Wall of Misconception


Book Description

How often have you heard it stated on TV, in the press, or by an acquaintance that the wall of separation between church and state are words taken right out of the US Constitution? This book examines the nation's historic understanding of, and the Founding Fathers' intentions regarding, the relationship of our Constitution to matters of faith.




The Great Wall of China


Book Description

This is the first full scholarly study of the Great Wall of China to appear in any language, and it challenges many deeply held ideas about Chinese history. Drawing both on primary sources and on the latest archaeology, the book first demonstrates that the standard account of the Great Wall is untrue and misleading and then presents a convincing new account. It begins by tracing the various walls and systems of frontier defences that existed in early Chinese history, and shows how the greatest of these achieved a mythical symbolic stature which long survived the Wall itself. A striking concluding chapter traces how the true history of the Wall was lost in the early twentieth century as it was gradually transformed into a Chinese national symbol explained through historical myth. The book is an important contribution to the history of China's defensive policy, and her ideological attitudes, and will be of interest both to students of Chinese history and of international relations in the pre-modern world.




Metaphors of Confinement


Book Description

Metaphors of Confinement: The Prison in Fact, Fiction, and Fantasy offers a historical survey of imaginings of the prison as expressed in carceral metaphors in a range of texts about imprisonment from Antiquity to the present as well as non-penal situations described as confining or restrictive. These imaginings coalesce into a 'carceral imaginary' that determines the way we think about prisons, just as social debates about punishment and criminals feed into the way carceral imaginary develops over time. Examining not only English-language prose fiction but also poetry and drama from the Middle Ages to postcolonial, particularly African, literature, the book juxtaposes literary and non-literary contexts and contrasts fictional and nonfictional representations of (im)prison(ment) and discussions about the prison as institution and experiential reality. It comments on present-day trends of punitivity and foregrounds the ethical dimensions of penal punishment. The main argument concerns the continuity of carceral metaphors through the centuries despite historical developments that included major shifts in policy (such as the invention of the penitentiary). The study looks at selected carceral metaphors, often from two complementary perspectives, such as the home as prison or the prison as home, or the factory as prison and the prison as factory. The case studies present particularly relevant genres and texts that employ these metaphors, often from a historical perspective that analyses development through different periods.




China


Book Description

Discusses the history and culture of China, offers practical travel advice, and recommends accommodations, restaurants, transportation, and attractions.







The methane moment – Cross-boundary significance of methanogens


Book Description

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, a relatively clean burning fossil fuel, but also a renewable biofuel when biologically produced from waste treatment plants. Most (~70%) of the global methane emission comes from methanogenic archaea, namely methanogens that produce methane from simple substrates such as H2/CO2, formate, acetate, methanol, and other methylated compounds. Methanogens are found across all corners of the earth, including but not limited to wetlands, animals and humans, rice fields, landfills, sewage, ocean, termites, and hydrothermal vents. Their extensive adaptations to such a wide range of habitats predict a cross-boundary significance of methanogens in many areas such as the environment, energy, agriculture, biotechnology, and human and animal health. The goal of this Research Topic is to offer a forum that highlights the cross-boundary significance of methanogens by bringing together methanogen research from diverse settings to one place. This cross-boundary significance is currently underappreciated but imperative to collectively understanding and helping to solve some of the biggest and most urgent challenges humanity is facing such as global warming, food and energy insecurity, pollution, and disease. As a more potent and shorter-lived greenhouse gas than CO2, methane has moved to the center stage in our efforts in rapidly combating climate change. Presumably, methanogens and their associated microbes may have been forced into a positive feedback loop to fuel the sharp rise of methane in recent years. On the other hand, methanogens are considered keystone species in the ecosystem, which are vital to the stability of the natural biome therein. However, the roles of methanogens as keystone species across their habitats are underexplored. Moreover, the role of methanogens in human and animal intestinal microbiomes have been reconsidered with evidence for links to disease and impact on nutrition. Last but not the least, methanogens are emerging as a cell factory model for green manufacturing, because of their abilities to convert CO2 to valuable biochemicals. Further efforts in the bioengineering of methanogens have the potential to expand their commercial application from waste treatment to biomanufacturing. We welcome both basic and translational studies relevant to methanogens from any setting. Studies with a focus on methanogens are highly encouraged, and manuscripts having methanogens as a significant component are also welcome. All studies should emphasize and envisage their implications in understanding and/or solving one or more challenges humanity is facing. To encourage submissions from multiple disciplines, this Research Topic is cross-listed with a number of Frontiers journals and sections. Manuscripts in the forms of Original Research, Review (including systematic and mini review), Methods, Hypothesis and Theory, and Perspectives are all welcome. Manuscript summary submissions are highly encouraged but all manuscripts submitted prior to the manuscript submission deadline will receive full consideration. This Research Topic is dedicated to Dr. William Barny Whitman, Emeritus Professor of Microbiology at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA. His 40+ years (and still counting) of productive research in methanogens, roseobacter, and other prokaryotes have contributed to and will continue to inspire new discoveries in the cross-boundary significance of both archaea and bacteria – the unseen majority. COI Statement: S.K.-M.R.R. is co-founder of Arkeon GmbH. M.P. is a consultant for Bausch Health, Ferring Pharmaceuticals Inc., Salvo Health, and Vivante Health Inc.




Student Misconceptions and Errors in Physics and Mathematics


Book Description

This open access report explores the nature and extent of students’ misconceptions and misunderstandings related to core concepts in physics and mathematics and physics across grades four, eight and 12. Twenty years of data from the IEA’s Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and TIMSS Advanced assessments are analyzed, specifically for five countries (Italy, Norway, Russian Federation, Slovenia, and the United States) who participated in all or almost all TIMSS and TIMSS Advanced assessments between 1995 and 2015. The report focuses on students’ understandings related to gravitational force in physics and linear equations in mathematics. It identifies some specific misconceptions, errors, and misunderstandings demonstrated by the TIMSS Advanced grade 12 students for these core concepts, and shows how these can be traced back to poor foundational development of these concepts in earlier grades. Patterns in misconceptions and misunderstandings are reported by grade, country, and gender. In addition, specific misconceptions and misunderstandings are tracked over time, using trend items administered in multiple assessment cycles. The study and associated methodology may enable education systems to help identify specific needs in the curriculum, improve inform instruction across grades and also raise possibilities for future TIMSS assessment design and reporting that may provide more diagnostic outcomes.




Living Your Life in Joy


Book Description

How can you begin to live your life joyfully each and every day? How can you identify within yourself thoughts and feelings that prevent you from being joyful? From the beginning to end, this book provides insights into these and other questions. These may arise from the present or past and expose the deepest yearnings of your spirit. Have you ever wondered, Why did I do that? or How in the world did I get into this? Many of us have asked these questions and many more. Through insightful commentary and the sharing of his own spiritual journey, the author invites you to examine your own life experiences. You will come to understand what the unification of mind, body, and spirit truly means. Along the way you will find reunion with God. You will begin living your life in joy through understanding oneness. In that life should be a fascinating voyage of discovery, the author has long been intrigued by why we seem to respond to lifes circumstances in very similar ways. From an early age, he sought to find answers to the reasons behind our actions. Why did events, in many instances, come in repetitive cycles? Why do many of us emit preprogrammed responses to the simplest of questions we encounter on a daily basis? The responses often appeared to be automatic and devoid of conscious thought. What was the underlying cause? Did people really stop and think about what they said and why? Did people really take notice of the world around them, or were they just going through a daily routine on automatic pilot? Coupled with these questions was the search for spiritual truth. His early exposure to spirituality was not gained through organized faith. Principles of living, that is, the way to conduct your life, was taught by his family. His one experience with organized religion at the age of six is revealed within the narrative as well as the search that followed for many years. This culminated in an event at thirty-seven that was to change his life. Over the next twenty years, he gradually began to put together each event that had occurred to form a cohesive picture of all life experiences. A series of challenges that followed was the key to unlock the door to a heightened awareness and expanded consciousness. These events reached their climax when he had to face the thing he feared most. That was surgery. This was another milestone in spiritual growth. The experience transformed his life. It was as if a door was opened to previously unknown levels of awareness. Inspiration flowed. The dots were connected. Life suddenly made perfect sense, not only within himself but on a universal level as well. That which he had been searching for all his life became manifested. He had come to understand and live oneness. Throughout this book, the author shares with you the steps that outline and explain the process of awakening as he experienced them. They may serve to assist the reader not only to attain an in-depth understanding but also to provide a benchmark to help you assess your own spiritual growth. This enables the contents to be practically applied in terms of your actual life experiences, not just in a theoretical manner. It is the authors intent to afford the reader with practical knowledge to accelerate your spiritual advancement along the path to oneness by pointing out the misconceptions he had to work through and their often-discomforting results. Perhaps these will be of benefit to you in your own spiritual development. If so, then the authors intent will have been achieved. The following is an excerpt from the book. Our purpose throughout these pages is to become aware of who we are, why we are here, and what we came here to do. To understand that no matter what our circumstances in life may be, we can live our lives in happiness and joy. We reach this level of consciousness by understanding oneness. Oneness, simply stated, is the unification of all life.




A Man of Misconceptions


Book Description

A Scientific American Best Science Book of 2012 An Atlantic Wire Best Book of 2012 A New York Times Book Review “Editor's Choice” The “fascinating” (The New Yorker) story of Athanasius Kircher, the eccentric scholar-inventor who was either a great genius or a crackpot . . . or a bit of both. The interests of Athanasius Kircher, the legendary seventeenth-century priest-scientist, knew no bounds. From optics to music to magnetism to medicine, he offered up inventions and theories for everything, and they made him famous across Europe. His celebrated museum in Rome featured magic lanterns, speaking statues, the tail of a mermaid, and a brick from the Tower of Babel. Holy Roman Emperors were his patrons, popes were his friends, and in his spare time he collaborated with the Baroque master Bernini. But Kircher lived during an era of radical transformation, in which the old approach to knowledge—what he called the “art of knowing”— was giving way to the scientific method and modern thought. A Man of Misconceptions traces the rise, success, and eventual fall of this fascinating character as he attempted to come to terms with a changing world. With humor and insight, John Glassie returns Kircher to his rightful place as one of history’s most unforgettable figures.




Sermons in Stone


Book Description

In 1871 there were 252,539 miles of stone walls in New England and New York enough to circle the earth ten times.




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