The fight continues
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the pleas to review the capital sentences of three assailants in a notorious gang rape and murder of a young college student that shook India in 2012, bringing them one step closer to eventual execution. Many will see this as a natural justice. The Nirbhaya incident shocked nation and forced government to bring in more stringent laws in order to protect the women. There was hope that sacrifice of Nirbhaya will not go in vain and country will become safer for women due to implementation of stricter laws.
In the years since, women's advocates say that the Nirbhaya case raised awareness, prompting more women to come forward if they're abused or assaulted, with authorities responding to the concerns with more closed-circuit security cameras and fast track courts for crimes against women. However question mark hinges over effectiveness of these courts. Also according to government crime data, the number of reported rapes continues to rise – from about 25,000 in 2012 to 38,000 in 2016. Earlier this year because of the continues rise in number of rape case, the union cabinet approved an emergency ordinance allowing the death penalty for the gang rape of children under the age of 12. However, one wonders whether it will have desired impact in years to come. Formulation of stringent law alone will not curb such heinous crime. The Indian society also needs to change its mentality towards the women.


How to Tell What Year a Schwinn Sting-Ray Bike Is?
How to Tell What Year a Schwinn Sting-Ray Bike Is?
There's an easy way and a more time-consuming method to find out the year your Schwinn Stingray was made. Modern Stingrays -- those made in the 21st century -- have a date code stamped into a specific area of the bike. Date codes, if you know how to read them, will tell you what year Schwinn manufactured the bike. Older, classic Stingrays do not have date codes. Instead, you will have to find and use their serial numbers to determine their manufacturing year.
21st Century Stingrays
Flip your bike over and look for a date code imprinted in the metal of the frame near the left pedal.
Wipe dirt and oil from the date code, if necessary, so you can read it accurately.
Check the last two characters in the date code. If they are "JD," Schwinn manufactured the bike in 2004. If they are "JG," Schwinn manufactured the bike in 2007.
Classic Stingrays
Locate the bike's serial number. It will be on the head tube, the A-frame or the seat tube.
Wipe dirt and oil from the serial number, if necessary, so you can read it accurately. Write it down.
Call a Schwinn representative and tell her the serial number. She will be able to tell you the year the bike was made. Otherwise, you can find online databases that match Schwinn serial numbers to manufacturing dates.
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- Automated mapping function using automated stage generates a film thickness heat-map
- Measure and provide the film thickness and optical parameter distribution of up to φ300mm substrate automatically with programmable R-θ stage.
- High-speed measurement
- Snapshot measurement is achieved by spectroscopic ellipsometry in conjunction with high-order wave plates accomplishing a measurement time of 20ms per data point.
- Users can easily edit and add material table files to create a custom material database
- Capable of multi-layer film thickness measurement
- Measure transparent or semi-transparent thin film thicknesses and optical parameters on substrates less than or equal to φ300mm (Oxidation film, nitride film, photo resist film, ITO etc.)

source: m-a-p/FineFineWeb


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Development Of A Location-factor-matrix For Sustainable Business Locations
Free (open access)
407 - 415
M. Pajones, T. Steiner, N. Hackner-Jaklin
Modern company strategies show that the issue of sustainability, for example in terms of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports, became a significant aspect. However, related to the process of location planning, companies do not take sustainability into consideration. In consolidation of strategies in business economics, key objectives in spatial development and traffic planning, a sustainable business location should be generated. As no definition of the term "sustainable business area" exists so far, an inevitable step for further development is to create one, which is presented in this paper. Another aim is to identify essential location factors, which have an impact on the economic-, ecologicaland social sustainability of business locations. A qualitative analysis of interdependencies demonstrates the substantial connections between these factors. In the course of an organized workshop, experts in freight logistics, spatial planning, traffic planning and sustainability discussed the essential location factors and their impact on sustainability. The output was a so called location-factor-matrix for business locations. In a next step, the interdependencies among the defined location factors and their roles in the system have been indicated with the help of the impact matrix by Vester. Another substantial step further along the line will be the development of sustainability criteria or indices, which allow a classification of the business location. These findings will be an essential input for a location-factors-based evaluation and planning system.
sustainability, location factors, sustainable business location, sustainable development, sustainability dimensions, impact matrix

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


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Since 1919, the National Weather Service has take measurements from the castle's tower with the aid of scientific instruments that measure wind speed and direction. In a fenced-in compound just south of the castle, other data such as the rainfall is recorded and sent to the weather service's forecast office at Brookhaven National Library on Long Island.
Before it was equipped with meteorological equipment, Belvedere Castle was a Victorian folly. Calvert Vaux, co-designer of Central Park, created the miniature castle in 1869 as one of its many whimsical structures intended as a lookout to the reservoir to the north (now the Great Lawn) and the Ramble to the south.
After decades of deterioration, the Central Park Conservancy renovated and reopened the castle in 1983.


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UCLA's Pediatric Cancer Predisposition Clinic offers enhanced care to children with hereditary cancer
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UCLA Pediatric Cancer Predisposition ClinicMore than 12,500 children and adolescents under the age of 20 are diagnosed with cancer each year in the United States. New research suggests that as many as 30 percent of children with cancer may have genetic mutations that predispose them to developing cancer at a young age.
The UCLA Pediatric Cancer Predisposition Clinic is one of a few centers in the nation that offers advanced exome sequencing technology for clinical testing of children who may have a genetic predisposition to cancer. Because most pediatric cancers are not hereditary, the program focuses on children who have a strong family history of cancer; physical signs that suggest a potential predisposition to cancer (hemihyperplasia, macrocephaly); or have any of about 50 rare genetic syndromes that are associated with pediatric cancer predisposition such as Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, neurofibromatosis and Li-Fraumeni syndrome. Our team of geneticists, genetic counselors, pediatric oncologists and social workers provides children and families with state-of-the-art genetic tests, personalized cancer surveillance plans and compassionate psychosocial support.
Genetic testing offers several benefits
Diagnosing a genetic predisposition to cancer benefits children and their families in several ways. Cancer screening can result in earlier detection and improved outcomes. Genetic information enhances patient care by alerting pediatricians to the possible presence of other conditions known to accompany an underlying mutation. An accurate diagnosis can also suggest the presence of additional, often treatable, syndromes known to accompany the primary condition. Genetic information also helps couples plan their families and their future.
Exome sequencing is more efficient and less expensive than other genetic tests
UCLA has been a leader in advanced genetic testing techniques such as whole-exome sequencing, a technically challenging test that involves sequencing the protein-coding portions of a patient's genome. Vastly more efficient than older genetic testing options, exome sequencing allows physicians to determine which mutations might be leading to a patient's cancer using the results of a single blood test. The sequencing technology, which is more convenient and less expensive than sequential testing of individual genes, identifies changes or mutations in all of an individual's genes using bioinformatic tools. Members of our data genomics board, who have conducted more than 200 exome sequencing cases to date, review and interpret the data - which can include 22,000 variations in a single exome - looking for disease-associated mutations. UCLA is the only major medical center in California that
offers an exome sequencing service.
Services offered by the Pediatric Cancer Predisposition Clinic
When a child is referred to the UCLA Pediatric Cancer Predisposition Clinic, genetic counselors and geneticists perform an in-depth family history that includes the birth, developmental and medical histories of the child and any siblings. If there is a strong family history of cancer, the child's parents and other family members may be referred to our adult clinic for screening. Our geneticists also perform a thorough dysmorphology exam to determine if the child has any malformations or other physical findings that could be associated with a genetic syndrome.
With a single blood test, children who exhibit patterns that suggest a genetic predisposition to cancer can receive a genetic diagnosis through whole-exome sequencing. Genetic information helps our oncologists design a personal cancer surveillance program using advanced MRIs, ultrasounds and other tools to find the kinds of tumors the child is at risk for developing. When we diagnose a genetic condition, in addition to providing care for the child, we also help identify other family members who may be at risk for developing the same condition.
Genetic testing for high-risk children
Children with solid tumor cancers of the eye, kidney or liver and those with certain sarcomas or adrenal tumors are more likely to have hereditary cancer and should undergo genetic testing - especially if there is a strong family history of cancer.
"Young people typically don't get these kinds of cancer," says Julian A. Martinez-Agosto, MD, PhD, a pediatric medical geneticist. "If a young person is diagnosed with a solid tumor cancer, there may be a genetic reason for it."
The UCLA Pediatric Cancer Predisposition Clinic provides advanced whole-exome genetic sequencing to children at risk of hereditary cancer. It also offers children and their families excellent psychosocial support and a chance to participate in clinical trials designed to develop effective cancer surveillance programs for the pediatric population.
"Most of the studies about how to prevent cancer from developing involve adults," says UCLA pediatric oncologist Vivian Y. Chang, MD. "We want to learn what are the most effective cancer surveillance programs in children so that we can not only catch cancers early, but hopefully to prevent them altogether one day."
Team Members
Julian Martinez-Agosto, MD, PhD, FACMG, FAAP
Co-Director, Pediatric Cancer Predisposition Clinic
Medical Geneticist
Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA
Vivian Y. Chang, MD, MS
Co-Director, Pediatric Cancer Predisposition Clinic
Pediatric Hematologist-Oncologist
Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA
Tom Davidson, MD
Director of Pediatric Neuro-Oncology
Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA
Naghmeh Dorrani, MS, LCGC
Genetic Counselor
Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA
Erin O'Leary, MS, LCGC
Genetic Counselor
Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center
Margie Weiman, RN, MSN
Sarcoma Clinical Nurse Specialist
Pediatric Hematology-Oncology
Marla Knoll, MSW and Wendy Markovich, MSW
Social Workers
Pediatric Hematology-Oncology
Hillary Zebberman, MSW
Social Worker
Pediatric Medical Genetics
Contact Information
Please call _PHONE_ for questions or to schedule an appointment. Patient referrals can be faxed to _PHONE_.
Add a comment
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Wuvulu Island (also known as Mary Island, Matty, Maty Island, Tiger Island, Tiger-Inseln and Wuwulu) is part of the Western Islands of the Bismarck Archipelago in the western Pacific Ocean, part of Manus Province, Papua New Guinea. It is the westernmost island of the thirteen island groups that make up island chain in the archipelago. It is an island of volcanic origin encircled by a coral reef with a maximum height of three meters (10 feet) above sea level.
The first sighting by Europeans of Wuvulu Island was by the Spanish navigator Iñigo Órtiz de Retes on 27 July 1545 when on board of the carrack San Juan tried to return from Tidore to New Spain. He charted this island together with the nearby islands, Aua and Manu, as La Barbada (the bearded island in Spanish).
|This Papua New Guinea-related geography article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.|


text:
native get_cvar_string(const cvarname, output, iLen);
Cvar name to retrieve value from
Buffer to copy cvar value to
Maximum size of the buffer
Gets a string value from a cvar. The cvar is accessed by name.
Accessing a Cvar by name is slower than direct pointer access, which is why the otherwise equivalent get_pcvar_string() function should be used instead.
Number of cells written to buffer.


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 - Research
 - Open Access
Positive periodic solution for Nicholson-type delay systems with impulsive effects
Advances in Difference Equations20152015:371
_URL_
 - Received: 4 June 2015
 - Accepted: 19 November 2015
 - Published:
Abstract
In this paper, a class of Nicholson-type delay systems with impulsive effects is considered. First, an equivalence relation between the solution (or positive periodic solution) of a Nicholson-type delay system with impulsive effects and that of the corresponding Nicholson-type delay system without impulsive effects is established. Then, by applying the cone fixed point theorem, some criteria are established for the existence and uniqueness of positive periodic solutions of the given systems. Finally, an example and its simulation are provided to illustrate the main results. Our results extend and improve greatly some earlier works reported in the literature.
Keywords
 - Nicholson-type systems
 - positive periodic solutions
 - delay
 - impulsive effect
 - cone fixed point theorem
1 Introduction
To describe the population of the Australian sheep-blowfly and to agree with the experimental data obtained in [1], Gurney et al. [2] proposed the following Nicholson blowflies model:
$$ N'(t)=-\delta N(t)+PN(t-\tau)e^{-aN(t-\tau)}, $$
(1.1)
where \(N(t)\) is the size of the population at time t, P is the maximum per capita daily egg production, \(\frac{1}{a}\) is the size at which the population reproduces at its maximum rate, δ is the per capita daily adult death rate, and τ is the generation time. Nicholson's blowflies model and many generalized Nicholson's blowflies models have attracted more attention because of their extensively realistic significance; see [39]. Recently, in order to describe the models of marine protected areas and B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia dynamics, which are examples of Nicholson-type delay differential systems, Berezansky et al. [10], Wang et al. [11], and Liu [12] studied the following Nicholson-type delay systems:
$$ \left \{ \textstyle\begin{array}{@{}l} N'_{1}(t) =-\alpha_{1}(t)N_{1}(t)+\beta_{1}(t)N_{2}(t)+\sum_{j=1}^{m} c_{1j}(t)N_{1}(t-\tau_{1j}(t))e^{-\gamma_{1j}(t)N_{1}(t-\tau_{1j}(t))},\\ N'_{2}(t) =-\alpha_{2}(t)N_{2}(t)+\beta_{2}(t)N_{1}(t)+\sum_{j=1}^{m} c_{2j}(t)N_{2}(t-\tau_{2j}(t))e^{-\gamma_{2j}(t)N_{2}(t-\tau_{2j}(t))}, \end{array}\displaystyle \right . $$
(1.2)
where \(\alpha_{i}(t), \beta_{i}(t), c_{ij}(t), \gamma_{ij}(t), \tau_{ij}(t)\in C(R, (0,\infty))\), \(i=1,2\), \(j=1,2,\ldots, m\). For constant coefficients and delays, Berezansky et al. [10] presented several results for the permanence and globally asymptotic stability of system (1.2). Supposing that \(\alpha_{i}(t)\), \(\beta_{i}(t)\), \(c_{ij}(t)\), \(\gamma_{ij}(t)\), and \(\tau_{ij}(t)\) are almost periodic functions, Wang et al. [11] obtained some criteria to ensure that the solutions of system (1.2) converge locally exponentially to a positive almost periodic solution. Furthermore, Liu [12] established some criteria for the existence and uniqueness of a positive periodic solution of system (1.2) by applying the method of the Lyapunov function.
However, species living in certain medium might undergo abrupt change of state at certain moments, and this occurs due to some seasonal effects such as weather change, food supply, and mating habits. That is to say, besides delays, impulsive effects likewise exist widely in many evolution processes. In the last two decades, the theory of impulsive differential equations has been extensively investigated due to its widespread applications [1316].
Therefore, it is more realistic to investigate Nicholson-type delay systems with impulsive effects. However, to the best of our knowledge, few authors [17] have considered the conditions for existence and uniqueness of positive periodic solution for system (1.2) with impulsive effects. Thus, techniques and methods on the existence and uniqueness of a positive periodic solution for system (1.2) with impulsive effects should be developed and explored.
In this paper, we consider the following class of Nicholson-type delay systems with impulsive effects:
$$ \left \{ \textstyle\begin{array}{@{}l} y'_{1}(t) =-\alpha_{1}(t)y_{1}(t)+\beta_{1}(t)y_{2}(t)+\sum_{j=1}^{m} c_{1j}(t)y_{1}(t-\tau_{1j}(t))e^{-\gamma_{1j}(t)y_{1}(t-\tau_{1j}(t))},\\ y'_{2}(t) =-\alpha_{2}(t)y_{2}(t)+\beta_{2}(t)y_{1}(t)+\sum_{j=1}^{m} c_{2j}(t)y_{2}(t-\tau_{2j}(t))e^{-\gamma_{2j}(t)y_{2}(t-\tau _{2j}(t))},\\ \quad t\geq t_{0}>0, t\neq t_{k},\\ y_{i}(t^{+}_{k})=(1+b_{k})y_{i}(t_{k}),\quad t\geq t_{0}, t=t_{k} i=1,2, k=1,2,\ldots, \end{array}\displaystyle \right . $$
(1.3)
where \(\alpha_{i}(t),\beta_{i}(t),c_{ij}(t),\gamma_{ij}(t),\tau_{ij}(t)\in C([0,\infty),(0,\infty))\), \(i=1,2\), \(j=1,2,\ldots,m\). \(\triangle y_{i}(t_{k})=y_{i}(t^{+}_{k})-y_{i}(t^{-}_{k})\) are the impulses at moments \(t_{k}\).
In Equation (1.3), we shall use the following hypotheses:
(H1):
\(0< t_{0}< t_{1}< t_{2}< \cdots\), \(t_{i}\), \(i=1,2,\ldots\) are fixed impulsive points with \(\lim_{k\rightarrow\infty}t_{k}=\infty\);
(H2):
\(\{b_{k}\}\) is a real sequence, and \(b_{k}>-1\), \(k=1,2,\ldots\) ;
(H3):
\(\alpha_{i}(t)\), \(\beta_{i}(t)\), \(c_{ij}(t)\), \(\gamma_{ij}(t)\),


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Market Research Report
North America Feed Pigments Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)
|North America Feed Pigments Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)|
Published: January 17, 2022
Mordor Intelligence Pvt Ltd
Content info: 120 Pages
Delivery time: 2-3 business days
The North America Feed Pigments market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 2.7% during the forecast period (2020-2025). Feed pigments are essential to feed additives that improve the commercial value of animal feed by imparting attractive color to products obtained from animals. Furthermore, they improve palatability and immunity, curing multiple livestock diseases. The animal disease outbreaks such as African Swine fever virus, foot, mouth, and mad cow disease have stimulated awareness for healthy livestock among consumers. Thus, boosting the Feed pigment market in this region. The United States is the largest feed producer in the region. The key drivers for this market include increasing demand for meat production, rising disposable incomes, shifting inclination towards pellet feed consumption, and increasing consumer awareness regarding livestock health. The key players in the marker are Novus International, BASF SE, DSM Animal Nutrition, Kemin Industries Inc., Nutrex NV, and Synthite Industries Ltd.
Increasing demand for high animal protein food has created a need for enhancing the production of meat in North America. According to the Organisation for economic cooperation and development (OECD), Consumption of beef meat in the United States is raised to 12,566 tonnes in 2019 from 12.179 tonnes in 2018. In the United States, the per capita consumption of pork meat, beef meat, and poultry meat accounted for 23.3 kilograms, 26.7 kilograms, and 50.1 kilograms respectively in the year 2019. Also, the poultry meat is the highest consumed in Canada that amounted to 33.9 kilograms followed by beef and veal with the per capita consumption of 17.6 kilograms in the same year. As per ITC Trade Map, Canada is the largest importer of poultry in the region with USD 61,770 thousand, and the United States is the largest importer of Swine with USD 313,744 thousand in 2019. The increasing demand for meat has further boosted the demand for feed pigments in the region.
The United States is the largest producer of animal feed in the region owing to the growing trend of mass production of livestock. According to FAO, in 2016 cattle and buffaloes population was 91.8 million that has increased to 94.2 million and the poultry bird population increased from 2225.07 million to 2225.50 million during the same period. The rise in the animal population in the country has resulted in an increase in the production of animal feed for different species. According to the Alltech, the feed production in the country was 214 million metric tons of which poultry feed production was the highest amounting to 62.6 million metric tons, followed by beef and pig feed that accounted for 61.09 million metric tons and 44.86 million metric tons respectively in the year 2019. The feed pigments are given along with the other feed additives to the animals to improve the color of the meat and egg. Some of the factors like consumers' preferences towards the color of the meat along with the quality, which is the prime factor considered while purchasing meat will enhance the feed pigments market.
The North America feed pigment market is consolidated with a few major players dominating the market. The key players in the marker are Novus International, BASF SE, DSM Animal Nutrition, Kemin Industries Inc., Nutrex NV, and Synthite Industries Ltd. These firms are coming with new products in this segment to build a huge presence and gain a strong customer base in the market. In March 2019, Kemin Animal Nutrition and Health launched Organic KEM GLO™ in the line of carotenoids. Organic KEM GLO is a USDA-certified organic additive that uniformly distributes color throughout the feed and helps organic egg producers intensify the color of egg yolks. The product launch expands the product portfolio of the firm and also enables it to serve the growing demand for natural ingredients.


Ophiothrix angulata (Say, 1825)
Family: Ophiothricidae
Common names: Angular Brittle Star, more...
Synonyms: Ophiothrix angulata atrolineata HL Clark, 1918, more...
Ophiothrix angulata image
Ophiothrix angulata
Species Description: Ophiothrix angulata is a member of the class Ophiuroidea that includes the brittle stars and the basket stars. The angular brittle star shares the basic body plan of most members of the Echinodermata with a center disc surrounded by 5 unbranched articulated arms. The spines found along the length of the arms are two times longer than the arm width. The arms have tube feet that are used for locomotion and feeding (Brusca and Brusca 1990). O. angulata is reported to be a highly variable species and it is often difficult to distinguish it from among its congeners. The color of angular brittle star is reported to vary depending upon where it is found (Stancyk and Shaffer 1977). In Florida populations, it often appears orange-red in color with a white line on the anterior of each arm.
Regional Occurrence: The angular brittle star occurs in the western Atlantic from North Carolina to Brazil at depths of 1 - 200 m (Stancyk and Shaffer 1977). Adult Ophiothrix angulata lives in reef rubble (shells), encrusting habitats (sponges), and algae (Boffi 1972, Donachy and Watbe 1986). Juvenile and young adult O. angulata (1.7 - 2.5 mm disc) are reported to occur mainly in the calcareous green alga Halimeda while the adults are found in rubble (Hendler and Littman 1986).
IRL Distribution: Ophiothrix angulata occurs in dense aggregations in reef rubble throughout the lagoon.
Age, Size, Lifespan: In a mature adult the disk diameter measures approximately 10 mm (Hendler et al. 1999). This species is reported to be short lived.
Abundance: The angular brittle star is a common shallow water species in the Caribbean (Hendler et al. 1999), found in dense aggregations.
Regeneration: Ophiothrix angulata is capable of regenerating its missing arms lost by predation or accidental injury (Donachy and Watanabe 1986, Brusca and Brusca 1990). Calcium carbonate ossicles are formed during regeneration.
Reproduction: The reproduction and embryology of Ophiothrix angulata have not been extensively studied compared to other species in this genus. It is reported to undergo sexual reproduction by releasing its gametes into the water column in response to changes in environmental conditions as observed for other members in this genus (Hendler 2006). For spawning to occur, males and females must form dense aggregations (Selvakumaraswamy and Byrne 2000).
Embryology: Ophiothrix angulata have planktotrophic larvae that develop rapidly (Hendler et al. 1999, Hendler 2006). As with other species of Ophiothrix, planktotrophic larvae likely settle and undergo metamorphosis in habitats of adult conspecifics (Morgan and Jangoux 2005). In one study, a juvenile angular brittle star was reported to metamorphose in the water column and recruit on the green alga Halimeda opuntia, which then acts as a secondary dispersal method (Hendler et al. 1999).
Temperature: Ophiothrix angulata occurs at depths from 1 - 200 m, suggesting that it has a relatively high tolerance for temperature change. The timing of a spawning event may be dependent upon fluctuations in seawater temperature.
Salinity: In laboratory experiments, adult Ophiothrix angulata have been shown to be capable of tolerating salinities as low as 20 ‰ for up to approximately 4 days (Stancyk and Shaffer 1977). At lower salinities, the angular brittle star will become immobile after 24 hours; it regains its abilities to move and feed as the salinity increases.
Arm regeneration in adult Ophiothrix angulata has been shown to be reduced in animals kept in sea water at a salinity of 23 ‰. This result was positively correlated with the reduced solubility of calcium carbonate at lower salinities (Donachy and Watanabe 1986).
Trophic Mode: The angular brittle star is a filter-feeder extending its arms into the water column to trap phytoplankton and detritus (Donachy and Watanabe 1986). Food is captured in mucous threads secreted in between the arms (Brusca and Brusca 1990). The tube feet then transport the food to the mouth on the central disc.
Associated Species: Ophiothrix angulata is sometimes found associated with sponges, oysters, or algae (Brusca and Brusca 1990). They are often found in association with other species of Ophiothrix (Hendler 2006).
Boffi E. 1972. Ecological aspects of ophioroids from the phytal of S. W. Atlantic Ocean warm waters. Marine Biology 15:316-328.
Brusca RC and GJ Brusca. 1990. Invertebrates. Sinauer Associates, Inc., Sunderland, MA. pp. 814-832
Donachy JE and N Watanbe. 1986. Effects of salinity and calcium concentration on arm regeneration by Ophiothrix angulata (Echinodermata: Ophiuroidea). Marine Biology 91:253-257.
Hendler GH 2006. Two new brittle star species of the genus Ophiothrix (Echinodermata: Ophiuroidea: Ophiotrichidae) from coral reefs in the southern Caribbean Sea, with notes on their biology. Caribbean Journal of Science 41:583-599.
Hendler GH and BS Littman. 1986. The ploys of sex: relationships among the mode of reproduction, body size and habitats of coral-reef brittlestars. Coral Reefs 5:31-42.
Hendler GH, Baldwin CC, Smith DG, and CE Thacker. 1999. Planktonic dispersal of juvenile brittle stars (Echinodermata: Ophiuroidea) on a Caribbean reef. Bulletin of Marine Science 65:283-288.
Morgan R and M Jangoux. 2005. Larval morphometrics and influence of adults on settlement in the gregarious ophiuroid Ophiothrix angulata fragilis (Echinodermata). Biological Bulletin 208:92-99.
ITIS. Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Available online.
Selvakumaraswamy P and M Byrne. 2000. Reproduction, spawning and the development of 5 ophioroids from Australia and New Zealand. Invertebrate Biology 119:394-402
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Available online.
Stancyk SE and PL Shaffer. 1977. The salinity tolerance of Ophiothrix angulata (Say) (Echinodermata: Ophiuroidea) in latititudinally separate populations. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 29:35-43.
Aboral: In a direction away from the mouth; the part of the body opposite the mouth.
Anal Cone: In crinoids and echinoids, a fleshy projection bearing the anus at its apex; also known as an anal tube.
Apical System: In echinoids, a ring of specialized skeletal plates, including the genital plates and ocular plates; usually located on the highest point of the test.
Arm: In asteroids, crinoids, and ophiuroids, a movable, jointed ambulacral projection, distal to the disk or calyx that carries a radial branch of the water vascular system and the nervous system; sometimes called a ray.
Basket: One of several types of microscopic skeletal ossicles in holothuroids; minute cup-shaped ossicle, usually with four projections.
Button: One of several types of microscopic skeletal ossicles in holothuroids; minute ossicle with four perforations; may be smooth or knobbed.
Disk: The round or pentagonal central body region of ophiuroids and asteroids; see also Terminal Disk.
Distal: In a direction away from the center of the body; for example, toward the tip of the arm in asteroids or the tip of a spine in echinoids.
Dorsal: In echinoderms, this term is variously applied; in asteroids, ophiuroids and echinoids it usually refers to the surface of the body that is opposite the mouth, the surface that is uppermost; in holothuroids, with mouth and anus opposite ends of the cylindrical body, the uppermost surface is considered dorsal; in crinoids, the surface opposite the mouth in considered dorsal by convention, even though it is functionally the ventral (lower) side.
Echinulate: Something spiny or prickly, usually referring to the microscopic texture of a skeletal element such as a spine.
Hermaphrodism: A condition in organisms whereby one individual possesses both functional male and female reproductive structures; hermaphroditic individuals may express both sexes simultaneously, alternately, or sequentially.
Interambulacral Area: An oral or aboral section of the body lying between two ambulacra; in interradius; also known as an interambulacrum.
Interradial: Referring to interambulacral areas of the body; interradius and interradii also commonly used.


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Proofing Dough in the Instant Pot creates the perfect, enclosed environment for yeast dough to ferment at a consistent temperature. This builds the gluten structure, makes dough more pliable, and results in optimal texture of baked goods. Perfect for Instant Pot beginners too!
Note: this article focuses on proofing yeast dough, not sourdough. We'll tackle that in another article.
What does proofing dough mean
Proofing dough, aka proofing bread, is a necessary step in developing the structure and flavor of yeast dough. Proofing requires dough to rest in a warm, humid environment where the yeast ferments the dough, causing it to expand. This helps develop the fluffy, chewy texture and comforting flavor we love about freshly baked bread and other baked goods.
Why proof bread in an Instant Pot
The Instant Pot creates the ideal environment for proofing. Here's how. When you proof yeast dough at an average room temp of 72°F, it can easily take a few hours to properly proof. The pressure cooker "yogurt" setting, intended for incubating yogurt, provides a steady temperature around 90°F. This proofs dough more efficiently, causing it to double in size in only 45 minutes!
Instant Pot proofing is also convenient because you can set it, walk away, and know that's it's doing its job, even in a chilly or drafty environment. Ultimately, the Instant Pot expedites the proofing process, allowing us to enjoy our baked goods sooner.
What recipes can be proofed in the Instant Pot?
You'll love how soft, warm, and fluffy your dough gets when it's proofed in the Instant Pot.
Any yeasted dough can be proofed in the Instant Pot. I always use mine for this French bread recipe or cranberry walnut bread recipe, cinnamon rolls, dinner rolls, croissants, pizza dough, foccaccia, and donuts, to name a few.
After the dough is mixed and kneaded, it goes into the Instant Pot for flawless proofing. As mentioned earlier, this helps baked goods become fluffy, tender, and more flavorful.
- Pressure cooker - This recipe will require a pressure cooker with a yogurt setting.
- Prepared bread dough - The Instant Pot can proof any yeasted bread or pizza dough.
- Olive oil - prevents dough from sticking to the pot (parchment works too!)
- Pastry brush - Use this to apply oil to the pot (paper towel works, too).
- Lid - rest any lid or plate on top of the pot during proofing. It should NOT be airtight.
How to proof dough in the Instant Pot
Step 1: Brush a light coating of OLIVE OIL inside the Instant Pot (or line with parchment paper).
Step 2: Place dough in the pot and flip it around enough to pick up oil from the pot. Rest the dough seam side down, tucking the sides under to tighten it into a firm ball.
Step 3: Rest any lid on top of the pot. Do not create an tight seal because air needs to escape.
Step 4: Select "Yogurt" button and toggle the "Adjust" button to the "Less" setting and allow dough to double in size (30-45 minutes).
Note: The display timer defaults to 24:00 hours. Adjusting is optional and is done with the "+ or -" buttons. I prefer to leave it alone and use a separate 45 minute reminder (for mobility).
Instant Pot proofing tips
oil substitute - You can use parchment paper to line the pot if you prefer to not use oil during proofing.
using the yogurt setting - Toggling the "Adjust" button to the LESS setting (recommended) creates the perfect temperature for proofing dough. The NORMAL setting may slightly overheat the dough and cause dry spots (not the end of the world). The MORE setting will cook your dough (not in a good way).
lid - any lid that rests on top of the pot works (pizza pan, glass lid, or plate). You can use the IP lid, but set the pressure valve to "Venting". Also, super large dough batches can stick to the lid during rising. My recipes are never large enough for this.
proofing size - Use the markings on the inside wall of your pot to tell if dough is proofed enough to have doubled in size.
Frequently asked questions
If your pressure cooker has a yogurt setting, you can proof bread dough in it. Look for the yogurt 'button' on the display panel.
As long as you have a pressure cooker with a setting that holds food at about 90°F, you can effectively proof dough in that cooker. Otherwise, you can use the "Keep warm" function for a few minutes to warm the pot, then shut it off and add the dough to the pot where it will benefit from the residual heat.
You need to rise the dough in the pot until it doubles in size. This process takes 30-45 minutes to proof simple yeast bread recipes such as soft French bread.
It depends. If the final bread shape and baking pan fits inside the pot, go for it! Typically though, the shape and size are too large to fit in the pot and require a different proofing method.
Proofing Dough in the Instant Pot
- Olive Oil (to coat surface) or parchment paper
- Bread Dough * see recipe footnote about dough amount
Note: This is NOT a pressure-cooking method and the Instant Pot locking lid is not required.
- Brush a light coating of OLIVE OIL inside the Instant Pot (or line with parchment paper).
- Place dough in the pot and roll it around to pick up oil from the pot.
- Rest the dough seam side down, tucking the sides under to tighten it into a firm ball.
- Rest ANY lid on top of the pot. Do not use the Instant Pot locking lid or any object that creates a tight seal – the air needs to escape during the proofing process.
- Select "Yogurt" button, then toggle the "Adjust" button to the "Less" setting. Adjust the display timer to 45 minutes. During this time, yeast dough will double in size.
- Transfer dough out of the pot and, if further proofing is indicated on the recipe, repeat this process from step #1.
Click stars to vote. Please visit 'Comments' below for reviews.
Nutrition information is provided as a courtesy for general reference. Please consult a preferred dietary source for specific dietary information.


text:
The information age has brought about many ways for educators to help their students learn, creating an atmosphere where the learners desire flexibility in the way they learn. Modern students expect on-demand, high-quality learning environments that allow them to have more say in what and how they learn.
Flexible Learning in an Information Society uses a flexible learning framework to explain the best ways of creating a meaningful learning environment. This framework consists of eight factors -- institutional, management, technological, pedagogical, ethical, interface design, resource support, and evaluation -- and a systematic understanding of these factors can create successful flexible learning environments. Gathering the knowledge of leading researchers from around the world, Flexible Learning in an Information Society presents a broad understanding of the emerging field of flexible learning and provides guidance in creating these environments.
Price: Sign In for price

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


text: With the acceleration of the digitization process, the problem of data security and privacy protection has attracted much attention. Data encryption has always been an important means to solve this problem. However, it is common to store and transfer data in encrypted form. Once calculation is involved, it is often necessary to decrypt the ciphertext, perform the calculation in plaintext, and then encrypt the calculation result. Full homomorphic encryption extends encryption to the computing, which can perform meaningful calculations in ciphertext without decryption, and the calculation process and result are encrypted, so it has the natural characteristics of protecting data security and user privacy. The first full homomorphic encryption scheme was proposed by Gentry in 2009, and then full homomorphic encryption has always attracted the attention of the industry and academia. After more than ten years of research, full homomorphic encryption has developed to the fourth stage, substantial progress has been made. This paper reviews and analyzes the research progress of full homomorphic encryption from the aspects of the construction idea, different research stages and problems faced, introduces the application progress of full homomorphic encryption from the aspects of algorithm library, standardization progress and typical application scenarios, and puts forward suggestions for future research direction.


text:
The training curriculum of OTS includes:
- General Service Training.
- Presentation by Student Officers.
- Computer Training.
- Training in Language Laboratory.
- Mechanical Transport Driving Practice.
The training curriculum of OTS (branch wise) includes:
- Aerospace Technology Course.
- Avionics Technology Course.
- Armament & Photo Technology Course.
- Logistic Course.
- Forecasting Course.
- Admin Officers Course.
- Education Officers Course.
- Legal Officers course.
- Air Traffic Control Course.
- Finance Management Course.
OTS has the facilities of a Library, a standard Language Lab and different training labs such as, Aero Engineering Training Laboratory, Mechanical Transport Training Laboratory, Armament & Photo Training Laboratory, Communication and Electronics Training Laboratory and Air Traffic Control Simulator Laboratory.
|Students in Language Laboratory


How to Clean Ceramic Tile
Ceramic tile is created by mixing sand and clay and heating it to high temperatures to create a hard, durable surface. There are different types of glaze that are applied to the surface which is the most vulnerable area when cleaning.
Cleaning Ceramic Tile Floors
You Will Need:
 - Mop
 - Water
 - 2 Buckets
 - Old cloths, towels or rags
 - Vacuum with attachments
 - Dish soap (optional)
Steps to Clean the Tile:
 1. Begin by removing loose dust and dirt with a canister vacuum or vacuum with attachments. Do not use a regular vacuum as the bristles and beater bar can scratch and damage the surface of the tiles. Only use a soft bristled attachment or brush free unit to remove the dust and dirt.
 2. Fill two buckets with warm water. The first bucket will be used to wash the floor, and the second bucket will be used to rinse. If the floors are especially dirty, add a drop or two of dish soap to the washing water.
 3. Use the mop to scrub the surface of the tile floor.
 4. Use clean water from the second bucket to rinse the floor.
 5. Repeat as necessary until the floor is clean. Replace the buckets of water as needed to keep clean water available.
 6. As a final cleaning step, use the old cloths or towels to wipe over the damp floor.
 7. Along with removing any excess water, the towels will remove any remaining dirt.
Cleaning Ceramic Tile Countertops/Backsplashes
You Will Need:
 - Water
 - Bucket or spray bottle (depending on the size of the area)
 - Old cloths or rags
 - Dish soap (optional)
 - Old toothbrush or small scrub brush
Steps to Clean the Tile:
 1. Start by removing any loose dirt or dust with a clean soft cloth. Dust removers, such as Swiffer Dusters, work well for this.
 2. Fill two buckets or spray bottles with clean, warm water. If the counters are especially dirty, add a small amount (a drop or two) of dish soap or cleaner to the washing water.
 3. Spray the surface with the washing water.
 4. Use a soft cloth to scrub the surface of the tiles. Use an old toothbrush or small scrub brush to remove any dirt from the grout.
 5. Rinse with clean water and wipe dry with a clean cloth.
Additional Tips and Advice
 - Although some recommend vinegar for cleaning dirty tile, it is not preferable. The acidic properties of vinegar can damage the surface leaving it looking dull rather than clean and shiny.
 - Avoid any acid based cleaners as they can fade and dull the tiles.
 - Avoid cleaning tiles with soap. Soap will leave a residue that will make the tiles appear dirty.
 - Want your tiles to shine? After cleaning, buff them with a clean, soft cloth.
 - To keep your tiles looking their best, keep them dry. Standing water leads to fading and staining. Wipe up spills and splashes promptly.
 1. Lynn says:
 Tile is easy to clean, but if the grout is dirty the tile will look bad anyway. You can use non-scratching powder cleaner like Bon Ami or Bar Keepers Friend to clean grotty grout. You'll need an old toothbrush, a bowl of warm water, and the powdered cleaner. Wet the toothbrush, dip the bristles in the cleaner, then scrub the grout clean. When you've scrubbed all the grout, rinse the tile thoroughly with clean water.
 2. Lynn says:
 Don't pour bleach on it! For badly stained or yellowed grout, make a paste out of hydrogen peroxide and baking soda and spread it on the grout – keep the paste off the tiles as much as you can. Let the paste set until it's dry, then wash it off. Your grout should be noticeably whiter.
 3. Lynn says:
 Our whole family swears by this stuff, even if it does seem to produce stronger fumes than any other cleaner in existence and those fumes smell like maraschino cherries dipped in battery acid.
 For that reason, make sure you're using the Tilex in an area that has a fan, an open door, and possibly some nearby windows you can open. Spray the Tilex all over the tile to be cleaned, a light coating will do, then leave the room for fifteen minutes to half an hour. When you come back in, immediately rinse the Tilex off the tiles as thoroughly as you can, then wet a sponge and wipe the tiles down with warm water. Rinse the tiles again and you're done. If you use the Tilex regularly, say once a week, you shouldn't have any problem with soap scum buildup or hard water deposits.
 4. Lynn says:
 If your ceramic patio tiles are dirtier than a high-pressure blast from the garden hose will take care of, get a bucket of hot soapy water and use a sponge mop to scrub the tiles clean. Rinse with the hose. Don't use a string-type mop to clean outdoor tiles, because the strings will collect leaves, twigs and debris and the mop will be ruined.
 5. Lynn says:
 I put down rugs on my tile entryway for people to wipe their feet on in wet weather, but because the tile is slick the rugs slid around and spread a wet, slippery mess all over the place. The quickest solution I found was to lay down cheap suction cup backed rubber bathtub mats on the tile and then lay the rugs on top of them. The mats keep the rugs in place, and they also keep the water, snow and mud on the rugs from soaking through and possibly staining the grout between the tiles.
 6. Stacy says:
 Spray with Greased Lightening and let it sit but not dry. Then, use a hand held steamer on the area and then use clean rags to dry the water and dirt that will run out of the grout.
 7. Cara says:
 Use Soft Scrub. Brush with an old toothbrush and then wipe away with clean warm water.
 8. Chelsea says:
 Use bleach, scrub with a brush and rinse with water.
 9. Ginny says:
 How do I clean the ceramic tile in my shower. It has a soap scum on it that I can't get off?
 10. Gerard says:
 How can we avoid streaks after cleaning smooth ceramic tiles above our cooker hob? We've used sprays, etc., and have taken care not to use abrasives, and each time they look streak-free close up, but taking a step back into daylight, they look more streaky than ever. Please help!
 11. Allen says:
 I have a problem in our bathroom (the tiles). The dirt is hard to remove, and maybe it is caused by soap residue… please help me (tips) to remove this dirt.
 12. Melanie says:
 Maybe this article will help: How to Clean Soap Scum.
Leave a Comment


Ford Fusion
Ted Blackman
July 15, 2020
Overview and Rationale
Ford Fusion was an overhaul of Urbit's over-the-air upgrade process and a rewrite of its build system. The new update system corrects a few long-standing bugs with the previous one, and the new build system is simpler, smaller (by around 5,000 lines), and easier to manage.
Since deployment of Ford Fusion to the livenet in late June, over-the-air updates (OTAs) have been much smoother. Before Ford Fusion, it was common for an OTA to take several hours, use too much memory, and leave ships in inconsistent states. After Ford Fusion, multiple OTAs have been pushed out, including kernelspace changes, and most users didn't even notice.
Urbit has always been able to update itself OTA, but this process has often been rocky. Updating an operating system kernel on-the-fly is a difficult problem in general, like performing heart replacement surgery on yourself while running a marathon. Code that allows Linux to update its kernel in this way became a startup called Ksplice, won multiple awards, and sold to Oracle. Even that, as impressive as it is, and as brilliant as its programmers are, can only perform certain limited kinds of patches to the kernel.
Urbit isn't exactly a traditional operating system, so the comparison is somewhat unfair, but the purpose of better architecture is to create unfair comparisons. In this case, because the Nock layer is frozen, upgrading everything above that layer is easier. Upgrades are also facilitated by pure-functional semantics, transactional event processing, a type system oriented toward concrete data, and orthogonal persistence. These features make it feasible for Urbit to upgrade itself in the general case, not just some special cases.
Ford Fusion has fixed the major upgrade issues of the past by guaranteeing three properties that in retrospect are obvious requirements, but, like much of Urbit, took many years and rewrites to identify as such:
 - Atomic: the update should complete or fail in one transaction. If it fails, the system shouldn't get stuck.
 - Self-contained: there must be no implicit dependencies or hysteresis (dependence on previous system states) when building the new software from source.
 - Ordered: updates must be monotonically sequenced from the system's lowest layer to highest.
Let's walk through them one by one.
In previous versions of Urbit, updates failed atomicity by deferring parts of the update to later events, which are separate transactions that can fail independently. Generally, each deferral causes an exponential increase in the number of failure states that needed to be handled.
We've learned that asynchronicity is an entropic state. A system will tend toward more asynchronicity over time unless effort is put into keeping it synchronous. As Jonathan Blow has noted, the language server protocol has turned every editor plugin into a distributed system, since now it has to communicate asynchronously with the main editor process.
Consider an update system that took multiple Arvo events to complete. An ad-hoc higher-level transaction system would need to be built to roll back the effects of the first few events in case of failure. It's important for various parts of the system to be able to emit effects on upgrade; since those effects would need to be rolled back if a later event in this upgrade fails, the system would need to maintain a queue of those events and only apply them once all the other upgrade events have completed.
Note that the asynchronicity has now spread. Some effects that would normally be guaranteed to be processed synchronously might now be asynchronous. Entropy has begun to take hold, chipping away at the set of invariants the system is capable of guaranteeing.
This observation is not purely theoretical. False modularity was the cause of internal asynchronicity in Clay where it had to wait for responses in a complex dance with Ford, which was another vane (Arvo kernel module); moving Ford into Clay allowed function calls that were synchronous from Clay's perspective, which allowed further simplifications, culminating in about a twenty percent reduction of source code size of the Arvo kernelspace.
Steve Yegge's "platform rant" describes a Bezosian edict prohibiting synchronous communication among modules through direct linking. This can be seen as an acknowledgment of the difficulty Amazon was going to have when it needed to turn internal services external. If your software needs to run in hell, build it that way from the start.
An Urbit ship is not an enterprise SaaS product and does not need to run in this hell; it exists for just one person, with natural pressure pushing it in the opposite direction from Amazon's web services. Instead of needing a ship's state and functionality sharded into microservices strewn across multiple clusters, an Urbit instance is easiest to manage as a single server with all its state unified into one data structure and its event log stored as one totally ordered sequence of state updates -- the antithesis of a distributed system.
Before Ford Fusion, each commit to the Clay filesystem validated its files using filetypes (called "marks") defined by files in the previous commit. This could cause bugs if the filetype definitions had changed in a backward-incompatible manner. It also meant a commit could not add both a new filetype and new files of that type; instead, you needed two commits: one to define the filetypes, and a second to add files of that new type. More theoretically, it caused history-dependence. The validated contents of files in a commit could vary based on the history of commits that led to this one.
Another way source code failed to be self-contained was that it had access to symmetry-breaking information at build-time, namely ship, desk (Urbit's answer to a git branch), and (faked) date. A build recipe should be able to shared, cached, and rerun without dependence on local conditions, so user code now no longer learns its ship, desk, or date until runtime.
Source code also had build-time access to Urbit's immutable global namespace, called the "scry namespace", which the kernel makes available as an implicit argument to userspace Hoon code. The scry namespace is immutable and referentially transparent, i.e. a request must always yield the same result for all time, but if an agent asks the kernel for a resource that's from the future, hosted on another ship, or to which that agent doesn't have permission, the kernel will deny the request.
If the kernel denies a scry request that user code made during the build process, the build system has no choice but to treat it as a nondeterministic error. Nondeterministic errors can never be fully eradicated, if for no other reason than that the user always has the option to defenestrate the machine—there's nothing deterministic about that. But we try to minimize them, and especially to minimize uncertainty as to under what conditions they might occur.
No build should be killed by the absence of files outside the desk, so as of this update, user code can no longer scry at build time. Once built, userspace programs can scry if run in a context with a scry handler; a Gall agent's runtime scry requests still work just fine.
The final kind of failure fixed by Ford Fusion was the lack of ordered layering during a software update. The most common form of this failure was that old Ford had a tendency to try to build userspace code using the previous version's standard library. This didn't work too well, unsurprisingly.
Emerging from this underworld required making a number of changes to the Arvo kernel, Clay, Gall, and the procedure for kernel updates. To avoid turning into a pillar of salt, I'll skip the details of how the old system worked and instead describe the new update procedure.
How Updates Work Now
These are the layers of the stack that update themselves on the fly, from lowest to highest:
 - hoon: the hoon language definition and compiler, defined in /sys/hoon/hoon
 - arvo: the arvo kernel proper and related type definitions, in /sys/arvo/hoon
 - zuse: the standard library, in /sys/zuse/hoon
 - vanes: arvo kernel modules, including clay itself, in folder /sys/vane
 - userspace: apps, marks, ancillary source code like libraries, and user data
An update to one layer necessitates a reload of all layers above it; e.g. a change to Zuse should trigger updates to the vanes and userspace. Conversely, an update to a higher layer should not cause a spurious reload of lower layers, which should not be affected by the change; for example, an update to just userspace should not cause any reloads of system code.
Clay is responsible for enforcing the layering of updates. An update to a module is triggered when an attempt is made to commit a change to Clay that affects one or more files needed to build the module. For example, if the 'foo' agent's source, defined in /app/foo/hoon, imports the 'bar' library from /lib/bar/hoon, then a modification to /lib/bar/hoon triggers an update to the 'foo' agent. All vanes and userspace files depend on Zuse, which depends on the Arvo and Hoon sources, so a change to the Hoon, Arvo, or Zuse sources will trigger updates to all vanes and userspace files.
When asked to perform a commit, Clay determines which layers need to be updated based on which files have changed and which modules depend on those files. For now, all running programs load their source from the %home desk, so only


Home » Do free energy magnetic motors really work?
Do free energy magnetic motors really work?
A deep dive into the mystery of the magnetic motors.
by Editor CTS
AI generated image of a magnetic motor which promises free energy
AI generated image of a magnetic motor which promises free energy
Can magnetic motors give us energy for free? Generated using AI with Microsoft Designer.
The internet is rife with websites that promote generators that are capable of providing electricity without using any fuel. Built largely with magnets, these 'free energy generators' promise to cut your electricity bills and provide a much greener alternative to the electricity that is largely generated out of fossil fuels. Elaborate videos that give you estimates of how much money you can save without revealing any details of how to go about it, manage to keep the audience hooked on for a while, but $40 price tag, the loads of freebies and the instant $10 discount for not leaving the page, make the product and its seller highly suspicious. So, we decided to find out if these free energy magnetic motors really work?
The Principle
The magnetic motor works on the simple principle that we all already know, 'Like poles repel each other while opposite poles attract each other'. By arranging the magnets in a fashion where only like poles face each other, one can simply set the motor into motion like in the video below. (You can skip to the important part by jumping to the 4th minute of the video)
Once the motor is set into motion, one can treat it like a turbine and extract electrical energy out of it. That's how simple this is!
The Working
The device can be made to work a little better if a electromagnet replaces the opposing magnet in this setup. This is because, one can quickly switch the poles of an electromagnet. Although, this will require some amount of electricity to make the electromagnet work, the output of the magnetic motor will be much higher than the power used to operate the electromagnet.
Efficiency of the device can be further increased by changing the design of the motor and positioning magnets in a way where the motor can run easily. In the amateur video below, this guy from Pakistan has made his own version of magnetic motor and you can see how it works!
The Problem
But there is one major flaw in this whole setup. The electrical energy that can be generated out of such a system seems to be created out of no fuel at all and that is stumbling everybody. So far, all we know is that to generate electricity, we need some sort of a source, rays of the sun, kinetic energy from flowing water, or at least some fuel to be burnt so that the turbines can move and generate electricity. But the magnetic motor challenges this notion and tells us that all you need is an arrangement of magnets (like in the first video above) to put the motor in motion and generate electricity. And for many people, this seems to be breaking 'the law of conservation of energy' making this concept very difficult to accept!
But in reality, it is the magnetic energy that is being used to put the motor into motion and over a period of time, the magnets will lose their magnetism and the motor will stop. But again, all one needs to do is replace the magnets and the motor will be workable once again. There is some work that has been put into the type of magnets that can be used for such motors and Neodymium magnets have been claimed to offer the best results.
The Scam
If you do a simple search for magnetic motors, you will find a lot of websites promising free electricity for the rest of your life and all that for $40 or less, one time investment (with free home delivery too). It is difficult not to get suspicious about the tall claims made by such sellers and one would have to be extremely gullible to fall for a scheme like that. Even if you have fallen prey to scheme like this before, you might find solace in being not the only one. This guy named Mike Brady was arrested for pilfering a sum close to 1 million Euros that came from 61 Germans who believed that he could deliver them a magnetic motor that would generate electricity. There is some evidence to say that Brady's motor did work but there have been quite a few other companies who have been tried to perfect this motor for a while and rid us of our energy woes. Unfortunately, these companies have closed down or gone into hiding for reasons that are varied but also because they have not been able to deliver on their promise of a free energy generator that can scale a town or a city.
Hope
Even though scammers promise free electricity, the fact remains that there will be a set up and maintenance cost and somewhere even the cost of replacing the magnets, which is not going to be cheap. Still, if we can get a motor that can generate energy which reduces on dependence on fossil fuels and does not harm the environment as much, then why shouldn't we go for it? Yes, it needs to be perfected and explored more scientifically but that's the case with all discoveries.
If you have found this post interesting, you might want to visit the Free Energy Quest to know about other such inventions! Also, there are interesting videos and books from Emedia, who publish information about advanced energy sciences which you can find here! And for those interested, here is a book on Amazon about the Free Energy World which worth a look.

 If you prefer the Kindle version, you can find it here.

If you would like to know more about such wonderful discoveries from the world of science, subscribe to our blog and we will send you an email every time we post something new and interesting. Alternatively, you can follow us on social media such as Facebook or Twitter
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33 comments
Anonymous November 14, 2014 - 2:51 pm
This article was very useful for me. Because I have an idea to produce electricity energy like this and now I found my idea flaw. So I wanted to thank you.
Reply
Editor CTS November 14, 2014 - 2:53 pm
We are thrilled to know that our article helped you.
Since this is a voluntary blog, comments like yours are a great inspiration for us to keep going.
Thank you once again and good luck with your experiments!
Reply
Anonymous June 9, 2015 - 6:04 am
Theoretical
Reply
Editor CTS June 9, 2015 - 6:07 am
Dear Reader,
Thank you for visiting our blog and commenting on one of our most popular topics.
It would be great if you could elaborate a little more on this 'Theoretical' comment of yours.
If you go through the post, you will find a couple of videos that show that the concept is more than just theoretical.
Reply
magnetic generator February 13, 2016 - 6:48 am
This is a amazing blog post with real good information about magnetic generator.
Reply
Editor CTS February 13, 2016 - 6:49 am
Thank you for your comment.
We are glad you have liked our post.
Reply
Anonymous February 23, 2016 - 6:52 am
Many free magnetic motor videos on youtube seem fake, but you convinced me…
Also, when you mentioned that companies perfecting this motors "have closed down or gone into hiding for reasons that are varied", do you think that governments have something to do with this? Because if you control the energy, you control the people…
Reply
Editor CTS February 23, 2016 - 7:01 am
Thank you for taking time to read the post and leaving your comment.
To answer your question, I would not say that governments do not want this technology to develop. As fossil fuels get dearer, all governments are actively seeking alternatives for energy.
But governments are made of people, like you and me, and it is not unnatural for individuals to put their own interests before the interests of others. So, there might be people who do not want this to develop further (although I do not have any proof of such activity) at least for the time being.
If we can perfect this mechanism in the coming decade or so, I think we have a brighter and cleaner future ahead of us.
Reply
Unknown May 23, 2016 - 6:22 am
If there is no energy in magnets how does an unsaturated magnet produce double output power in comparison with output power produced by a saturated magnet ?
For detail see: _URL_
Reply
free energy generator May 23, 2016 - 6:23 am
Just to let you know there is a video demonstrating how to build the free energy generator by an Engineer called John Richard
Reply
Editor CTS May 23, 2016 - 6:27 am
Dear Umer,
Thank you for leaving a comment on this post. The information you have provided is quite useful and we are sure our other readers will find it useful as well.
Reply
Unknown January 28, 2017 - 1:53 pm
Nice
Reply
dahVeed Montané February 25, 2017 - 8:12 am
In effect, the magnets are acting as a type of battery. This brings up a question for me: How much energy is needed to produce the magnets? Answering that question can tell us what the efficiency ratio is.
Reply
Anonymous February 25, 2017 - 8:13 am
for one to use this technology would mean that the one must become a dictator and risk a world war! There are people that will put a bullet in your head if they knew that what you are doing can change the world …even if the change could affect everything on this planet in a way so good and so ….i can't even find the appropriate words to describe it.
Reply
Editor CTS February 25, 2017 - 8:17 am
Hi David,
Thanks for your comment.
What you say is true. The magnets are acting like an energy source and sooner or later they will stop working and will have to replaced.


Next week Sophie is back in Japan for the second part of the Playable City Residency.
The Playable City programme has been leading investigations of how to deepen people's engagement with their cities since 2012. Artists in the programme have developed many novel ways of interacting with the city: giving street furniture a voice, showing people traces of the others who have crossed their paths, giving people a framework to interact with strangers and the night sky.
I wanted to pull some focus onto the city itself, and interrogate the effect particular places have on play. Use action research to explore how people respond in different surroundings, and which invitations people respond to most strongly, as part of building a practical methodology for siting playful installations. So I'm using one of the simplest and most universal childhood games KenKenPa (a hopscotch analogue), to test some things out with the citizens of Tokyo.
Relaxing into deep play requires being comfortable enough to be vulnerable. It helps to be with other people who can re-inforce your decision to play. It requires people to be in a space they feel is for them in some way. Observing them make those decisions in real time, on the streets, reveals so much about how they feel in different spaces.
Taking play out onto the open streets has benefits for the overall life of the city. It draws people together, changes the ballet of street life in positive ways, and serves those who would not decide to travel somewhere just to play.
I'm looking forward to trying things out on the street and getting some results.


Magen Avraham on Orach Chaim 202:22 (excerpt):
Magen Avraham 202:22:
(ב"י רשב"א) ומיהו בפירות יבשים כגון תפוחים ואגסים וגדגדניו' ופלומי"ן ד"ה דמברך אמימיהן בפה"ע דהא אין דרכן אלא למשלקינהו לא למכלינהו בעינייהו וכן אני נוהג ועיקר (ב"ח) וצ"ע דמשמע דטע' הרשב"א משום דדרכן למשלקינהו מעיקרא נטעי להו אדעתא דהכי למשלקינהו ואם כן פירות דלא נטעי להו אדעת' דהכי אף על פי שיבשן אח"כ לא מהני וכ"כ הלבוש דדוק' פירות שרוב אכילתן ע"י בישול מברך בפה"ע (עסט"ו) וכן מ"כ בשם רש"ל:
My summary / translation:
Dried fruit such as apples, pears and plums that are poached in water you say "Borei Pri Ha'etz" on drinking their water (juice), and this is how I behave.
Explaining Rashb"a, he states that if the fruit was planted with the initial purpose that they be consumed via poaching / cooking, the bracha should be "Ha'etz"
Tea and coffee are not normally consumed as whole plants. Tea leaves and coffee beans are soaked in water, and it would seem that this was their purpose of being planted (that it would be consumed this way). Based on the above logic, their bracha should be "Ha'etz" when drinking a cup of tea or coffee. Yet the majority custom, AFAIK, is to say "Shehakol". Why?
From: Kof-K
The halacha is if one takes a vegetable etc and cooks it the beracha on the water is the same beracha as the vegetable, etc.1 Therefore, the beracha on coffee should be an ha'etz. However, the custom is that the beracha recited on coffee (in the liquid state) is shehakol.2 Some say the reason is because the water is the main ingredient.3
 1. Mesechtas Berochos 39a, Shulchan Aruch 205:1.
 2. Halachos Ketanos 1:9, Shevus Yaakov 2:5, Birchei Yosef 202:9, Ben Ish Chai Pinchus 1:10, Be'er Heitiv 202:19, Sheilas Yaavetz 2:142, Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 53:3, Kaf Ha'chaim 202:70, Pachad Yitzchok (Cofffee) 7:page 60, Rivevos Ephraim 5:148, Yalkut Yosef 3:page 338:14, Chazzon Ovadia (Tu B'shevat) pages 282-283, Piskei Teshuvos 202:28, Rivevos Ephraim 6:79, Sharei Ha'beracha 17:44 and pages 680-681:footnote 654. If one recited ha'etz he was yotzei (Opinion of the Yabea Omer quoted in Yalkut Yosef ibid page 339, see V'sein Beracha page 450:footnote 21 who says this is not true for instant coffee). See Panim M'eros 1:95, 190. Refer to Pnei Ha'shulchan pages 178-180.
 3. Refer to Pnei Ha'shulchan page 179, see Shulchan Aruch Harav 202:12, Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 53:3, Yechaveh Da'as 4:42.
If memory serves, I believe Rav Moshe Feinstein, z"l, wrote something similar. See also: _URL_
The Rosh [13]writes that this Halacha of the Gemarah is not an absolute rule. The water does not always take the identity of the vegetable itself, and in some cases the Berachah on the water would remain a Shehakol. Rosh explains that the water will only acquire a new Berachah-identity if, and only if, one is cooking the soup in order to eat the vegetables also. It is then that the water can be viewed as being one with the vegetables and allow it to be viewed as having become part of the "greater soup". It is in such a case that the Berachah will be the same as the vegetable itself. However, if one is only cooking the vegetable so that the water should be infused with its taste, and not because he also wants to eat the vegetables, then he would only recite a Shehakol on the water as the water retains its own identity, albeit with a better taste; it's just a cup of flavored water.
Perach Mateh Aharon[14] writes that it is based on the reasoning of the Rosh that we recite a Shehakol on coffee, tea and even beer because the tea leaves are not being eaten, the coffee grinds are definitely going to be thrown out and nary a hop will ever be found in a bottle of beer. The whole intention of the cooking process in solely for the resultant drink and not for the tea leaves, beans and hops at all. So while it is true that the tea leaf and the coffee bean and the hops are boiled in the water, and it is true that from the simple understanding of the Gemarah the water should have required an upgraded berachah. However, when you apply the Rosh's qualification of this Halachah it allows for, and even encourages, the general custom to recite a Shehakol on a nice steaming cup of a morning Starbucks coffee[15](see footnote) as one is only focused on the drink itself and not anything else. On the other hand, the Panim Meiros counters that tea and coffee are in a different class when it comes to this Halachah. Tea leaves and coffee are planted, cultivated, roasted and ground in order to produce this drink. This is the end result and the bottom line for the tea and coffee; it was produced for just this purpose and is only edible in this state. So, of course the water in which the coffee/tea was boiled will take on a greater significance than just being flavored water, whereupon it will take upon itself the berachah of the tea leaf or the coffee bean, as this is what they were grown for.
The Panim Meiros has put forth a seemingly strong halachic argument and brought many proofs to support his case[16]. However, he ends off his responsa by stating that the beracha on coffee and tea still remains a Shehakol as this has been the minhag of the Jews for as long as he can remember and the minhag is not going to change, therefore, he too only recited a Shehakol on coffee and tea. In addition, many of the gedolim of his era, such as the Beis Meir[17], and the Shvus Yaakov[18]differed with the Panim Meiros' understanding of the Rosh and were of the opinion that the correct berachah on these beverages are a Shehakol.
 1. Shaalos U'Teshuvos HaRosh Klal 4, siman 15. Also in the Rosh's Halachos in Masechta Berachos on Daf 39a.
 2. Rav Aharon Hakohen Perachia (_PHONE_). Wrote the SeferPerech Mateh Aharon, appointed chief rabbi of Salonika in 1688.
 3. This is referring to home-brewed Starbucks coffee. As of late there has been much written about the kashrus of the general Starbucks stores since that they have started to serve non kosher, indeed treif, heated items in their stores. Although the unflavored, and some of the flavored, ground coffee is under a very reliable hashgacha, the treif


Most, if not all, newer hot water tanks come pre-insulated. If you have an older hot water, however, you may find it does not have an insulated shell. If this is the case, installing an insulated jacket to your hot water tank will save you a considerable amount of energy and money.
The principle of the hot water tank is to generate a body of hot water in a short period of time, using your boiler at its most efficient, then storing the water for later use, a bit like boiling your kettle to fill a thermos flask. If the tank is not well insulated, the heat will radiate out and heat everything around it, lowering the temperature of the water within, which in turn will mean the boiler will need to run again to top up the heat. A well insulated tank will keep the water hot for a longer period, therefore reducing the requirement on the boiler.
Back to Basic Measures


Saturday, March 3, 2012
Chinese Twins Adopted by Different Families Stay Connected
As reported from Canada, a fascinating tale of twins separated by adoption and their adoptive families' efforts to keep them connected:
The girls were born in China, separated by circumstance and parceled out to two different families.
Whether by fortune or design -- no one will ever know -- the couples who adopted them were both from Ontario. And they figured it out.
Kirk and Allyson MacLeod adopted their daughter, Lily, 12 years ago and brought her home to Keswick, north of Toronto. Mike and Lynette Shaw adopted their daughter, Gillian, 12 years ago and brought her home to Amherstburg, just outside Windsor. When the parents discovered the connection, they vowed to raise them as sisters.
The situation is as rare as it is fascinating: Lily and Gillian are one of only a handful of twin pairs in the world known to be growing up in this way — apart, yet together. They are an accidental experiment, giving researchers a new window into human behaviour by allowing them to study the effects of nature and nurture in real-time. For science, Lily and Gillian are a treasure.
And for the people raising them — strangers thrown together by extraordinary circumstances — the unusual arrangement has made them pioneers of a whole new kind of blended family. They are making up the rules as they go.
The families noticed that their referral pictures seemed to be of the same child and contacted their agency:
The two families contacted the adoption agency and asked coordinators to look into the matter. At first, the parents were concerned the orphanage may have inadvertently assigned one baby to two different families. Adoption documents even gave the girls the same birthday. If there were two of them, could they be twins?
Word came back from the orphanage a few days later: there were indeed two babies. Workers said the girls were found in different locations, brought in separately. They were not twins, just look-alikes.
And so the MacLeods and Shaws found themselves, two months later, at a hotel in China's Hunan province, waiting outside an elevator with three other couples. When the doors opened, five nannies stepped out with five little girls in their arms, babies bundled into so many layers of clothing they could hardly move. Only their heads peeked out of the hooded zip-up suits they wore.
It was immediately clear to all that two of the babies were identical.
Officially, the orphanage still insisted the girls, then 8 months old, were unrelated and could not be adopted together. If the parents didn't take the baby assigned to them, they would go back into the adoption pool. And there was no guarantee they would end up together next time.
Maybe workers at the orphanage really didn't know. Maybe they didn't care. Or maybe, as the girls' parents like to think, they couldn't afford a DNA test and did what they thought was the next best thing: place the twins with families near each other.
These aren't the only twins raised apart that are known to researchers, of course:
Twelve pairs are part of Segal's ongoing research on reared-apart twin children, a project that promises to open a new window into human behaviour. Every few years, for as long as they are willing, the twins and their parents will complete a giant questionnaire packet that tracks their behaviour, attitudes and health as they age.
The article has lots of stories about separated twins, and about commonalities between Lily and Gillian as well as between other separated twins.
1 comment:
Karen said...
I can't wrap my head around this concept. If EVERYONE ELSE knew they were twins, why couldn't the orphanage workers know the same thing? A friend of mine wanted to know what kind of "mutt" she had, so she sent away for a DNA swab kit. It cost her all of $50, and the company came back with results of every breed the dog had in him. It seems a DNA test for people would not be too expensive, and it irks me that an orphanage can't spend money to do that. Is it that they do not make as much on the donation if adopting twins, as adopting separately?
I've seen one other set of identical twins from China. One of the parents was going through the orphanage referral pictures while at work, and a coworker asked if it was a picture of her own daughter, when she researched it further, she found the parents of the second girl, and they connected and did a DNA test, and sure enough, they were identical twins.
Our daughter had another girl in the orphanage that, when I saw the referral picture (a month after ours was done) I had to do a double take. I've kept in touch with this mother, and we are interested in doing DNA tests. We have a couple of pictures with the other girl in the background, while they were in the orphanage. They too, were found at different times, and their paperwork says they are 2 weeks apart in age. They're not identical at all, but they look very similar. If they are not paternal twins, they might be cousins, because their referral pictures look so close...their facial expressions in the referral pictures are very similar and even their hair lines look similar. I can understand why, if they're related, the orphanage did not know so...but in a case where they look identical, IMO there is no excuse for claiming ignorance.
It also puzzles me as to why birth parents would leave them at different times, and different places. Do they think their children have a higher chance of being adopted if adopted separately because they think the one child policy flows over to adoption? Or were they considering keeping one of the twins? I don't get that part. Perhaps it's either?? Or possibly something else???


Analysis of the Technical Condition of Roads
W dokumencie EFFECTIVENESS OF NATIONAL ROADS MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT IN POLAND (Stron 18-21)
2. Indicators and Research Methodology
2.2. Analysis of the Technical Condition of Roads
Standard technical indicators for road maintenance refer
to the technical parameters of the road and its surface and describe the condition of roads and thereby the technical effectiveness of maintenance. These are:
- pavement roughness – the skid resistance properties of the surface.
Pavement roughness is one of the main factors improving traffic safety: the higher the roughness, the higher the adherence between the wheel tyres and the rolling surface, and as a result the risk of skidding is lower and the braking distance is shorter;
- longitudinal and transverse road evenness – road parameters that are most clearly perceptible by road users. The longitudinal evenness is a quality, which is perceived by the user as the capacity of the road to not trigger quivers and vibrations of the vehicle.
Transverse evenness is determined by geometrical deviations of the actual surface in relation to the ideal surface. The evener the road, the higher the riding comfort and the lower the risk of damaging the vehicle. On the other hand, an uneven road provokes an effect of wheels "bouncing" on the surface (in other words – dynamic load effect), which further results in a variable adherence between the wheels and the surface. Improper parameters of transverse road evenness may cause poor stormwater drainage contributing to higher water skid. Moreover, water that fills ruts accelerates deterioration of the surface;
- load capacity – thickness of individual pavement layers, which is appropriate for the traffic structure, as well as well-selected building materials, which should have the properties ensuring the durability of layers during the intended period of pavement exploitation.
Load capacity is not perceived by road users, but it determines the weight of goods vehicles allowed to the road. Surfaces of roads constructed for higher category of traffic (heavy or very heavy Technical Indicators
Indicators and Methodology of Research
vehicle traffic) are, in most cases, made of many layers. The higher the load capacity, the higher "resistance" of the road to the traffic of heavy vehicles, which indeed is the major factor contributing to road deterioration. Static axle loads admissible in Poland are 80, 100 or 115 kN depending on the public road category. As vehicles roll on the surface, the dynamic load on the surface is in fact significantly higher than the static load. The dynamic impact of the vehicle on the surface results in a surface-vehicle interaction.
The most recent research shows that the impact of heavy vehicles on the surface is of a more aggressive influence than it has been assumed so far (ELLPAG 2009; OECD/ITF 2010);
- depth of ruts and potholes – depressions, cracks and potholes in the road surface. The more of them and the bigger they are, the lower the riding comfort and the higher the risk of an accident or damage to the vehicle and – similarly as in the case of unevenness – the higher the risk of accelerated road deterioration (both due to the impact of water and the interaction between vehicles and the "bad" surface).
In case of routine maintenance there are also less complicated APIs, for example the cleanness of the road, and indicators relating to other elements of the right-of-way (e.g. maximum height
of grass on shoulders). Well-defined APIs for routine maintenance in connection with performance to target indicators constitute a basis for Performance Based Contracts (PBCs). They are also crucial for controlling the maintenance works performance.
In the context of road infrastructure maintenance management we must bear in mind that the technical condition of the road and its durability before deterioration are hardly predictable. The condition of roads also depends on many factors (cf. Figure 1), on which the road authority has limited influence, e.g. professionalism and due care on the part of designers and constructors, weather and water
conditions, as well as parameters of road traffic and drivers' compliance with the road code. The ability to limit the unpredictability of those factors is of key influence for planning and scheduling repavements, including the chance to elaborate stable financial plans.
Indicators and Methodology of Research
Table 2. Road condition parameters from the perspective of road users and the road authority
ROUGHNESS EVENNESS LOAD
CAPACITY and riskier the travel travelling on the road
mean unpleasant travel and increase the risk of vehicle damage
For the road AUTHORITY
is getting lower in proportion
the longer the road preserves its evenness, the lower the risk of accelerated deterioration and increased repavement needs
traffic of too heavy vehicles
Thus the effectiveness of the road condition management in view of the technical road properties depends on at least three key factors:
- qualitative control of design, building materials and workmanship;
- preventing structural maintenance delays, as from a certain critical condition point the deterioration of pavement and other construction elements accelerate. Therefore, the road authority should care to ensure, on an annual basis, appropriate funds in the budget for maintenance works in line with the principle that new investment projects are admissible only after satisfying the need for road repairs and renewals, and not the other way round;
- enforcement of traffic bans on too heavy vehicles (in comparison to the road axle load standard), which however, is beyond the road authority's control as vehicle inspection usually does not belong to his responsibilities. Whether bans are observed or not depends on drivers themselves, the police, Road Transport Inspection Service and other services authorised to carry out inspections.
Indicators and Methodology of Research
Figure 1. Factors decisive for the condition of road infrastructure
LIFESPAN OF A ROAD
Each element of road infrastructure is subject to wear during use.
Roads must be repaired on a regular basis so that they do not lose their use value.
The lifespan of a road is determined by its original technical design.
The better the design is adjusted to natural conditions and traffic forecasts, the slower the road deterioration.
Good quality of the materials used, as well as good workmanship quality are the condition for preserving the use value of the road in the planned period.
Low quality speeds up deterioration and repair needs.
DESIGN AND WORKMANSHIP
WEATHER AND CLIMATE
The most dangerous natural enemy of roads is water, which not only seeps through the construction elements of the road, but also - by changing the states of matter - causes mechanical damage to the pavement and its foundation.
Blobs of water gathering under the surface, by freezing, blast out the surface, which then cracks under the pressure of wheels. Thus, minor damage to the surface becomes the reason for faster technical deterioration of the road. Therefore delays in repairs lead to a more than proportional increase of repair needs.
The warmed-up pavement on the road is pressed down by the wheels which causes rutting.
WATER
TRAFFIC FLOW
The more vehicles roll on the road, the faster the pavement wear i.e.
pavement loses on thickness and it becomes smoother. Another effect is the pavement spalling.
Heavy vehicles traffic weakens individual pavement layers, causes rutting, unevenness and other pavement failure. The larger the flow of heavy vehicles, the faster the wear and more frequent repair or renewal needs.
AXLE LOADS AND TRAFFIC STRUCTURE Source: own description.
2.3. Analysis of Road Maintenance Management
W dokumencie EFFECTIVENESS OF NATIONAL ROADS MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT IN POLAND (Stron 18-21)


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Behind the Scenes at Castle Keepers House Cleaning
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Behind the Scenes at Castle Keepers House Cleaning
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text:
Region: Southern Palm Beach County
Size: 79 acres
Hours: Daily from sunrise to sunset
1501 NW Spanish River Blvd, Boca Raton, FL 33431 (not a mailing address). The natural area is located on the east side of Military Trail between Yamato Road and Spanish River Boulevard.
Public Use Facilities:
Public use facilities include a bicycle rack, an educational kiosk, an accessible loop trail leading to a wildlife observation platform overlooking a restored wetland, and a natural-surface hiking trail. Parking is available at the adjacent Spanish River Library on the north side of Spanish River Boulevard; visitors can reach the entrance to the natural area via a multipurpose pathway along the shoreline of Blue Lake. Hiking, photography, wildlife viewing, and other passive recreation activities are be allowed on the site. There are no restroom facilities or drinking water on the natural area.
The natural area contains five native Florida ecosystems: scrub, scrubby flatwoods, mesic flatwoods, hydric hammock, and sawgrass slough. Historically, the natural area consisted of two sandy ridges bisected by a wide, shallow channel of water known as a slough. This slough was part of a wetland system that formed the headwaters of the Hillsboro River. In 1970, the natural was owned by IBM and a circular lake, known as Blue Lake, was excavated on the property. Restoration included removing invasive nonnative vegetation, restoring hydrology to historic wetland levels, and converting the western shoreline of Blue Lake to a more natural state. Approximately 50,000 cubic yards of soil were excavated from the former slough area to create 8-acres of wetland habitat. The excavated soil was used create a 12-foot-wide multiuse trail and littoral shelf along Blue Lake. This area was planted with 1700 native trees and plants.
Plant species observed on the site include groundnut, netted pawpaw, Florida scrub roseling, graceful sandmat, innocence, shortleaf gayfeather, golden polypody, laurel oak, lopsided Indiangrass, coontie, and Virginia chain fern.
Animal species observed on the site include green lynx spider, velvet ant, fiery skipper, pin-tailed pondhawk, eastern box turtle, Florida scrub lizard, eastern hog-nosed snake, spotted sandpiper, barred owl, black-throated blue warbler, ovenbird, and eastern spotted skunk.


text:
Climate change funding
Partnership will bring teachers, scientists together on topic of climate change
2:39 p.m., Aug. 15, 2012--Delaware and Maryland teachers will have new resources to integrate climate change science into the classroom, thanks to a major multimillion dollar initiative announced by the National Science Foundation today.
The $5.8 million cooperative agreement supports implementation of the Maryland-Delaware Climate Change Education, Assessment, and Research (MADE CLEAR) partnership, an effort to forge new ways to deliver effective and relevant climate change education that could serve as a national model.
From graduates, faculty
The MADE CLEAR partnership brings together of a group of experts in the fields of climate science and education, led by the University System of Maryland and University of Delaware, to provide a system of support for teachers in Maryland and Delaware. Focusing on grades 8-12, the network will also engage universities, state departments of education, and educators from natural resources agencies, museums, and aquariums.
"MADE CLEAR will connect Maryland and Delaware students and citizens with the world in which they live by fostering a greater understanding of why the climate is changing and the consequences within our two states," said Donald Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and MADE CLEAR director. "Our goal is to provide a basis for our citizens, today and tomorrow, to make individual and collective choices for limiting the magnitude of climate change and adapting to its consequences."
Climate change is a complex and sensitive topic to teach, touching on economic, social, political and scientific issues to a greater degree than most other science topics. The MADE CLEAR partnership encourages scientists and educators to work together to ensure scientific objectivity and accuracy in the classroom and promote critical thinking.
Rather than introducing climate change science as a new subject in an already crowded curriculum, the goal is to integrate understanding of climate change within new science standards and environmental literacy requirements in Maryland and Delaware schools.
"As the world around us changes in many ways, it's important educators stay current with cutting-edge science," said Delaware Gov. Jack Markell. "This partnership provides a way to engage and inform the teachers who will be instructing the emerging workforce for jobs of the future."
"The goal is for students to emerge with better knowledge of the science behind climate-related issues," said Nancy Targett, dean of UD's College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. "They can then better understand implications for our health, coasts, water supplies, farms and forests."
The partnership brings together scientists from the University System of Maryland and the University of Delaware who are engaged in various aspects of climate change research, ranging from atmospheric physics and chemistry to the effects of climate change on ecosystems and human health. This expertise is already being utilized by local, state and federal governments and businesses in understanding what impacts climate change will have on their assets, people, and ecosystems.
"The goal is to develop a learning community involving scientists, teacher educators, and teachers to support each other during professional development activities and follow-up classroom assistance," said Nancy Shapiro, University System of Maryland associate vice chancellor.
"MADE CLEAR will support the development and distribution of teaching approaches and materials, and evaluate their effectiveness," said Nancy Brickhouse, interim provost and professor of science education at UD. "In that way, we can strive not only for continuous improvement in our two states, but be a model for the nation."
MADE CLEAR is led by the University System of Maryland and the University of Delaware and includes participation of faculty members from the University of Delaware, Delaware State University, the University of Maryland, College Park, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, and Towson University.
Key to the partnership is the participation of the Maryland State Department of Education, the Delaware Department of Education, Maryland Public Television and state and federal science agencies, including the state departments of environmental and natural resources, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
This project is one of six Phase II projects being funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Climate Change Education Partnership (CCEP) program. The CCEP program is a one-time, dedicated NSF effort to establish a coordinated national network of regionally- or thematically-based partnerships devoted to increasing the adoption of effective, high quality educational programs and resources related to the science of climate change and its impacts. The vision of this program is a scientifically literate society that can effectively weigh the evidence regarding global climate change as it confronts the challenges ahead, while developing the innovative scientific and technical workforce to advance our knowledge of human-climate interactions and develop approaches for a sustainable, prosperous future.