with maximum heights of only 8-10 ft (~2.5-3 m). Leaves alternate, simple, leathery, 2.5-4 cm long, oblong, elliptical or lanceolate, mostly flat, tip acute to pointed, margins entire to spiny toothed, upper surface shiny dark green, lower surface shiny, light or yellow-green. Flowers; male flowers are borne in catkins 2-5 cm in length, whereas female flowers grow in clusters of
2-4 in the upper leaf axils. Fruit (acorn) matures in 2 years, cup about 15 mm wide and similar depth, cup-shaped to hemispheric, encloses about 1/3 of the nut, nut 2-4 cm long, ovoid to cylindrical, tapered to tip, often longitudinally striped.
- Hardy to USDA Zone 7 Native to much of western California, from Siskiyou County in the north, to Baja California; found in interior canyons, slopes, valleys, chaparral, pine and oak woodlands. At least two forms are recognized, Quercus wislizeni var. wislizeni essentially the tree form, Interior Live Oak. Shrub forms with oval leaves 2.5-4 cm long and margins entire or deeply lobed-dentate are treated by some as Quercus wislizenii var. frutescens Bush Interior Live Oak.
- Quercus × morehus (Oracle Oak) is a hybrid between Q. kelloggii (California Black Oak) and Q. wislizeni (Interior Live Oak). The hybrids are known from several populations that occur in southwestern Oregon, northern Douglas County to southern Josephine County, as well as California. The entire to spinose margins of Q. wislizeni are apparent in the leaves of the hybrid, which are quite intermediate between the two parents (H. L. Chambers, The Family Fagaceae in Oregon, Part II: The Oaks). The presence of the Quercus × morehus hybrid in Oregon has led some to suggest that Q. wislizeni was present in southern Oregon at sometime in the past.
- wislizeni: after Frederick Adolf Wislizenus (1810-1889), Army surgeon, explorer, botanist and plant collector of German birth who travelled extensively in the southwestern United States.City of Cleveland, Office of Sustainability
The Mayor’s Office of Sustainability in the City of Cleveland is a dedicated effort by the city to collaborate with communities on economic, environmental, and social initiatives that lead to a thriving, green city. The office has a cross sectoral impact and implements policies and practices with other city departments to advance city-wide goals. Among these goals are energy efficiency, renewable energy, zero waste, implementing local food systems, ensuring clean water, and sustainable transport. Sustainable Cleveland 2019 is a ten-year initiative that seeks to design and develop resilient and sustainable systems throughout Cleveland’s infrastructure and programs.
The Office of Sustainability highly prioritizes engaging with the larger public and Cleveland residents, and is a key part of the team behind the Cleveland Climate Resilience & Urban Opportunity Plan. This is a grassroots effort led by Cleveland Neighborhood Progress to ensure
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HDL) cholesterol in the blood. Avocados are also a good source of both insoluble and soluble fiber, as well as vitamin K, vitamin E, lutein (which helps protect the eyes), potassium (which helps to regulate blood pressure), and certain B vitamins.
Recipe: Caprese Stuffed Avocados
The allium family of vegetables includes aromatic staples like onions, garlic, shallots, leeks, and scallions. Some of the compounds contained in these vegetables — which give them their distinctive, pungent odor — are also what make them so good for you. They're a good source of allyl sulfides and saponins, which are thought to lower blood pressure, reduce cholesterol, and even hinder or prevent tumor growth. These vegetables also contain antioxidants called quercetins, which are thought to have anti-inflammatory properties that are crucial for anyone with inflammatory or auto-immune disorders like arthritis, according to an article on JoyBauer.com.
Recipe: French Onion Penne
Those little fish might not look like much, but the humble sardine is a nutrient powerhouse. Rich and flavorful, sardines contain lots of good stuff — like omega-3 fatty acids, calcium, vitamin D, and vitamin B12 — and also have less of the bad stuff, like mercury, often found in larger varieties of fish.
Recipe: Sardine Salad Sandwich
It's no secret that oatmeal is full of fiber, but you might not know just how much this food can do for your health. Oats are thought to lower inflammation and bad (LDL) cholesterol, as well as help guard against high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and weight gain.
BUY NOW: Bob's Rolled Oats, $14; amazon.com.
Edamame are soybeans, which can be bought frozen, either shelled or in the pod (a super easy and still incredibly nutritious way to use them). They're most often served simply boiled and salted — a great way to snack on them — but are also easily tossed into stir-fries, thrown on top of salads, puréed and eaten on their own, or mixed into dips, like hummus. However you cook them up, these little beans have a big nutrition benefit — they have just under 10 grams of dietary fiber per 1/2-cup serving, healthy polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, and about 11 grams of protein, according to WebMD, as well as some vitamin C, vitamin A, iron, and calcium.
Recipe: Roasted Edamame
Despite the word "wheat" in its name, buckwheat is actually gluten-free (it's a seed related to rhubarb), making it a great go-to ingredient for those who are gluten-allergic or averse. It's high in fiber, as well as essential nutrients like manganese, magnesium, copper, and zinc, and contains 8 essential amino acids needed to keep the body healthy, functioning, and strong — even lysine, which is not produced by the body. Try using buckwheat flour to make pancakes with an earthy, slightly nutty flavor. Or buy buckwheat groats and use them as a side dish, like rice, or a hot breakfast cereal — try toasting them lightly first to intensify the flavor, then boiling them in water or broth. One of the easiest ways to get buckwheat into your diet is by enjoying soba noodles — they cook up quickly, much like any other type of pasta, and taste delicious hot or chilled.
BUY NOW: Bob's Buckwheat Cereal, $14; amazon.com.
Bulgur is cracked wheat that has been dried and steamed. Because of that bit of pre-cooking before packaging, it cooks up quickly and has a lovely, light, fluffy texture. High in both protein and fiber, bulgur is a filling but low-calorie food that makes a great base for a vegetarian main dish or as a health-boosting ingredient in soups, salads, and stuffings.
BUY NOW: Bulgur, $11; amazon.com.
Pumpkin is best known for its place in the traditional holiday pie, but it's also a tasty addition to other baked goods, like breads and muffins, and to savory dishes, like curries and pastas. You'd do well to add it to as many of your meals as possible while it's in season. Pumpkin contains about double your daily requirement of vitamin A, as well as carotenoids like beta-carotene, which help protect your eyes, and which may also have a role in reducing cancer risk.
Recipe: Pumpkin Butter
BUY NOW: Organic Canned Pumpkin, $24; amazon.com.
This ubiquitous green vegetable might seem delicate, but it has a lot in it that can keep you healthy and strong — it's loaded with iron, folate, beta carotene, lutein, various antioxidant compounds, and has about double the fiber of most other leafy greens.
Watercress, which is related to cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cabbage, contains many of those veggies' health-boosting and cancer-fighting properties. This crunchy little green is packed with vitamins A, C, and K, as well as lutein and zeaxanthin, which are carotenoids that are thought to protect the eyes, the heart, and cardiovascular system.Biotin is a very important B complex vitamin that helps the body convert food into energy.
The water-soluble vitamin is especially vital during pregnancy and breastfeeding. t’s also needed for blood sugar balance, brain health, heart health, adrenal and thyroid function, and maintenance of healthy skin, hair, and nails.
Biotin was once called coenzyme R. This is because it acts as a coenzyme in the body, helping to metabolize glucose, amino acids, and fatty acids.
Basically, when we consume macronutrients carbohydrates, proteins, and fats through our food, biotin must be present to convert them into energy, which is required for proper physical and mental functions.
Biotin is also called vitamin B7 and vitamin H, which stands for German words Haar and Haut that translate as “hair and skin.” Although biotin is often added to skin and hair beauty products, experts believe that the vitamin is not well absorbed into the skin.
The health benefits of biotin are best obtained from ingesting biotin-rich food sources, and certain B complex supplements. Biotin is found in fish, organ meats, egg yolks, legumes, avocado, and more.
Symptoms of Biotin Deficiency
Biotin deficiency is uncommon in developed countries among populations with sufficient caloric intakes. So many whole foods provide biotin, the recommended daily requirements are considered quite low, and it is believed that our intestinal bacteria can create some biotin as well.
Since it is water soluble, any surplus amounts of biotin present in the body get eliminated through the urine within a few hours. So, there are no biotin reserves, making it very difficult to obtain too much. Ideally, small amounts of biotin must be ingested daily to get the body’s supply at high levels.
People at risk of biotin deficiency include those with intestinal malabsorption issues or severe digestive disorders like celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, or leaky gut syndrome. Prolonged antibiotic use or long-term use of certain anti-seizure medications may also increase the risk of biotin deficiency.
Although rare, biotin deficiency symptoms may include:
- Digestive and intestinal tract issues
- Muscle pains and aches
- Brittle hair or hair loss
- Dry irritated skin
- Chronic fatigue or lack of energy
- Mood changes and cognitive impairments
- Nerve damage
- Cramps and tingling in the limbs
5 Health Benefits of Biotin
What are the health benefits of biotin, aka vitamin B7? Biotin benefits so many different parts of the body. One of the most important roles of biotin is how it impacts women during pregnancy and breastfeeding. It is estimated that a mild biotin deficiency is common in up to 50% of pregnant women.
Deficiencies occur due to faster biotin breakdown during pregnancy, and may cause birth defects. It is best to consult a doctor or nutritionist/dietitian for the best supplement approach during pregnancy and while nursing.
Biotin is also needed to repair and build muscles and tissues while also reducing inflammation that can lead to joint or muscle pain. Biotin is also necessary for healthy metabolism; improving glucose intolerance and balancing blood sugar; maintaining healthy hair, skin, and nails; protecting brain function; and supporting the thyroid, adrenals, and cardiovascular system. The following is a detailed synopsis of seven key biotin health benefits you need to know.
1. Promotes Healthy Metabolism
Biotin plays a crucial role in regulating gene expressions needed for healthy metabolism and energy production. Biotin uses amino acids from proteins, activates fatty acids from foods with fat like avocado or oils, and converts glucose from sugar and carbs to produce useable energy source.
Once the body can use macronutrients from food for energy, normal metabolic function can occur. Biotin also improves the utilization and metabolism of glucose, which heavily benefits type 2 diabetics. Sluggish metabolism can lead to symptoms like fatigue, digestive problems, poor mood, and weight gain.
2. Improves Multiple Sclerosis
In multiple sclerosis (MS), the protective covering of nerve fibers in the spinal cord, eyes, and brain is destroyed or damaged. This protective material is called the myelin sheath, and biotin is known to have a role in its production.
A pilot study published in the journal Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders in 2015 found that over 90% of patients with progressive MS had some degree of clinical improvement when using high doses of biotin. While this preliminary data is positive, further study is necessary, and at least two randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trials are currently ongoing.
3. Supports Healthy Nails, Skin, and Hair
Biotin is needed for the maintenance of healthy nails, hair, and skin. That is why biotin deficiency can produce symptoms like dry skin, or thin, brittle hair. A study published in the Journal of American Academy of Dermatology found that nail thickness improved by 25% in all participants given 2.5 milligrams (mg) of biotin daily for six to 15 months.
There was also a reduction of nail splitting. Also, biotin may protect the skin from fungal infections, rashes, acne, and severe cracking and dryness of the skin.
4. May Reduce Blood Sugar Levels
Type 2 diabetes is related to impaired insulin function and high blood sugar. Studies have found that the combination of biotin and chromium could help reduce blood sugar levels in type 2 diabetics. Biotin may benefit blood glucose since it facilitates insulin activity. Better insulin response is necessary to balance blood sugar levels.
Biotin reduces enzyme expression that stimulates glucose production in the liver. As a result, less sugar releases into the bloodstream. Biotin could also help lower nerve pain related to diabetes.
5. Maintains Healthy Cardiovascular System
Studies have found that taking chromium and biotin together may improve cholesterol levels. Research shows that biotin increases HDL (high-density lipoprotein), or the “good” cholesterol, while also reducing LDL (low-density lipoprotein), or the “bad” cholesterol.
Biotin also could help protect against common heart disease causes, such as plaque buildup in the arteries (atherosclerosis), inflammation, stroke, and heart attacks.
Recommended Daily Intake of Biotin
Biotin is part of the B complex family of full-spectrum vitamins that also include vitamin B2, vitamin B3, vitamin B5, vitamin B6, and vitamin B12. Taking B complex vitamins together is the best way to ensure results. As a result, B vitamin complex can support brain function, metabolism, nerve signaling, and more.
However, not all supplements are created equal. It is best to purchase high-quality minerals and vitamins supplements made from real food sources, and without toxins and fillers. This method allows the body to recognize them as nutrients, and use them as a similar way as they appear in food.
However, when you can it is best to obtain biotin from food sources. The average adult over the age of 19 needs 30 mcg. According to the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences, the following is adequate intake recommended for biotin daily:
- Infants and babies 0 to 6 months: 5 mcg
- Infants and babies 7 to 12 months: 6 mcg
- Children 1 to 3 years: 8 mcg
- Children 4 to 8 years: 12 mcg
- Children 9 to 13 years: 20 mcg
- Adolescents 14-18 years: 25 mcg
- Men and female adults over 19 years: 30 mcg
- Pregnant females: 30 mcg
- Breastfeeding females: 35 mcg
Top Food Sources of Biotin
There are actually eight different types of biotin; however, the only one found in food is called D-biotin. It is the only type with full vitamin capabilities. This is a key example of why it’s best to get vitamins and minerals from real food whenever you can.
What are the best biotin food sources? That answer is not that simple. You see, in 2004, when researchers examined the biotin levels in 51 different foods, they found a varying range of biotin in each food. This is why nutrition authorities like the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) do not record the amount of biotin in common foods.
That being said, certain foods in studies have tested biotin levels, but the amount of biotin still has a significant range difference. It is still hard to tell how much biotin you are getting from your food. Some of the top biotin foods include liver, peanuts, almonds, Swiss chard, salmon, avocado, cauliflower, cashews, sesame seeds, mushrooms, and raspberries.
Interestingly, biotin is found in the egg yolk, and not in the egg whites. Not only do you miss out on valuable B vitamins when you discard the egg yolk, but the egg whites may deplete the effects of B vitamins and possibly create biotin deficiency.
The following is a biotin foods chart that is a useful tool for learning what foods can help you avoid a biotin deficiency. The chart will allow you to become aware of what whole foods contain the highest amount of biotin.
|Food||Serving Size||Amount (mg)|
|Liver||3 oz cooked||27-35|
|Yeast||1 tbsp (7 g)||1.4-14|
|Swiss chard||1 cup||10.5|
|Goat’s milk||1 cup||8.5|
|Sesame seeds||1/4 cup||4.0|
|Organic goat cheese||1-oz piece||0.4-2|
|Whole grain Ezekiel bread||1 slice||0.2-6|
Overconsumption of biotin is not considered a problem, and there have been very few cases of biotin toxicity. Still, vitamin B7 levels may be affected if someone is taking oral antibiotics or anti-seizure medications, or if they have a digestive disorder that disrupts normal levels of intestinal bacteria. Medications like isotretinoin (Accutane) that is prescribed for acne, may decrease biotin activity in the body.
Abnormal doses of other B vitamins like pantothenic acid (vitamin B5) can also reduce levels of biotin. Similar to all B vitamins, very high doses of vitamins in supplement form can impact the doses of other vitamins. That is why it is best to take dose recommended on the supplement package unless recommended otherwise by your doctor.
Mateljan, G., The World’s Healthiest Foods: Essential Guide for the healthiest way of eating (Seattle: George Mateljan Foundation), 736-737.
Palsdottir, H., “7 Health Benefits of Biotin,” Authority Nutrition, Sept. 11, 2016; https://authoritynutrition.com/biotin-benefits/, last accessed June 6, 2017.
“Biotin,” PubChem; https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/biotin#section=Top, last accessed June 6, 2017.
Sedel, F., et al., “High doses of biotin in chronic progressive multiple sclerosis: a pilot study,” Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders, March 2015; 4(2): 159-169, doi: 10.1016/j.msard.2015.01.005, last accessed June 6, 2017.
Colombo, V.E., et al., “Treatment of brittle fingernails and onychoschizia with biotin scanning electron microscopy,” Journal of American Academy of Dermatology, December 1990; 23(6 Pt 1): 1127-1132. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2273113, last accessed June 6, 2017.
Geohas, J., et al., “Chromium picolinate and biotin combination reduces atherogenic index of plasma in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: a placebo-controlled, double-blinded, randomized clinical trial,” American Journal of the Medical Sciences, March 2007; 333(3): 145-153. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17496732.Alexander of Aphrodisias°
ALEXANDER OF APHRODISIAS°
ALEXANDER OF APHRODISIAS ° (end of second century–beginning of third century c.e.), Greek philosopher, commentator on the writings of *Aristotle, and author of independent works. Alexander was important for his systematization of Aristotle's thought and for the formulation of a number of distinct doctrines, especially in psychology. A number of his commentaries and independent works were translated into Arabic, and the views contained in them became an important part of medieval Islamic and Jewish Aristotelianism. The first book of Alexander's On the Soul was translated into Hebrew by Samuel ben Judah of Marseilles from the Arabic translation made by Ḥunain ibn Isḥaq. This translation, which contains brief annotations, was completed in 1323 in Murça and a revised version of it was finished in 1339–40 in Montùlimar.
Alexander, it was commonly thought, wrote a second book in psychology, called Treatise on the Intellect, and it circulated in Arabic translation. Averroes wrote a commentary to this work that was translated into Hebrew and is extant in manuscript only with the supercommentaries of *Moses b. Joshua of Narbonne (1344) and Joseph b. Shem Tov *Ibn Shem Tov (1454). H.A. Davidson edited the Averroean portions of the commentary themselves, without these supercommentaries, in 1988.
*Maimonides' estimation of Alexander may be gathered from a famous letter which he wrote to Samuel ibn *Tibbon. Evaluating the philosophical literature of the day, Maimonides advises his translator that for a correct understanding of Aristotle's teachings he should read, beside the commentaries of *Themistius and Averroes, also those of Alexander (A. Marx, in jqr, 25 (1934/35), 378). Maimonides used works by Alexander in the composition of his Guide, and Alexander's views formed part of Maimonides' own brand of Aristotelianism (for details see S. Pines, "Translator's Introduction," Guide of the Perplexed (1963), ixiv–ixxv). Maimonides cites Alexander as his source for his discussion of the factors which prevent man from discovering the truth (Guide 1:31), for his account of the celestial motions and intelligences (2:3), for his knowledge of the views of certain Greek philosophers (2:13), and for his discussion of God's knowledge (3:16). Alexander may also have influenced Maimonides' views on religion and political history, particularly the view that God used "wily graciousness" in bringing man from inferior forms of worship to more adequate ones (3:32).
Of special importance for Jewish philosophers was Alexander's doctrine of the intellect, discussed in detail particularly by *Gersonides (Wars of the Lord, Book 1). Aristotle's views (especially De Anima 3:5) were rather enigmatic. Central to Aristotle's discussion was the distinction between the agent intellect (nous poietikos) and the passive intellect (nous pathetikos). Interpreting Aristotle's views, Alexander held that the agent intellect did not form part of the individual human soul, but was identical with the intellect of God; while the passive intellect belonged to the soul as a mere predisposition or ability for thought. The passive intellect was also called material or hylic intellect (nous hylikos), and when actualized by the agent intellect became the acquired intellect (nous epiktetos) or intellect in habit (nous kath'hexin). The passive intellect, according to Alexander, being part of the individual human soul, is, like it, mortal; only the acquired intellect is immortal, insofar as the objects of its thought are the immaterial beings, in particular, God. While Alexander's doctrine of the intellect was more precise than that of Aristotle, it contained enough ambiguities to give rise to further refinements on the part of Islamic and Jewish philosophers.
Jewish, as Islamic, philosophers accepted Alexander's notion of the agent intellect, but instead of identifying it with God, they identified it with the lowest of the celestial intelligences, which, on the one hand, governs the sublunar world, and, on the other, is a causal agent in the production of human knowledge (see also *cosmology). The agent intellect is also important to Jewish Aristotelians for its roles in the production of prophecy. While there was general agreement about the nature of the agent intellect, there was disagreement about the nature of the passive one. Alexander's acquired intellect became a commonplace in Jewish philosophy, though the medievals refined this notion by distinguishing between the intellect in actuality, and the acquired intellect. Medieval philosophers disagreed about the exact nature of the acquired intellect, but it became important for their doctrine of the immortality of the *soul and the world to come (for details see *Intellect, Doctrines of).
P. Moraux, Alexandre d'Aphrodises, exégète de la noétique d'Aristote (1942); R. Walzer, Greek into Arabic (1962), index; Steinschneider, Uebersetzungen, index; idem, Die arabischen Uebersetzungen aus dem Griechischen (1893), 93–97; J. Finnegan, in: Mélanges de l'Université St. Joseph, 33 (1956), 159–62; E.I. Freudenthal, Die durch Averroes erhaltenen Fragmente Alexanders zur Metaphysik des Aristoteles (1885); A. Guensz, Die Abhandlung Alexanders von Aphrodisias ueber den Intellekt (1886). add. bibliography: A.P. Fotinis, The De Anima of Alexander of Aphrodisias (1979); A.H. Armstrong, The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (1967), 117–23; H.A, Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, on Intellect (1992), 20–24; idem, "Averroes' Commentary on the De Intellectu Attributed to Alexander," in: Shlomo Pines Jubilee Volume (1988), 205–17.
[Julius Guttmann /
Alfred L. Ivry (2nd ed.)]
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When the idea of Santa Claus was first introduced into Korea, there was a slight problem. One of the most popular phrases used by Santa Claus, “Ho! Ho! Ho!” is the feminine way of laughing in Korean. Therfeore, since Santa is a man, this could not be possible. They had to alter Santa’s phrase to “Heo! Heo Heo!” The vowels ‘o’ and ‘a’ in Korean are considered to be feminine, while the vowels ‘u’ and [...]
Warai means laughing in Japanese, so wwwww is lolll… In Thai the number 5 is pronounced “ha”, so 555 is hahaha… In French, you can use “lol” or you can use “mdr” (mort de rire, dying of laughter). Check this Buzzfeed article to learn how to say lol (laughing out loud) in Japanese, Hebrew, Swedish, French, Spanish, Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Thai, Russian and [...]
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Korean is the official language of North Korea and South Korea, where it is spoken by about 78 million people. Korean has its own alphabet, called Hangul. The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated. Some linguists place it in the Altaic language family, while others consider it to be a language isolate. It is also considered likely that Korean is related in some way to Japanese.
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On our romanized Korean dictionary page, you will find a selection of websites to learn Korean online.Latin America is a region that has the population of Western Europe and United States combined, a geographical area larger than Europe and United States put together, an economy three times the size of Bharat, and a per capita GDP 3x times developing East Asia and MENA (Middle East and North Africa).
Hindu cultures had, in their pre-colonial glory days, peacefully expanded trade throughout Asia and engaged culturally with China and even distant Japan and Rome. Recent Hindu international engagement however has largely been on the lines of its colonial legacy, following the British wherever they went or wherever they took us. While the Spanish (and the Portuguese) empire expanded through its colonial Governments in Latin America, Britain was left to play the role of traders and political brokers in the region, not requiring large immigrant labor to tend to its sugar cane plantations as in Fiji, Mauritius and even the Caribbean. What is striking is the vibrant presence of Hindu Dharma that defied persistent attempts by missionaries to convert and kill the ancient faith in neighboring Guyana and Surinam, but a complete absence in neighboring Northern Latin America. An invisible Lakshman Rekha of colonial legacy indeed!
However as the continent itself wakes up to democracy and is discovering its cultural and political sovereignty, albeit with multiple missteps, it is important for Hindus to cross the invisible boundaries of British colonial legacy and engage with Latin America on our own terms. Here are ten opportunities that Hindu entrepreneurs could use to create financial value:
Latin America controls resources that Hindu economies need. World copper is concentrated and Chile and Peru contain a lot of it. Environmentally sustainable timber forests are found in Brazil, Chile among others, unlike East Asia where forest cover is receding. Iron ore is controlled by Brazil and Australia today, and Brazilian internal industry is more fragmented in its production, though not in logistics. Land in Latin America is inexpensive, and with a long coast line, could be amenable for agriculture for exports. Land buying by foreigners is still acceptable and the region is generally welcoming to foreigners, with no great ethnic conflicts.
When commodity prices were higher, investing in these assets was far more difficult with a lot of competition. These assets are today available at more reasonable prices, and with insights in to Asian consumer markets, Hindu entrepreneurs are in a good position to extract value from such investments, as any other entrepreneur.
Latin America is home to an economy that is seeing the generation of a middle class. Recent cash transfer policies in the region have reduced income inequality. Brazil saw its income inequality index go from 55 % to 51% in the decade since 2001. Venezuela, a more problematic economy, reduced its income inequality from 49.5% in 1998 to 39% in 2011. Until the beginning of recession recently, this had translated in to a Brazilian consumption boom. With a per capita GDP at around USD 10K, these markets represent opportunities for Hindu products. Colombia, for instance, is already a great market for Bharatiya Motor Cycle brands – Bajaj holds 30 % market share in a nearly million motorcycles being sold in Colombia. TVS, Hero and Royal Enfield all are selling in to the market as well. Bharat’s generics companies sell almost USD 1 Billion worth of medicines in to the region.
The benefits of middle income economies is a combination of higher prices compared to Asia and regulatory and environmental regimes that are more investment friendly and allow a new entrant to grow gradually in product standards, as the economy implements regulations more in line with rich economies. For instance, Torrent Pharma in Brazil benefitted by avoiding expensive local bio equivalence studies in Brazil when Brazil opened up. Having established a presence in the market, as Brazil imposed increasingly tougher standards increasing cost of investments and lowering returns to latter entrants, Torrent has built a profitable USD 100 M business in Brazil, which cannot be threatened by latter entrants by timing its entry in to a favorable regulatory framework.
In new technologies too, Latin America is an exciting market. Take the example of mobile advertisements. While Latin America has a creative and large sized advertising industry and they even have a strong digital advertising landscape, mobile advertising is new in this region where mobile data rates have been very high in the past. As these rates decline and more people get smart phones, the prevalence of Android devices in Latin America compared to the higher proportion of iPhones in United States (the other credible competitor in this space), provides Hindu entrepreneurs with a great opportunity.
In agriculture and cosmetics, Argentina and Brazil could represent large markets, much larger than their economic ranking would imply. United Phosphorus is building a successful agrochemicals business in South America.
In his book, ‘India Inside’, Prof. Nirmalya Kumar talks about how Hindu entrepreneurs are already successful at innovating for large multinational corporations (MNCs). People of Bharat have found it difficult to brand their innovations or products. Hindu exports to the West are largely unbranded apparel, auto components, generics etc. However Latin America offers opportunities to create brands of Hindu origins. Bajaj in Colombia is a classic example, where Pulsar form the Bajaj stable signifies high quality not just in Colombia but throughout the Andean region including Peru and Ecuador.
Another opportunity to build brands is branding products from Latin America. Latin American exporters are relatively inexperienced in international marketing and business. Many products that currently are sold as commodities from Latin America, where Latin America has a dominant position, could increase their net price realization significantly by being branded. Coffee, orange juice, quinoa all are examples of this. Hindu entrepreneurs today do not have access to these cost effective supply chains from the countries they operate. They could help brand these products in consumer markets where they sometimes operate large retail businesses or distribution businesses.
4.) Global Scale in specific products:
Even in unbranded products, collaboration could help. Commodities which are supposed to be volatile, could still be good business if there is enough pricing power. Between Latin America and Hindu economies, huge industries could be controlled. Take vegetable oil or coal for instance. Bharat’s imports of palm oil and soy oil, could be combined if South East Asian companies work with Latin American companies to create a Global scale vegetable oil business. Coal mines in Colombia and Peru and Indonesia together can create significant pricing power for coal the way Brazil and Australia cornered the iron ore market. In coffee and tea, tea exporting Bharat and Sri Lanka and the Coffee exporting Brazil and Colombia could combine efforts to create a beverages conglomerate.
One key difference between Hindu economies and Latin America is the high levels of urbanization you find in Latin countries. If one plots a graph between per capita GDP and urbanization there is usually a linear correlation, but Latin America is a middle income region that has the urbanization levels of rich economies. Brazil for instance has the urbanization levels of United Kingdom at just 20 % of the per capita GDP. As Hindu cities urbanize, instead of looking to imitate the expensive and often unsustainable models of the rich Western countries, Latin American countries offer more appropriate models for smart cities. Especially in urban transportation by buses, Latin America could offer interesting lessons. The success of Marcopolo of Brazilian origin, through its Bharat’s Joint Venture with Tata Group, is a classic example. As it did not build its passenger railways, Latin American bus stations have evolved in to air-port like sophistication. Economic models in building urban infrastructure including budget housing and waste management of organic waste are other examples.
6.) Complementary spheres of influence with Bharat:
In the African continent, Bharat’s immigration and political influence is strong in commonwealth countries. Brazilian influence is stronger in Angola and may be in even Mozambique. Similarly around the world, Latin American influence is stronger in continental Europe, in countries such as Portugal, Spain and even France and Italy and Germany with strong immigrant ties to Latin America. Bharat’s influence is stronger in Britain, United States ( which is increasingly seeing a Hispanic influence) and Australia. By joining hands with Latin America, Hindu businesses can spread their influence wider.
Visas are much easier for Latin Americans visiting continental Europe. IT services companies could leverage this. European origin Multinationals such as Telefonica, Telecom Italia, Telecom Portugal and Santander, Isolux, Abengoa are not present in Hindu geographies in great strength or in the United States. Selling to them is probably easier starting in Latin America. Using a Latin country as a hub for distribution to the region or locating competence centers for other geographies in Latin America are all good ways to leverage this complementarity.
One specific area could be in the Auto components industry. As global OEMs look for fewer vendors to support simultaneous launch of new platforms, Mexico and Brazil with their strong auto component industries are great partners to Hindu auto component entrepreneurs in Bharat, Malaysia, UK etc. By forming a star alliance of sorts, Bharat and Latin suppliers can provide a credible competition to larger and global auto component suppliers. For specific models that are hatch back- such as Etios, Ecosport, UP and Datsun, this is a winning strategy.
In cosmetics too, combining Ayurveda with Amazonian plants, herbal and natural cosmetics brands could be launched.
As Latin America is passing through its current economic crises, many businesses are dying. This is a great opportunity for Hindu entrepreneurs with a lower cost of capital and access to different set of markets. Take the case of leather shoes for women. Brazil and Latin America once were large exporters to Europe. Today the leather shoe exports is uncompetitive due to the high cost economy Brazil has become. The designs and know-how and the reputation for Brazil made shoes continue. Bharat’s supply chain is cost competitive, but it does not have the skills to make leather shoes for women largely because the domestic market in Bharat is too small. Teaming up with Latin know how, Bharat’s leather exports could become a powerhouse for making women’s shoes.
The general point here is that as savings intensive Asian economies with their deeper stock markets (5000 companies in BSE versus just 400 in Sao Paulo), that provide access to capital for smaller and medium enterprises, have a great opportunity in specific industries in
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He documents how different pictures of horse evolution were drawn by different evolutionists from the same data, as the concept of evolution itself ‘evolved.’
This especially applies to reconstructing the animals from fossil skeletons, which are usually very incomplete. The evolutionist Gerald Kerkut wrote:
‘It takes a great deal of reading to find out for any particular genus just how complete the various parts of the body are and how much in the illustrated figures is due to clever reconstruction. The early papers were always careful to indicate by dotted lines or lack of shading the precise limits of the reconstructions, but later authors are not so careful.’8
Informed evolutionists now realize that the picture, even in their own framework, is not a straight line at all. While they still believe in horse evolution, the modern view of the horse fossil record is much more jumpy and ‘bushy.’9
What is the ‘dawn horse’?
This creature was discovered in 1841 by Richard Owen, one of the leading paleontologists of the day, the inventor of the word ‘dinosaur,’ and a staunch opponent of Darwin. Owen saw no connection with the horse, but thought it was very like a modern-day hyrax—that is, a rock badger or coney. So he named it Hyracotherium. Other fossils of the same type of creature were later named ‘Eohippus’ or ‘dawn horse’ by more evolutionarily-minded paleontologists. But the name given by the discoverer takes priority. Thus ‘it is not clear that Hyracotherium was the ancestral horse’, according to Kerkut.10
The fossils do not carry signs saying how old they are. Their age is generally assigned to them, depending on their relative depth of burial. Those in the deepest rock layers have the greatest ages assigned to them. Based on the biblical framework, we should expect many, but not all, fossils to have been buried during the Flood, so the oldest would really be only about 4,500 years old. Fossils higher up may have been buried by local catastrophes since the Flood.
It’s likely that many of the horse fossils were post-Flood. However, even if we were to grant the evolutionary/long age dating, they don’t show the clear progression presented by the textbooks. For example, in north-eastern Oregon, the three-toed Neohipparion and one-toed Pliohippus were found in the same layer. This indicates that they were living at the same time, and thus provides no evidence that one evolved from the other.11,12
Lots of different horses
Living horses come in a wide range of sizes. Their heights are usually measured in hands. One hand = 10 centimeters (4 inches). The largest is the English Shire horse, which can measure as much as 20 hands.1 Ponies are horses under 14.2 hands,1 and the Fallabella is just over four hands when fully grown.
Horses vary in other ways too. Modern horses can have 17, 18 or 19 pairs of ribs. Also, three-toed horses are known today. O.C. Marsh himself noted that some horses in the American southwest had three toes of almost equal size, ‘thus corresponding to the feet of the extinct Protohippus.’13
An important part of the biblical creation model is that different kinds of creatures were created with lots of genetic information. Natural selection can sort out this pre-existing genetic information, by eliminating creatures not suited to a particular environment. Thus many different varieties can be produced in different environments. Note that this sorting process involves a loss of information, so is irrelevant to particles-to-people evolution, which requires non-intelligent processes to add new information.14,15
Also, much of this (created) genetic information may have been latent (hidden, i.e. the features coded for are not expressed in the offspring) in the original created kinds. They also had other controlling or regulatory genes that switch other genes ‘on’ or ‘off.’ That is, they control whether or not the information in a gene will be decoded, so the trait will be expressed in the creature. This would enable very rapid and ‘jumpy’ changes, which are still changes involving already created information, not generation of new information.
Applying these principles to the horse, the genetic information coding for extra toes is present, but is switched off in most modern horses. Sometimes a horse is born today where the genes are switched on, and certainly many fossil horses also had the genes switched on. This would explain why there are no transitional forms showing gradually smaller toe size.
It’s possible that body size and tooth shape were also controlled by regulatory genes.16 This is supported by an experiment by Paul Sharpe and his colleagues on mouse embryos. They found that a single protein, called BMP-4, inhibits the gene that causes molars (back grinding teeth) to form, so incisors (cutting teeth) can grow instead. Without this protein, no incisors grew.17
These mechanisms would explain the alleged horse evolutionary series as variation within the equine (horse) kind. The amount of variety within living horses, undoubtedly one kind, supports this.
Certainly tooth shape can vary widely within a kind, meaning that it’s unwise to assume that different fossil teeth show evolution.18 It is also unwise to be dogmatic about diets based on tooth shape. We showed this with bats,19 and recent evidence has overturned previous thought about ancient horse diets based on tooth shape. The evolutionary paleontologist Bruce MacFadden analyzed teeth from six horse ‘species’ (more likely, varieties within a kind), ‘dated’ at five million years ago.20
Previous evolutionary theories would have asserted that because they all had high-crowned teeth, they must have been grazers. But the amounts of stable carbon isotopes 12C and 13C impregnated into the teeth indicated that the horses were browsers, not grazers.
The researchers also claimed that once hypsodonty evolved, it was impossible to return to having short-crowned teeth again. In a creationist model, this suggests that hypsodonty is a highly specialized condition, which has lost genetic information for any other sort of teeth.
Again, this information loss is the opposite of molecules-to-man evolution, much like the long-furred bears in the diagram of Ref. 15.
Many evolutionists claim that the horse’s splint bones in their legs (see diagram right) are vestigial, that is, useless leftovers from its alleged evolutionary past. But the evolutionary zoologist Scadding pointed out, ‘vestigial organs provide no evidence for evolutionary theory.’21
He pointed out that the argument is unscientific, because it is impossible in principle to prove that an organ has no function; rather, it could have a function we don’t know about.22 Scadding also reminds us that ‘as our knowledge has increased the list of vestigial structures has decreased,’ and pointed out that the 19th century claim of hundreds has been shrunk to a handful of doubtful cases.23 Also, at best, vestigial organs could only prove devolution (loss of information), not evolution.
In particular, the horse’s splint bones serve several important functions. They strengthen the leg and foot bones, very important because of the enormous stress that galloping puts on the legs. They also provide attachment points for important muscles. And they form a protective groove that houses the suspensory ligament, a vital elastic brace that supports the horse’s weight as it walks.24
Evolutionists claim that similarities in the limbs of frogs, reptiles and mammals show that they all evolved from a common ancestor. Amphibians (e.g. frogs) supposedly gave rise to reptiles, which gave rise to mammals, including bats and humans, hence the similarities in their limb structures. However, the horse’s leg doesn’t fit very well into this ‘explanation.’
The horse is much more similar to humans in other respects than a frog, but the frog’s limb is much more like ours. The evolutionist tells a story here to ‘explain’ this discrepancy: the horse is different because its legs became adapted to a different way of walking. This is ‘just-so’ story-telling, not science.
Perhaps the horse is part of the pattern God created to tell us there is one Creator (the similarities in living things) but that things did not make themselves (there are oddities which don’t fit any ‘everything made itself’ story).
Furthermore, the frog embryo develops its legs differently from us—amphibian digits develop by bud growth outwards, while amniote (reptile, bird and mammal) digits are formed as parts of a bony plate are dissolved in between. Yet they arrive at a similar pattern, again indicating the hand of a master designer rather than chance.25 There really is no excuse (Romans 1:20).
- The textbooks create this ‘evolutionary series’ from a probable non-horse (Hyracotherium) and varieties of true horses.
- Far from being an example of evolution, it is an example of the wide variation within a created kind.
- Particles-to-people evolution requires new information to be generated, while the horse varieties, especially in number of toes, result from pre-existing information being switched on or off, as well as natural selection removing information.
- Theories of adaptation to different diets based on tooth shape have been undermined by recent isotopic analysis.
- The ‘splint bones,’ far from being useless vestiges of evolution, play an important role in the horse’s leg.
References and notes
- ‘Horse and horsemanship,’ Encyclopædia Britannica, 20:646–655, 15th Ed. 1992. Return to text.
- Of course, some of these uses could only have taken place after Adam’s sin brought death into the creation (Romans 5:12, 8:20–22, 1 Corinthians 15:21–22); see The Fall: a cosmic catastrophe. Return to text.
- ‘Evolution, the Theory of,’ Encyclopædia Britannica, 18:855–883, 15th Ed. 1992—see p. 861. Return to text.
- Heribert-Nilsson, Synthetische Artbildung, Gleerup, Sweden, Lund University, 1954; cited in Luther Sunderland, Darwin’s Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th Ed., Master Books, Santee, CA, p. 81, 1988. Return to text.
- Eldredge, N., quoted by Sunderland, ref. 4, p. 78. Return to text.
- Eldredge, N., Life Pulse: Episodes from the story of the fossil record, Penguin, London, p. 222, 1989. Return to text.
- Barnhart, W., ‘A critical evaluation of the phylogeny of the horse,’ M.Sc. Thesis, Institute for Creation Research, Santee, CA, 1987. Return to text.
- Kerkut, G.A., Implications of Evolution, Pergamon Press, London, New York, p. 146, 1960. Return to text.
- The palaeontologist David Raup wrote: ‘The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time. By this I mean that the classic cases of darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be modified or discarded as a result of more detailed information. What appeared to be a nice simple progression when relatively few data were available now appears to be much more complex and less gradualistic. So Darwin’s problem has not been alleviated.’ D.M. Raup, ‘Conflicts between Darwin and paleontology,’ Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin 50:22, 1979. Return to text.
- Ref. 8, p. 149. Return to text.
- Gish, D, Evolution: The fossils STILL say NO!, Institute for Creation Research, El Cahon, CA, USA, pp. 187–197, 1995. Return to text.
- However, some creationists believe that there really is a trend in the fossil record. They believe this reflects adaptation within the horse kind to a change from woodland to grassland, caused by cooling and drying of the post-Flood Earth. They point out that these climatic changes are difficult to explain under an evolution/billions of years scenario. See P. Garner, ‘It’s a horse, of course! A creationist view of phylogenetic change within the equid family,’ Origins (Journal of the Biblical Creation Society) 25:13–23, 1998. This was written before Ref. 20. Return to text.
- Marsh, O.C., ‘Recent polydactyle horses,’ American Journal of Science 43:339–354, 1892. Return to text.
- See Carl Wieland, Beetle Bloopers, Creation 19(3):30, 1997. Return to text.
- Weston, P., and Wieland, C., Bears across the world, Creation 20(4):28–31, 1998. Return to text.
- Brand, L., Faith, Reason and Earth History: A paradigm of earth and biological origins by intelligent design, Andrews University Press, Berrien Springs, MI, USA, p. 202, 1997. Return to text.
- Tucker, A.S., Matthews, K.L., Sharpe, P., ‘Transformation of tooth-type induced by inhibition of BMP signaling,’ Science 282(5391):1136–1138, November 6, 1998. BMP = Bone Morphogenetic Protein. Return to text.
- García-Pozuelo-Ramos, C., ‘Dental variability in the domestic dog (Canis familiaris): Implications for variability of primates,’ Creation Research Society Quarterly 35(2):66–75, 1998. Return to text.
- Weston, P., Bats: sophistication in miniature, Creation 21(1):28–31, 1998; but the online version lacks the picture of the bats’ skulls in the magazine. Return to text.
- MacFadden, B.J., et al., Ancient diets, ecology, and extinction of 5-million-year-old horses from Florida, Science 283(5403):824–827, 5 February 1999. See also comments on p. 757 and 773 of the same journal. Return to text.
- Scadding, S.R., ‘Do vestigial organs provide evidence for evolution?’ Evolutionary Theory 5:173–176, 1981. Return to text.
- The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1993) defines ‘vestigial’ as ‘degenerate or atrophied, having become functionless in the course of evolution.’ Some evolutionists now re-define ‘vestigial’ to mean simply ‘reduced or altered in function.’ Thus even valuable, functioning organs (consistent with design) might now be called ‘vestigial.’ Creationists should not let evolutionists change the rules when they lose. Return to text.
- R. Wiedersheim claimed that there were over 180 rudimentary organs in the human body, of which 86 were vestigial, in The Structure of Man: an Index to his Past History; translated by H. and M. Bernard, Macmillan, London, 1895. Return to text.
- Bergman J., and Howe, G., ‘Vestigial Organs’ Are Fully Functional, Creation Research Society Books, Kansas City, p. 77, 1990; Murris, H.R., ‘Vestigial organs: A creationist re-investigation,’ Origins (Journal of the Biblical Creation Society) 5(13):10–15, 1992; see also ‘Vestigial’ Organs: What do they prove? Return to text..
- ReMine, W.J., The Biotic Message, St. Paul Science, St. Paul, MN, USA, 1993; see review. Return to text.Become Society’s Role Model
Reminding ourselves to stay humble in a society that breeds competition, dominance and a race to the top can be a challenge if not practiced daily. Being humble will make you feel good about yourself, attract more positive people into your life and will allow you to demonstrate to others that being humble is awesome!
The benefits of being humble:
- You will be able to better cope with anxiety
- You will become a better leader and more people will like you
- You will develop a higher self-control and a better work performance
- You will become more tolerant of others and less defensive about your own beliefs
- You will achieve higher grades
- You will be more helpful with others and develop stronger relationships
- You will become more generous
Do not let society mold you into a person you are not. It is okay to be competitive and strive for success, but do it fashionably, by staying humble and becoming a role model for others. People will replicate your behavior if you demonstrate a kind and humble persona and this is what will help society become a better place. We need as many humble people in The DSM Ready Movement as possible.
Are you Ready? (This is Defeating Stigma Mindfully)Case Study – 3 Questions on a video
CEMEX was founded in Mexico in 1906. It is the world’s largest building materials supplier and the third largest cement producer. In 1999, CEMEX launched Patrimonio Hoy, offering do-ityourself construction services to low-income households.
Consider the following questions as you watch the video below:
1. Why should we consider this an example of social entrepreneurship?
2. What was new and different about this social intrapreneurial venture?
3. What were the needs it addressed?
Compose your response to these questions using a maximum of 2 pages 1½ spaced. Use sources including the one below the video.Maximum landing weight
The maximum landing weight (MLW) is the maximum aircraft gross weight due to design or operational limitations at which an aircraft is permitted to land. The MLW is set in order to ensure safe landings; if an aircraft weighs too heavy during touchdown, it may suffer structural damage or even break apart upon landing. Aircraft also have a maximum take-off weight, which is almost always higher than the maximum landing weight, so that an aircraft can weigh less upon landing due to burning fuel during the flight.(5:28)
The operation landing weight may be limited to a weight lower than the maximum landing weight by the most restrictive of the following requirements:
- Aircraft performance requirements for a given altitude and temperature:
- landing field length requirements,
- approach and landing climb requirements.
- Noise requirements
If the flight has been of short duration, usually due to an emergency just after takeoff, it may be necessary to dump fuel to reduce the landing weight. Some aircraft are unable to dump fuel, however. For example, on 3 February 2020, Air Canada Flight 837, a Boeing 767-300, suffered a rear tyre failure during take-off at Madrid–Barajas Airport on its way to Toronto, causing its left engine to catch fire. The pilots managed to extinguish it by shutting the engine down, but as 767-300s are not designed for fuel dumping, it had to stay in a single-engine holding pattern for over 4 hours to burn fuel and achieve its maximum landing weight, while an SAF fighter reported minimal damage to the landing gear. The plane landed safely and nobody was injured.
Sometimes the emergency may be so pressing that the aircraft has no time to dump or burn fuel in order to achieve its maximum landing weight before touchdown; in that case, a risky overweight landing may be permitted. In other cases, the flight crew may fail to dump fuel when it still had the time to do so before landing, leading to fatal accidents such as Aeroflot Flight 1492 on 5 May 2019, where an apparently needlessly overweight landing turned into a crash that killed 41 of the 78 people on board.
Where aircraft overweight landing is permitted, a structural inspection or evaluation of the touch-down loads before the next aircraft operation will be required in case damage has occurred.
- "Desperate Escape | Crashing Just After Landing in Moscow | Aeroflot Flight 1492". The Flight Channel. 22 October 2020. Retrieved 27 October 2020. CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
- Redmond Shannon (3 February 2020). "Air Canada flight forced to make emergency landing in Madrid". Global News. Retrieved 15 October 2020. CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
- Travis Fedschun (16 April 2020). "Moscow plane crash: New video emerges of fatal accident in Russia". News.com.au. Retrieved 27 October 2020. CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)Hilary Maricle’s passion for food began in childhood as she helped her parents run their own grocery store. Get to know Hilary, now a farmer and a mother of five, as she discusses why food prices fluctuate and how farmers like her are impacted by these changes.Play Video
Reputably Sourced Food Facts
Fill up on data-driven food and farming information from resources that know the field. Don’t see your question answered here? Contact us and we’ll help you find the facts you need.
Are U.S. Food Prices High?
Families in the United States are fortunate. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service (ERS), Americans only spend an average of 6.7 percent of our income on food prepared at home. Comparatively, citizens in countries such as Mexico, China, India and Russia spend an average of over 25 percent of their income on food at home.1 Food in our country remains relatively inexpensive, and we have a wide variety in choices.
- http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-expenditures.aspx#26654 (Table 1: Food and alcoholic expenditures: Total expenditures)
Why Do Food Prices Rise?
Food prices rise due to the cost of inputs. The federal government points out that food prices increase in correlation with higher transportation, processing, packaging and marketing costs, as well as production costs and adverse weather.1
Do Farmers Make More Money When Food Prices Are Higher?
In 1950, farmers received more than 40 cents from every food dollar spent. Now the farm share of every dollar spent on food is 15.5 cents. According to the ERS, that amount is then divided to pay for services and supplies the farmer needs to grow the food.1Our Mission Statement
The Department of Earth Science at UCSB conducts field studies in diverse regions ranging from the tallest mountain peaks of the Himalayas, the wilderness of Antarctica, to the vast undiscovered depths of the ocean floor. Our graduate and undergraduate students participate directly in the excitement of exploring terra incognita. Taught by a distinguished and dedicated faculty (including several members of the National Academy of Sciences, and winners of the UCSB Distinguished Teaching Award), students discover the unfolding planetary drama of which they are part.
Our Earth is a water-rich rocky planet that has given rise to abundant and diverse life. We study the whole Earth system, focusing on interactions between the solid earth, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere, and on the historical evolution of the Earth system throughout geologic time. We explore ongoing terrestrial, marine, and interior Earth processes that are taking place today, and we examine the geologic record to illuminate the past behavior and changing properties of our planet over timescales ranging from centuries to billions of years. We use knowledge about active processes to read the rocky record of the past and seek clues to the origins of Earth's features and life. From the record of the past, we extrapolate to predict global changes that will affect people in the future. We discover the marvels of our home planet at spatial scales ranging from the atomic to the interplanetary through observations, measurements, experiments and models.
Layered Quartzite at Henry's Creek (photo credit: Helen Thomas)
The Department of Earth Science believes earth science is an important part of a student's education. An appreciation of the Earth and its systems is vital to understanding everyday problems such as pollution, limited energy resources, and geologic hazards. Our outreach program to local schools includes classroom visits, department tours and the development of educational materials based on local geology.
The Department of Earth Science is committed to enriching geoscience education in our local community. We conduct department tours, present talks to visiting students and travel to local schools if visiting UCSB is not possible.
We are pleased to bring you a variety of computer software available as freeware for use by teachers in their classrooms. Plate motion animations by Professor Tanya Atwater are available via Tanya's website.
For information pertaining to scheduling a Department visit or for questions concerning the Atwater animations, please telephone 893-3329 or email UCSB Earth Science Outreach.
The internationally prized collection of minerals and gem crystals featured on this web site and displayed in the Department of Earth Science at UC Santa Barbara, was a generous gift from the Bancroft family. Edward R. Bancroft, a teacher and gem cutter, offered the collection to the department, and Ed's parents—Peter Bancroft, class of '41, and his wife, Virginia—had a case especially designed and built to display the specimens.
For more than 50 years, the Bancroft family has had a close friendship with UCSB, contributing valuable minerals, gems, and fossils to geology, and a variety of other unique educational collections.
“Edward chose UCSB as the home for the collection because of our great affection for the university and its faculty, which developed while I was a student at the Riviera campus where Virginia worked,” said Peter Bancroft, who holds an undergraduate degree in education from UCSB when it was a state college.
Peter Bancroft's most memorable professor was the late geologist Charles Douglas Woodhouse, a mineralogist who was deeply committed to his students.
“When there was no money to pay his salary, Woodhouse taught for free," said Bancroft, a retired educator and an author of books about minerals. "His dedication to students so impressed us.”
History of the Department of Geology, Geological Sciences, and Earth Science, University Of California, Santa Barbara
1938 - 2010 by Arthur Gibbs Sylvester
- The Riviera Years: 1938-1954
- The Pre-Major Years: 1954-1959
- The Growth Years: 1960-1980
- The Decade of Diversification: The 1980s
- Even More Diversification: 1990-2010
- Physical Plant
- Summer Field Camp
- Geology 18
- Faculty Development
- Department Chairs
- Awards and Benefactors
- FACULTY SKETCHES
- GEOLOGY 104A TAs and Instructors (1972-2003)
Visiting the Department
We encourage you to visit the Department of Earth Science. To enhance the productivity of your visit, it is best to arrange your visit through a faculty member. To do so, please contact a member of our faculty by email or phone. If you are visting UCSB, there are campus tours available. You can also plan your visit at SantaBarbaraCA.com.
Our World and National Rankings
#5 Public University
UCSB ranks number 5 among all public universities in U.S. News and World Report's 2019 “Best Colleges” guide, the most widely read college guide in the country.
#1 Green school
Princeton Review ranked UC Santa Barbara as the No. 1 Green School among public universities in their 2015 Guide to 353 Green Colleges. Bren Hall, which houses the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, is among the “greenest” buildings in the nation, earning triple LEED Platinum certification — the highest sustainability rating possible — from the U.S. Green Building Council. In fact, our campus has the largest portfolio of LEED-certified buildings in the UC system.
6 Nobel Laureates
34 American Academy of the Arts and Sciences Members
29 National Academy of Engineering Members
In their most recent report on the Best Graduate Schools, US News and World Report ranked UC Santa Barbara #11 in Geology and #19 in Earth Science nationally. Worldwide, They ranked our program #39.
The UK Times Higher Education "World University Rankings" ranked UC Santa Barbara's Program # 20 in the world in physical sciences.Imagine the steeplechase. Such a beautiful, mad idea. Race you to the next church tower and back. Ride over anything in the way. Fields. Fences. Rivers. The course will be the land and the land will be the course. Everything allowed except roads. What could be more simple? Or more brave?
The Irish came up with it. The first recorded steeplechase was run between the Church of Buttevant, in County Cork, and the spire of St. Leger’s, four and a half miles away. That was in 1752, more than a century after flat racing — “the sport of kings” — had become popular with English monarchs and their courts, gathered on the sunny, wide turfs of Suffolk and Hampshire to see the magnificent speed of horses brought over from Arabia and Tangiers.
This was different. Improvised dashes, over stiff country, with hefty bets between young aristocrats, daredevils, and cavalry captains on leave. The horses were big and deep through the heart. Some races were 20 miles long, others run through the fog and the rain. The only witnesses were startled farmers, maybe their daughters. The fashion spread to England, and so did the drama. Captain Arthur Smith leapt inadvertently into a gravel pit. A horse called Chandler reportedly jumped 39 feet over a river in Warwick. There were washouts — “tumbledown races” — where nobody finished. An early attempt to run a steeplechase outside the growing port city of Liverpool, a place connected for millennia with Ireland, a hundred miles over the sea, took place in January 1836. Mr. Nelson and Mr. Blake agreed to race from a village called Aintree, set in the ancestral lands of the Earl of Sefton, to Crosby, near the coast. But the race was a bust. They barely got out of the village before Nelson’s horse fell and broke a leg. They had to shoot it and go home.
So it was some risk — to say the least — when William Lynn, a local hotelier, attempted to draw a crowd of thousands to a much bigger, grander, and more expensive steeplechase on the same spot just more than a month later. Lynn needed something to go right. He had been running horse races on Lord Sefton’s land for the people of Liverpool for seven years. He had built a grandstand and seen off the competition — another course down the road at Maghull — but it had cost him. Now he needed box office.
It’s unclear why Lynn chose a steeplechase. Can you think of a worse spectator sport for February in northern England? The air is reliably freezing and dull, and the whole point of a steeplechase was that it was strung out over miles. There was nothing to see, except in the single moment when the horses passed in a mud-flying blur. Besides, even if it was exciting, steeplechasing was hardly respectable. Unlike flat racing, with its studbook and Jockey Club, the sport was unregulated, the “recognised refuge of all outcasts, human and equine, from the legitimate Turf,” according to the 1886 book Racing and Steeplechasing. Gentlemen rode under false names.
But maybe that’s what tempted Lynn. Liverpool in the 1830s was no royal picnic. It was miles of dirty docks, blooming in the guts of the Industrial Revolution. Trade had grown fortyfold in two generations. The city was thick with immigrants and smoke. It was a dystopia of railways, warehouses, and cranes, a new kind of economic machine held together — oddly enough — by horses. Twenty thousand animals worked in the port, heaving the cotton and sugar and hardwoods. Maybe he thought the novelty and equine bravery of the steeplechase would strike a nerve with these people? Or maybe Lynn was persuaded by the big draw of his races for the last few years, Captain Martin Becher, the best jump jockey in the country? Maybe the Earl himself thought it was worth a go. Sefton was a huge man. A hunchback. A gambler. His nickname was “Lord Dashalong” because his carriage was pulled by four galloping horses.
Lynn went to it. He would organize Liverpool’s municipal feasts until his death in 1870, and he had ideas about spectacle. He plotted a course with promising difficulties — ditches, ploughed fields, a stone wall — and made it triangular, just more than two miles long. The horses would go around twice, passing in front of his grandstand each time. Lynn got lucky with the weather on the day of his race — February 29. It was fine and clear and thousands came. The rich saw pratfalls through telescopes and Becher won by a length on The Duke. (The runner-up had a gate closed in his way by the crowd.)
It’s bloody thankless, though, the race game. The following year, the novelty had worn off. Lynn got fewer runners. There was competition from St Alban’s — supposedly the finest steeplechase in the country — and Liverpool’s do-gooders were on his back. They said the race was cruel. The city withdrew its sponsorship. By 1839, Lynn had sunk £20,000 into his racecourse and he was desperate. He made one last play, relaunching his race as “The Liverpool Great Steeple Chase” and bumping up the prize money. It worked. Seventeen runners competed in a wonderful race. Captain Becher, sensationally, was thrown in a brook; he remounted, and was thrown again. A horse called Lottery, which had been trained jumping over garden chairs, leapt the fences “as if from a springboard” and beat out two Irish favorites. The winning time was 14 minutes and 53 seconds. Everyone was hooked. The Grand National — Britain’s favorite horse race — was born. Lynn went bankrupt.
Vulnerabilities We All Share
The better part of two centuries later, when I headed north to watch this year’s race, almost everything had changed. Liverpool’s docks have died and gone to a blank, postindustrial heaven, a place of oral histories and tapas bars. A bronze cart horse stands near the water, in memory of the city’s absent animals, and the Earl of Sefton’s lands have morphed into “Sefton,” a neighborhood of small, fantastically neat houses and the dross of mechanics and retail parks. Bike lanes are painted on the roads.
At Aintree, Lynn’s racecourse bulges over the roofs. The single grandstand has become five and his race is long fixed in the sporting imagination of this country. After 177 years, Grand National Saturday is the Christmas Day of the British racing calendar. There are more refined occasions — the Epsom Derby and Cheltenham Gold Cup feature younger, faster horses, less chaos, and more connections to the global sport of horse racing — but the Grand National is what the punters turn out for. Seventy thousand people stand on Aintree’s mounds and temporary terraces to watch the big screens and see the tiny movements in the distance. Half the British adult population places a bet — £300m in a normal year. Most amazingly, in a sporting environment almost wrecked by the mega-monoculture of soccer, the Grand National draws a massive domestic television audience. Last year it was 12 million viewers, larger than the figure for 2012’s FA Cup final, which is England’s Super Bowl. The rest of the world can do what it wants, but for nine minutes, Britain stops for a horse race. Screams. Covers its eyes.
To rinse as much revenue as possible from this experience, the National is now the climax of three days of jump racing. It was Wednesday, the day before this buildup begins, and the place was consumed in the preparation of food and drink. Champagne and beer were being carted around in the cold, bitter sunshine. Every third person was some kind of chef, and a receptionist was taking calls about the dress code. “It’s smart casual,” she said. “Just no trainers.” It was how I imagine the scene backstage at one of those mass weddings conducted by the late Reverend Sun Myung Moon. The Grand National’s sponsor, a beer called John Smith’s, had wrapped the stairways of one of the stands in fabric to make them look like giant cans.
At the base of the cans, however, there was a lick of green, a sight of the turf whose “light, springy nature” brought Lynn to Aintree in the first place. Part of the National’s appeal still flows from the formative genius of steeplechase. There is something primal, something that confuses your heart in the sight of 40 horses and riders pouring over senseless obstacles, pounding over four and a half miles of grass on the cusp of England’s contrary spring. Although the course has changed considerably — the stone wall went in 1844; jumps were given inclines in 1961; a concrete plinth next to “The Chair” (the largest jump on the course, 5 feet, 2 inches tall and 11 feet wide) was moved in 1993 — the Aintree fences are still the largest, and most ludicrous, of any racecourse in the country. Horses do not just fall here. They skid and trip and sink to their knees. They take off too early, they take wrong turns, and they take off too late. They crash in midair. Jockeys go flying like socks thrown across a room.
The rest of the power, of course, lies in repetition. With each year, the National weaves its myth a little further. Interrupted by war and other cock-ups, there have been 165 runnings and each contains a story. A few are imperious: In 1935, Golden Miller became (and still is) the only horse to win the Grand National and the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the official championship race of Britain’s steeplechase season, in the same year. The greater part of National lore, however, has nothing to do with perfection. It tells you a lot about the race that Captain Becher is not celebrated for winning it but for falling in a ditch. “Becher’s Brook,” the most notorious fence on the course, where the horses jump on an angle, leaping 4 feet, 10 inches in the air only to come down almost 6 feet on the other side, is his monument.
Grand National stories are about vulnerabilities that we share
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