Category Archives: Music

The Master and His Emissary, my Take

The Left Cerebral Hemisphere (LH, the language dominant hemisphere), can be viewed as a child that mimics the roles it is assigned, or through its sharply focused observations, is drawn into itself, but on its own, continually lacks the required affective attentional access to the Right Hemisphere’s (RH) primary processes of experience (way of ‘Being’); which are essentially concerned with ‘Care’, is nonverbal, instinctual, socially reinforcing, relationally aware, empathic, sensually rich and highly integrated spatial-temporal imagistic and intuitive perceptions; producing highly contextualized knowledge, memories, evaluation and insights.

Thus ‘presenting’ to the mind an immediate and holistic understanding of wherever it places its attention, nonverbally, and without the requirement of decontextualizing analytical thought, providing the individual human being with ‘values’ grounded in reality and a practical and meaningful apprehension of the whole.

The LH processes the information gleaned from its highly focused window of attention (like a microscope or telescope) recursively, and is essentially concerned with the usefulness of things, ‘Utility’, habituates the thoughts and behaviors required to implement the global demands of one’s ‘total being’, as apprehended and processed by the RH, in its primary processes of discerning the salient and cohesively interrelational aspects of ‘being’.

The RH subsequently depending upon the LH to implement the behaviors required (forming neurologically hard-wired circuits) for the automated volitional acts it deems consistent with its ‘being’ and its relationships as a whole to everything it is aware of, allows the RH to extend its attentional processes onto an ever-expanding and interrelated world of ‘care’; relationships, value and meaning, as they relate to ones ‘being’.

The Attentional Awareness required to ‘see’ objects and reality as they actually are, a fundamentally interconnected interplay of an untold number of dynamically emergent processes, all necessarily related to and dependent upon each other for existence and expression, continually changing and transforming into and out of multitudinous re-configurations, requires the capacity to intuitively recognize patterns of experience from a whole interconnected view first and foremost, in the processing of experience in the RH.

One’s orientation with reality must be natural and actually ‘present’, not only ‘re-presented’ to the RH by the LH, the actual image of the whole must be considered first, before any experience can be ‘re-presented’ by the narrowly focused attentional processes of the LH.

The information that the LH ‘unfolds’, and subsequently presents to the RH, in this way, can be accurately placed in the context of the whole, allowing for the largely automatic and effective perspectival evaluation of experience, extensionally broadening the minds global view and improving the individual’s ability to recognize, and extend, similar and new experiences going forward. This then is the natural process of psycho-logical human growth, as predetermined by the processes and functioning of our currently evolved human neurological processes.

According to the eminent neuropsychiatrist and Oxford Fellow, Iain Mcgilchrist, the primacy of the right hemisphere, a requirement of the processes of our nervous systems structural functional configuration, has recently been, from a cultural perspective, effectively sacrificed, in deference to the narrow wants and fascinations that the child, now believing it is the master and ‘seer’ of the whole, clings to for its own power and a contrived appearance of certainty, control and survival, as the LH’s primary function in isolation from the RH, is to procure its own power and to utilize the objects of its environment to maintain such power.

Tuning (foreword excerpt)

Our Environment, Nature, the Fundamental Dimension (Space-Time-Mass-Energy, STEM) like a slice of a CT Scan or a photographic snapshot, the eternal now is as an ever-changing focal point where our environment is blended with the unspeakable, spacetime and massenergy with our nervous system, resulting in a unique manifestation of our own human conscious experience.

This is the primary phenomenon, the ignition point of the consciousness of observers interacting with STEM, it is the point, the calculus, where the curved and the chaotic blends with the linear and the ordered, naturally providing us the intellectual (psycho-logical) structure we require to adapt, predict and thrive within the myriad of interlacing dynamic processes that we are shrouded in and an integral part of.

The transitory moment through which we interface with reality, like a photograph, provides a relatively two dimensional physical perspective which our neurological apparatus has evolved to automatically sense, process, perceive, conceive, contextualize and respond to in such a way to provide us an advantage over the less aware and the more dangerous, with which we share and depend on in our environment.

The Human Nervous System, the structure and resultant natural pattern recognition functions of our currently evolved nervous systems provides us with the most advantageous evolutionary adaptive characteristics known, as evidenced by the knowledge gleaned and the achievements made over the full spatialtemporal range of human activity and endeavor, relative to STEM, no matter any particular evaluation or judgement of others behavior or negatively construed consequences one may assert to the contrary.

Through all of our uniquely formative and consciously unaware experiences of our childhood (and continuing into adulthood for the many); untold numbers of poorly evaluated associations, relations, meanings and conclusions are incorrectly deduced and attached to the objects and events of our experiences.

Our human nervous system has evolved over many many millennia and is primarily concerned with the function of aligning the structure of itself with that of the ever-changing environments it interacts with, is subject to and is an integral part of (accurate information gathering and pattern recognition intended for adapting to and predicting potential outcomes for enhanced chances and experiences of survival).

It must also function (somewhat artificially) relative to civilizations’ fundamental requirements for the uniformity of its constituents generalized behavior for its own ongoing survival, a phenomenon which has ultimately resulted in a generalized de-tuning of the evaluating apparatus that we all have been naturally endowed with.

Misaligned and incongruent neurological associations develop, not naturally and in tune with the structure and functioning of our anciently evolved nervous system relative to our environment, but are powerfully influenced and directed from a cultural perspective, and subsequently continually reinforced unconsciously through habitualized behavior and language patterns that we reactively employ in response to the essential and primary demands of a successfully functioning, advancing, productive and safe society.

As scientific discoveries have continued to advance at an advancing rate, the myriad of technologies that are successively introduced, act in such a way to provide us essentially more and more extensions of our nervous systems. We effectively harness new modalities for acquiring more subtle levels of knowledge assumptively intended to expand our experiences and the reach of our care and ambition.

While these ‘advancements’ can potentially enhance our awareness and the quality of our life experiences, an equalizing, yet antithetical measure of technologies and novel modalities are also required to offset the ever-growing internal psychic imbalances which also continually expand and spring up (in varying levels in varying individuals) in opposition to the ever-conforming force needed to maintain the certainties and comforts that civilization (and particular cultures, societies, affiliations, groups, etc.) promises, and is depended upon, to afford its members.

Empathy v Judgment

Empathy costs us emotionally, it’s an investment in others.
Judgement costs us nothing, but it does reinforce our rightness over others however!
Which one should we employ when dealing with other souls?

It was language that turned us into human beings and created civilization

By Gregory Mitchell

Solomon E. Asch was a world-renowned American Gestalt psychologist and pioneer in social psychology. He became famous in the 1950s, following experiments which showed that social pressure can make a person say something that is obviously incorrect. Solomon Asch thought that the majority of people would not conform to something obviously wrong, but the results showed that an alarming number of participants gave the wrong answer.

The inner-directed person has discovered the potential within themselves to live and act not according to established norms, but based on what they discover using their own inner compass. They have their own moral code and values. They are originally influenced by parents and other authority figures, but later the source of their direction appears as an inner core of principles and character traits. The inner-directed person does not derive his sense of value or identity solely from tradition nor from conformity to peer-group fashions, but from the resources of his own nature.

Other-directed persons tend to be dependent. They may be anxious and fearful about others’ approval or disapproval of themselves. They tend to be oversensitive to others’ opinions and are compulsive conformists. They often are manipulating in order to please others and insure constant acceptance and approval.

Research by cognitive psychologist Herman A. Witkin reports that one aspect of cognitive style, namely field-dependence/field-independence, is affected significantly by socialization and child-rearing practices.

The term ‘field‘ relates to the external perceived world.

Relatively field-dependent individuals thrive more in situations where decisions are made for them.

They tend to prefer a ‘spectator’ approach to life with responsibility on the shoulders of others.

They operate with a relatively external frame of reference, as opposed to the greater ‘inner-directedness’ of the field-independent individual.

Inner direction is considered a desirable trait in Mind Development. This orientation can only be achieved by an individual who is in the process of developing his own character, of becoming ‘field-independent’, his or her volition self-determined (based on self-knowledge) rather than the effect of manipulation or propitiation.

The most original, creative and outstanding men and women are invariably of this type, and yet it is no ‘elitist’ type, for it is available to all human beings with the courage of their convictions.

It is the way of life that takes ‘Individuation’ (as described by Carl Jung) as its goal: to manifest one’s highest potential. To achieve Individuation, the individual needs to become much more field-independent and inner-directed than is generally the case. There is a significant correlation between field-independence and IQ.

Field-dependents: (conformists)
Rely on the surrounding perceptual field.

Have difficulty attending to, extracting, and using non-salient cues.

Have difficulty providing structure to ambiguous information.

Have difficulty restructuring new information and forging links with prior knowledge.

Have difficulty retrieving information from long-term memory.

Have a tendency to be extrinsically motivated.

Have a disposition to be other-directed.

Have a tendency to be extraverted.

Field-independents: (independent thinkers)
Perceive objects as separate from the field.

Can dis-embed relevant items from non-relevant items within the field.

Provide structure when it is not inherent in the presented information.

Reorganize information to provide a context for prior knowledge.

Tend to be more efficient at retrieving items from memory.

Have a tendency to be intrinsically motivated.

Have a disposition to be inner-directed.

Have a tendency to be introverted.

Field independence/field dependence are a semi-independent dimension to introversion/extraversion, but the separation is not complete.

There is a moderate correlation between introversion and field independence, as well as between extraversion and field dependency.

The capacity to introvert is a skill dependent on a certain level of maturity – children and the immature are not good at this.

The process of introversion is a skill that the child will need in order to develop greater intelligence and wisdom.

Introversion reaches a maximum at about age forty, the true age of maturity.
By the age of forty, most people have had twenty years of adult life, they have had the experience of marriage, children, ownership of property and forging a career, and they have become politically aware.

Introversion is the tendency to focus one’s attention towards the inner, mental world, but it is only with maturity that harmony may be found.

The American bias toward extraversion as a sign of maturity is a dangerous but little-discussed political phenomenon.

Let us consider how dangerous this bias is

Consider the extraverted leader who values loyalty above clear thinking; consider the dangers we are led into by a coarse, unsubtle extravert who distrusts the loner, the doubter, the thinker.

Ironically, although extraverts tend to have developed outgoing social skills, people who are truly great at working social interactions such as diplomats tend to be introverts, since they have needed to look inside to develop meaningful empathy between themselves and others.

Internal motivation is an attribute of the introverted personality.

An introvert spends inordinate amounts of time processing the world around him through his own emotions, thoughts, and beliefs. He frequently thinks about how his environment impacts his existence.

As a result, when he is enthusiastic about a life task, he is able to discipline himself for greater periods of time for the purposes of reflection and problem solving.

This process of inner reflection energizes him and propels him forward toward new ways of thinking, believing, and behaving.

In essence, an introvert is motivated by his own self-talk. Introverts work well independently, and usually prefer to work alone. Internally motivated individuals are frequently insightful and can more easily see the association between cause and effect.

On the down side, an introvert is more susceptible to mood swings and depression because he spends so much time reflecting upon the significance of his life.

Introverts tend to be intrinsically motivated.

Intrinsic motivation is inner-directed (field-independent) interest in a task.

In studies on field dependence and field independence, it was found that field-independent individuals tend to engage in a hypothesis-testing, participant role in learning.

They seemed to function on intrinsic motivation and were perceptive of the subtle and inconspicuous information relevant to the task.

Intrinsic motivation, field independence, reflection, cognitive complexity, deep-level processing, and task orientation are all positive traits exhibited by introverts.

On the other hand, field dependent individuals tended to notice only the most prominent information and seemed to be motivated by extrinsic rewards.

The source of motivation tends to be externally based when individuals are other directed and seek affirmation of traits, competencies, and values from external perceptions and influences.

In stressful and/or threatening circumstances, field dependent individuals appeared to utilize repression and thus exhibited inferior or distorted recall.

The Illusion of Normality

Experiments were undertaken by Gestalt psychologists early last century, in which a person viewed through a mechanism of titled mirrors. At first all seemed to the person to be indeed tilted, but after a period a normalization effect took place and the mind auto-corrected the view so it seemed normal again.

When exposed to the real scenario, this now seemed tilted to the person. The normalization effect represents a wearing off of the influence of the framework of the outer world. In the mirror world, the framework of the normal objective world could not be sustained, and a new framework takes its place.

The subject felt he must conform to the influence of the titled framework, even when it meant not only suppressing bodily feelings (his sense of bodily uprightness) by subsequently feeling tilted when objectively upright but denying the obvious perceptual conflict when the frame could not possibly be upright when it was not lined up with his body. This indicated not only a denial of his body as a standard of reference and an inability to relate it to what he could see in front of him, but a denial also of perceptual contradictions. These are strong illusions and indicate the potent effect of the normalization phenomena.

Those who excepted the field as upright in its tilted position insisted they were quite correct in their judgments, or that “the longer I look at it the less faith I have in my judgments.” With continued conflict between visual and postural determinants, the conflict is resolved in the direction of even greater reliance upon the visual framework. Thus, when a person loses one of their main points of reference – in psychology it may be significant people, or one’s job, for example – and outer cues become stronger, inner conflicting cues are ignored in determining the objective reality.

In addition, as outer cues begin to saturate the person for longer periods, inner cues become less and less useful as a basis for judging reality. The surrounding field becomes increasingly accepted as normal, even though its acceptance leads to an inaccurate judgment of the world and represents a tilted and distorted view.

A field-dependent person actually has a much narrower visual field so even in everyday life he is actually blind to certain reference points that would exist on the periphery of his vision – his vision is more literal and central. Such a person when reading makes very small fixations, and cannot read more than one word either side, or one line above or below the fixation point they are looking at. They are focused on a single point without reference to the total context. Of course, there are many fields beyond the perceptual, such as cognitive fields and social fields.

By analogy we can think of many everyday life situations which provide a person with this kind of conflict, between his own inner feelings and the outside stimulation that surrounds him. It seems that although a person may at first resist the intrusions of the surrounding field which might be quite distorted, without a point of reference or with supports of the objective reality taken away, he cannot for very long maintain himself. An obvious example is the situation of sensory deprivation. The distorted world tends to right itself and be perceived as normal.

We may speculate that in social situations an individual’s judgment may be rendered less useful for making a true assessment of what the objective reality is, by constantly saturating him with a bold, distorted field whilst at the same time limiting his access to independent assessment of the outer situation. Although he may at first rely on his inner standards and judge the socially induced reality to be distorted and untrue, in practice he will tend gradually to be overcome and accept the distorted reality as normal and true.

These observations derived from the perceptual laboratory may also help us to understand such phenomena as propaganda and brainwashing, and how they insidiously work their pernicious effect over a period of time, even on individuals who under optimal conditions might demonstrate good judgment.

It would also seem that this is the model used by some governments and organizations, surrounding their people with stimuli that are presented as reality, while at the same time limiting popular access to other sources of information. In the beginning the people may resist and protest and view the offered reality with suspicion, but little by little they too may succumb to the normalization effect, to accept as true, right and normal that which was previously perceived as a distortion.

Both hypnotic suggestibility and vulnerability to non-hypnotic social influence have positive and significant correlations with field dependence. Rhetoric and reality can be confused even when there is a clear and definite need to distinguish between them. A person may be immersed in a philosophy and a context which permeates by a process of osmosis until it seems normal. The context therefore has a hypnotic effect.

In contrast the effects of work with Mind Development techniques lead to greater field-independence. The student is continually encouraged to objectively reality check his internal belief system, against the context of his relationships, his hobbies, the outside world in general, his occupation, and to utilize objective tests of performance such as biofeedback, IQ and personality tests.

Unless we are dead, we are all individuals to a certain extent, but when we have achieved Individuation we are inner-directed and field-independent, so we would not be compelled to be conformist. Solomon Asch stated that most of the participants in his experiment were field-dependent and other-directed. They may of course be classed as individuals, but they were a million miles from being Individuated. They may have been free to express minor individuality within a bounded reality, but they were unable to express their individuality in an unbounded reality.

When we have achieved Individuation, we can say metaphorically, we are in the world without being of the world. There is an enormous gap between being an individual in a small way, to being a person who can write his own script.


bearish three line strike candlestick

Bearish Three Line Strike

Direction: Bearish

Type: Continuation

Reliability: Weak

After an established downtrend three long red days in a row continue this move, each closing lower than the previous day

Day-four is blue candle that closes near the open of the first day

So long as the previous downtrend is an established one, candlestick analysts view this formation as a sign that the downtrend may still continue.

The first three days serve as a fairly clear bearish move. Up to day-three in fact we have a Three Black Crows formation which is a strong bearish signal. One day of rally that only goes up to the open price of the patterns start is considered to be more sellers covering their positions than any true sign of a reversal. Thus traders will watch for short entry opportunities to come.

Since the overall signal is fairly weak, most will want confirmation in the form of bearish price action the next day.


Archives For clearing energy

  1. Greed
  2. Incompetence
  3. Tendency to Abuse Power

Make Room For What You Want

Natalie —  February 26, 2015 — 3 Comments

Life is full. We make choices each day to prioritize our time and energy.  Our choices are affected by our energetic state when we make the choice. If we are distracted, depleted or in a hurry we tend to make choices that further the sense of exhaustion or create an inner-dialog of self-judgment.

We don’t often consider how much we are being influenced by the world around us. We have bits and pieces of other people’s needs influencing the amount of energy we have for our life. Past encounters such as the person we accidentally cut off in traffic who blared their horn at us, and future expectations such as the pile of clothes to put away or the call to return, subtly drain our energy.

It’s challenging to make room for what we want in our life. We increase our odds by regularly cleaning out our energy field to insure we are choosing from a powerful place. Then our choices lead to creating what we want rather than self-criticism.

To clean and reclaim your energy field, follow this simple visualization.  Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and see yourself as grounded (connected with a link of energy from the tip of your tailbone to the center of the Earth).

Now imagine a rose in front of you. Its job is to clean out the energies in your aura that are not serving you or clouding your choices, small and large.  Intend that the bits of attention still on you from any people you’ve interacted with or had thoughts about are drawn-out of your body and into the rose.  This may take a few minutes.

Watch as the energy leaves, specifically from anyone with whom you feel there is something unresolved.  Also ask that the energy be cleared out information you’ve seen on the news.

Once you feel the energy from others and what is happening in the world has been cleaned out, see the negative thoughts and emotions you have put upon yourself be drawn out of your aura and into the rose. These can be emotions such as self-judgment, disappointment, frustration or shame.

When you feel complete, imagine the blossom of the rose is surrounded by a bubble that lifts it up high in the sky so it floats off to a very faraway place. Then see the rose evaporate and the energy recycle in a neutral fashion.

Before you are done, take a moment to fill your aura in with your own energy and a vibration you would like more of in your life.  Imagine a big magnetic funnel above your head drawing your energy to it from any person or place you’ve had attention on. Add to that funnel a hefty dose of the energy you would like more of such as, creativity, peace, clarity, inspiration, courage or happiness.  Then see the funnel fill your body up through the top of your head, overflowing once full to coat your entire aura with this positive energy.


Thursday, October 4, 2018

Astonishing Acorns

Texas Red Oak is one of many types of oaks that produce
acorns in autumn
Famous for its oak trees, there are more than 50 species of oak native to Texas.  In our region of Central Texas, some of the most common include Live Oak (Quercus virginiana), Texas Red Oak (Quercus buckleyi), and Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa).

A familiar tree with a stately growth habit, Live Oak is commonly 50 feet tall but with several large, twisting limbs that form a low, dense crown that can spread over 100 feet.  Its leaves are oblong in shape, leathery, 2 to 4 inches long and 0.5 to 2 inches wide.  Slow-growing but long-lived, it appears to be evergreen rather than deciduous since its old leaves fall just as new leaves emerge in the spring.  The annual acorns of this tree are dark brown and shiny, about 1 inch long and 0.5 inch wide, half covered in a gray, downy cup borne on a long stem.

Live Oak Acorns
Texas Red Oak, also called Spanish Oak or Buckley Oak, is a small to medium tree to 35 to 70 feet tall, and its habitat is restricted to limestone ridges, slopes, and creek bottoms.  Its leaves are deeply lobed and it provides good shade in the summer and deep red color in the fall.  Its acorns are biennial, or maturing every other year, but when they do occur they are plentiful.  They can occur singly or in pairs, are up to 0.75 inches long and 0.5 inches wide often streaked with dark lines, and set in a shallow cup covering one-third to one-half of the fruit.

Texas Red Oak Acorns
A large, deciduous tree reaching a height of 80 feet or more, the Bur Oak has heavy branches that form an open, spreading crown, and leaves with highly variable lobes that can grow to 12 inches long and 6 inches wide.  But what is most characteristic is its’ distinctively large annual acorns, up to 2 inches long, set into a deep mossy-fringed cup that gives this species its common name.  In fact, an alternate common name is Mossycup Oak.  Bur Oaks have a medium growth rate, and develop a deep taproot that allows them to draw water and anchor the tree, even in drought conditions.

Bur Oak Acorn
The origin of the word acorn is dubious, as several sources are possible including Old Norse akarn meaning ‘fruit of wild trees’, Gothic akran meaning ‘fruit’, and Old English aecern meaning ‘mast or oak-mast.’  Mast is a term often applied to the fruit of oak trees, especially when they are used as food source for animals.

In Texas, oaks are important trees for wildlife as they provide acorns for food, shelter in their huge branches, and both food and shelter as they slowly decay.  For humans, oaks protect against soil erosion, buffer homes from strong winds, and provide true beauty in the landscape.  All of these benefits are derived from the simple yet astonishing acorns!

Wednesday, August 8, 2018

A Gainful Grape

Winter or Spanish Grape, Vitis cinerea var. helleri
Few plants have a higher ecological value to wildlife than the Winter Grape or Spanish Grape (Vitis cinerea var. helleri).  This hardy deciduous vine, which can grow to 72 feet long, is common in east, north, and central Texas, and is primarily distinguished from Mustang Grape (V. mustangensis) by the smooth surface on the underside of its leaves.  It makes for an excellent wildlife plant as its fruit is a food source to both mammals and birds, its dense climbing foliage provides cover and nesting habitat, and it is a host plant for more than a dozen species of moths. Common in woodland areas and thickets near streams and riverbanks, it thrives in part shade while clambering over other plants, even in the heat of summer.

When mature, the leaves of the Winter Grape are up to 4.5 inches long and 5 inches wide, and have white cobweb-like hairs only on the underside leaf veins.  Roughly heart-shaped, the leaves have two broad lobes, a pointed tip, and serrated edges.  While this vine does produce palatable, reddish-purple fruits in clusters up to 8 inches long that ripen from August to October, it is its leaves that provide the food for the larval stage of notable moths such as the Nessus Sphinx (Amphion floridensis), Vine Sphinx (Eumorpha vitis), Eight-spotted Forester (Alypia octomaculata), and Mournful Thyris (Thyris sepulchralis).  In addition to nectaring on flowers in the adult stage, these moths often pollinate those flowers at the same time.

Nessus Sphinx
Nessus Sphinx Caterpillar
Both the Nessus and Vine Sphinx are members of a family of moths called the Sphingidae, more commonly known as hawk moths, hummingbird moths, and sphinx moths. Generally speaking, these moths are named not just for their streamlined bullet-shaped bodies that have long narrow forewings and short hindwings, but also for their distinct behavior that comes in the form of swift, hovering flight. The leaf-feeding caterpillars or larva of these moths typically have a smooth body with a characteristic horn near their posterior end, hence the common name hornworm.  They pupate in an earthen cell or loose cocoon at or near the soil surface.

Vine Sphinx
The Nessus Sphinx has a stout abdomen with two bright yellow bands and a tuft at the end.  The upperside of its wings are a dark red to chocolate brown, and its hindwings have a red-orange band with a yellowish fringe.  Its wingspan is 1.5 to just over 2 inches, flying during the day and at dusk, from March to May and July to September.  The Vine Sphinx has dark brown forewings with a striking pattern of thick, pale bands and three fine pinkish veins, and hindwings with a pink patch along the inner edge.  Its wingspan is 3.5 to just over 4 inches, flying mainly at dusk, from April to May and July to October.

Eight-spotted Forester
Eight-spotted Forester Caterpillar
Part of the Noctuidae family, the Eight-spotted Forester has black forewings with two pale yellow spots and inconspicuous metallic blue bands, and hindwings that are black with white spots at the base and in the middle.  Its black body has pale yellow at the base of the forewing, orange fringe on its front and middle legs, and like many species in this family, when perched it holds its wings above its body like a roof.  With a wingspan of 1.0 to 1.5 inches, it flies during the day, most commonly from February to May.  With black wings and body spotted with white, the Mournful Thyris is a member of the Thyrididae family, generally small moths with stout bodies and relatively short wings, that perch in a distinctive position with a raised body and outspread wings.  Its wingspan is just over 0.5 to just under 1.0 inch, flying mainly during the day, from April to August.

Mournful Thyris

Whether you are looking for a hardy vine for your summer garden, or just a profitable plant for serving the needs of several species of native wildlife, look no further than the gainful grape!

Monday, June 4, 2018

Whiptails & Racerunners

Common Spotted Whiptail
Small to medium-sized slender lizards, whiptails and racerunners can be distinguished from other lizard species by their generally granular dorsal (topside) scales, larger rectangular ventral (underside) scales arranged in transverse rows, long tails, and forked, snake-like tongues. Additionally, these species belong to the genus Aspidoscelis, from the Greek aspido or ‘shield’ and skelos or ‘leg’, relating to their well-developed limbs that enable them to sprint at rapid speeds. Terrestrial and diurnal, these lizards are primarily carnivorous or insectivorous, actively foraging for food while temperatures are warm, and quickly skirting between objects for cover.  Of the 22 species occurring in the southwest, Central Texas is home to the Common Spotted Whiptail (Aspidoscelis gularis) and Six-lined Racerunner (Aspidoscelis sexlineata).

Common Spotted Whiptail

The Common Spotted Whiptail has a brownish-green body with 7 to 8 longitudinal yellowish-white stripes and similarly colored spots in the margins.  Its tail is up to twice the length of its body, reaching a total length of just about 12 inches.  It is found in prairies, grasslands, rocky hillsides, dense thickets, and canyon bottoms, often near water.  Males are larger than females, having a red, orange, or pinkish throat and sometimes a blue or light blue belly.  Females have a white or cream-colored underside, and lay 1 to 8 eggs in July, typically in a separate chamber of their underground burrow, sometimes as deep as 11 inches.  These lizards scare easily and often retreat in a straight line, but can best be viewed from April through August when their insect prey are most abundant.

Six-lined Racerunner
Just over 10 inches long, the Six-lined Racerunner has seven light dorsal stripes with a greenish wash on the head and upper body that fades to brown posteriorly.  Males may also have a blue throat and belly, and juveniles often have more distinct stripes, lack the green wash, but have a bright blue tail. Females lay clutches of 1 to 6 eggs from May to August.  Associated more with sandy soils, this lizard can occupy a wide variety of habitats, including grasslands, riverbanks, floodplains, and juniper woodlands.  Spiders and grasshoppers are their chief prey, and adults actively forage during the day, but as summer temperatures rise by July, their activity becomes bimodal, peaking in the morning and late afternoon to avoid the hottest parts of the day.

Common Spotted Whiptail growing a new tail
Like many lizards, whiptails and racerunners have developed the ability to allow the tail to break free of the body when grasped by a predator. Called tail autonomy, this process involves wriggling the detached tail to distract the predator while the lizard itself is able to escape. Complex adaptations have evolved to enable the tail to be released along a series of fracture planes, which usually occur through weakened vertebrae, and not between them. Most amazingly, these species also have the ability to regenerate the tail, albeit slowly, so it can be lost again if necessary.

Friday, May 25, 2018

Distinctly Different Milkweeds

Pearl Milkvine
Much ado has been made of the more common and widespread milkweed species, but there are a handful of milkweed vines that are less common but more distinct, and just as useful as native host plants for Monarchs and related butterflies.

A fairly robust, twining vine 6 to 12 feet long growing in dry, light shade in thickets on rocky hillsides and woodland edges, Pearl Milkvine (Matelea reticulata) is best known for its heart-shaped leaves and flat, greenish-white flowers ½ to ¾ of an inch across with pearly, iridescent centers.   Also called Green Milkweed Vine, Net Vine Milkvine, and Netted Milkvine, its curious flowers have tiny white veins forming an intricate pattern on the surface of the petals, adding to their unusual look. In fact, ‘reticulata’ refers to this pattern, which mans ‘resembling a net or network’.  It blooms from April to July, especially in full sun, giving way to fairly large, interesting prickly follicles filled with seeds attached to silky threads.  This native species is a host plant to Monarch butterflies.

Plateau Milkvine

Both the Pearl Milkvine and Plateau Milkvine have prickly seed follicles
Often mistaken for Pearl Milkvine is Plateau Milkvine (Matelea edwardensis), endemic only to the Edwards Plateau of Central Texas.  This uncommon vine shares the same twining habit of Pearl Milkvine, but its leaves, while similar, generally have a somewhat wavy edge, and its flowers are bell-shaped instead of flat.  Additionally, its greenish-white flowers do not have a pearl center, and its petals are not solely reticulate-patterned, having parallel veins in their lower halves and centers, and reticulate or networked veins only on the edges or margins.  Blooming in April and May, this species can be found on gravelly soils in open woodlands, often climbing on other plants, and it is a native host plant for Queen butterflies.

Pearl Milkvine Flowers
Plateau Milkvine Flowers
Purple Milkvine
Usually found in the chalky soils of pastures and open ground, Purple Milkvine (Matelea biflora) has low-growing stems that radiate along the ground from a woody rootstock, and along with its opposite, triangular leaves, are covered with long, spreading hairs.  From March to June, pairs of star-shaped, five-petaled, dark purple-brown flowers rise from the base of the leaves, which gives this plant its other common name of Star Milkvine.  While its trailing stems can grow up to 2 feet long, it inhabits grassy areas and as such is often hidden and overlooked, except by Queen and Soldier butterflies who use it as their native host plant.

Named for a small town in Chihuahua, Mexico, Talayote (Cynanchum racemosum) or Milkweed Vine is a climber that grows to 15 to 20 feet in full sun to part shade, and is a native host plant for both Queen and Soldier butterflies.  Talayote produces clusters of small cream and green flowers that are held above and among the heart-shaped leaves, blooming in the hotter months from summer into fall, and attracting a host of other small but beneficial pollinators.  Growing only in Central, South, and West Texas in the United States, this vine produces plump, smooth follicles 3 inches long, filled with silk-topped seeds, often remaining on the vine well into winter.

Take the time to seek out and appreciate these lesser known members of the Milkweed family, as they are beautifully and distinctly different!

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

A Horse of a Different Color

Horsetail or Scouring Rush

Few plant species that grow naturally today have been around for over 100 million years, but one of the best known are plants in the genus Equisetum, which is the only living genus of the entire family of Equisetopsida, most commonly known as horsetails.  They are recognized as close relatives of ferns, typically growing in wetter areas with whorls of needle-like branches radiating at regular intervals from each single vertical stem.

The common name of horsetail is used for the entire group of plants, since the branched species resemble a horse’s tail.  In fact, the genus Equisetum comes from the Latin equus or ‘horse’ and seta or ‘bristle.’  Another common name is scouring rush, referring to the upright rush-like appearance of the plants, and the fact that the longitudinal ridges of the stems are coated with abrasive silicates, making them useful for scouring or cleaning metal items.  It is still used today as a traditional polishing material in Japan.

The primary species of horsetail that occurs natively in wet or moist areas of Texas, most commonly on the Edwards Plateau and in Blackland Prairie, as well as most of the non-tropical northern hemisphere, is Equisetum hyemale.  A spreading, reed-like perennial growing to 3 feet tall, each stem is evergreen, cylindrical, jointed, hollow, and about 1/4 of an inch in diameter.  In this species, the needle-like branches appear non-existent, but are actually small and fused around the stem at each joint or node, forming a blackish-green band or sheath.  Interestingly, the pattern of spacing of the nodes in these plants, which grow increasingly close together toward the apex, is precisely what inspired Scottish mathematician John Napier to discover logarithms in the late 16th century.

Dragonflies, like this Neon Skimmer, love to perch on the cones of
the horsetail’s upright stems.

Horsetail prefers open or wooded areas along streams, moist flats, and wet ledges. Like ferns and other related species, horsetails reproduce by spores rather than through seed-producing flowers. These spores are borne in cone-like structures at the tips of some stems, and are mostly homosporus, meaning of the same size and type.  The tiny spores have four elaters or structures that alter shape in response to changes in moisture, effectively acting as moisture-sensitive springs that assist spore dispersal through crawling and hopping motions once released from the cone.

Horsetails reproduce by spores borne in the cone-
like structures at the tips of some stems.

The upright, evergreen, segmented foliage of horsetail is an appropriate plant for a rain garden, pond edge, water feature, or area with moist soil, and is an excellent perching plant for dragonflies. While it can spread quickly by underground or underwater runners, it is easily kept in check by periodic pulling or by planting it in a container.  Few plants add as much interest or vertical structure to a wildscape as this living fossil, which is clearly a  ‘horse of a different color’!

Friday, April 6, 2018

Blazing Beetles

Big Sand Tiger Beetle, Cicindela formosa
Over 2500 species and subspecies of tiger beetles are currently described worldwide, with more than 45 species occurring in Texas.  Tiger beetles get their name from their cat-like predatory behavior, performing an unusual form of pursuit where they alternatively sprint quickly toward their prey then stop and visually reorient, eventually running down their target.  In fact, some tiger beetles can run at a blazing speed of 5 mph, and are considered one of the fastest running land animals for their size!

Tiger beetles are believed to be closely related to ground beetles, but they differ in terms of their proportions.  Tiger beetles are about one inch long on average, with a head wider than its thorax, which is located between the head and the abdomen.  They also have large bulging eyes, long spindly legs, and oversized sickle-shaped mandibles to grab prey and devour it on the spot.  Tiger beetles are important predators in the insect world, feeding on a wide variety of ants, beetles, grasshopper nymphs, flies, and spiders.  They are most often found in sandy areas, stream edges, clay banks, and woodland paths.  Many are active in the daytime, and the colors and patterns on their oblong elytra (or wing covers) are often iridescent and striking.

Festive Tiger Beetle, Cicindela scuterllaris
Some of the more common tiger beetles in our area include members of the Cicindela genus, which comes from the Latin and means ‘glowworm’, referring to the fact that most of these species have metallic, flashy elytra.  In Eastern and Central Texas, the Big Sand Tiger Beetle (Cicindela formosa) and Festive Tiger Beetle (Cicindela scutellaris) prefer the dry sandy areas of post oak woodlands.  The Big Sand Tiger Beetle has luminous reddish-purple elytra with irregular white marks around the edges and the Festive Tiger Beetle’s elytra are iridescent reddish-bronze to purple to blue-green or blue-black with reduced or absent spotting.  Both species can be sighted late spring into fall.

Ocellated Tiger Beetle,Cicindela ocellata
Abundant along water edges, the Ocellated Tiger Beetle (Cicindela ocellata) is most active in the summer, and can be identified by its bronze elytra speckled with 8 cream-colored spots (4 on each elytra).  Ocellated means having one or more ocelli, or eye-like markings. The Six-spotted Tiger Beetle (Cicindela sexguttata) is the probably the most commonly observed species on dirt paths in grassy areas seldom far from woods, and has brilliant green elytra with typically six tiny white spots on the lower half (3 on each elytra).

Six-spotted Tiger Beetle, Cicindela sexguttata
Tiger beetles are also excellent indicators of environmental quality and are often studied as bioindicators.  Many require undisturbed sandy areas and specific microclimates for their burrows. With rapid urbanization and human disturbance of natural areas, these blazing beetles have fewer places to live and survive.  They are very sensitive to changes in the environment, and are among the first species to react to pesticides, misuse of natural habitat, and climate change.

Friday, March 2, 2018

Early Signs of Spring

Great Purple Hairstreak on Elbowbush (Forestiera pubescens), one
of the earliest plants to bloom, often beginning in February.
A blooming Missouri Violet (Viola missouriensis) is a sure sign
that spring has arrived!
Two-Flower Anemone (Anemone edwardsiana) blooms from February
to April, and prefers the tall grassy banks of moist, shaded canyons.
The yellow blooms of Agarita (Mahonia trifoliolata) appear in
February and March, and eventually form edible red
berries relished by humans and wildlife alike.
In late February and early March, one can often hear flocks
of Sandhill Cranes honking overhead as they make
their way north with the warming weather.
A Juniper Hairstreak sips nectar from the blooms of
an Elbowbush, which is also a favorite plant of native bees.
Texas Redbud (Cercis canadensis L. var. texensis) has clusters
of flowers that appear in early spring before the leaves emerge.
One of the earliest butterflies to appear in spring, Henry's Elfin
utilizes the Texas Redbud as one of its host plants.
Nothing heralds the smell of spring like the heady scent of a
blooming Mexican Plum (Prunus mexicana)!  This small tree is a
must for any pollinator garden.
The Falcate Orangetip is a true springtime butterfly, on the wing
as early as March.


Patch Wilson is originally from Cornwall, but upped sticks and moved to Ireland so as to better enjoy its wide array of big wave slabs -- slabs that, to use Patch's own analogy, stamp all over him like a rugby team. How very idiosyncratic! But also, you'd have to say, after watching this here clip, how very shrewd. The clip's by new mag Backwash, whose first issue you can pick up right here.


Dagron: God of Farming

Alignment: Lawful Neutral

Symbol: Wheat stalk

Incarnation: Earth Elemental

Dagron is worshipped by farmers, ranchers, and gardeners. He is also venerated by the Nomads in their care for their horses. Dagron is married to the goddess Aillur. As their domains overlap, they can most often be found together.

The World of Darken Bowynn Bowynn


Two labor-backed bills that could place pull your business into labor disputes that you have nothing to do with, will be heard in the Senate in the next two weeks.  We vociferously oppose both bills.

 AB 2416 (Stone; D-Scotts Valley) Unproven Wage Liens, passed the Assembly Labor Committee this week.  This bill creates a dangerous and unfair precedent in the wage and hour arena by allowing employees to file liens on an employer’s real or personal property, or property where work was performed, based upon alleged yet unproven wage claims.

 At the CCRES our members reported that there was a lot of confusion within the Legislature about what the bill actually does, how it is different from a Mechanic’s Lien, and what the transactional impact is.  Here are some materials that will help answer some of those questions:

 ***ACTION NEEDED*** The bill will be heard on Tuesday in the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Here is a list of the members.  Please call any member with which you have a relationship with and/or have property in that district, and let them know how this bill will negatively impact your ability to provide jobs once you are targeted by advocates using this law as a leverage point in negotiations.


frustrated contact center agentUnderstandably, most companies currently focus on the customer’s experience when assessing their contact center. It should be noted, however, that agent satisfaction and expectations should be considered as well.

We recently sent out a survey to both customers and agents and found that there is a disconnect between customer expectations and what agents can actually deliver, as well as a disconnect between customer satisfaction at the end of a call vs. agent satisfaction at the end of a call.

So, what happens when customer and agent expectations aren’t aligned? Fabrice Martin, Vice President, Product Management, Clarabridge discusses these findings more in detail here.


'Streaming' is the display of a form of multimedia – text, images, audio, video or animation – to a viewer via the internet. The process is different to downloading and podcasts in that what is being streamed can be watched or listened to as it arrives on a computer or other device and is not saved there. Watching television or listening to a radio programme on the internet are common examples of 'streamed media'.

‘Live streaming’ means broadcasting the media in real time over the internet. Live streaming would, for example, enable a person who wasn’t able to attend a friend’s wedding in Australia to watch it live on their computer screen. These days everything from fashion shows to political events are streamed.


Arushi Arangetram

This project will help launch the Embrace Infant Warmer, an innovative low-cost warmer designed to provide thermal support to preterm newborns, in India this winter. The Embrace Infant Warmer is the unique solution. The product is an extremely cost-effective technology that can work with or without electricity, and provides heat to an infant at a constant temperature, a key condition needed for survival.

This project is no longer accepting donations:

Embrace Infant Warmers Impact Babies Lives India

Join these generous donors


Human Focused Summarizing Statistics Using OWA Operators

Human Focused Summarizing Statistics Using OWA Operators

Ronald R. Yager (Iona College, USA)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-858-1.ch009

The ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator is introduced and the author discusses how it can provide a basis for generating summarizing statistics over large data sets. The author further notes how different forms of OWA operators, and hence different summarizing statistics, can be induced using weight-generating functions. The author shows how these weight-generating functions can provide a vehicle with which a data analyst can express desired summarizing statistics. Modern data analysis requires the use of more human focused summarizing statistics then those classically used. The author’s goal here is to develop to ideas to enable a human focused approach to summarizing statistics. Using these ideas we can envision a computer aided construction of the weight generating functions based upon a combination of graphical and linguistic specifications provided by a data analyst describing his desired summarization.
Chapter Preview

Owa Operators

The Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA) operator of dimension n is a mapping F:Rn → R such that F(a1, ..., an) = where bj is the jthlargest of the ai. The wj are weights such that wj ∈ [0, 1] and . An alternative representation of the OWA operator can be had by letting dj be the jthsmallest of the arguments, dj = bn+1-j. Using this we get F(a1, ..., an) = = .Letting vj = wn+1-j we can express F(a1, ..., an) = vj dj. Here vj is the weight associated with jth smallest of the arguments. We shall find it intuitively more satisfying to use this representation of the OWA operator. Collectively we can represent the vj by an n-dimension vector V called the weighting vector. In this vector the weights associated with the smaller arguments are at the top. A further notational convenience can be had if we let D be the n–dimensional vector whose components are the dj, we call D the ordered argument vector. Using this we get F(a1, ..., an) = VTD.

Complete Chapter List

Search this Book:


Made in China (#Sustainably)

By Marcella Echavania / December 30, 2017
Sustainable Fashion

A new wave of talented young designers is changing what it means for fashion to be "Made in China".

“Made in China” is not the usual #hashtag we look for when searching for what is new, fresh, unique or sustainable in today’s fashion world. But China is changing rapidly and fashion is reflecting this change in unexpected ways, as a new generation of designers takes to heart issues such as responsible design, sustainability and cultural preservation. Here are some of the top innovators.

Slow Fashion

Ma Ke is a well-known Chinese designer whose career has gone from the peak of fast fashion to the slowest redefinition of Chinese fashion through cultural heritage.

Sixteen years ago she launched Exception de Mixmind, the first Chinese designer brand, with more than 100 stores all over China. She left that behind and moved to Zhuhai, in the south, to work closely with textile artisans and go back to a slow-paced artisanal way of life. Wuyong (“useless”) is the umbrella name of her initiative, which includes a research project, a living museum in an industrial area of Beijing and a heritage food project currently in the works. It also features a collection of hand-stitched tea silk jackets, a traditional southern Chinese fabric made from handwoven silk treated with yam juice and mud that has existed since the Ming Dynasty, along with limited editions of pieces that result from Ma Ke’s work with artisans all over China.

“Traditional craftsmanship is disappearing from our daily life and can now only be found in museum exhibits. Through tremendous social changes, my country is undergoing a heart-breaking loss of tradition for the sake of an irresponsible pursuit of the future,” she says. “I became more and more attracted by Chinese traditional craftsmanship; the peasants live their lives the way our ancestors did, they get up when the sun rises and they rest when the sun sets. The intimacy and harmony they have with nature, the clarity and frugality they treat everything with, and the reverence they have for nature has moved me profoundly.”

How is it sustainable? The designer’s deep understanding of traditional textiles and a return to the roots where these are made ensure that every step of the process is done with care and respect for the environment and the cultures that created them.

Less is More

In a buzzing Beijing street, in one of the oldest hutongs (“narrow alleyways”), designer Mina Qu opened her boutique NagQu in 2010. Her work focuses on silk traditional clothing and scarves using the finest cashmere, “the fiber closest to heaven,” she says.

A limited edition of scarves can take up to two months and more than 20 dips until the right color is achieved. Her colors come from her research. For example, the green tones in her recent collection are inspired by old porcelain pieces from the Song Dynasty. Qu explains, “I have become intrigued by mixing the indirect quiet beauty of tradition with the direct beauty, strength and togetherness of folk art.” With NagQu she has created a lifestyle and an oasis.

“The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu said, ‘Over-flooded senses are harming your senses.’ So we keep subtracting, subtracting, subtracting...until we could feel the essence.”

How is it sustainable? An awareness of conscious consumerism, with a “less is more” approach.

Tradition and Ceremony

Secluded in very private spaces in Beijing and only open to their own networks, the lady’s clubs are reviving the lifestyles of the old dynasties of China. Amidst beautifully curated spaces, well-dressed women gather around the tea ceremony and different events related to Chinese culture. “Hui Xin Ge,” which means “wisdom house” and is located next to the Summer Palace, is one of these secret places. In the words of Ms. Li, one of the founders, “we want to go forward by going backwards. We feel great responsibility to the past and feel we should revitalize old traditions so they remain and give life to future generations.”

How is it sustainable? The return to ritual and ceremony.

Sustainable Materials

Fuzang was founded in 2011 by Elsa Jiang, as an atelier dedicated to the idea of exploring harmony between humans and nature, as well as sustainable development.

Fuzang interprets traditional Chinese culture from a distinctive contemporary perspective. Jiang uses humble materials such as yak wool, raw silk and organic sustainable cotton. Her inspiration comes from simple crafts, born of daily life. Her designs uncover the extraordinary in the ordinary and are always pointing out the beauty of imperfection.

How is it sustainable? The use of local textiles stitched by hand.

You May Also Like:

Enter your text here...

Latest posts by Marcella Echavania (see all)


Detection of Spoofing Attackers and Localize Them in Wireless Networks

Topic: Security
Format: PDF
Due to the openness of the wireless network transmission medium, opponent can monitor different transmission level. In this paper, propose to use spatial (space) the information, a natural property associated with each node identity, difficult to falsify, and not relevant process on cryptography, as the basis for spoofing attacks detection ; determining the number of attackers when multiple adversaries masquerading as the same node identity; and localizing multiple adversaries. Propose to use the spatial correlation of Received Signal Strength (RSS) inherited from wireless nodes to detect the spoofing attacks.

Find By Topic


The sharing economy and profiting from what others own

The start-up darling this week clearly has to be Airbnb with their recently announced valuation of US$10 billion. This puts them ahead of international hotel chains Hyatt (worth $8.4 billion) and Wyndham Hotel Group ($9.3 billion).

Airbnb’s founders are a growing group of entrepreneurs profiting from the concept of the sharing economy.

Simply put, they are businesses that use technology to disrupt an existing business model by leveraging or using what others have to create a profitable business in a similar fashion.

Airbnb has grown into a full-blown hospitality brand without owning any properties and most importantly, any large overhead cost that is associated with running a hotel or rental services. Their employees list include engineers, developers, designers, marketing and community leads as opposed to most hotel chains which includes chambermaids, servers, concierge, front desk staff and etc. Uber, other famous alumni of the sharing economy, runs one of the world’s largest transportation services without owning any car fleet of their own.

To build a business around the sharing economy is a dream for many entrepreneurs. It means doing more with less. In Airbnb’s scenario, it has grown to 600,000 listings in 190 countries on the backs of other people’s properties. How could any traditional hotel or real estate owners compete with that?

As an investor, Airbnb is very attractive. They have low overhead but can operate on a global scale without much investment. It escapes many rules and regulations applicable to traditional businesses. It does not have to pay hefty real estate taxes because of its business model and governments have yet to react fast enough to the concept of the sharing economy.

But creating a business out of what others own is not an easy task. You have less control over quality and customer service management. Airbnb have limited control of how the apartment will look when you arrive and if all the amenities as stated in the terms will be provided. The process may present many hiccups for the renter and rentee causing unhappy customers on both ends. Worst of all, bad PR press about trashed apartments or unwittingly renting out your apartment for a mass orgy party!

With this new round of funding, many speculate that Airbnb will use the funds to beef up the end to end process of their network, thus allowing for it to compete with some of the top hospitality brands.

This new round of valuation for Airbnb may indicate that it is being accepted as a mainstream business able to compete on par with the top hospitality brand or it may be the sharing economy fever that is spreading around the VCs in Silicon Valley. Only time will tell.

This article first appeared on Linkedin on Mar 22, 2014.


A look at the field of psychology and its application as a human science

Some of the most important skills taught are goal setting, relaxation, visualization, self-talk awareness and control, concentration, using rituals, attribution training, and periodization. The course is also meant to prepare the students in their practice as future psychometricians as they become acquainted with the various processes involved in conducting psychological assessment—test administration, scoring, interpretation, psychological report-writing, and feedbacking.

Many neuropsychologists also engage in basic research. For example, when developing requirements for a new job position, the recruiters are looking for an applicant with strong communication skills in multiple areas.

Industrial and organizational psychology[ edit ] Industrial and organizational psychologyor I-O psychology, focuses on the psychology of the workforce, customer, and consumer, including issues such as the psychology of recruitment, selecting employees from an applicant pool, training, performance appraisaljob satisfactionwork motivation.

Psychological Development in Infancy

Likewise, the field of psychology is completely unclear as to whether it deals in animals in general, with some animals e. The psycho-legal question does not have to be criminal in nature.

The course intends to ground the students in the Filipino context by focusing on pertinent issues that confront them in their daily lives.

Within 9 years he had contributed eight books in English, applying psychology to education, industrial efficiency, business and teaching. To take one example, psychological research has shown that lime-yellow objects are more easily detected in the dark than are red objects, leading to a gradual change in the colour of fire engines.

When applying these principles however, they are not easily broken apart. The focus of health psychologists tend to center on the health crisis facing the western world particularly in the US.

Many branches of psychology attempt to create models of and understand human behavior.

It only yields data and information. Clinical psychologists do not usually prescribe medication, although there is a growing number of psychologists who do have prescribing privileges, in the field of medical psychology.

The scientific mindset also includes the following characteristics: Counseling Psychology as a psychological specialty facilitates personal and interpersonal functioning across the life span with a focus on emotional, social, vocational, educational, health-related, developmental, and organizational concerns.

For example, one strategy towards television programming combines social models in a soap opera with informational messages during advertising time.

Yes, in the sense that psychology was defined by the application of scientific method s and psychologists conduct valuable research and have developed some key insights into animal behaviorcognitionconsciousness, and the human condition. Students are expected to be able to: These are used in the study of differences between individuals in ability, personality, preferences, and other psychological phenomena for example, by development of psychological tests.

To understand where the problem is, it is helpful to reference the well-known DIKW knowledge hierarchy, which shows that data and information are the base levels, which are then organized into knowledge systems and, hopefully, ultimately wisdom.

Psychologists assess the effects of specific educational interventions: Areas of Psychology Research and Application We offer courses in these areas at Wagner related course numbers follow each description.

As seen here, it is hard to separate task of developing a qualifications list from the types of qualifications on the list.

Areas of Psychology Research and Application

They will also be familiarized with the application of psychological assessment in various contexts. There has been a growing movement to integrate these various therapeutic approaches, especially with an increased understanding of issues regarding ethnicity, gender, spirituality, and sexual-orientation.

There is a guiding philosophy which places a value on individual differences and an emphasis on "prevention, development, and adjustment across the life-span. Research psychologists also are involved with the education and the motivation of road users.

Bachelor of Science in Psychology

He cited the recent musings of Washington Post blogger Charles Lane, who wrote that: SHARE If one is a psychologist or even has a passing interest in the field, one has likely encountered the question about whether psychology is truly a science or not.

In many countries clinical psychology is a regulated mental health profession. A final element that is particularly relevant in this context is that the term science has much rhetorical value in our culture.

School psychologists consult with teachersparents, and school personnel about learning, behavioral, social, and emotional problems. Lifted on CHED memo Group Dynamics and Training This course introduces students to the theories, concepts, empirical studies, processes, and models pertinent to groups.

Indeed, if science were solely a method, then it would not be all that valuable, a point that is sometimes lost on empiricists enamored with the scientific method.These shows offer a unique, albeit slightly glamorized, look at the different phases of the investigation process, from the collection [ ] Skip to content.

Beyond Forensic Science: The Different Types of Forensics Forensic psychology is essentially where the field of psychology meets the law.

Applied Developmental Psychology: Volume 3 is a collection of papers from different experts in the field of psychology in an attempt to put forth a vision of psychology as a developmental science through its applications in different studies. General Psychology Chapter 1. General Psych Chapter 1.

STUDY. PLAY. including human behavior and to draw conclusions. behavior. A field of psychology that concentrates on observable, measurable behaviors and not on mental processes. mental processes. The application of psychological principles and techniques to business.

Psychology is the science of human (and nonhuman) behavior, cognition, emotion, and motivation. It can be subdivided into many different specializations, some of which are concerned primarily with psychological science (experimental psychology) and others of which are concerned with both psychological science and the application of that.

Is psychology a science? Yes, in the sense that psychology was defined by the application of scientific method(s) and psychologists conduct valuable research and have developed some key insights into animal behavior, cognition, consciousness, and the human condition.

But a key feature of real scientific knowledge is that there is a clear.

Applied psychology

Applied psychology and the science of psychology benefit society. Psychologists conduct basic and applied research, serve as consultants to communities and organizations, diagnose and treat people, teach future psychologists, and test intelligence and personality. Psychology is a varied field.

Psychologists conduct basic and .

Rated 3/5 based on 21 review


Choose Well

Combined Effects of different annuals are a quick way to set the mood of any outdoor space. The possibilities include calming or energizing, tropical or desert, cottage soft or architecturally edgy. Coordinate or contrast colors and textures for the desired “feel” in beds or containers.

Annuals in containers can really focus in on a desired style and look most stunning when a mix of heights and forms are used – the classic thriller, filler, spiller formula:

Upright (thriller, vertical) plants add vertical interest and a sense of height to planting arrangements, making them more lively and dynamic.

Mounding (filler, anchor) plants are used to create stability in planting arrangements. They bring a sense of balance to even the boldest combinations.

Trailing (spiller, spreading) plants are the final “accessory” in planting arrangements. They fill in gaps, soften edges and tie all the elements together for a truly finished look.

Healthy Mix

Be sure to match by water and sun needs when mixing annuals in a planting, so all can be at their healthiest. If your plant selections have similar sun requirements, but differing water needs – plant them in individual containers that can each be watered separately. You can then arrange a mix of containers and easily rearrange or change them out as season progresses for a fresh look.

Maintaining the Glow

Annuals need regular and consistent feed and water and a touch of cleanup to keep up their dazzling displays. Liquid feed, with every other watering in containers or once a month in beds, or slow-release feed twice per season work for most varieties. Containers should be checked daily for water needs. When you do water, it may run freely from the bottom of a basket or container before the potting mix actually starts absorbing any, especially if it has been allowed to dry out completely. Think of how a dried out kitchen sponge can need a good soaking before it stops repelling water and starts to take it in. Do not use water flowing out the bottom as your only indicator of enough water! Instead, feel the mix to confirm it really did get
moistened or check for heaviness before and after watering – as a thoroughly watered container should have some weight to it. Many varieties are considered self-cleaning and quickly drop their spent blooms. For those that don’t, remove the finished blooms and any seed heads that start to form so the plant can direct energy to new flowers. Annuals being grown for foliage can have any flowers buds that form removed, with no threat to the plants health.


Contains the protocol used to define all Ring session storage engines.

An interface to a session storage engine. Implementing this protocol allows
Ring session data to be stored in different places.

Session keys are exposed to end users via a cookie, and therefore must be
unguessable. A random UUID is a good choice for a session key.

Session stores should come with a mechanism for expiring old session data.

(delete-session store key)
Delete a session map from the store, and returns the session key. If the
returned key is nil, the session cookie will be removed.

(read-session store key)
Read a session map from the store. If the key is not found, nil
is returned.

(write-session store key data)
Write a session map to the store. Returns the (possibly changed) key under
which the data was stored. If the key is nil, the session is considered
to be new, and a fresh key should be generated.


The influence of free will on important issues in human nature choice and ethics

Outside the moment of recognition there is no self-consciousness. John Locke denied that the phrase "free will" made any sense compare with theological noncognitivisma similar stance on the existence of God.

It is a tool, an instrument: Man is not a thinking thing de-associated from the world, as in Cartesian metaphysics, but a being which finds itself in various moods such as anxiety or boredom.

Kant's Moral Philosophy

Accounts of libertarianism subdivide into non-physical theories and physical or naturalistic theories. By what right indeed can we demand that we should be treated in one fashion, reserving it to ourselves to treat others in a fashion entirely different?

The body politic has the same motive powers; here too force and will are distinguished, will under the name of legislative power and force under that of executive power. For Kierkegaard anxiety defines the possibility of responsibility, the exodus of man from the innocence of Eden and his participation to history.

Second, even in a deterministic system there can arise processes that tend to produce certain results. Expressionism became a world-wide style within cinema, especially as film directors like Lang fled Germany and ended up in Hollywood.

For the Church, involvement in media-related activities, including advertising, is today a necessary part of a comprehensive pastoral strategy. Deists retreat directly to the last trench, and use God only to answer the question of why there is something rather than nothing.

Much advertising directed at children apparently tries to exploit their credulity and suggestibility, in the hope that they will put pressure on their parents to buy products of no real benefit to them. He next discusses the principles that should govern decent liberal societies in their relations with peoples who are not governed by decent liberalisms.

This dialectical clarification of the moral import of desert, however, did not satisfy all commentators. This concrete notion of freedom has its philosophical genesis in Hegel, and is generally contrasted to the pure rational freedom described by Kant.

This rule is immediately deducible from the principle laid down. That diversity was rooted, at least in part, in the diversity of sources on which existentialism draws.

Time travel would imply the existence of either hypertime or circular causality. That actions are at once obligatory and at the same time unenforceable is what put them in the category of the ethical. And, finally, with respect to the fourth point, existentialism is opposed to any solipsism holding that I alone exist or any epistemological idealism holding that the objects of knowledge are mentalbecause existence, which is the relationship with other beings, always extends beyond itself, toward the being of those entities; it is, so to speak, transcendence.

John Rawls (1921—2002)

On Rawls and Political Liberalism. In TJ, the account of stability for the right reasons involved imagining that this wholeheartedness arose from individuals being thoroughly educated, along Kantian lines, to think of fairness in terms of the principles of Justice as Fairness.

PL at 76, Humans have no credible evidence of any supernatural agency or unity. As that suggests, advertising has two basic purposes: Hence, it is also a feeling together with others and a sympathetic participation in their emotions.

It is not a full theory of justification. Acute health conditions are those that need immediate attention, are temporary, and from which individuals usually recover, such as colds and flu, or can begin as needing immediate attention and may lead to long-term care, such as a heart attack or a stroke.

There are also many State and local Arc chapters throughout the United States. Unlike non-human animals men are products of history that is to say products of memory.

The term for this tension is ambiguity. The Difference Principle requires society to look out for the least well off. As a difference that makes no difference, ontological determinism is a thesis that parsimony demands be rejected.PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR SOCIAL COMMUNICATIONS.

ETHICS IN ADVERTISING. I. INTRODUCTION. 1. The importance of advertising is "steadily on the increase in modern society."1 That observation, made by this Pontifical Council a quarter century ago as part of an overview of the state of communications, is even more true now.

1. Aims and Methods of Moral Philosophy. The most basic aim of moral philosophy, and so also of the Groundwork, is, in Kant’s view, to “seek out” the foundational principle of a “metaphysics of morals,” which Kant understands as a system of a priori moral principles that apply the CI to human persons in all times and cultures.

Kant pursues this project. Four topics are identified for study and there will be one question based on each topic. Candidates must answer two questions. Understanding of any one topic may be informed by a study of the others, and, where relevant, candidates may draw on material from more than one topic in their answer to any question set.

He wrote a series of highly influential articles in the s and ’60s that helped refocus Anglo-American moral and political philosophy on substantive problems about what we ought to do. Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.

Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by .

Rated 5/5 based on 22 review


sokurow verschickt bebte

A typical kerosene lamp is made by taking an empty bottle or tin can, putting a wick in the middle, filling it with fuel and lighting. Using kerosene for lighting is extremely inefficient, dangerous and expensive, and it has extensive health and environmental drawbacks. Zoom in to click on street light icon on the map below then select the problem from the drop down list. According study conducted by CarMD, five common malfunctions cause the check engine light to come on, and several of them are simple to fix yourself. Let’s take a look at the most common issues. It happens because the nature of a TV or radio debate is increasingly binary and confrontational, and because getting people to argue with each other makes for better “box office” than exposing them to equal levels of proper scrutiny. The presenter thus becomes a referee rather than a tribune for the viewers and listeners: if they point out a flaw in one person’s argument, they must then point out a flaw in the other’s or be accused of bias; if they employ knowledge to challenge false assertions, they are pursuing their own “agenda”. It has led us into an age of boundless heat but very little light and seen a veneration of dangerous, divisive stupidity move squarely into the media and political mainstream. If you notice a street light that is not operating properly, and it is not due to an emergency circumstance (i.e. flooding, downed power line, earthquake, etc.), please use the form below to report the problem. Our team of Customer Care Agents will respond to your email in the order received, Monday through Friday. Unexpected high volumes may result in a delayed response. In the effort to reduce light pollution, researchers have developed a “Unified System of Photometry,” which is a way to measure how much or what kind of street lighting is needed. The Unified System of Photometry allows light fixtures to be designed to reduce energy use while maintaining or improving perceptions of visibility, safety, and security.[101] There was a need to create a new system of light measurement at night because the biological way in which the eye’s rods and cones process light is different in nighttime conditions versus daytime conditions. Using this new system of photometry, results from recent studies have indicated that replacing traditional, yellowish, high-pressure sodium (HPS) lights with “cool” white light sources, such as induction, fluorescent, ceramic metal halide, or LEDs can actually reduce the amount of electric power used for lighting while maintaining or improving visibility in nighttime conditions.[102] Requesting new street lights  Requests for new street lighting should be passed to the parish or town council with as much information as possible. Please use the form below to report the street light problem. Hi, we had the same issue with the Instax mini 8 andblinking lights and we could not get out the casette, we solved* Hit to insert another list item, and twice in a row to end the list. To get subitems, repeat the bullet character once for each level of indent you want (e.g. **) this by using a sisser and knife.the problem is rhat the last picture was hanging and this was caused by the small silver item in the right corner when you open it. After we removed the last casette to put a new one in this silver item did not get back to the right corner but was about 1cm above.We solved this by putting the old empty casette in it, pushed the button to make a picture and then removed the old casette again, now it was solved , the silver item was back in the right corner again and after installing a new casette it was working perfectly again Judging by the number of visible stars, my observations show that light pollution has made the night sky over Warrensburg, New York, about four times brighter since the mid-’70s. And at various points along the horizon, there are now small domes of light indicating the presence of nearby towns, the brightest of which is Lake George, a popular tourist center several miles to the south. Light trespass can be reduced by selecting light fixtures which limit the amount of light emitted more than 80° above the nadir. The IESNA definitions include full cutoff (0%), cutoff (10%), and semi-cutoff (20%). (These definitions also include limits on light emitted above 90° to reduce sky glow.) Some types of light sources are listed in order of energy efficiency in the table below (figures are approximate maintained values), and include relative visual skyglow impacts.[88][89] … public lighting is the single largest source of local government’s greenhouse gas emissions, typically accounting for 30 to 50% of their emissions. There are 1.94 million public lights — one for every 10 Australians — that annually cost A$210 million, use 1,035 GWh of electricity and are responsible for 1.15 million tonnes of CO2 emissions. Few creationists have aggressively pursued solution one. The reasoning for this solution has been that if the distances of astronomical objects are not known that well, then astronomical bodies may be far closer than generally thought, and hence there is no light travel time problem. This solution amounts to defining the problem away, but there are additional problems with this solution. First, creationists who have suggested this solution do correctly point out that trigonometric parallax, the only direct method of measuring stellar distances, yields distances that at most are only a few hundred light years. So this could explain why we see all the stars for which we have directly determined distances. One might further reason that since the distance determination methods that give very great distances that cause the light travel time problem today are indirect, those indirect methods are somehow suspect. However, one cannot dismiss the indirect methods so easily. Most of these methods are based upon well understood physical principles, and many of the indirect methods are calibrated to trigonometric parallax. See Faulkner (2013) for a discussion of distance determination methods. Second, this solution relies upon the incorrectly formulated light travel time problem. While today we can see stars such as Alpha Centauri, the closest star similar to the sun, with this solution it would not have been visible to Adam at the conclusion of the Creation Week, because it is 4.3 light years away. For this solution to work, even the well determined trigonometric parallax method must be abandoned, but this is not physically supported. Light pollution is a topic gaining importance and acceptance in environmental discourse. This concept provides a framework for categorizing the adverse effects of nighttime lighting, which advocacy groups and regulatory efforts are increasingly utilizing. However, the ethical significance of the concept has, thus far, received little critical reflection. In this paper, I analyze the moral implications of framing issues in nighttime lighting via the concept of light pollution. First, the moral and political importance of problem framing is discussed. Next, the origins and contemporary understandings of light pollution are presented. Finally, the normative limitations and practical ambiguities of light pollution are discussed, with the aim of strengthening the framework through which decisions about urban nighttime lighting strategies are increasingly approached. Astronomy is very sensitive to light pollution. The night sky viewed from a city bears no resemblance to what can be seen from dark skies.[78] Skyglow (the scattering of light in the atmosphere) reduces the contrast between stars and galaxies and the sky itself, making it much harder to see fainter objects. This is one factor that has caused newer telescopes to be built in increasingly remote areas. Some astronomers use narrow-band “nebula filters” which only allow specific wavelengths of light commonly seen in nebulae, or broad-band “light pollution filters” which are designed to reduce (but not eliminate) the effects of light pollution by filtering out spectral lines commonly emitted by sodium- and mercury-vapor lamps, thus enhancing contrast and improving the view of dim objects such as galaxies and nebulae.[79] Unfortunately these light pollution reduction (LPR) filters are not a cure for light pollution. LPR filters reduce the brightness of the object under study and this limits the use of higher magnifications. LPR filters work by blocking light of certain wavelengths, which alters the color of the object, often creating a pronounced green cast. Furthermore, LPR filters only work on certain object types (mainly emission nebulae) and are of little use on galaxies and stars. No filter can match the effectiveness of a dark sky for visual or photographic purposes. Due to their low surface brightness, the visibility of diffuse sky objects such as nebulae and galaxies is affected by light pollution more than are stars. Most such objects are rendered invisible in heavily light polluted skies around major cities. A simple method for estimating the darkness of a location is to look for the Milky Way, which from truly dark skies appears bright enough to cast a shadow.[80] erozon max Zevs sterydy erogran TestX Core Celuraid Muscle Celuraid Muscle Maxman erogan eracto


Computer Games Relieve Phantom Limb Pain: Study

Computer Games Relieve Phantom Limb Pain: Study

Amputees who played computer games using a virtual, on-screen arm, experienced relief from the phantom pain that often afflicts people who have lost a limb, scientists said Friday.

Fourteen amputees who took part in a trial reported dramatic pain reduction after 12 sessions which saw them “using” their missing arm in virtual reality.

Computer games
Computer games relieve phantom limb pain study

Patients reported a near 50-percent reduction in pain duration, frequency and intensity, according to a study published in The Lancet medical journal. “The results from our study suggest that it may be useful to ‘exercise’ the phantom limb,” said study lead author Max Ortiz Catalan of the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. People who have lost an arm or leg often report pain where the limb used to be sometimes years after the amputation and often severe enough to affect their quality of life and mental health.

Phantom limb pain occurs when nerve endings at the amputation site continue sending pain signals to the brain, making it think the limb is still there. There are few effective treatments. One existing method involves the patient use their remaining arm while looking in a mirror to make it appear to the brain, in the reflection, as if it is the missing arm moving. It does not always work and cannot be used by double amputees.

Read More: Motor vehicle tax recovery computerised

The virtual reality therapy is based on a similar premise. It makes the patient “move” the lost arm to perform certain on-screen tasks, including steering a video game car. The patients see themselves on the screen with a virtual arm where their real limb used to be, and see it move as they control it with their mind — effectively bringing the aching phantom arm to life. The participants had electrodes attached to their stumps to register the signals sent to the brain.

The method “allows the patient to reactivate areas of the brain that were used to move the arm before it was amputated, the university said in a statement. “No other existing treatment for phantom limb pain generates such a reactivation of these areas of the brain,” it added. The treatment would not be suitable for patients with nerve injuries or those who cannot move their stumps, the authors noted. -dunya


Ilio tibial band syndrome

itbandThe IT band glides back and forth over the lateral femoral condyle as the knee bends and straightens. Normally, this isn’t a problem. But the bursa between the lateral femoral condyle and the IT band can become irritated and inflamed if the IT band starts to snap over the condyle with repeated knee motions such as those from walking, running, or biking. This leads to IT band syndrome.

Some experts believe that IT band syndrome happens when the knee bows outward. This can happen in runners if their shoes are worn on the outside edge, or if they run on slanted terrain. Others feel that certain foot abnormalities, such as foot pronation, causes ilito tibial band syndrome syndrome, (pronation of the foot occurs when the arch flattens.)

Recently, health experts have found that runners with a weakened or fatigued gluteus medius muscle in the hip are more likely to end up with IT band syndrome. This muscle controls outward movements of the hip. If the gluteus medius isn’t doing its job, the thigh tends to turn inward. This makes the knee angle into a knock-kneed position. The IT band becomes tightened against the bursa on the side of the knee. This is also called a valgus deformity of the knee.

People with bowed legs may also be at risk of developing IT band syndrome. The outward angle of the bowed knee makes the lateral femoral condyle more prominent and can make the snapping worse. This condition is also called a varus deformity of the knee.

The symptoms of IT band syndrome commonly begin with pain over the outside of the knee, just above the knee joint. Tenderness in this area is usually worse after activity. As the bursitis grows worse, pain may radiate up the side of the thigh and down the side of the leg. Patients sometimes report a snapping or popping sensation on the outside of the knee.