//www.vhstigers.org/apps/classes/1044040/assignments/ Class Name: Cont Wld Aff-100_4007 Instructor(s): Jason Gray en-us SchoolSitePro //www.vhstigers.org/homeworkItem9285385 //www.vhstigers.org/apps/classes/1044040/assignments/ Readability Score: 8.0
By NPR Monday, January 2, 2023Time is fleeting. Here's how to stay on track with New Year's goals
Allison Aubrey
Time is a thief, as my Uncle Dan loves to say, and if you want to achieve your most cherished life goals, you have to learn to manage it. As we all dive into the new year with fresh resolutions, psychologists say managing our time is the place to start.
"Time management is essential to the smart goal approach," says Keisha Moore-Medina, a therapist at the Menninger Clinic in Houston, who helps clients navigate goal-setting, using a well-known strategy that was developed in the 1980s known by the acronym SMART.
It's a formula that helps you organize your time around your goals. And this may require you to say 'no' to activities that don't align. Goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound — requiring a deadline or specific time frame. Here's how SMART goals work and how they can help you use your time for the things that matter most.
Specific: Know precisely what action you will take
"Goal pursuit requires focused attention," says Elliot Berkman, a psychologist at the University of Oregon. "Our minds need to be focused on one thing," he says. So, clarity is key.
In daily life, we're driven by our habits, which come easily. It's almost as if we're on autopilot. "We can drive, listen to the radio and chew gum at the same time," Berkman says. But working toward a new goal can require a lot of brain power. We need to fend off distractions and stay focused. It's slow going when we're trying to master a new skill or change our behaviors, Berkman says. "Goal pursuit is so hard compared to habits," he adds.
Following through on a resolution can take a lot of planning and effort, which is very time-consuming, so it's best to be very clear on your aim.
Measurable: Have a plan to measure your progress
When it comes to goals, there's often a big divide between intention and action. Lots of us know what it means to eat healthier, but it can still be hard to follow through. The German poet and author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe put it something like this: It's not enough to know something, you also need to apply it.
One way to help chip away at this gap, is to make time each day to track what you've achieved. A study, published by the American Psychological Association finds that people who regularly monitor their progress are more likely to succeed. So, if you want to train for a race, tally your mileage. If you're learning to play the piano, log your practice. If your aim is to eat better, journal your meals.
Tracking provides us with the long view of our progress. Day to day we won't always be successful. "Life is throwing us things left and right and it's OK to not reach a goal in that moment," says therapist Moore-Medina. Logs and tallies can serve as a reality check on how far you've come and what you need to do differently to achieve your goal.
Achievable: The goal must be doable
To reach a larger goal you have to break it down into smaller pieces, says Moore-Medina, and think about "whether this is actually achievable. It's a reality check on just how much time and resources you have to devote to it. And, it sometimes begs a bigger question: Why should I commit to this goal?
"Goals should be an expression of our values," says Berkman. "And to the extent that they are an expression of our values, they're helpful in prioritizing our time," he explains.
Having clear goals makes time management easier because you're organizing your time around a clear mission. He advises people to question the motivation behind their goals and to reflect on their core values. For instance, if you aim to become more physically fit, ask yourself why?
Do you want to look better? Or is your goal rooted in a deeper value or purpose, perhaps to be healthier and live longer so you can spend more time with family. There's actually research to show that people are more likely to accomplish their goals and feel happy with their success, if their goals align with or reflect their core values.
Relevant: Figure out why the goal is important
Goals and values should be connected, and this often requires more reflection than we realize. "It can be difficult to set goals because we don't know ourselves that well," says Ken Sheldon, author of the book, Freely Determined: What the New Psychology of Self Teaches Us About How To Live.
"It's easy to sort of get distracted or to get out of touch with the things we really care about, or maybe just people telling us what to do," he says. And we can spend years living out other people's dreams for us — for example, going to law school because your mother wanted you to be a lawyer. If you're extrinsically motivated, you may have the grit to power through. But Sheldon says you may not be happy with the outcome, even if you're very successful.
In a study of hikers who set out to complete the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail, Sheldon found that levels of internal motivation were linked to the hiker's feelings of satisfaction after finishing the hike. "You can grit your way through it and you can get it done," says Sheldon, "but you may not feel any better when you finish." Whereas if you manage to pick a goal you really care about, "you'll both get it done and you'll feel better when you're done," he says.
Time-bound: Nothing focuses the mind like a deadline
Staying focused on a goal is like a shot of adrenaline. Moore-Medina says it's important to set goals that have clear time frames.
In our personal lives, we may have more time and discretion but, Moore-Medina's advice for goal-setting on the job is to write down your specific goals and share them with your supervisor. She suggests mapping out an action plan during an annual review meeting, based on how your goals align with what the employer needs or wants. Then throughout the year you can refer back to the plan, especially if you're being asked to spend time on a task that does not fit the goal, "it gives you some negotiating room, it gives you empowerment," Moore-Medina says.
Bottom line: Set concrete goals and plan a path forward. When you're filling your days with tasks and activities that align with your goals, it's time well spent.
]]> Thu, 08 Jun 2023 04:02:27 PDT //www.vhstigers.org/homeworkItem9285381 //www.vhstigers.org/apps/classes/1044040/assignments/ Readability Score: 8.0
By NPR Monday, January 2, 2023Time is fleeting. Here's how to stay on track with New Year's goals
Allison Aubrey
Time is a thief, as my Uncle Dan loves to say, and if you want to achieve your most cherished life goals, you have to learn to manage it. As we all dive into the new year with fresh resolutions, psychologists say managing our time is the place to start.
"Time management is essential to the smart goal approach," says Keisha Moore-Medina, a therapist at the Menninger Clinic in Houston, who helps clients navigate goal-setting, using a well-known strategy that was developed in the 1980s known by the acronym SMART.
It's a formula that helps you organize your time around your goals. And this may require you to say 'no' to activities that don't align. Goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound — requiring a deadline or specific time frame. Here's how SMART goals work and how they can help you use your time for the things that matter most.
Specific: Know precisely what action you will take
"Goal pursuit requires focused attention," says Elliot Berkman, a psychologist at the University of Oregon. "Our minds need to be focused on one thing," he says. So, clarity is key.
In daily life, we're driven by our habits, which come easily. It's almost as if we're on autopilot. "We can drive, listen to the radio and chew gum at the same time," Berkman says. But working toward a new goal can require a lot of brain power. We need to fend off distractions and stay focused. It's slow going when we're trying to master a new skill or change our behaviors, Berkman says. "Goal pursuit is so hard compared to habits," he adds.
Following through on a resolution can take a lot of planning and effort, which is very time-consuming, so it's best to be very clear on your aim.
Measurable: Have a plan to measure your progress
When it comes to goals, there's often a big divide between intention and action. Lots of us know what it means to eat healthier, but it can still be hard to follow through. The German poet and author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe put it something like this: It's not enough to know something, you also need to apply it.
One way to help chip away at this gap, is to make time each day to track what you've achieved. A study, published by the American Psychological Association finds that people who regularly monitor their progress are more likely to succeed. So, if you want to train for a race, tally your mileage. If you're learning to play the piano, log your practice. If your aim is to eat better, journal your meals.
Tracking provides us with the long view of our progress. Day to day we won't always be successful. "Life is throwing us things left and right and it's OK to not reach a goal in that moment," says therapist Moore-Medina. Logs and tallies can serve as a reality check on how far you've come and what you need to do differently to achieve your goal.
Achievable: The goal must be doable
To reach a larger goal you have to break it down into smaller pieces, says Moore-Medina, and think about "whether this is actually achievable. It's a reality check on just how much time and resources you have to devote to it. And, it sometimes begs a bigger question: Why should I commit to this goal?
"Goals should be an expression of our values," says Berkman. "And to the extent that they are an expression of our values, they're helpful in prioritizing our time," he explains.
Having clear goals makes time management easier because you're organizing your time around a clear mission. He advises people to question the motivation behind their goals and to reflect on their core values. For instance, if you aim to become more physically fit, ask yourself why?
Do you want to look better? Or is your goal rooted in a deeper value or purpose, perhaps to be healthier and live longer so you can spend more time with family. There's actually research to show that people are more likely to accomplish their goals and feel happy with their success, if their goals align with or reflect their core values.
Relevant: Figure out why the goal is important
Goals and values should be connected, and this often requires more reflection than we realize. "It can be difficult to set goals because we don't know ourselves that well," says Ken Sheldon, author of the book, Freely Determined: What the New Psychology of Self Teaches Us About How To Live.
"It's easy to sort of get distracted or to get out of touch with the things we really care about, or maybe just people telling us what to do," he says. And we can spend years living out other people's dreams for us — for example, going to law school because your mother wanted you to be a lawyer. If you're extrinsically motivated, you may have the grit to power through. But Sheldon says you may not be happy with the outcome, even if you're very successful.
In a study of hikers who set out to complete the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail, Sheldon found that levels of internal motivation were linked to the hiker's feelings of satisfaction after finishing the hike. "You can grit your way through it and you can get it done," says Sheldon, "but you may not feel any better when you finish." Whereas if you manage to pick a goal you really care about, "you'll both get it done and you'll feel better when you're done," he says.
Time-bound: Nothing focuses the mind like a deadline
Staying focused on a goal is like a shot of adrenaline. Moore-Medina says it's important to set goals that have clear time frames.
In our personal lives, we may have more time and discretion but, Moore-Medina's advice for goal-setting on the job is to write down your specific goals and share them with your supervisor. She suggests mapping out an action plan during an annual review meeting, based on how your goals align with what the employer needs or wants. Then throughout the year you can refer back to the plan, especially if you're being asked to spend time on a task that does not fit the goal, "it gives you some negotiating room, it gives you empowerment," Moore-Medina says.
Bottom line: Set concrete goals and plan a path forward. When you're filling your days with tasks and activities that align with your goals, it's time well spent.
]]> Thu, 08 Jun 2023 04:02:25 PDT //www.vhstigers.org/homeworkItem9285359 //www.vhstigers.org/apps/classes/1044040/assignments/ Thu, 08 Jun 2023 04:02:24 PDT //www.vhstigers.org/homeworkItem9285356 //www.vhstigers.org/apps/classes/1044040/assignments/ ]]> Thu, 08 Jun 2023 04:02:24 PDT //www.vhstigers.org/homeworkItem9285360 //www.vhstigers.org/apps/classes/1044040/assignments/ The White House on Sunday said a politically motivated "stunt" led to migrants being bused in subfreezing temperatures to Washington, D.C., the night before.
Three buses carrying 139 migrants from Texas arrived Saturday outside Vice President Kamala Harris' residence at the Naval Observatory, one advocate who greeted them told ABC News.
Amy Fischer is a core organizer with the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network and was outside the Naval Observatory on Saturday night as buses began arriving after about 7:45 p.m.
Temperatures in Washington that night were in the teens, according to the National Weather Service.
Fischer said the migrants included "a bunch of families," maybe around 30, as well as adults in groups like spouses and cousins and people traveling alone.
None of them wore cold weather gear, Fischer said, though many had blankets to wrap up in.
The "vast majority" were asylum-seekers and all spoke Spanish, with people from Cuba, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Nicaragua, Fischer said.
She said the migrants were sent from Texas by Gov. Greg Abbott's administration, though his office did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
Both Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who are Republicans, have for months been periodically sending migrants to Democratic-led areas of the country in protest of federal immigration policies, they have said.
A spokesman for Ducey told ABC News that Arizona did not send the migrants on Saturday.
Fischer said that she and some others from the aid network helped welcome the people as they arrived and directed many of them to transport to a "respite location" -- an area church, though Fischer declined to identify it out of security concerns.
Warm meals, clothes and hygiene kits were available at the respite location, Fischer said. Some migrants had family picking them up after the buses deposited them at the Naval Observatory.
In the two days since, Fischer said, her group has helped people make further travel plans to their final destinations while a "handful of folks" who are planning to stay in D.C. have been relocated to a hotel as they prepare to put down roots. She said the groups left on the buses from Texas knowing they were headed to Washington.
"I think people are always a little bit confused ... People are always a little bit scared," Fischer said.
"That's one of my favorite things engaging in this type of work is when you go to the respite locations, people will often times walk in a little bit like 'what's going on? what is this place?'" Fischer said. But then that hesitation abates: "We had Christmas music playing and we're all wearing dorky Christmas sweaters and they get hot food and people kind of sort of -- you can see some of the stress dissolve."
Most of the migrants are looking to head to the New York and New Jersey areas but some are going to the South, some to Washington state, Fischer said.
The nonprofit SAMU First Response, which assists migrants making asylum claims in the U.S., also worked with the migrants as they arrived Saturday.
Abbott previously bused 50 migrants to Harris' home in September.
"We're sending migrants to her backyard to call on the Biden Administration to do its job & secure the border," he tweeted at the time.
He told ABC News' "Nightline" in August that "we've got to secure our border because the Biden administration is not securing it. And then the reason why we began putting people on buses in the first place is because the Biden administration, they were literally dumping migrants off in small little towns of 10 or 25,000 people, and they were completely overwhelmed."
Abbott's office said in August that more than 6,500 migrants had been taken by bus to cities like New York and Washington.
A spokesperson for the Texas Division of Emergency Management told ABC News in September that the state had spent more than $12 million on transporting the migrants, including charter buses and private security.
President Joe Biden has called such tactics "un-American," "reckless" and "simply wrong."
"This was a cruel, dangerous, and shameful stunt," White House spokesman Abdullah Hasan said in a statement on Sunday.
"As we have repeatedly said, we are willing to work with anyone -- Republican or Democrat alike -- on real solutions, like the comprehensive immigration reform and border security measures President Biden sent to Congress on his first day in office, but these political games accomplish nothing and only put lives in danger," Hasan said.
Abbott's and Ducey's offices as well as the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network and SAMU First Response did not immediately respond to ABC News' requests for comment.
]]> Thu, 08 Jun 2023 04:02:24 PDT //www.vhstigers.org/homeworkItem9285357 //www.vhstigers.org/apps/classes/1044040/assignments/ Kendra Redmond
Does that food contain gluten? Could the fumes coming from that burning plastic be toxic? Did pollutants reach this farmland? Lab tools called optical spectrometers can identify chemicals to answer such questions. And thanks to a super-tiny new design, that superpower could someday be in your hands.
Most spectrometers sit on a tabletop. This new one is smaller than a human skin cell. Its size and performance make it ideal for use in small devices. Those might include a smartphone or drone, says Zhipei Sun. He’s a physicist at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland. Sun led an international team that described this new device October 21 in Science.
A spectrometer works a bit like a recipe in reverse. Recipes explain how to combine ingredients to make something. Spectrometers deconstruct what’s in something. They use light to identify its ingredients. The ingredients could be any type of substance — from single elements to complex molecules.
When light interacts with matter, each ingredient in that substance slightly changes the light. A spectrometer helps identify such changes by studying a broad range of colors (or wavelengths) of that light.
Desktop spectrometers send light through a sample or examine light coming directly from one. That light travels through a prism or grating at one end of the machine. This separates the light into its component colors — not just one hue, such as blue or red, but the specific shades that can be used to identify each ingredient. As the light continues to move through the device, these colors spread out and separate.
Sensors at the far of end of the machine capture the amount (or intensity) of each color, explains Hoon Hahn Yoon. He’s another physicist at Aalto University. He’s also a co-developer of the new device. The end result of this light analysis is a graph. It maps the light’s color versus intensity. Scientists call this a sample’s optical spectrum.
Each molecule or pure element will create a unique pattern of changes in that spectrum. Scientists have already identified these patterns for many known substances. To identify what’s in a new sample, a computer compares its optical spectrum to these known patterns.
The super tiny new device is the first to offer spectral analyses as detailed as the large spectrometers do, says Yoon. That’s important, he adds, because the more detailed a spectrum, the more accurate the list of ingredients it gives.
Most spectrometers range from the size of a small refrigerator to a deck of cards, says Judith Dawes. She did not take part in the new work. But as a physicist at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, she works with optical tools. “As more and more of the technologies we use have been miniaturized,” she says, “we’ve realized it is possible to make spectrometers much smaller.”
Instead of prisms or gratings, the device by Sun’s team relies on two tiny flakes of semiconducting materials. One flake partly overlaps the other. Together, they sit on a computer chip. That chip is only the size of a rice grain.
Light shining on the flakes creates an electric current. That current’s strength is a measure of the intensity of the light. “This is the same basic technology that allows a photovoltaic solar cell to produce electricity from the sun,” Dawes explains.
To get a detailed spectrum, traditional spectrometers need lots of sensors. Each measures the intensity of just one color. The new device uses a single sensor to get data on all of the colors it measures, from visible light to the near-infrared. That data travels right from the chip to a computer. A computer program then uses artificial intelligence to match the resulting spectrum to known patterns in a database. Then it gives a readout of the chemicals to which it matched. Those chemicals are the ingredients of the sample.
Sun and Yoon think it might take only a few years to make this tiny spectrometer available for use in phones and other products. “There is still room for engineering advances,” Sun says. However, he sees “no fundamental barriers to overcome.”
“What can we do with such a tiny spectrometer?” asks Dawes. Its size “makes it ideal for placing on a compact drone” or into a device that could be implanted in the body, she says. Small changes in the spectrum of the light its chip measures could signal changes in its environment. One day, she says, it may even be possible that “these devices could help blind people ‘see’ colors through lightweight spectacles.”
Adding a micro-spectrometer to smart devices, such as phones, could lead to other possibilities. People with food allergies could check their food for troublesome ingredients, says Sun. Or people at risk for lung cancer could monitor the gases they exhale for signs of the disease.
Such devices also could make it easier to monitor crop health, pollution, food quality — even the progression of some diseases, his team says.
“This is the beginning of the story,” Sun says. The real story will be all the discoveries and insights that these micro-devices provide.
]]> Thu, 08 Jun 2023 04:02:24 PDT //www.vhstigers.org/homeworkItem9285367 //www.vhstigers.org/apps/classes/1044040/assignments/ ]]> Thu, 08 Jun 2023 04:02:24 PDT //www.vhstigers.org/homeworkItem9285358 //www.vhstigers.org/apps/classes/1044040/assignments/ ]]> Thu, 08 Jun 2023 04:02:24 PDT //www.vhstigers.org/homeworkItem9285368 //www.vhstigers.org/apps/classes/1044040/assignments/ Thu, 08 Jun 2023 04:02:24 PDT //www.vhstigers.org/homeworkItem9285374 //www.vhstigers.org/apps/classes/1044040/assignments/ Thu, 08 Jun 2023 04:02:25 PDT