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A team of Ghanaian technology experts are building a special robot from waste material to be used to perform multiple tasks that include obtaining detailed maps of a seafloor before installation of subsea infrastructure such as pipelines.
The robot will also be used underwater to detect and map submerged wrecks, rocks and obstructions that are hazardous to navigation by commercial and recreational vessels.
Known as the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV), the successful production of the robot is expected to help cut down the cost of subsea infrastructure by offshore oil and gas companies, as well as improve safety at sea and other water bodies.
The leader of the team and a Lecturer at the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR), Dr Mark Amo-Boateng, told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS that the model built in Ghana was the X5 AUV.
It is being produced from waste materials, including used up laptop batteries, he said.
He said although the team applied for financial support from the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), it was yet to get feedback.
He said lack of financial support had been a major constraint to the project team and the successful execution of its mission.
With the limited funds, Dr Amo-Boateng said the team had had to improvise to be able to build the robot.
He said the team had to use baby dippers at certain stages to shield the sonar from being soaked with water.
He, therefore, called on the government, corporate bodies and individuals to support the project and other technological projects in the country.
This, he said, will elevate technology in the country to a stage where “we can compete with other technological advanced countries.”
He explained that the low-cost modular robot would have originally cost US$700,000 if it were to be built from the aluminium-based semi-fuel cells.
He, however, said the decision to build it from waste materials had reduced the cost of production.
He added that the robot would be created with basic materials and technology by the team to democratise ocean discovery, using advanced artificial intelligence and algorithms to navigate and explore the ocean.
Dr Amo-Boateng told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS that aside serving its purpose as underwater surveillance, the X5 AVU could be used for scientific research in measuring the quality of water.
He added that it could also be used for search and rescue missions in places where it was difficult for human beings to go.
“The human being has a limit to where he can dive to. So, the robot is designed to go beyond where human beings cannot go.
“The X5 AUV is designed to go up to 4,000 feet deep and map an area of 500 square meters in less than a day,” he said.
Mode of design
Dr Amo-Boateng said the X5 AUV, like all other AUVs, conduct their survey missions without an operator’s intervention.
“It returns to a pre-programmed location after it had completed its mission so that the data can be downloaded and processed,” he said.
Unlike the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV), which is an unoccupied underwater robot connected to a ship by series of cables, Dr Amo-Boateng said the AUV used a limited number of tasks dictated by the technologies available.
He added that although AUVs were powered by aluminium-based semi-fuel cells, which required substantial maintenance and expensive refills, the AUV his team was building would be powered by rechargeable batteries, which were taken from old and broken-down laptops and implemented with some form of battery management systems.
“The primary batteries, unlike the aluminium based semi-fuel cells, do not emit waste and are cost-effective since the batteries are not expensively acquired.”
“An emerging trend is to combine different battery and power systems with s Super Capacitors (SCs) to bridge the gap between electrolytic capacitors and rechargeable batteries,” he added.
History of AUVs
AUV was first developed at the Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington in 1957.
The Special Purpose Underwater Research Vehicle (SPURV) was used to study diffusion, acoustic transmission and submarine wakes.
However, with the development of more advanced processing capabilities and high yield power supplies, AUVs are now being used for many tasks, with roles and missions constantly evolving. — GB | <urn:uuid:3feda3aa-8b20-47b4-931b-f0aa441d16f3> | CC-MAIN-2021-04 | http://www.reportingoilandgas.org/ghanaian-tech-experts-build-robot-for-oil-gas-industry/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-04/segments/1610703519923.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20210120054203-20210120084203-00384.warc.gz | en | 0.969946 | 929 | 3.28125 | 3 |
A new liquid battery that uses a so-called Methuselah molecule could lead to long-lasting and affordable storage of renewable energy for power grids, scientists at Harvard say.
The sun and wind are clean sources of energy, but they provide power intermittently. As such, utility companies want massive rechargeable battery farms that can store the surplus energy reaped from these renewable power sources for use when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing.
One possible solution involves flow batteries that use liquids to store and release energy. These devices replace a conventional battery’s two solid electrodes with a pair of liquid electrolytes. These liquids, contained in separate tanks, flow into the battery’s stack, and chemical reactions between the liquids—which occur across a porous membrane—discharge or recharge the battery.
The flow batteries furthest along the path to commercial development are based on vanadium, but they have limited potential for widespread adoption because of the element’s high cost and rarity. As such, researchers are exploring flow batteries based on potentially much less expensive organic molecules.
One drawback of the organic flow batteries produced to date is their organic molecules’ tendency to break down relatively quickly. This short lifespan has rendered them largely unsuitable for commercialization.
Now scientists have created an organic flow battery that outlives and outperforms its predecessors.
The Harvard team, which detailed its findings online in the 23 July edition of the journal Joule, started with the organic molecule 2,6-DHAQ, a kind of quinone. Quinones are abundant, naturally occurring compounds, key to biological processes such as photosynthesis and respiration. The flow batteries they made with 2,6-DHAQ lost 10 percent of their capacity after 100 cycles of discharging and recharging.
The scientists then chemically modified this quinone to “protect it from unwanted decomposition reactions,” says study co-senior author Roy Gordon, a Harvard chemist. Flow batteries made with this new molecule, named 2,6-DBEAQ, lost less than 0.001 percent of their capacity per cycle. They nicknamed 2,6-DBEAQ the Methuselah molecule, after the longest-lived figure in the Bible.
The researchers also found that flow batteries made with 2,6-DBEAQ would lose less than 0.01 percent of their capacity per day and less than 3 percent of their capacity over the course of a year. This would permit useful operation for tens of thousands of cycles.
The scientists had previously demonstrated an organic flow battery with a relatively long lifespan but low voltage. In contrast, the new battery has a voltage of more than 1 volt, which the researchers say is commonly considered the threshold for commercial deployment of a flow battery.
Future research will explore what chemical reactions cause organic molecules in flow batteries to fade so the scientists can “redesign our chemicals to avoid these reactions,” Gordon says.
In addition, the researchers can add compounds to these organic molecules that make them more soluble in solvents, which would increase the amount of energy the flow batteries can hold.
“There are literally millions of possible organic compounds to consider, so I am confident that we will be able to find ones that can make better batteries,” Gordon says. “In contrast, traditional vanadium batteries are made out of the element vanadium, and no amount of research will uncover a better version of vanadium.” | <urn:uuid:19261251-29d7-4871-b414-b5ceed44a3e5> | CC-MAIN-2021-04 | https://futureprimate.com/2018/07/24/liquid-battery-based-on-methuselah-molecule/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-04/segments/1610704828358.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20210127152334-20210127182334-00035.warc.gz | en | 0.946243 | 713 | 3.71875 | 4 |
With the election of Labour government in May 1997, Gordon Brown became Chancellor of the Exchequer, a position that he held for the next decade. As Chancellor Brown promised the "end of boom and bust" and that he would steer the British economy on a path that would lead to prosperity for all. Indeed in later years, when faced with any criticism of his record on any topic whatsoever, he would respond by claiming that he was responsible for "the longest period of growth" in the United Kingdom's history, a period of ten years during which GDP consistently rose year on year. This was the British Economic Miracle, a period of unprecedented economic growth.
The Great British Housing Bubble
During his first Budget speech as Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown promised the nation that "I will not allow house prices to get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the future". We shall see how successful Chancellor Brown was in delivering on this promise.
When the Labour government took office in 1997 the average price of a house was around £58,000. Over the next decade house prices pursued a steadily upward trend, with annual price rises that varied between the 25% experienced in 2002 to the meagre increase of 3.2% achieved in 2005. In fact the over the ten years between 1997 and 2007, the growth in house prices far outpaced the growth in earnings; by October 2007 the average house price was slightly in excess of £186,000 and had therefore had increased by some 200% over the decade, whereas average earnings had increased by a mere 60% or so. Concerns began to be expressed over the so-called affordability of housing, which was generally measured by the ratio of average house prices to average earnings. Over the long term the ratio had the average was between three and a half and four, however by October 2007 the ratio was approaching six, an almost unheard of level.
Naturally there were those who believed that British house prices had become 'over-valued', whilst a few brave souls even pointed at the situation in the United States were house prices were indeed falling after a continuous period of growth stretching back to the 1930s. The consensus however was that Britain was different. It was a small overcrowded island with a growing population where housing was apparently in short supply, and house prices could therefore only increase.
Indeed even as the Americans bemoaned their own Mortgage Meltdown, the British consensus was that it couldn't happen here. Anyone who doubted such a conclusion would have found their concerns allayed by a report from the "Government-backed housing body" known as the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit, who announced in June 2007 that the next generation of homebuyers would be facing average house prices that were ten times their salaries. This body was chaired by Stephen Nickell, a former member of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee, and a former professor of economics at both the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics. He was on hand to offer his expert opinion that house prices would grow "inexorably", and that he did not believe a property crash was at all likely, as there would not be a recession to spark it.
Again in August 2007 the Guardian was reporting on how the National Housing Federation had commissioned research from Oxford Economics, who were confidently predicting that the "average English house price will top £300,000 in five years". Buying a house in Britain was therefore clearly a one-way bet. No matter that the talk in the nation's tea shops and public houses was of how "this can't go on forever" and about how "house prices were now ridiculous"; the experts had pronounced, the housing boom would go on forever.
The Recession starts here
Once upon a time mortgages were provided by Building Societies who collectively organised themselves into a cartel and charged more or less the same rate for mortgages and paid the same rate for deposits. Would-be borrowers would dutifully save with the society of their choice in order to win a place in the mortgage queue and thus be able to purchase their own home.
In those days building society managers regarded it as something approaching a mortal sin to lend money for anything other than investment in property, and borrowers were obliged to jump through a number of hoops to prove that the funds advanced had indeed been spent on buying or improving a home. (Although it was often said that there were people who were driving around in their new conservatories.) It all began to change during the early 1980s when the Banks began moving into the mortgage market. This eventually led to the collapse of the Building Society Cartel in 1983, after which the whole market became far more competitive. No longer were anxious borrowers forced to wait months, sometimes years, to qualify for a mortgage, as now there were a range of various institutions all vying for their business. In this new competitive environment lenders became less particular about what their borrowers intended doing with the money once they'd got their hands on it.
The nature of the market also changed once more in the 1990s, as instead of paying what was commonly known as the standard variable rate on their mortgages, borrowers began taking advantage of all the 'special deals; the banks and building societies were offering. Lending institutions began offering mortgages at fixed rates over a period of two, three or perhaps five years, or ones that tracked the Bank of England's base rate, or even ones that offered a discounted rate for a certain period of time.
Therefore whereas in the past someone would have taken out a mortgage with their local Building Society and simply kept up the payments for the life of the loan, now they were taking out a two year deal with one lender, and then often remortgaging with a new lender once the deal had expired. Of course, there were costs to pay in remortgaging, so why not borrow a little more to cover the fees, and while you're about it, why not borrow an extra £5,000 or £10,000 to pay off that annoying credit card bill, buy a new car, or relax on that well deserved holiday in foreign climes? After all that house that was bought for £100,000 four years ago was now worth £200,000. Why shouldn't you feel richer? Why shouldn't you spend some of that profit now rather than later?
Research conducted by the University of Durham on data for the years between 2001 and 2005 showed that some 40% of homeowners were habitually borrowing between an extra £5,000 and £7,500 each year to fund their day-to-day spending which, if nothing else, explained how by the beginning of 2008 around one in ten of the population were indeed spending more than they earned on a monthly basis. The British, it seemed, no longer regarded their houses as simply somewhere to live, but rather as cash machines that generated profits that could be spent on enjoying the good life.
This is the phenomenon known as Housing Equity Withdrawal, being the measure of "new borrowing secured on dwellings that is not invested in the housing market", and which had been dutifully measured, or at least estimated with the kind of accuracy that generally applies to such things, by the Bank of England since at least 1971. In 1998 the Bank of England reported that housing equity withdrawal amounted to a mere £212 million. In the following year the total was £2,472 million and the year after that it was £12,045 million. The total peaked at £57 billion for 2003, but was still running at £42 billion for 2007. Indeed over the decade 1998 to 2007 housing equity withdrawal totalled almost £391 billion, which given that total mortgage debt amounted to some £1.1 trillion in the summer of 2007, meant that around £1 in every £3 that had been borrowed had been used to finance consumption rather than investment in housing.
Indeed the scale of housing equity withdrawal during the Brown decade was of profound significance in the overall picture of the British economy, as the £42 billion borrowed in 2007 amounted to something like 3% of GDP or 4.5% of post tax income. Given that only around 45% of British households had a mortgage (and some who did would never have even considered borrowing extra money for anything other than spending on their home) this provided an indication of the extent to which some people were truly living beyond their means. And of course all these billions of extra spending generated billions of profits for the businesses who provided all the goods and services, as well as billions of extra tax revenue for the Treasury which Chancellor Brown was able to spend on whatever causes he felt were worthwhile.
Everything changed when events in a far away country triggered a chain of events that led to the collapse of the Northern Rock bank in September 2007. The words 'credit crunch' entered the public consciousness, and at one stroke the nation began to consider the notion that house prices might not pursue a forever upwards course. With the prospect of falling house prices now on the horizon, it no longer seemed a good idea to borrow money against the strength of the value of property and spend the proceeds. During the first quarter of 2008 housing equity withdrawal fell to a £5.6 billion; in the second quarter it fell to nothing, and by the third quarter of 2008 stood at a negative £5.6 billion, as British consumers now began injecting funds into rather than out of housing equity. Suddenly the British economy was going to have to survive without the regular injection of £40 to £50 billion's worth of debt financed spending. At a stroke growth disappeared and the economy slammed into reverse gear during 2008.
Professor Nickell's error was to believe that you needed a recession to trigger a fall in house prices, whereas in truth it was the fall in house prices that would trigger a recession.
Debt is Good
Once upon a time people used to worry that at 10% the British household savings ratio was worryingly low compared to the Germans and Japanese who were managing to save in excess of 20% of their income. Not so in Gordon Brown's Britain when we learned to stop worrying about such trivialities. Indeed Brown set the tone for his administration of the nation's finances by launching his now infamous Pensions Raid in 1997 when he raised an extra £5 billion a year in taxes on pension funds. At the time Brown justified this act by calming that it would encourage British companies to invest their profits, rather than distribute them to shareholders. This caused some head scratching amongst those who wondered how increasing taxation on saving would encourage investment. But never mind, in Gordon Brown's world spending was the key to economic prosperity, and saving was of little consequence.
No surprise therefore that the household savings ratio steadily declined throughout the period of Brown's stewardship, and by the beginning of 2008 had shrunk to practically nothing. And whenever anyone sought to question this decline in the nation's willingness to save and suggest that this was a problem that needed attention, they found their concerns brushed aside as being irrelevant. Such as on the 14th June 2007 when John Healey, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, spoke approvingly of how households now had the "confidence to reduce their contingency savings". The official government line was that the willingness of consumers to reduce their savings and take on debt was unquestionably a 'good thing', as it showed that people were confident about their futures under Gordon Brown's wise economic guidance. After all, the days of "boom and bust" were over, as Brown's fiscal alchemy had apparently abolished economic cycles.
Banking was once a simple business. Banks accepted deposits, and then lent the deposited funds to someone else. By the simple expedient of charging the latter more than they paid the former they duly made a profit. A bank's balance sheet was therefore a relatively straightforward document where the amount of lending on one side was roughly matched by the total of retail deposits they had raised on the other. This was indeed the case for British banks up until the year 2001 when the propensity of the British to borrow coupled with their reluctance to save was such that the banks rather ran out of money to lend. Never fear, the American banks had showed the way by securitising their lending, and transforming loans into bonds that could be parcelled up and sold to investors in the global hot money market.
By the application of this magic formula the British banking system could keep the loans flowing without worrying about having to balance the books, and billions of mortgage backed securities and other instruments were duly sold off to those who had the money to spare. Such as the likes of the sovereign wealth funds of oil-rich states and sundry hedge funds, as well as the Chinese who were piling up the cash accumulated by actually manufacturing the consumer goods the British were eagerly buying on their borrowed money. By 2008 this 'funding gap' was in the order of £600 billion to £700 billion; a truly colossal sum of money in the context of an economy producing some £1400 billion a year.
The crunch came on the 9th August 2007 when BNP Paribas announced that it could no longer place a valuation on certain assets because the market in them had disappeared. Naturally investors became somewhat reluctant to acquire assets whose valuation was uncertain and could not be traded, and so almost at a stroke banks found themselves unable to sell new securities. Suddenly British banks were faced with the problem of how to fund their lending programmes and, even worse, how to refinance their existing loan portfolios as previous issues of securitised debt matured and holders demanded repayment rather than roll their investment on into new issues. This is what killed the Northern Rock, holed the Royal Bank of Scotland, and brought Britain's largest mortgage lender HBOS to its knees, and into a forced marriage with Lloyds TSB.
Welcome to Reykjavik-on-Thames
And so it turned out that the British Economic Miracle was nothing more than one enormous debt-supported spending spree which depended on the willingness of successive waves of home buyers to borrow ever increasing amounts of money to buy ever more expensive housing. It was, in effect, simply one gigantic Ponzi scheme, by which debt was to be handed down over the generations.
What was worse, not only was there billions of mortgage debt, but there were also billions of unsecured personal debt, billions of corporate debt, and billions of government debt. Indeed according to the CIA World Factbook, the United Kingdom had $10,450 trillion of external debt as of June 2007, second in the world only to the United States with $12,250 trillion of external debt and a population five times that of Britain's. Of course there are those who argued that this was not a problem, since the United Kingdom also possesed the odd trillion or two in overseas assets. But then again the same was true of Iceland; the problem being that when the going gets tough, assets become hard to sell but debt abides.
With the great housing merry-go-round at a standstill, and the banking system frozen by a shortage of ready funds, the government's response to the oncoming recession was revealed in the autumn 2008 Budget. It cut the rate of VAT from 17.5% to 15% in an attempt to get the "British consumer spending again", whilst it made repeated, and ultimately futile, calls on the banks to start lending again, as if the only solution was to try and restart the whole merry-go-round and hope that no one noticed. It blamed the Americans or the banks for the nation's predicament, anything other than admit the stark truth that the economic growth supposedly generated during Brown's stewardship of the economy was nothing more than debt piled upon debt.
Indeed, according to one government minister named Paul Myners, matters became so serious that on Black Friday, the 10th October 2008, the nation was three hours away from complete financial meltdown, with the Treasury poised to hoist a 'closed' sign over the entire British banking system. The nation was left to endure steady tide of redundancies and tales of employees accepting wage cuts of 10%, 15%, or even 20%, just to retain their jobs, as companies across the land feared for their very survival, and the Bank of England prepared to deploy its ultimate weapon of firing up the printing presses and simply printing more money.
Let us not even mention the balance of trade
, and consider how Gordon Brown turned a trade surplus of £4,459 million into a trade deficit currently running at over £40 billion a year, but such is Gordon Brown's legacy to the nation.
"House prices are a matter of opinion whereas debt is real."
Mervyn King, 2008 AD
"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."
Cicero, 55 BC
- Housing Equity Withdrawal (HEW) Bank of England 29 December 2008
- House Prices from the Nationwide Building Society
- Office for National Statistics
- John Stepek, The truth behind the British economic miracle, MoneyWeek, Oct 24 2007
- Gill Montia, Mortgage equity withdrawal kept families afloat, FinanceMarkets, December 12, 2008
- Millions 'spend more than income' 22 January 2008
- The 10 people most reponsible for the recession, The Times, January 30, 2009 | <urn:uuid:65a063cb-e80a-46b2-bdae-ac566e344e6e> | CC-MAIN-2016-18 | http://everything2.com/user/aneurin/writeups/British+Economic+Miracle | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-18/segments/1461861831994.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160428164351-00168-ip-10-239-7-51.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983803 | 3,560 | 2.875 | 3 |
African honey bees (AHBs—Box 1; https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/mg113; https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in790) have been established in Florida since the early 2000s. African honey bees exhibit several characteristics that have caused public concern (https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in784). Due to the media attention the bees have received, parents have voiced concern over the safety of their children attending school or after-school activities. It is important that school officials and administrators stay current on AHB-related information, educate students about the AHB, and ensure that school properties are bee-proofed.
What's in a name?
In popular literature, "African," "Africanized," and "Killer" bees are terms that have been used to describe the same honey bee. However, "African bee" or "African honey bee" most correctly refers to Apis mellifera scutellata when it is found outside of its native range. A.m. scutellata is a subspecies or race of honey bee native to sub-Saharan Africa where it is referred to as "Savannah honey bee" given that there are many subspecies of African honey bee, making the term "African honey bee" too ambiguous there. The term "Africanized honey bee" refers to hybrids between A.m. scutella and one or more of the European subspecies of honey bees kept in the Americas. There is remarkably little introgression of European genes into the introduced A.m. scutellata population throughout South America, Central America, and Mexico. Thus, it is more precise to refer to the population of African honey bees present in the Americas as "African-derived honey bees." However, for the sake of simplicity/consistency, we will refer to African-derived honey bees outside of their native range as "African honey bees" or "AHBs".
About the AHB
The media often over-sensationalizes its coverage of the AHB—labeling it the "killer bee". As a result, an unnecessary public fear of and concern over honey bees has arisen in the southern United States where the AHB is present. However, honey bees are one of the most beneficial pollinators in the world (https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in1005). They ensure the production of much of the food we eat and are responsible for all the honey and honey-related products we enjoy. The AHB is not very different in appearance from the European honey bee (EHB)—the docile bee that is managed by American beekeepers (https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in784). In fact, the AHB is a little smaller than the EHB and its sting is not any more potent. The AHB even produces honey and pollinates flowers. The AHB characteristic that concerns the public most is its defensiveness. All honey bees are defensive; that means if a colony is disturbed, bees will come out of the hive to defend against the possible intruder. Disturbed EHB colonies usually will send less than a dozen bees out to defend a distance of about 20 feet around the colony, though this distance can vary. African honey bee colonies, on the other hand, may send out several hundred bees to defend a distance up to 40 yards or more around the colony. Furthermore, while most honey bees nest in enclosed areas, or cavities, AHBs regularly build exposed colonies, foregoing nesting in cavities. All foraging honey bees, like those visiting flowers, are normally not a threat. However, honey bees are attracted to soda and juice containers, and children have been stung on the lips and mouth while outside drinking. This problem is not unique to AHBs as all honey bees and many other stinging insects are attracted to sugar sources of this kind.
Several steps can be taken to lower the risk of AHBs interacting negatively with students. The first precaution to be instituted is bee-proofing the school property (https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in741). Bee-proofing is the practice of methodically removing or restricting access to potential honey bee nesting sites. This practice is beneficial for many reasons. Naturally, if an area is bee-proof, the potential for feral colonies to move into that area is greatly lowered; therefore, the risk of stinging incidents is also lowered. Additionally, colonies that establish themselves inside a wall or around a structure must be eradicated or removed immediately (Box 2). This process can be expensive and often requires structural repair (which also costs time and money). Bee-proofing a property not only makes the area safer, but it also saves time and money related to the cost associated with eradicating or removing an unwanted colony. It is an ongoing process that requires an initial assessment to address a majority of the sites on a property. It also requires follow-up inspections to maintain the bee-proofed area. Another necessary precaution is teaching faculty, staff, and students information about the AHB, what to do when someone is stung, and what to do when a honey bee colony is found.
Honey bees nesting on your property?
The state of Florida recommends that nuisance honey bees (https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in1005 and https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in790) found nesting outside of hives managed by a beekeeper (like those nesting in tree cavities, walls, water meter boxes, etc.) be either (1) removed from the nest site by a registered beekeeper (http://www.freshfromflorida.com/Divisions-Offices/Plant-Industry/Business-Services/Registrations-and-Certifications/Beekeeper-Registration) or trained Pest Control Operator (PCO—https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in771) or (2) eradicated by a PCO. It is the responsibility of the property owner to deal with an unwanted swarm (https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in970) or colony of honey bees. To find a registered beekeeper or PCO who offers removal or eradication services, visit: https://entnemdept.ifas.ufl.edu/honey-bee/extension/beekeeper-resources/bee-removal/ and click on "Find a Bee Removal Expert in your area". For more information on African honey bees, see https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/topic_africanized_honey_bee.
Require custodians to perform regular inspections for honey bees nesting on the property.
Bee-proof the school property (see https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in741)
Ensure that faculty and staff are educated about AHBs including what to do if they find a colony or see bee activity.
Speak with UF/IFAS Extension faculty about incorporating AHB resource materials into science curriculum (for a list of statewide UF/IFAS Extension faculty, see: https://sfyl.ifas.ufl.edu/find-your-local-office/.
Involve individuals and leaders from parent/teacher groups in the AHB education process.
Proactive bee-proofing reduces liability.
For more information, see: | <urn:uuid:1bc2bbfd-f89d-491a-be46-378a7176b2db> | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/in740 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323587711.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20211025123123-20211025153123-00581.warc.gz | en | 0.934514 | 1,549 | 3.546875 | 4 |
Put Pets At Risk
No. Grafton, Mass. [08.01.02] -- Providing more scientific evidence about the deadly effects of second-hand smoke, a new study from Tufts reports that cats living in homes with smokers are more than twice as likely than other cats to acquire feline lymphoma cancer. The research - which is the first of its kind - alters current views on the causes of lymphoma in cats and may help scientists better understand the causes of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in humans.
"It has long been believed that the major cause of feline lymphoma was feline leukemia virus," Tufts' Dr. Antony Moore said in a report in Science Daily. "The results of our study clearly indicate that exposure to environmental factors such as second-hand tobacco smoke has devastating consequences for cats because it significantly increases their likelihood of contracting lymphoma."
The evidence - reported by researchers at Tufts' School of Veterinary Medicine and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst - paints a dramatic picture of the risks associated with second-hand smoke.
"They found that, adjusting for age and other factors, cats exposed to secondhand smoke had more than double the risk of acquiring the disease," reported the Associated Press. "In households where they were exposed five years or more, cats had more than triple the risk. In a two-smoker household, the risk went up by a factor of four."
In some cases, cats were at higher risk for cancer than humans living in the same home.
"Exposure levels in cats continuously kept indoors may actually be higher than those of human household members, who often spend extended periods of time outside their homes," reported Science Daily. "Cats become exposed by inhaling the smoke or by digesting it when they groom themselves and lick particulate matter off their fur."
Based on their findings with cats, the Tufts researchers believe their work may provide new evidence that second-hand smoke and lymphoma in humans are linked.
"Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in humans, like feline lymphoma, is a cancer that starts in lymph tissue and can spread to other organs," reported USA Today. "The new study suggests that components of tobacco smoke have a cancerous effect on lymphoid tissue, researchers say."
Moore also hopes the findings provide another compelling reason to quit smoking.
there's a lot of people who might not quit smoking for themselves
or their family," Moore said in the Associated Press report,
which was published in newspapers around the country. "But
they might for their cats." | <urn:uuid:6c13d809-1e09-492a-b725-414638fbbb0d> | CC-MAIN-2016-22 | http://enews.tufts.edu/printerversion/080102PetsAndSmoke.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-22/segments/1464049275181.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160524002115-00005-ip-10-185-217-139.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97487 | 534 | 2.859375 | 3 |
John Foxe wrote a huge work named Actes and Monuments; popularly known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. He wrote it in a reaction to the persecution of Protestant Christians under Mary I of England. He also wrote it to support her successor Elizabeth I, who was the head of both the state and the church in … Continue reading Is the language of Foxe still compelling today?
The American Revolution was the result of a longstanding dispute between the American colonists and the British over the British constitutional tradition. The colonists claimed that they had the same rights as those in England, and that they did not lose them by coming over to America. The colonists had several local assemblies to discuss … Continue reading What Caused the American Revolution?
Mercantilism is an economic philosophy that aims to make a country wealthier by promoting exports and suppressing imports to a certain country in the name of “a favorable balance of trade”. Mercantilism was influential from the 16th to the 18th centuries. A common aim of the mercantilists was to keep the gold and silver in … Continue reading Mercantilism & the wars of Louis XIV
After King Charles I of England was beheaded in 1649, the Puritans took control. Eventually, Oliver Cromwell was named Lord Protector of England. Cromwell and the Puritans wanted to foster piety and morality in England, and made several rules and regulations the English had to follow. Theaters were shut down, music was frowned upon (unless … Continue reading Life in Cromwellian England & The Glorious Revolution
After the Protestant Reformation, a sizeable minority of Protestants known as the Huguenots began to grow. There were repressive measures against them under kings Francis I and Henry II, but they were defied by the Huguenots. Under the young king Francis II, there were even more repressive measures. The Huguenots and the Catholics began fighting … Continue reading The French Wars of Religion and Elizabeth I of England’s Religious Policy
The German Reformation began in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg. Luther challenged many of the teachings of the Catholic church, such as indulgences, papal authority, and devotion to the saints. His teachings began the Protestant Reformation, which divided Western Europe religiously as had … Continue reading The English, German, and Catholic Reformations
John Wycliffe was an English priest and a professor at Oxford University in the 14th century. He lived from 1320-1384. Wycliffe taught many things contrary to the beliefs of the church in his day, including the denial of the authority of the pope, predestination, the denial of the necessity of confessing to a priest, among … Continue reading John Wycliffe & The Great Western Schism | <urn:uuid:6102fac1-ff7e-4ee6-9e01-973725cc23ec> | CC-MAIN-2019-30 | https://foosballoctopus.wordpress.com/tag/england/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-30/segments/1563195526506.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20190720091347-20190720113347-00153.warc.gz | en | 0.977274 | 579 | 3.421875 | 3 |