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Oklahoma Spring Assessments Aim To Measure Learning Loss During Pandemic
Lindy Renbarger had to reinvent everything.
The principal of Calumet Elementary is accustomed to doing it all. In her decade at the helm of the school with less than 200 students she’s taken it from a school that scored a “C” on the state report card to regularly getting an “A.”
In spring 2020, StateImpact visited Calumet Elementary for a story about that transformation in the lead up to spring assessment tests.
Renbarger led a whirlwind tour of a school where reading was an obvious priority. In the hallway at the heart of the school a group of first and sixth graders read books together.
Reading comprehension is an incredibly important part of child development and the end of year assessments.
That story was killed when the state – and ultimately the nation – opted to cancel spring assessment tests because of the coronavirus. But the tests are back on in spring 2021, though with changes.
“I do feel good about it, but I don’t know that we would pull off an A,” Renbarger said.
The importance of assessments
In a normal school year, districts are graded off of their students’ performance on end of year assessments in late spring. Federal law mandates states test students for English, math and science in third through eighth grades and one time in high school.
But those grades are something that schools fret over because they have real consequences. And with Oklahoma’s legislature taking action this session to make it easier for students to transfer, the grades schools receive are important. Losing enrollment equals a loss in state funding.
Grades won’t be given this year after the state board of education voted unanimously to suspend them because of the COVID-19 pandemic in December.
The test results will be used instead to set a baseline for assessments moving forward.
“This will be different from any other year so how the data will be used will be very different,” said Joy Hofmeister, Oklahoma’s State Superintendent for Public Instruction.
Districts and state leaders need to have a good understanding of where there are gaps in instruction across Oklahoma, she said.
Hofmeister said teachers and administrators in most districts probably have a good idea of how students are performing.
“But that is different than a state level view,” she said. “And it’s important that we are able to see that as a state and that we can look at these particular student groups that really are going to require additional levels of support.”
Some educators wanted to do away with the tests altogether this year. Last summer, former teacher and Tulsa Democratic State Representative John Waldron penned a letter calling for just that. The reasoning, Waldron wrote, is the tests will give leaders an inaccurate baseline of where students actually are.
“It’ll be like a baseball statistic with an asterisk,” he said.
Waldron is generally a critic of the assessment tests and school report cards. A 20-year teacher, he said they have too much of an effect on how schools operate, and the setting of that baseline can’t be from the pandemic year.
“When you measure a phenomenon, you change the phenomenon,” Waldron said. “And there is this wag the dog effect where the test becomes the driver of good instruction because it provides a clear, measurable outcome.”
State education leaders actually agree with that sentiment. But Hofmeister said there needs to be a way to measure success in schools.
Tests can’t be the end all, be all of how students and teachers operate over the course of the year, Hofmeister said.
Instead educators need to take a look at the full picture of a student to tell if they’re successful.
“Here’s another tool,” she said. “And then we use that for that final snapshot to then say, OK, now we can also continue to unlock resources for additional intervention.”
What will the tests look like?
Oklahoma’s testing window is wide open and will include options for districts to test in evenings and on weekends.
For some assessments, districts will have almost two months to complete them. But some of the nuts and bolts remain unclear, and how tests are administered might vary by district.
The flexibility is welcomed and so is the lack of a grade, Renbarger said.
Teachers have been giving monthly reading assessments to track progress this year, she said. And those will go much further in predicting the success of students. For those struggling with reading, she’s taken matters into her own hands.
“I started a reading intervention group myself,” she said. “So every day I see certain kids and help them out.”
Students will take 15 minutes out of their physical education time to work on reading in Calumet if they’re behind.
Ultimately, not being graded by the state is a relief for Calumet teachers.
“It’s just a test,” Renbarger said. “Let’s just look at it that way. Let’s just take it, and move forward, we know where they’re at.”
StateImpact Oklahoma is a partnership of Oklahoma’s public radio stations which relies on contributions from readers and listeners to fulfill its mission of public service to Oklahoma and beyond. Donate online. | https://www.kgou.org/education/2021-03-18/oklahoma-spring-assessments-aim-to-measure-learning-loss-during-pandemic |
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Government, Health and Welfare
dysentery, infant mortality rate, malaria, tuberculosis, Bolivia
Health conditions are poor in Bolivia. In 1998 the country had 1 physician for every 2,688 inhabitants. The infant mortality rate is among the highest in South America; malaria, dysentery, and tuberculosis are common, and there was a serious outbreak of yellow fever in the late 1980s. Medical services and hospitals are particularly inadequate in rural areas. Bolivia has a comprehensive social insurance plan, but it covers less than half the working population.
Article key phrases: | http://countriesquest.com/south_america/bolivia/government/health_and_welfare.htm |
IEEE 1159-2009, IEEE Recommended Practice for Monitoring Electric Power defines undervoltage as “a drop in AC RMS voltage in an electrical power system, typically 80% to 90% of its nominal value or lower, at the normal line frequency lasting for at least a minute.”
This is not a voltage sag, which is a much shorter duration voltage event, and not an interruption that occurs when the voltage goes to zero. Undervoltages can be an intentional or unintentional drop in voltage.
Brownout, a slang term, is sometimes used to describe an undervoltage condition. The brownout term is associated with the dimming of incandescent lighting in the past from an undervoltage condition.
This is likely where the term came from due to the change in the intensity and the brownish color of the light. IEEE discourages the use of the term “brownout”, and the more precise “undervoltage” should be used.
This whitepaper defines undervoltage, examines some typical causes of undervoltages, and explains the effects of undervoltage on customer loads. | http://library.powermonitors.com/electrical-undervoltage-and-power-quality |
Over the past 30 years, microfinance (MF) has grown to a $30 billion industry involving over 3,000 organizations. Half of these microfinance institutions, however, have nothing more than anecdotal stories about the impact of MF on poverty. The connection between MF and poverty eradication is far from resolved. This paper addresses an ongoing debate by drawing upon two bodies of literature: poverty eradication and microfinance measurement. It articulates a causal model of the effects of MF on poverty that is unique in three regards. First, it measures the effect on socioeconomic status (SES) using for the first time a reflective multi-dimensional construct in contrast to deploying a financial surrogate for SES such as purchasing power parity (PPP). Second, it applies variables in measuring SES that are viewed as reflections of their origin – the level of poverty. This draws upon factor analytic techniques in contrast to earlier stepwise approaches. Third, on the cause side, in contrast to positing a direct effect the model evaluates MF for its moderating effects on the causal positive association between income and SES. The empirical setting for validating the proposed model is Malawi, a country of extreme poverty in central Africa. We transform an existing World Bank data set on household income and poverty in Malawi into a causal model using structural equation modeling (SEM). Our analysis shows that MF has a significant interaction with income in its impact on SES, thus demonstrating its instrumental value in reducing poverty. Contrary to earlier studies we find no differences across gender or income levels for the impacts of MF. Also contrary to previous literature, the effect is different between urban and rural households. The proposed approach offers a handy protocol to evaluate rigorously the impacts of MF or other poverty reducing efforts in other countries and contexts enabling cumulative empirical findings. On a practical level the study offers some guidelines how to target future microfinance operations. | https://catalog.ihsn.org/citations/594 |
The Great Romantics, presented by the Faculty of the International Music Academy, is an evening of classical music for piano and cello by two composers whose works have helped us to define Romantic music.
Maria Gorodetskaya (Russia), Filip Błachnio (Poland) and Sonya Matoussova (Russia) are well known to the Houston public. They are all actively involved in the music scene of our city as performers and educators.
The works to be performed include two major sonatas from the romantic period: Liszt’s Dante Sonata (for piano solo) and Rachmaninoff's Sonata for Piano and Cello op 19. The Dante Sonata explores ideas of Life and Death, God and the Devil, as one might expect in a work inspired by the composer’s reading of Dante’s Divine Comedy. The Sonata for Piano and Cello is one of the first works Rachmaninoff composed after his recovery from a major three-year crisis, following the disastrous reception of his first symphony. His post-crisis works became his best and most beloved compositions.
Enjoy these great works in an intimate setting and appreciate the way these composers use their works to express their ideas about the meaning of life. This concert is made possible with a grant from Brown Foundation through IMA Virtuosi Inc., providing support to young musicians and promoting the Art of Classical Music in Houston.
ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL MUSIC ACADEMY
The International Music Academy is committed to comprehensive and expert music instruction for its students. We believe that the study of music enriches people's lives by increasing creativity, enhancing intelligence and fostering cultural appreciation. Through the work and dedication of talented teachers, the Academy provides an environment for students to enjoy personal growth, achieve their artistic potential and gain an excellent foundation for their future college study or personal enjoyment. | https://matchouston.org/events/2018/great-romantics |
scope:
1.1 This specification covers international standards for the crew interface aspects of airworthiness and design for aircraft. "Crew" includes flight crew and maintenance crew.
1.2 The applicant for a design approval must seek the individual guidance of their respective Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) body concerning the use of this standard as part of a certification plan. For information on which CAA regulatory bodies have accepted this standard (in whole or in part) as a means of compliance to their airworthiness regulations (hereinafter referred to as "the Rules"), refer to ASTM F44 webpage (www.ASTM.org/COMMIT
1.3 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety, health, and environmental practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use.
1.4 This international standard was developed in accordance with internationally recognized principles on standardization established in the Decision on Principles for the Development of International Standards, Guides and Recommendations issued by the World Trade Organization Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee. | https://standards.globalspec.com/std/4469792/astm-f3117-18a |
PRG 280 Week 5 Individual Assignment Adding a Form and Multimedia
Instructions: Continue working on the website from the previous week. Create a form to collect information from your users (e.g. name, address, and phone.) Be sure to include the code to validate that form. Include multimedia appropriate to the site. Zip all the files. Submit your assignment to the Assignment Files tab above.
Questions & Answers
Have a Question?
Be the first to ask a question about this. | https://tutorfortune.com/products/prg-280-week-5-individual-assignment-adding-a-form-and-multimedia |
Date of Defense 2019-03-12 Availability unrestricted AbstractUnderstanding and controlling thermal transport in one dimensional nanostructures as well as at their interfaces are emerging as an essential necessity for the development of a broad variety of technologies in nanoelectronics and energy conversion. In the past two decades, the thermal conductivities of many different kinds of nanostructures have been explored and the underlying mechanisms governing the transport process have been dissected. For nanowires, beyond the well-recognized classical size effects due to phonon-boundary scattering, several new factors, such as acoustic softening, surface roughness, and complex morphology, have also been shown to be able to significantly alter the thermal conductivity of nanowires.
This dissertation seeks to further the understanding of the complicated transport dynamics in thin nanostructures and at their interfaces, and to answer some of the fundamental questions on interactions between energy and charge carriers in quasi-one-dimensional systems. These questions are addressed through a number of combined experimental approaches, such as the thermal conductance and thermoelectric property measurements of suspended nanostructures, elastic property test with atomic force microscopy, and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy examination.
By coupling the measured thermal conductivity and Young’s modulus of two groups Si nanoribbons with thickness of either ~30 or 20 nm, acoustic softening effect is shown to significantly suppress thermal transport in the thinner ribbons in addition to the classical size effects. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that phonons can ballistically penetrate through the van der Waals interface between two silicon nanoribbons with amorphous SiO2 layers of up to a total of 5 nm thick at the interface. This observation indicates an unexpected phonon mean free path that is one order of magnitude longer than that predicted based on Einstein random walk model. Lastly, taking advantage of the unique features of charge density waves occurring in quasi-one-dimensional NbSe3 nanowires, we demonstrate distinct signatures of electron-phonon scatterings that can only be recaptured through considering electron-phonon scattering, which provides data to distinguish the contribution of electron-phonon scattering to phonon transport from other scattering mechanisms. | https://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-03212019-141955/ |
The aim of this work has been to design an autonomous agent able to perform homing behaviour, that is to return to a starting point from any current position. I have taken as an example the homing behaviour of the desert ants. The ethological research indicates that the basic information used by ants to return to the nest by the direct way is the azimuth of the sun. The biological agent refers only to an egocentric frame of reference while no cognitive map is involved. Starting from these evidences I have formulated a mathematical model of homing behaviour It is a geometrical model and it is called vectorial model. I have realized a simulated autonomous agent whose controller approximates such model. In this paper I will describe the vectorial model and the general architecture of the artificial agent that emulates the biological one. As a final consideration, I will note that the simulation of agent-environment interaction shows that the behaviour of the artificial agent preserves all the characteristics observed in the biological one. In fact, if I reproduce the experimental conditions of the ethological experiments on desert ants, the artificial agent shows an equivalent behaviour.
This work has been developed in the perspective of autonomous agents (see Agree, 1995). In this line of research the agents are considered like adaptive systems and the emphasis is on the interaction between the agent and its environment (Brooks, 1990; 1991; Maes, 1994; Colombetti, 1994; Colombetti & Dorigo, 1996). The focus is on those tasks which are central for adaptiveness of the system. In this sense the dynamic system agent - environment - task is considered as a global one (Beer, 1995).
Perception and action play a central role in performing adaptive behaviour. To build system that could interact with an environment, it is necessary to connect it to the world via a set of sensors and actuators (Brooks, 1990). It is important that the sensors and actuators would be low-level devices. In robotics sensors are usually light or colour sensors, infrared light emitter and receiver or sonar scanner, while actuators are usually motor devices that control wheels.
It is necessary some kind of controller that collects information through sensors and sends out information to the actuators (Colombetti & Dorigo, 1996). The controller could be considered as the mind of the agent. The term mind is used here as synonymous of control system (Newell, 1990). The controller of the artificial autonomous agent could be considered as the set of the skills that allow the agent to perform a particular kind of behaviour. The controller interfaces perception with action; it accepts data from perception and send output to the effectors. So the actions of the agent will effect perception at subsequent instant and the controller, in response, give other output to the effectors. In this way the controller implements the feedback-loop and the controlled process is just the behaviour that the agent should perform.
The design of the controller has certainly a central role in designing an autonomous agents. At present one can see three ways to develop a controller.
1. The first, that could be called emergent behaviour (Floreano & Mondada, 1994), is based on the genetic algorithm theory (Holland, 1975). This method is often used in robotics. The features of the controller are defined as long as the artificial autonomous agent is interacting with its environment. The selecting mechanism is an artificial model of the natural selection. An initial population of different genotypes, each codifying the control system of a robot are created randomly (see Nolfi & Parisi, 1995). A fitness function is defined, so as to assign a score to any desired task: the more the task corresponds to a task that is useful for the survive of the robot, the more is the score assigned to that task. The robots are evaluated in the environment by the fitness function (see Colombetti, 1994). The robot that obtained higher fitness scores are allowed to reproduce by generating copies of their genotypes with addiction of random changes (“mutations”). The process is repeated for a certain number of generations until desired performances are archived (see Nolfi, Miglino & Parisi, 1994 and Nolfi, Floreano, Miglino & Mondada, 1994 for applications).
2. Another way to develop controller of the autonomous agents is to take as example the biological agents. The developer chooses a behaviour of a biological agent that he wants to emulate. Then he tries to identify the set of strategies that the agent uses. These strategies are usually some essential skills of the behaviour of the agent. The results of ethological researches on that kind of biological agents are usually used by the developer in order to identify such skills. The set of the basic skills is called computational model (see Gallistel, 1990 for a discussion). The computational model could be translated into a set of mathematical relations, so to implement them on the controller of an artificial autonomous agent. The evaluation of the behaviour of the artificial autonomous agent and the subsequent comparison between artificial and biological autonomous agent could give us some interesting results.
3. There is a third way to develop the controller of an artificial agent. The developer formulates some abstract hypothesis in order to isolate some skills that the controller has to perform in an abstract way. This approach could be defined as engineering one.
The aim of this work has been to design an artificial system able to perform homing behaviour, that is to return to a starting point from any current position. In particular the agent should be able to head and move directly for the starting point by reference to a source of light. I have taken as an example the homing behaviour of the desert ants, Cataglyphis fortis. In this sense, in developing the controller of this agent, I follow the second of the three way that I have just explained. The idea of developing an artificial agent which is inspired to a biological one, in fact, is useful for at least two reasons: on one hand to study living beings, whose behaviour has been shaped by evolution is very rich of information; on the other hand to assume the point of view of a specific biological agent forces us to develop a more ecological behavioural model.
The desert ant shows a typical behaviour: the foragers set out from their nest to search for food pursuing a tortuous path; when they find food they turn and head directly for home (Gallistel, 1990). Some experiments (Whener & Menzel, 1990, Whener & Srinivasan, 1981) show that the ants use the sun as point of reference. In particular the crucial information they use is the azimuth of the sun. I will start from these evidences to formulate the assumption of a theory of homing behaviour in desert ant. Subsequently I have realized a simulated autonomous agent, which implements the mathematical functions of the dynamic system.
According to the theory of autonomous agents, it is an “activity producer” which interfaces with the environment through perception and action. In particular the perceptual system is the simulation of a visual system whose input device is a couple of retina constituted by luminance receptors. The output device is the simulation of a motor system. The input information is a low-level information just like the output information, according to the philosophy of autonomous agents. As a consequence of the choice to consider the interaction between the agent and its environment I have simulated the environment too. I have simulated an environment with the characteristics of the real one, in which the artificial agent can move. I have defined a fitness function in order to evaluate the adaptation of the agent.
Simulation shows that the behaviour of the artificial agent is similar to that of the desert ant. At present the interest is not in studying how the artificial system can learn and modify itself to adapt to its environment but in analysing the innate skills which allow a special kind of biological agent to perform basic tasks to survive (e.g. see Brooks, 1990). So I decided to study that level of homing behaviour that could be considered the simplest one: that of desert ants. In fact it does not involves cognitive maps to be performed. The desert ants homing by Dead Reckoning (Gallistel, 1990). Dead Reckoning generates the simplest of all spatial representations: the geometric relation between the position where the reckoning started and the current position of the animal on the earth’s surface. Homing behaviour can be performed by a lot of natural species of animals. This kind of behaviour involves more or less basic skills; homing is typical in ants, bees, pigeons, mammals etc. There are different levels of complexity in performing homing behaviour because in each case the skills involved are different from those involved in the others.
Figure 1. Homing path of a desert ant. S: fictive feeding station (releasing point). N*: fictive nest. O: estimated nest; point where the ant turns and begins piloting.
From the methodological point of view, the first step will be the review of the ethological literature in order to define the basic skills that allows the ants to perform homing behaviour (Section 2), then I will formulate a set of assumptions on these skills and I will propose a mathematical model of homing behaviour in desert ant (Section 3). The controller of an artificial agent will implement the dynamic model (Section 4). The artificial agent interacting with the environment will be simulated on a computer (Section 5). The simulation of the agent that interacts with the environment will show that the agent is able to perform homing behaviour referring to a fixed source of light and that, in the same experimental conditions, the artificial agent behaves just like the desert ant.
This Section describes the homing behaviour of the desert ants Cataglyphys fortis as it has been observed by ethologists.
1. path integration (Whener & Menzel, 1990, McNaughton, Chen & Markus, 1991) or dead reckoning (Gallistel, 1990): during the searching path, the ant continuously monitors the angle steered and the distance travelled to obtain the vector pointing from its current position toward home. Dead reckoning generates the geometric relation between the position where the reckoning commenced and the current position of the ant (Gallistel, 1990) .
2. goal localization using some kind of landmark around the goal. Once they are near their nest, the ant start searching for some familiar landmarks or snapshots, using a piloting mechanism (Gallistel, 1990). As the ant continuously compute their position relative to the starting point, the path integration mechanism is subject to cumulative errors. Piloting behaviour starts as the ant are near the nest, so to minimize the effects of the error cumulated during the searching path.
Other ethological data I have taken in consideration are the following.
Whener and Flatt (1972) have shown that the ants do not have a cognitive map of the territory surrounding their nest. The authors trapped the ants as they emerged from their nest and then released them at a randomly chosen location, 2-5 metres away. The ants showed no evidence of knowing where to head for. They searched for the nest in all directions. Only 57 per cent reached the nest in less than 5 minutes. The mean time of 2.18 minutes needed by this 57 per cent exceeded of a factor of ten the time required by a homeward-bound ant to cover the same distance. It shows that the ants do not know where they are unless they themselves get there. It shows also that the nest gives off no beacon that the ants can detect at any distance (see Gallistel, 1990).
Whener and Srinivasan (1981) have demonstrated that no cognitive map is implicated in homing behaviour. The ants were captured as they departed from the feeding station toward home and released at a location (fictive feeding station N* in figure 1) about 600 metres distant from the nest. When released, the ants pursued the direct route toward the place where the nest should have been. The linear march of the ants terminated with a sharp turn. At this point the piloting behaviour began and the ants started searching for familiar landmarks surrounding the nest. The point where the ants turned and started searching for the nest can be considered as the fictive nest (figure 1 - filled circle labelled O). The path from the fictive feeding station to the fictive nest was parallel to that from the real feeding station (where the ants were captured) and the real nest, from where the ants started their journey.
Same experiment of Whener and Srinivasan (1981). When the ants got closed to the fictive nest and failed to find the real nest, they began searching for it. The study of the search pattern evidenced two properties: it remained centred on the original estimate of the nest location and the place where the nest was expected to be (fictive nest) was traversed with a high frequency. In other words, the ant start searching for the nest with tortuous loops, but they repeatedly return to the site where their dead reckoning has originally indicated that the nest should be (see figure 2). If the ant, after they have searched for a while, are displaced about 10 metres away, the new search is not centred on the old starting point, but on the new releasing point. This result shows that the searching of the nest is conducted by dead reckoning (Gallistel, 1990).
Sanchti (1913) has shown that ants refer themselves to the sun. The author found an ant marching with the sun on its left. He obscured its direct view of the sun and put a mirror angled so that the ant saw the reflection of the sun in the mirror. The ant turned around and marched in the opposite way. When Sanchti angled the mirror in various way, the ant adjusted its march so as to maintain the angle relative to the azimuthal angle of the image of the sun (see Gallistel, 1990). The author has demonstrated that the crucial information for the ants is the azimuth of the sun.
On the basis of these experiments, Gallistel (1990) concluded that desert ants do homing by dead reckoning . They compute their position relative to a starting point (displacement vector) using the azimuth of the sun as compass heading. As the azimuthal angle of the sun changes during the day and the rate of this change is not constant, an endogenous mechanism is required to correct the effect of this changing .
These studies allow me to define some assumptions about homing behaviour in order to formulate a dynamic model of such behaviour. First, homing behaviour is genetic and no learning is involved. Every time the ant starts searching for food, it does not take in account the previous experience. In this sense the ants need a local memory (Staddon, 1983) as their behaviour is affected only by present events and events in the immediate past (form 1). Second, no absolute geocentric frame of reference is involved. The ant can refer only to an egocentric frame of reference, anchored to its point of view.
To design the artificial agent, the first step has been to formulate a mathematical model of the natural agent's internal process able to generate the homing behaviour. More precisely, the mathematical model defines the input-output function of the controller of the agent. It is an abstract model that does not specify the machine that realizes the process nor the necessary resources. The model I propose is expressed in form of vectorial operations.
The model must be formulated respecting the assumptions I have formulated starting from the ethological evidences. The same behaviour, in fact, could be described in many ways from the mathematical point of view. Some authors, in the ethologic area, (e. g. Gallistel, 1990, Whener & Menzel, 1990) call this kind of theory computational model that they define as a “theory of a neurobehavioural process formulated in mathematical terms”. The dynamic system and the computational model could be considered as similar concepts.
Figure 2. An agent who starts from the starting point S and runs along the path P until it reaches the current point C. The vector h that connects S with C results from the vectorial sum between the vectors of the path P.
For example when an ant starts from nest it seems to run in a random way, pursuing a tortuous path. When it finds food it turn and move to the nest for the direct way. If one observes this kind of behaviour, and he wants to propose a model of such behaviour, it could be described as illustrated in figure 2. Time is considered as discrete; to each instant corresponds a vector that represents direction and speed in that instant. The vectorial sum of all the vectors of the exploration path gives us just the vector representing the homing path. But it is a solution that does not take in account the specific biological agent. In fact if you consider the ethological researches, you could see that the desert ants perform homing behaviour by referring to the sun, using the azimuth of the sun as a compass heading. The ants have not a cognitive map of the territory surrounding the surface around their nest, and they can’t refer to a geocentric frame of reference, as I have assumed. The model of figure 2 is a wrong model of the behaviour of the desert ant, because it does not take in account the assumptions. In fact it assumes a geocentric frame of reference and does not involves the azimuth of the sun as a compass heading.
Now I try to formulate a vectorial model of homing behaviour that respects our assumptions. The time is assumed to be discrete, so as each instant t is equal to the others.
Figure 3. Left: simple path of two vectors. L: projection on the two-dimensional plane of the light source. SE: Egocentric frame of reference. d: direction of the light source as to the egocentric frame of reference. Right: associative law of the vectorial sum with path of more than two vectors.
The dynamic system that will be explained is called vectorial model. It is because it could be considered as a geometrical model. The basic idea is that the result of the computation is the direction that the light source would have if the agent would be lined up with the path connecting the current and the starting point. If the agent wants to return to the starting point from the current one, it has to rotate itself until the current direction of the light source corresponds to the direction resulting from the model. To return to the starting point the agent has to maintain this alignment and move by rectilinear motion.
Consider the figure 3. The direction of the light source L can be considered as a vector. The direction of the light source is always the same for any position of the agent so as the azimuth of the sun. In fact, the distance between the sun and the earth, from the point of view of an agent which runs along few meters, is approximate to infinite.
The left square of the figure 3 shows a simple path which connects the starting point S to the current one C with two vectors a, b. Since I am considering time as discrete, at each instant t the path can be represented as a vector, whose direction is the direction of the path and whose modulus is the speed in that instant. To simplify the exposure, now the speed is supposed to be the same at each instant. The bottom side of the left square shows the direction of the light source with respect to the egocentric frame of reference x, that is from the agent’s point of view. SEa is the direction of the light source da with respect to the egocentric frame of reference x when the direction of the agent is a, while SEb is the direction of the light source db with respect to the egocentric frame of reference x when the direction of the agent is b. Now consider Sea+b in figure 3 - left square: the vectorial sum da+db is just the direction of the light source with respect to the egocentric frame of reference x when the agent is lined up with the path connecting the starting point S with the current one C (dotted lines). This is in accord with the commutative law of the vectorial sum or parallelogram rule (see Appendix for geometrical proof).
The right square of figure 3 shows a path from the starting point S to the current one C connected with three vectors a, b and c. As shown, when the agent is lined up with the path connecting S to C (signed with (a+b)+c) the sum (da+db)+dc is just the direction of the light source with respect to the egocentric frame of reference x, in virtue of the associative law of the vectorial sum. An artificial agent which starts from S and runs along the path a, b, c takes a fix of the direction of the light source at each instant t and computes the sum of the vector representing the current direction with respect to the egocentric frame of reference (e.g. dc) and the sum of the previous vectors (e.g. da+db), according to the associative law. The resultant is the vector representing the direction that the light source would have if the agent would be lined up with the path connecting S to C. If it wants to return to the starting point S from the current C, it has to rotate itself until the current direction of the light source (e.g. dc in the figure 3 - right square) corresponds to the direction resultant from the associative vectorial sum (e.g. (da+db)+dc in figure 3 - right square). At this point, the agent is lined up with the path connecting S to C, and the starting point is in back of it. If the agent lines up with the resultant (da+db)+dc rotated of 180° he has the starting point in front of it. To return to S it has to maintain this alignment and move by rectilinear motion: it will find the starting point.
Figure 4. The expectation vector depends on the vector modulus da and db. The thin dotted lines refers to the case in which vector a and b has the same modulus (figure 3).
Consider the path vector. Till now (figure 3) I have supposed that the speed was the same at each instant. Now I consider an agent which speed can change. The speed at each instant is defined as the modulus of the vector whose direction represents the direction of the path in that instant If you look at the figure 3, you can see that the direction of the homing path (heavy dotted line) changes proportionally to speed. As you can see in figure 4 by comparing heavy dotted lines with thin ones - the last refer to the case in which vector a and b has the same moduli (figure 3) - the direction of the expectation vector, with respect to the egocentric frame of reference x, depends on the speed too (see Sea+b). A way to make the vectorial model to take in account this evidence is to assign the moduli of the path vectors a and b (remember that it is the speed in that instant) to the moduli of the perception vectors da and db. As a consequence, in fact, the resultant expectation vector da+db depends directly on the speed.
Form 1. The vectorial model.
a) homing behaviour is genetic and no learning is involved. Every time the ant starts searching for food, it does not take in account the previous experience.
c) the system can refer only to an egocentric frame of reference.
4. at instant t=n, in virtue of the associative law of vectorial sum, the direction of the expectation vector is the resultant of the vectorial sum of the perception vector at actual instant t=n and the expectation vector at instant t=n-1. The modulus of the actual perception vector is equal to that of the path vector (the speed) at instant t=n.
The distance between current and starting point is equal to the modulus of the expectation vector.
The expectation vector has another important property: its modulus is equal to the distance between the current position C (or C’) and the starting position S. In fact the expectation vector is the diagonal of the parallelogram whose sides are just the perception vectors whose modulus corresponds to the distance (see appendix). Form 1 summarizes the main features of the vectorial model.
The vectorial model is consistent with the basic assumptions. First, it does not take in account the previous experience. Then, it is consistent with the local memory assumption: at each instant, in virtue of the associative law of vectorial sum, the only information used are the actual information (the perception vector) and the information at the previous instant (the expectation vector). The vectorial model is also consistent with the assumption that the artificial system can refer only to an egocentric frame of reference anchored to its point of view: no absolute geocentric frame of reference is involved.
The vectorial model could be implemented by the controller of an artificial agent. In other words I will try to design an architecture that approximates the vectorial model. The controller processes the information coming from the visual device and sends information to the motor system. The design of the architecture involves also the input-output devices. This kind of characteristics are those described in the literature about the approach of autonomous agents (e. g. see Agree ,1995; Brooks, 1990; 1991; Beer, 1995; Colombetti, 1994; Colombetti & Dorigo, 1996 etc.).
Figure 5 shows the whole architecture of the system. The significance of each components will be clarified in the next Subsections. First I will consider how information are acquired from the environment - input device -, how they are represented, and how movement is generated - output device.
The input device of the agent is a visual system (figure 5 - VIS).
Figure 5. The architecture of the artificial system. VIS: visual system. AM: alignment module. HM: heading module. PROP: proprioceptive system. MOT: motor system.
Figure 6 B shows the hypothetical physical structure of the agent and C shows the schematic disposition of the eyes with respect to the egocentric frame of reference x that coincides with the main axis of the body of the agent. In order to simulate the interaction between the light and the eyes of the agent, the distance between the two eyes is insignificant because of the characteristics of the light source that is considered at a distance approximated to infinite (see Staddon, 1983 for proof). So in the simulation I will consider a cone of light which hits the spherical surface composed by the two hemispherical eyes (see figure 6 C).
The figure 7 shows the light-shadows areas generated by a cone of light which hits a spherical surface (A, B). The square a shows the direction of the light source L in the specific example of the figure. Each eye of the agent is composed by an artificial retina. Each artificial retina has 24 receptors (figure 6 A). In the simulated agent these units react to the light as they were placed on an hemispherical surface (figure 7 C).
The pattern of activation of the receptors is mapped to be in an internal useful form. The activation of each matrix of receptors is processed by a Kohonen neural network (Kohonen, 1978). The output of this network is a square matrix of 2´2 elements (output units or neurones). The information lies in a particular zone on the matrix. That matrix, that I will call visual matrix, maps in a topological way the information about the direction of the light source with respect to the egocentric frame of reference. The visual matrix is oriented just like the egocentric frame of reference.
Figure 6. A: Hypothetical physical structure of the artificial agent. B: the distance between the two eyes d is insignificant. C: the units that composed each eye of the agent.
Figure 8 shows the Kohonen map K corresponding to the visual patterns P (1, 2, 3, 0) which are used to train the neural network W. As you can see, for example, when the light source is in front of the agent (P1) the visual matrix Kb maps the information so as to make explicit that direction (see the portion activated of the matrix in the figure 8). This kind of mapping is realized in correspondence to all directions of the light source. In fact, recall tests have shown that there is a topological representation of the information on the Kohonen matrix corresponding to each visual pattern generated by a different direction of the light source. By consequence, the Kohonen map is a useful representation of visual information.
The sense of processing visual pattern by Kohonen neural network will be clear if you consider that the information mapped on the Kohonen matrix has the same characteristic whatever would be the visual device. In other word, if an agent has a visual device different to that of figure 6, for example a robot with its set of sensors, the Kohonen matrix could be trained so as to give off a topological representation of such a visual device. So I call device-independent the information of the Kohonen matrix.
The output of the system (Figure 5 - MOT) is the activation that the controller sends out to some motor-neurones that generate the movement of the agent (figure 9 - top). On each side of the body there is a unit, that is called motor-neurone. The mechanism is that of the caterpillar which is propelled by its tracks: if the activation of the motor-neurone at the two sides is identical the agent will move in a rectilinear direction; if this activation is different, that is if one of them is active and the other has no activation, the agent turns around. The direction of rotation depends on the side that is more active.
The speed is supposed to change proportionally to the amount of activation of each motor-neurones. In particular the linear speed is proportional to the amount of simultaneous activation of the two motor neurones, while the angular speed is proportional to the amount of the activation of the motor-neurones active respect to that inactive.
Figure 8. P (1, 2, 3, 4): visual patterns used to train the Kohonen neural network W. K: Kohonen matrixes.
I call motor system “path generator” (Form 2) because it generates the agent movement, sending activation to the motor-neurones. At the instant t, the value send to the motor-neurones is the same to the left motor-neurone and to the right one: the agent move in a rectilinear way. At the subsequent instant the value is send only to one motor-neurone while that send to the motor-neurone on the other side is zero: the agent turns. It turns left if the active neurone is that on the right side; it turns right if the active neurone is that on the left side. The rate of turning is proportional to the amount of the value of the motor-neurone active. The instant at which the motion is rectilinear and the instant at which the agent turns are alternating during all the time that the agent moves (see Form 2, “path generator”). The path resulting from the movement of the artificial agent is similar to that of the ant.
The proprioceptive system (figure 5- PROP) retrieves the value of motor-neurones. The activation of the motor pattern is processed by a Kohonen neural net (figure 9 - bottom) and it is mapped on a matrix of 2´2 elements. The matrix represents the motor information in a topological way with respect to direction (with respect to egocentric frame of reference x) and in an analogical way with respect to speed. The utility of this matrix, that I call proprioceptive matrix, is to give the agent information about its current state. This point will be clarified in the next Section.
The architecture of the system is modular. Modularity, in this case must not be intended as Fodor intends (Fodor, 1983), because no cognitive task is implicated. Simply each basic function is encapsulated in a specific structure, that I call module. This kind of modularity has a hierarchic structure: in a limit case the entire process involved in homing behaviour could be considered as a module which has other modules into itself. The controller of the system involved some basic functions encapsulated in modules.
The module that implements the vectorial model, that I call the heading module, is just one of them (figure 5 - HM). The other module that is a part of the controller is the alignment module (figure 5 - AM) that computes the values to send to motor-neurones (see Section 4.4.3). The proprioceptive system (see Section 4.3) is the square labelled with PROP in figure 5. It computes the instantaneous linear and angular speed of the agent from the value of the activation of the motor-neurones at each instant.
Figure 9. Top: the hypothetical physical body of the agent. The amount of activation of the motor-neurones Mt determines the movement of the agent. Bottom: P(1, 2, 3, 4): motor patterns used to train the Kohonen neural network Wp (black: maximum activation; white: zero activation). K: Kohonen matrixes.
Consider the perception vector described in section 3.1. and the visual matrix, described in section 4.2. Both represent the direction of the light source with respect to the egocentric frame of reference: visual representation (the visual matrix) is similar to the mathematical concept (the perception vector). Then, the vector resultant from the sum of vectors has the same direction than the direction that represents the activation on the matrix that results from the sum of matrixes, as you can see in figure 10 - top square. The system has just to sum the visual matrix at each instant to the sum of the preceeding visual matrixes, in an associative way. I call the matrix resulting from the associative sum homing matrix. So, at each instant the visual matrix of the actual instant is summed to the homing matrix of the preceeding instant. When the agent wants to return to the starting point it has to move so to align the actual visual matrix with the homing matrix rotated by 180°. It is the basic algorithm of the artificial system. Such process approximates the vectorial model.
Before describing it in details, look at figure 10 - bottom square. It shows the sum of two visual matrixes relative to opposite directions (A). On the resultant matrix activation is uniform. This because two opposite directions annul each other, like in vectorial sum. The activation of the resultant matrix increments time after time producing useless noise. If the matrixes are pre-processed by a neural network that inhibits opposite components with respect to the active one, this drawback can be avoided. Figure 10 bottom square B shows the same situation of A, but now the matrixes are pre-processed to inhibit the opposite components with respect to those active. The amount of inhibition in a zone of the matrix is just the amount of the activation in the opposite zone.
Figure 10. Top square. Vectorial sum and matrix sum. Bottom square. A: sum of the perception matrixes corresponding to two opposite directions of the light source with respect to the egocentric frame of reference x. B: same situation, but now the matrixes are pre-processed so that the units opposite to those active are inhibited.
In figure 11 you can see the architecture of the heading module (figure 5 - HM). Inputs to it are the visual matrix and the proprioceptive matrix. The dotted zone of the proprioceptive matrix represents the speed of the agent. It is the value of w1 that weights each element of the visual matrix. So proprioceptive feed-back of speed normalizes the visual matrix to instantaneous speed, just like the value of instantaneous speed is assigned to the modulus of the perception vector in the vectorial model. WH is the neural network which inhibits the opposite components of the matrix with respect to the active ones. S is the sum of the current visual matrix and the preceding homing matrix. The resultant of this sum (the current homing matrix) is stored in the local memory Mloc and will be used at the next instant to be summed to the next visual matrix. The heading module computes the homing matrix rotated by 180° (see r180).
When the agent starts making a tortuous path, at each instant the heading module refreshes the homing matrixes. The homing matrix will be summed to the visual matrix at the next instant and the homing matrix is now available. If the agent wants to return to the starting point, e.g. as a consequence of particular stimulus, it has to make the visual matrix corresponding to the homing one, rotated by 180°. In this way it is lined up with the homing path and the starting point is in front of it. To do that the agent has to activate its motor system. A particular module (the alignment module, see Section 4.4.3.) encapsulates this function.
The distance between the current position of the agent and the starting point is the absolute value of the global activation of the homing matrix. Figure 12 shows this concept. Suppose that the agent moves from P (the starting point) to P’ and L is the direction of the light source. At the starting point P the total absolute activation of the homing matrix is assumed to be zero (Hom(P)). During the path from P to P’ the total absolute value of the homing matrix increases. Conversely, during the return path, the visual matrixes which sum to the homing matrix (Bi(ret)) are opposite to the ones activated during the path from P to P’ (see Bi(exp)). So the total absolute activation of homing matrix progressively decreases. When the absolute value is zero the agent is close to the starting point.
Figure 11. HM: heading module. It computes the homing matrix Hom from the visual matrix Bi and the proprioceptive speed mapped on the proprioceptive matrix Kp (dotted unit). r180 rotates the matrix resulting from the associative sum, by 180°.so that if the visual matrix corresponds to the homing matrix the starting point is in front of the agent.
The alignment module (figure 5 - AM) computes the value of the motor-neurones during the homing path. When the agent departs from the starting point, the path is the resultant of randomly chosen movements. It is a first approximation of the real movements of an ant that departs from its nest for exploration. It is not in the aim of this work to build a model of exploration paths, so I assume that the artificial agents moves in a random way during exploration. The movement during exploration path is generated by the motor system (“path generator”, see Form 2).When the agent reaches some significative goal, so as the ant reaches the food, it have to return to the starting point. The alignment module computes the value to send to motor-neurones so to align the visual matrix, that corresponds to actual perception of the light source, with the homing matrix rotated by 180°, computed by the heading module. This process is continuing during the homing path: on one hand the heading module computes the homing matrix taking in account the last movement, on the other hand alignment modules computes the new value to send to the motor neurones. So the agent continuously adjust its direction during the homing path.
As the agent is getting near the starting point the global absolute value of the homing matrix decreases. As the value decrease under some critic value (e.g. a threshold), the agent is close to its estimated starting point.
Figure 12. Example of a rectilinear path from the starting point P to P’. The global absolute value of the homing matrix is zero at the starting point (see Hom(p)). This value increases during the exploration path P-P’ and decreases during the homing path P’-P (dotted arrows).
The architecture of the artificial agent and the environment are simulated by a programming language on a computer. This program is called simulator. It draws on the monitor a line corresponding to the movement of the agent and it has some functions that simulate interaction between a fixed source of light and the visual system according to the movement of the agent. In the next Subsection I will describe the characteristics of the simulator according to the movement and the visual system of the agent.
The artificial environment is supposed to be a two-dimensional plane on which the agent can move and a source of light at a distance such that its direction could be considered the same in each point of the plane. As a first approximation the light source is considered as fixed on the azimuthal plane, and it has zero elevation on the horizon.
The graphical interface between the experimenter and the behaviour of the agent is the screen of the monitor of the computer. The simulator draws a line on the screen using the amount of activation of motor-neurones. For example the simulator draws a rectilinear line when the agent move in a rectilinear way. The length of the line is proportionally to the activation of the motor-neurones (for example if the speed of the agent is 3, the simulator draw a rectilinear line length 3 pixels). When the agent turns the simulator registers the turning so as the next line is turned by the same amount. For example if the left motor-neurones has activation 2 and the right one has zero activation, the agent turns right of 4.5´2=9 degrees (see Form 2 “path generator”). The simulator will draw the next line so as the angle between the previous line and the next would be of 9 degrees on the right.
Form 3. The alignment module.
The agent explores: the level of linear speed in rectilinear motion (even instants) and of angular speed in turn (odd instants) is under the control of motor system (randomly chosen).
The agent finds the goal: switch from random movement to homing behaviour. The alignment module send activation to motor-neurones so as to align the visual matrix, that corresponds to actual perception of the light source, with the homing matrix, computed by the heading module.
The agent is near to the starting point: if the total absolute value of the homing matrix is under a critic level homing behaviour terminated and motor system take the control of the movement, so the agent starts moving in a random way. It is to minimize the effect of the cumulative error that occurs during the computation of the homing matrix. In fact the agent is now surely near to the starting point, and he will found it in a brief time.
The simulator generates light-shadow areas by assigning a value to those receptors that are in the light area, and no value to that receptors that are in the shadow area. To that receptor that falls in the boundary between light and shadow area is assigned a value proportionally to what amount of such receptor is in the light or in the shadow area. For example in figure 7 C, the receptors that falls in the light area are active (black), those in the shadow area have zero value (white) and those in the boundary has a value proportional to what part of them falls in the light area (grey). The simulator determines all the light-shadows areas generated by a cone of light, with zero elevation on the horizon, moving around the spherical surface. In reality the agent turns around and the light source is supposed to be fix, so when the agent turns, the simulator generates a turning of the light source of the same amount but in the opposite sense with respect to the egocentric frame of reference of the agent.
The simulator implements the architecture of the agent. The modules I have just described are realized by specific routines and algorithms implemented by the C programming language. These routines realized the functions that are encapsulated in the modules.
The artificial agent starts from a specific point placed in the middle of the screen. The user can follow its movement because it draws a line while it is moving. The searching movement is random. When the user gives the agent a particular command (e.g. by pressing the ‘c’ key on keyboard) it turns and moves to the starting point by the direct way, from any position. The simulated homing path is very similar to that of the desert ant (see figure 13). As you have just seen as I were talking about the ethological researches (Section 2), when the ant is closed to its nest, it seems to switch to another kind of behaviour that I have called piloting. Some ethological researches (see experiment in Section 2) suggest that the searching path remains closed to the estimate of the position of the nest. In simulating the behaviour of the agent I were surprised to see that it behave exactly as the ant when it is closed to its nest. It was a unexpected result. In fact, as you can see in figure 13, the agent begins making some loops when it is closed to the starting position. These loops are centred on the estimate of the position of the nest.
Figure 13. Output of the simulation on the monitor screen of the computer.
The searching behaviour that one can observe when the agent is closed to the estimated starting position allows the agent to reach its goal to return to the starting position even if that estimate is not precise. This kind of mechanism is necessary because dead reckoning is subject to cumulative error (Whener & Menzel, 1990). The suprise is that the same modules generates both homing and piloting behaviour.
A fitness function could be defined as a function that assign a score to the behaviour of the agent (Colombetti, 1994). Given an agent A and environment E, the fitness function f assigns a score f(a) to each behaviour produced by A in E. If the value of f is high, A is well-adapted to E.
The fitness function is defined as follows. The score assigned by the fitness function to the behaviour of the agent is proportional to its precision in estimating the starting position. It is to say that the more closed to the nest is that estimate, the more will be the value of the score assigned to that behaviour. Some concentric circles are drawn around the starting point. To each of these circles is assigned a value like in the target-shooting (see figure 13 - fitness score). The score is maximal in the centre of the circles.
On one hand I consider the position score. In this case the estimated point corresponds to that when the estimated distance is zero. Another way to evaluate the score is to see if the agent reach the maximal score. I could suppose that whatever would be the position score, the agent reaches the starting point. It is thanks to those loops it performs when it is closed to the nest that start when the estimated distance is zero.
Figure 14. Results of the experiments with the simulated artificial agent.
The evaluation of the fitness function was essentially qualitative. It means that I does not use any statistical test to analyze the results. It is because the behaviour observed is just a line on the screen. Simulation could be useful to verify the hypothesis on the model and on the architecture. It could indicate the way to realize a real artificial agent grounded in the real environment and could show us some characteristics that I have not predicted, like the loops that the agent performs as it is closed to the nest.
1. The artificial agent is able to return to the starting point referring to a source of light (figure 13). If you observe the homing path of the simulation and compare it with that of the desert ant (figure 1), you can see that they are very similar. The beginning of each homing path can be considered as the searching of the alignment between the estimated direction of the light and the real one. In both cases the homing path seems to be generated by a typical feed back behaviour. The agent turns on a side at an instant, then turns on the other side and so on until the rate of the turning became very little and the path is proceeding more and more rectilinear. It would indicate that each agent, the biological and the artificial one, is searching for the best alignment during the homing path.
2. The estimate position of the homing path is not very precise. It could depends either on the resolution of the visual simulator (4.5 degrees) or on the error that the system accumulates during the searching path.
3. Even if the estimate position give off a low score in the fitness evaluation, the behaviour of the agent shows a high fitness score if the whole homing behaviour is evaluated. It is to say that whatever would be the estimating position, the agent reaches the starting point a lot of times. It means that the estimated position of the starting point give off a low fitness score, but the fitness score increases if the evaluation involves if the agent reaches or not the starting point at the end of the homing behaviour.
Figure 15. S: starting point. C: point where the agent is “captured”. R: point where the agent is released. E: estimated starting point. D: direction of the light source.
4. I have reproduced the experimental conditions of the ethological experiments on desert ants (see Section 2). I have observed that, in that case, the artificial agent shows a behaviour similar to that of the desert ant. Look at figure 14. When one gives the agent the ‘c’ command, it tuns and begin homing path. If one “capture” it when he gives it the ‘c’ command (capture point CP) and “releases” it to a new position (releasing point RP transferred by the vector V) the agent turns and begin homing following a path that is parallel to the ideal homing path represented by the vector IHP in figure 14 (see V and V’). This result is identical to that on the desert ant (see in Section 2). If one “captures” the agent from the estimated starting point (XSP) and releases it to a new position (transferred by the vector V’’) the new searching is centred on the releasing point (new searching position NSP) according to the results observed on desert ant (see in Section 2).
In this Subsection I try to discuss some of the results I have observed in simulation tests. First I could say that the architecture of the controller is a good approximation of the vectorial model. As you have observed the agent is able to return directly near the starting point from any position.
I have also observed that the artificial agent shows the same behaviour of the desert ant when I simulate the same experimental conditions. These results come out from the dynamical characteristics of the interaction and from the mathematical properties of the model. The fact that the direction of the light is the same in every points of the plane and that the agent can not refer to any landmarks, make the agent unable to distinguish between the path starting from the capture point or from the released point. Figure 15 shows a geometrical representation of this fact. From the point of view of the agent there is no difference between the vector h and the vector h’, because the angle between this vector and that representing the direction of the light source d is exactly the same. On the other hand each point of the plane is equal to another, because no one of them represents a landmark. The agent evaluates only its estimation of direction and distance. It is because the searching is centred on the releasing point in the second experiment.
The simulation of agent-environment interaction demonstrates that the abilities described by the vectorial model are sufficient for homing behaviour so as you can observe in desert ants. I have defined a fitness function able to assign scores to the behaviour of the agent proportional to its precision in reaching the starting point. Evaluation of this function in simulation tests shows that the agent is adapted to its environment, because its control system attempts to maximize the score.
The homing behaviour of the artificial agent preserves all the characteristic observed in the biological one. In fact, if I reproduce the experimental conditions of the ethological experiments on desert ants, the artificial agent shows an equivalent behaviour.
This work has been developed with the collaboration of Prof. Antonella Carassa (Dipartimento di Psicologia Generale - Università di Padova) whose suggestions and proposals have been very useful to the realization of the research.
Thanks also to Prof. Marco Colombetti (Progetto di Intelligenza Artificiale e Robotica - Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione - Politecnico di Milano) for precious suggestions about the technical aspects.
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b) has the same modulus than the vector h.
a) The vector b’’ is drawn, parallel and equal to b, and the vector a’’ parallel and equal to a, as you can see in figure 16 B (dotted). The straight line r is drawn as a prolongation of the vector a. The angle between a and b’’ is a by construction, because this angle and that between r and the vector b are corresponding internal angle of two vectors b and b’’ parallel by construction, intersected by the straight line r. The figure 16 C shows the situation with respect to the egocentric frame of reference; there is no difference between the direction a and the direction b. The angle between the vectors a and a’ is b and between b and b’ is a+b as shown in figure 16 B. The angle between b’ and a’ with respect to the egocentric frame of reference is just (a+b)-b, that is a. The modulus of a’ is equal to that of a by definition, so as the modulus of b’ is equal to that of b, and the angle between b’ and a’ is a, so as the angle between a and b’’. I can conclude that the vector h’, resulting from the sum between a’ and b’ has the same moduli of that resulting from the sum between a and b (or b’’), because the vectors h and h’ are the diagonals of two equal parallelograms.
a) Since the parallelogram formed by a and b and that formed by a’ and b’ are equal, the angle g between a and h with respect to the geocentric frame of reference (figure 16 D) is just the same as the angle between h’ and a’ with respect to the egocentric frame of reference (figure 16 E). So the angle between the vectors h’ and h is just b+g with respect to the egocentric frame of reference. But if you look at figure 16 D, you can see that the angle b+g is just that between a’ and h and between b’ and h. So u can conclude that the vector h’ is parallel to a’ and to b’.
Remember that the artificial agent and environment are simulated. So what I am calling visual device, motor device, two-dimensional plane etc. are hypothetical concepts realized by an algorithm and implemented by a programming language. See Section 4 (“Simulation”) for more details.
The programming language is the C language and the computer is a PC compatible. | http://emernet.it/TR9602.htm |
Physical distancing messages targeting youth on the social media accounts of Canadian public health entities and the use of behavioral change techniques.
BMC Public Health ; 21(1): 1634, 2021 09 07.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1398853
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION:Physical distancing (PD) is an important public health strategy to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 and has been promoted by public health authorities through social media. Although youth have a tendency to engage in high-risk behaviors that could facilitate COVID-19 transmission, there is limited research on the characteristics of PD messaging targeting this population on social media platforms with which youth frequently engage. This study examined social media posts created by Canadian public health entities (PHEs) with PD messaging aimed at youth and young adults aged 16-29 years and reported behavioral change techniques (BCTs) used in these posts.
METHODS:A content analysis of all social media posts of Canadian PHEs from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube were conducted from April 1st to May 31st, 2020. Posts were classified as either implicitly or explicitly targeting youth and young adults. BCTs in social media posts were identified and classified based on Behavior Change Technique Taxonomy version 1 (BCTTv1). Frequency counts and proportions were used to describe the data.
RESULTS:In total, 319 youth-targeted PD posts were identified. Over 43% of the posts originated from Ontario Regional public health units, and 36.4 and 32.6% of them were extracted from Twitter and Facebook, respectively. Only 5.3% of the total posts explicitly targeted youth. Explicit posts were most frequent from federal PHEs and posted on YouTube. Implicit posts elicited more interactions than explicit posts regardless of jurisdiction level or social media format. Three-quarters of the posts contained at least one BCT, with a greater portion of BCTs found within implicit posts (75%) than explicit posts (52.9%). The most common BCTs from explicit posts were instructions on how to perform a behavior (25.0%) and restructuring the social environment (18.8%).
CONCLUSIONS:There is a need for more PD messaging that explicitly targets youth. BCTs should be used when designing posts to deliver public health messages and social media platforms should be selected depending on the target population.
Keywords
Fulltext
Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Social Media / COVID-19 Type of study: Prognostic study / Qualitative research Limits: Adolescent / Adult / Humans / Young adult Country/Region as subject: North America Language: English Journal: BMC Public Health Journal subject: Public Health Year: 2021 Document Type: Article Affiliation country: S12889-021-11659-y
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... | https://search.bvsalud.org/global-literature-on-novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov/resource/en/covidwho-1398853 |
FIELD AND BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention refers to a magnet assembly for the contact-less detection of the position of an axially displaceable bar having a collar or a circumferential groove, preferably a shift rod of an automatic transmission, which magnet barrier has a magnetic field sensor directed at the rod.
Magnet barriers of this type are generally known and customary.
In the known magnet assemblies a magnet is generally attached to the rod to be monitored, so that a signal is produced when the rod is opposite a magnetic field sensor which is arranged alongside the rod. Such an arrangement has the disadvantage that the application of the magnet to the rod is expensive and the rod must be installed in a fixed alignment with respect to the magnetic field sensor and remain therein. These disadvantages can be avoided if the magnet is arranged directly on the magnetic field sensor and the shaft is provided, for instance, with a collar on which the lines of flux are concentrated when the collar is below the magnet and magnetic field sensor. Such an arrangement has the disadvantage, however, that there is a high residual field strength for the magnetic field sensor when the collar is outside the range of the magnetic field sensor. As a result, the magnet assembly operates unreliably, particularly in the assembly of large air gaps.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the invention to develop a magnet assembly of the aforementioned type which does not require a magnet fastened on the rod to be monitored, requires no orientation of the rod, and has the largest possible difference in field strengths between different positions to be monitored.
Accordingly, by the invention the magnetic field sensor (4) is provided on the inner side of a ring (5) which provides a magnetic flux return path, and which coaxially surrounds the rod (1) and is provided on the side lying opposite the magnetic field sensor (4) with a magnet (6) which is directed towards the magnetic field sensor (4).
By this return ring a high difference in magnetic flux between the positions of the rod to be monitored is obtained even with a relatively weak magnet or a relatively large air gap, so that the magnet assembly operates well with a simple magnetic field sensor which is not very sensitive and is thus inexpensive, in particular a Hall element.
The magnet assembly operates particularly effectively if, in accordance with one advantageous embodiment of the invention, the facing magnet (6) has a crescent shape with concave surface facing the rod (1).
One embodiment of the invention which operates equally well is that the return closure ring (5) has, in addition to the magnet (6) located opposite the magnetic field sensor (4) and transverse to it, two additional magnets (7, 8) which have the same polarity as said opposite magnet (6).
A reversal of the direction of flux of the magnetic field passing through the magnetic field sensor can be obtained in simple fashion in the manner that directly alongside the magnetic field sensor (4) there is provided a deflection magnet (9, 10) whose polarity is reverse to that of the said opposite magnet (6).
In a situation, by way of example, wherein the rod (1) undergoes oscillatory motion along its axis, a particularly strong alternating magnetic field can be obtained by positioning a deflection magnet (9, 10) on each side of the magnetic field sensor.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING
With the above and other objects and advantages in view, the present invention will become more clearly understood in connection with the detailed description of preferred embodiments, when considered with the accompanying drawings, of which:
FIG. 1 is a longitudinal section showing the magnet assembly of the invention surrounding a rod;
FIG. 2 is a plan view of the magnet assembly of FIG. 1; and
FIG. 3 is a plan view of a second embodiment of a magnet assembly according to the invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
FIG. 1 shows, in part, an axially displaceable rod 1 the position of which is to be monitored by a magnet assembly 2. For this purpose the rod 1 has a collar 3 which, in the position shown, is located in front of a magnetic field sensor 4 which is in the form of a Hall element. This magetic field sensor 4 is arranged on the inner side of a ring 5 which provides a magnetic flux return path, the ring 5 encircling the rod 1. The magnet 6 can be noted in FIG. 1 on the side opposite the magnetic field sensor 4.
FIG. 2 shows the shape of the magnet assembly 2 more clearly. It can be noted that, in addition to the magnet 6, there are arranged at angles of 90 degrees to it two additional magnets 7, 8 which have the same polarity as the magnet 6. Instead of these two additional magnets 7, 8, the magnet 6 can be constructed in the form of a crescent, shown in phantom at 12.
If the collar is in front of the magnets 6, 7, 8 and the magnetic field sensor 4, then the magnetic flux extends from the return closure ring 5 via the magnetic field sensor 4 into the collar 3 and from there via the magnets 6, 7, 8 back into the ring 5. If the rod 1 is shifted axially so that the collar 3 is outside the magnet assembly 2, then this magnetic flux is greatly attenuated since the distances between the magnetic field sensor 4 and the magnets 6, 7, 8 are too great for sustaining a strong field.
In the embodiment shown in FIG. 3, two deflection magnets 9, 10 are arranged alongside the magnetic field sensor 4, the deflection magnets having the opposite polarity to the magnets 6, 7, 8. If, for instance, each of the deflection magnets 9, 10 has its north pole radially inward then there is a magnetic flux from these north poles of the deflection magnets 9, 10 to the magnetic field sensor 4 and from there, via the ring 5, to the deflection magnets 9, 10. The magnetic field sensor 4 is therefore traversed from the bottom to the top as seen in the drawing. If the collar 3 is within the magnet assembly, as is shown in FIG. 3, then the main flow takes place from the magnetic field sensor 4 via the collar 3 to the magnets 6, 7, 8 and therefore in precisely the opposite direction. There is thus a reversal of the direction of flow. The collar 3 is set within a circumferential groove 11 of rod 1. | |
Fringe Theatre. More info about the Blueprint: http://schools.nyc.gov/offices/teachlearn/arts/Blueprints/Theaterbp2007.pdf . As I said to my Year 11 class only a few days ago after a long discussion about one aspect of theatre, if you leave one of my drama classes with more questions than answers, that’s a good thing! Mime. I’ve always thought of genre as characterizing the WHAT (literary content) and style defining HOW (the piece will be performed) and in this way is consistent with your definitions above. Style is a way of describing the author’s artistic vision and intention which brings together all the staging elements into a consistent dramatic experience. So can we refer to comedy and tragedy as both genres and styles? Both genres formed out of ancient Greek theater more than 2,500 years ago. Further categorization is also possible, for instance a play may be a romantic comedy or a black comedy or a farce or a satire. Is “absurdism” a theatrical movement (1950s, 1960s), a genre of works representative of theatre of the absurd in any time period, or a theatrical style? A play may be classified broadly, for example as a comedy or tragedy or even tragicomedy. This category has no definite shows dedicated to them, but they are still a part of the musical theatre genre. I liken their closeness and confusion over when to use which term to that of realism and naturalism. To build off your point, realism would apply to a playwright like David Mamet. The nature of theatre is rich and colourful. Change ). Genres are sub-categorized to distinguish between regional differences and variations in lyrical themes. ( Log Out / Genre is an expression often used to denote classification or category. Based in time period. To suddenly change the way the play is being done will leave a very confused and disappointed audience. MELODRAMA: A style of play that is usually romantic and sensational in plot and incident, containing violent appeals to the emotions. If a writer is writing with a particular audience in mind, this will affect the style. Tragedy. The web only forms part of the larger Internet and the two are not one and the same. There are many “-isms” that have led us to today’s contemporary theatre and any writer for theatre should spend some time studying these influences. The style would be predicated on how the actors were to perform it. Audience, too, is yet another important consideration regarding style. We can separate the essential qualities or features of a written play (attributes of its genre) from the manner in which it is performed (style). According to the above definition of style, we can separate the manner in which a work is performed from its content, or in the case of a theatrical work, the way it is written. The second major difference between stage and camera acting is the familiarity of the … The genres, or styles, are contrasting and have been carried over to films and television series or shows as comedies, sitcoms and dramas. For example, to take just two possible and opposite styles: This presents considerable challenges to the author, as the play must be adaptable enough to work in these different physical circumstances. I will address some of these elements on other pages. Musicals were made immensely popular by London’s West End to New York’s Broadway theatre. Some of them are as follows: Drama: This is one of the most common types of theatre genres. Gender differences: Another major difference between the Modern theater and the classical theater is based on the gender differences. Thousands of links to theatre websites. A simple look at the definition of "genre" might cause confusion for any writer seeking to understand the difference between genre and category. Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Theater and Film acting require different styles. One of the more confusing aspects of theatre history and performance styles for teachers and students is the differences between realism and naturalism. In Ancient Greece a comic theatre implied a cheerful completion while a disaster was a sad ending. Your email address will not be published. I loved this article because I am so confused by this question. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Hip hop and pop are different types of music, just like comedy of manners and jukebox musical are different types of theatre. Though some forms work better for particular types of performance, GCSE Drama Styles, genres and practitioners learning resources for adults, children, parents and teachers. As you start to understand the difference between genre and style… It would mean the world to me. Theatre buildings evolved from the open-air amphitheatres of the Greeks and Romans to the incredible array of forms we see today. For the most part, it is a play about normal individuals, composed in a style that is delighting, or anyhow suitable, and has an upbeat close. A film's main genre category will be based on where the majority of the content lands. It can also mean that your script will be simply unsuitable for some venues. The revelation of character. It differs from tragedy in several respects. Many theatres, especially professional companies, have budget restraints and are cautious about producing large cast plays. Their choice of style, their way of realizing the play will be informed by the physical advantages and disadvantages of the actual space they know. Genre. According to Merriam-Webster, genre is: "a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content." One could rightly argue all this doesn’t really matter and that debating over terms is just semantics. • Genre: Genre refers to the type of play. More Cosette and less Eponine. Can someone please help me by telling me the list of genres in theatre? While there are still some stylistic differences, legit musical theatre is closely tied to the classical voice tradition. I used to explain genre to students in terms of movies in video rental stores. Forum theatre takes place in a public forum setting. Drama has no exact definition and its verges are expansive. That may all sound complicated to you, but just think Julie Andrews, John Raitt, and Barbara Cooke. A Theatre of the Oppressed leader, or 'joker' invites participants to begin a scene that depicts a particular oppression. A play may be classified broadly, for example as a comedy or tragedy or even tragicomedy. He ridicules many of the minor offences of man, but only in a soft style. Sub-genre is arguably where style and genre become intertwined and where the differences between the two terms becomes difficult to distinguish. a. the actors will be playing many roles, set changes and staging will be apparent or, The influence of theatre design. Take Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd, who sings pretty much in her speaking voice – with a touch of Cockney.In an opera, however, the music c… The name of the theatre from French is translated as “Virsky Valley”. Consistency is vital. b. I want this play to appear as realistic as possible, I want the set and actors’ performance to be naturalistic in appearance and the stage mechanisms to be largely invisible. The audience then knows what to expect regarding the author’s staging conventions. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. ( Log Out / Every movie gets categorised by its type into one section in the shop. (Or is cabaret a genre and not a style?). STUDY. Now this issue has vexed me for over two decades of teaching high school drama. So genre should refer to a dramatic work as it is written (literary) and style should refer to the manner in which a work is performed. The telling of a story. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! The theater is the scenario or the stage on which the play drives the drama. So it is with genre and style in drama. Knowing the satirical purpose of the play should prevent the writer from tipping the style too far towards the comedy of the situation at the expense of the idea the author is trying to convey. There are various types of theatre genres in usage. In a way, one is the theory and the other is this theory in practice. Required fields are marked *. Suspension of disbelief is innately more difficult in theater than in film. The main goal in considering style is to present your information in a manner appropriate for both the audience and the purpose of the writing. It’s like saying to the audience here are the “rules” or conventions of my play, this is how I will be applying them. One of the highlights of fringe theatre is that it’s pretty frugal in nature – in terms of technicalities, production value etc. Most of the time, we use the terms “genre” and “style” interchangeably. • Audience: This is the group of people who watch the play. A satirical and whimsical blog by John Summons. Comedy and drama are historical genres of theater. A few years ago, just after I had taught my students comedy was a genre, the senior curriculum authority published material for the same group of students clearly stating “…in the style of comedy” for a performance examination. In opera, it’s the music that people remember the most (there are of course some exceptions, don’t @ us).For this reason, there are several musical theatre roles that prioritise strong acting and comic timing over a great singing voice. Style includes diction and tone. A tragedy is a play that tells the story of the trials and eventual death of a person of high rank who confronts a situation from Modern plays, however, often exhibit features of a number of styles. A sub-genre is a smaller category that fits inside a particular genre. In other words, genre helps the author keep to the dramatic purpose or coding of their drama so that the audience knows the context in which the action of the play is taking place and will respond according to the spirit of the piece. Genre studies examine a particular work in relation to others of the same kind, determining how closely it meets the characteristics in that genre.” This definition doesn’t help very much for your discussion but I was curious about it and thought I’d share it here. Musical theatre uses song, dance and dialogue to tell a story. Another real-life consideration related to the “business” side of theatre, that has an impact on style, is budget. The feature of this theatre is kindness. 2. ( Log Out / naturalism) prevents techniques like “doubling up”, you may be eliminating your play from production consideration. shared energy between audience and performer—is unchanged from our earliest history. Material. For example, writing for children is very different from writing for adults – right down to the very words you use. Fringe theatre is a form of theatre that is experimental in its style and narrative. 4. The other necessary job for the author is to remain consistent to this approach. broad, amusing, agreeable, happy ending. Some examples of different genres include comedy, tragedy, mystery and historical play. Many playwrights and actors consider the audience to be the most important element of drama, as all of the effort put in to In writing, however, the two are very closely linked. Progressive metal (sometimes known shortened as prog metal) is a broad fusion music genre melding heavy metal and progressive rock, combining the loud "aggression" and amplified guitar-driven sound of the former with the more experimental, cerebral or "pseudo-classical" compositions of the latter.One of these experimental examples introduced to modern metal was djent. Further categorization is also possible, for instance a play may be a romantic comedy or a black comedy or a farce or a satire. For contemporary theatre, with sophisticated audiences used to different ways of presenting plays, style is more about the author informing an audience of the approach he or she intends to take towards performance. Theatre Genres and Styles Major Genres of Theatre Tragedy Created in the sixth century BC in Greece. Yet practitioners the world over refer to realism and naturalism (or realistic drama and naturalistic drama) as one and the same. I understan…, I am looking for Thanksgiving and Winter Holiday play scripts for 3rd…, Hi Justin, Do you have all of your images in one file that could be em…, http://schools.nyc.gov/offices/teachlearn/arts/Blueprints/Theaterbp2007.pdf, Words Used To Describe Facial Expression In Performance, Realism and Naturalism Theatre Conventions. The three genres of drama were comedy, satyr plays, and most important of all, tragedy. What if my senior drama class performed Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (often referred to as the greatest tragedy ever written) in the style of cabaret? Of course, few things in life are perfect. Dialogue, characterization, lighting, set – in fact all aspects of the play are determined by style and genre. LEGIT. Now that these stores barely exist anymore, today I refer to all the genres of music listed on a students iPod. Style, on the other hand can be a signature creation of an artist in the way they write their songs, their accent, voice modulation, performance, costumes, content and so on. ( Log Out / Explore the difference between shouting and intensity at strong moments. Comedy: The first comedies were mainly satirical and mocked men in power for their vanity and foolishness. Comedy. It … The Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in Theater Grades PreK-12 (New York City Department of Education) defines genre as: “Each of the main genres may be subdivided by style or content. Those lucky enough to be writing for a particular theatre will know the requirements of that stage and write accordingly. But when we’re trying to figure out what makes a pro mix or production, it can make a pretty big difference. This performance consists of light, unobtrusive songs of a satirical orientation. Another word associated with style is genre. The very popular genre's roots go back centuries and there are specialized roles involved in putting on a production of a modern musical. Style, when the word is associated with drama and theatre courses, is often used in reference to a period of theatrical history, e.g expressionism, absurdism, etc. They depend on analyses of movement style, structure, and performance context (i.e., where the dance is performed, who is watching, and who is dancing) as well as on a cluster of general cultural attitudes concerning the role and value of dance in society. Vaudeville. Two related entertainment genres sharing common themes: 1. Though apparently an elementary matter, the shape of the stage and auditorium probably offers the greatest single control over the text of the play that can be measured and tested. The biggest difference is the building where theatre happens. People will state that a particular movie had a good plot or an intriguing story. This type of singing is heavily rooted in traditional, classical voice training and styles. Theatrical styles are influenced by their time and place, artistic and other social structures, as well as the individual style of the particular artist or artists. Or perhaps the Internet and the web. Will debates such as these alter the nature of a drama students’ understanding of a particular work? Genre and style are relatively ambiguous terms. Style. When I explain the difference between genre and style to students of drama, I often use the analogy of Marxism and Communism (though probably an oversimplification). But does classifying comedy and tragedy as genres refer to works of this nature in written form or in practice, or both? Real-life factors such as the intended audience and intended performance space impinge. the manner in which something is expressed or performed, considered separate from is meaning or content. Visit THEATRE LINKS directory. Similarly, we often use the words Internet and web as interchangeable terms, yet they are not. Each play will fall under its own particular heading(s). Today in Modern theater, a disaster, implies the same however a comic theatre implies something clever. As the package for the meaning of the text, style influences the reader’s impression of the information itself. Students in junior classes are always looking for the quickest way to the one correct answer, but that doesn’t always cut it in a senior drama class. Just like a great performance that leaves the spectator thinking about it for days to come, the theatre itself is always worthy of thought, debate and discussion. This can include a musical revue of composers of musicals, or a well-known actress (see: GIF of Barbra Streisand). different types of theatre genres for my test in Mr. Harris's acting class! The drama contained in the play unveils and expands on stage. If we travel back to the beginnings of Western theatre, we should be familiar with tragedy and comedy. Shouting makes a noise, intensity makes a point. The name of the genre from Greek means imitation. Terms in this set (17) Musical Theatre. Movie genres are stylistic categories where a particular movie can be paced based on the setting, characters, plot, mood, tone, and theme. A genre is a more broad classification, that could encompass a lot of music and artists. … if you leave one of my drama classes with more questions than answers, that’s a good thing! We can separate the essential qualities or features of a written play (attributes of its genre) from the manner in which it is performed (style). What happens when historical periods and/or movements creep into our theatrical lexicon such as “in the style of Elizabethan drama” or “absurdism”? As a result they often opt for plays with few characters or for plays where an actor can play many characters. Another word associated with style is genre. Comedy, for example, may be absurdist, comedy of humors, comedy of manners, or romantic. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. ... A drama that treats in a serious and dignified style the sorrowful or terrible eventes encountered or caused by a heroic individual. Tips and Tricks 1 – Turning a story into a play. It has certainly created some lengthy discussions in my senior drama classes in recent years and I would argue has probably enriched my students’ understanding of theatre. The main task for the writer is to establish as early as possible in the orientation/exposition period of the play his/her intention regarding style. kind, category or sort of literary or artistic work. It was making me pay for the scripts even though I never even charged…, GEEZ calm down, they were just confused about where to go! Often this is a mixture of two separate genres. It uses rounder vowels, a high soft palate, tilted thyroid cartilage, and typically thinner vocal folds (i.e. PLAY. From a writer’s perspective the word style is more about the author’s way of realizing his/her play. 2. Theatre: Styles and Genres. A satire, for example, may contain aspects of farce, but the purpose of the drama is very different from pure farce, which is intended primarily to produce laughs. Hello! If you write a play with a large number of characters, but where the style (e.g. When do we refer to a dramatic work in terms of genre and in what context do we refer to the style of this work? Most playwrights however write “on spec”, sending their plays to many theatres, which may have vastly different stages (e.g thrust, intimate, proscenium arch). Style is the way in which something is written, as opposed to the meaning of what is written. What people are actually referring to is that they enjoyed the characters, the problems/conflict the characters got into, and how the characters got out of the problems and conflict.People love a movie because they like to Style: the manner in which something is expressed or performed, considered as separate from its intrinsic content, meaning etc. More Kristen Chenoweth here and not so much here.. You hear more legit musical theatre singing in revivals of Golden Age musicals, l… As theater is a mongrel art form, a production may or may not have stylistic integrity with regard to script, acting, direction, design, music, and venue. "Revue"s are a collection of songs, with a common element. Is “Elizabethan drama” referring purely to a period in theatre history (1558-1603), a collective genre for theatrical works of this period, or not a genre at all but really a performance style? And most of the time, that’s not a problem. Believed that theatre should be like ‘a slice of life’ – lifelike scenery; costumes and methods of acting; In 1909 Stanislavski established the acting system that became the foundation for much of the realistic and naturalistic acting of the 20th Century – known as ‘method acting’ Famous playwrights include Emile Zola and Anton Chekhov New playscript edition in various formats, Ebook novel for kids (available now for Kindle), Comedy with fins. Sometimes, too, a writer will experiment with a style or styles in order to create something new. The two schools of thought and subsequent movements in the theatre were distinct and separate, though blurred with historical time lines and similarities in style. In musicals, the text is at least as important as the music. In my teaching classes I refer to these terms as the two basic genres of theatrical works. Which one of these approaches is best for a play depends on its appropriateness to the subject matter and other practical considerations mentioned below. A play may appear to be intended to be performed in a certain style (from the page), but this doesn’t stop a theatre company from performing it in any style of their choosing. Even in historical contexts, realism and naturalism belonged to separate artistic movements in the theatre and have (slightly) different characteristics in terms of form when we see works of this nature performed. These definitions may help: Genre: kind, category or sort, esp of literary or artistic work. Your email address will not be published. it uses more head resonance). Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. The word "tragedy" cames from the Greek word "tragos" which is translated to "goat." Genre is an expression often used to denote classification or category. Apart from artistic considerations, the playwright must also consider some practical issues when choosing an appropriate play style. A play may appear to be intended to be performed in a certain style (from the page), but this doesn’t stop a theatre company from performing it in any style of their choosing. Ultimately, dramatic effectiveness is the real determiner in issues of style. These headings are useful to the author because they help the writer choose and shape the elements of the play: style, characterization, dialogue, etc appropriately and effectively. Let me begin with the premise that genre and style are slippery terms. Experiencing Theatre – the influences of theatre - Theatre, like all performing arts, takes place in time as well as space. Updated June 10, 2020.
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Carol Ann VanVechten, 83, of Eugene, passed away in the Lord as a beloved wife, mother, grandmother, sister, aunt and friend.
She was born to Clifford & Sarah ‘Alice’ Leatherman, April 15, 1938 in Brooklyn, NY. Carol graduated from Nursing School in New Rochelle, NY. Throughout her career, she worked as an Operating Room Nurse. She married Joseph Sosnoski December 1, 1962 and together, over the next 28 years, they raised 7 children. She married John VanVechten August 21, 1993 and they enjoyed 28 years together until his passing February 9, 2021.
Carol is survived by her children, Shawn Sosnoski, Tim Sosnoski & wife Lori, Erin Trask & husband Edward, Tara Schleef & husband Daniel; her step-daughters, Karen Labac, Donna Howard & husband Jim; her brother, Richard Leatherman; 16 grandchildren, 6 great-grandchildren and 1 great-great- grandchild.
She is pre-deceased by her husbands, Joseph Sosnoski and John VanVechten; her children, Moira Sosnoski, Dennis Sosnoski, and Kelly Sosnoski; her brother, Brian Leatherman.
Have you ever heard of the ‘Virtuous Woman’? “…Her worth is far above rubies…She seeks wool & flax and willingly works with her hands…She also rises while it is yet night, and provides food for her household…She considers a field and buys it…she plants a vineyard...She girds herself with strength…and her lamp does not go out at night…She extends her hand to the poor…the needy…her household is clothed…Strength and honor are her clothing…She watches over the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed…Many daughters have done well MOM, but you excel them all.”
To know her personally…She loved the outdoors, the water, animals, birds- especially hummingbirds, botanicals, gardening, painting, sewing, knitting, crochet- and every craft imaginable, making puzzles, flying kites, dancing and dressing to the nines. After all…She was truly a New York Lady!
Graveside service will be held on Monday, May 9, 2022 at 2 p.m. at the Musgrove Family Mortuary, 225 S. Danebo Avenue, Eugene. All are welcome. | https://musgroves.com/tribute/details/262792/Carol-VanVechten/obituary.html |
AGGREGATE when you want your statistics (e.g.
MIN,
SUM) to ignore cells with errors or hidden cells.
The
AGGREGATE function allows for performing statistical aggregations (hence the name) with more customization than the standard
MIN,
MAX, etc. functions. The
AGGREGATE function is also odd in that it uses a set of magic numbers (or constants) as parameters for what aggregate to complete as well as any options that will be applied. Where the
AGGREGATE function shines above the stocks functions is that it allows you to handle: cells with errors and hidden cells. With the power to consider those options comes the need to be very explicit about the calculation you want to use. For error handling, it can be quite frustrating to run an
AVERAGE of 100k cells to find out that 2-3 of them have random errors of no consequence. You can specify the
ignore errors option to have
AGGREGATE disregard them. For hidden cells, you are most likely only going to use that in the context of filtering. You set some filters and then use
AGGREGATE to only get the
SUM of the visible cells. This allows you to specify any filters you want manually (as opposed to a
SUMIF or an array formula) and then have a single formula which can give the aggregations you want.
For excluding hidden cells, there is not an alternative way to handle that without using VBA. For ignoring errors, the alternative is often an array formula, helper column, or possibly a
SUMIF or other
IF function. | http://excel.byroni.us/blog/2018/11/11/using-aggregate.html |
UPDATE, 2 P.M.–Police have revised the number of cars stolen from the Devan Chevy Dealership on Sunday, July 29, raising the number from six cars to seven. According to Captain Thomas Conlan of the Wilton Police, managers at the dealership identified a seventh car as missing this morning (Tuesday, July 31).
All seven cars were recovered in Bridgeport, using the OnStar in-vehicle safety and security system. Four of the vehicles were identified as new cars, and three were cars in for service.
Conlan noted that a similar theft occurred just a few days before in Norwalk at McMahon Ford. Wilton detectives are following up on that lead.
Conlan said there was no major damage to any of the cars that were taken.
GOOD Morning Wilton has learned that six cars were stolen from Wilton’s Devan Chevy Dealership in the early hours of Sunday, July 29, around 1 a.m..
Captain Robert Cipolla of the Wilton Police confirmed the report, noting that the suspect(s) used forced entry to access the building and removed keys from the service counter. He said that as of Monday afternoon, five cars had been recovered.
More details will be shared with press on Tuesday, July 31. | https://goodmorningwilton.com/six-cars-stolen-from-devan-chevy-dealership-in-wilton/ |
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - With their astonishing second-half turnaround propelling them into the postseason complete, the focus for the Buffalo Sabres is making sure franchise goalie Ryan Miller is rested enough to backstop a long playoff run.
Miller played the first half of the game, Paul Gaustad scored the winner late on a power play, and four other Buffalo players scored as the Sabres held on to beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 5-4 on Saturday night in the season finale for both teams.
Buffalo enters the playoffs as the No. 7 seed in the Eastern Conference. The Sabres could have moved up to sixth, but Montreal beat Toronto 4-1.
It was the second straight game Buffalo head coach Lindy Ruff has limited Miller to 30 minutes of action, easing him back into the lineup after he missed four games with an upper-body injury... More
Normally a penalty wouldn’t be considered the play of the game, but the ramifications from this penalty certainly did change the momentum of Saturday night’s game. Around the 11-minute mark of the third period, forward Tyler Ennis charged toward Steve Mason and the Columbus net. In the process, an altercation with defenseman Craig Rivet erupted after Ennis slashed Rivet, who returned the favor. The situation escalated as the two traded shots before Rivet ended the dispute with a cross-check to the head of Ennis. When all was said and done, Ennis received a two minute slashing penalty and Rivet received two for roughing, five for cross-checking and a game misconduct. It was the five minute cross-checking penalty that proved to be the difference maker as Buffalo was able to convert twice on the ensuing power play. Drew Stafford’s spinning shot from in tight gave the Sabres the lead and Paul Gaustad’s tip-in served as the eventual game-winner.
|Boyes|
- About one-third of the crowd at the Nationwide Arena appeared to be sporting Sabres apparel and rooting for Buffalo.
- Thomas Vanek was a healthy scratch for the game. Vanek did skate during the optional morning skate but sat along with Patrick Lalime.
- Forward Mike Grier (knee) was on the ice during the optional morning skate, but did not dress for the game. Head coach Lindy Ruff stated that Grier is still having some difficulty skating.
- Jochen Hecht (upper body), Andrej Sekera (upper body) and Jordan Leopold (hand) were once again scratched for Buffalo.
- With Vanek out of the lineup, forward Rob Niedermayer was promoted to play left wing on the line with Tim Connolly and Jason Pominville.
- Kaleta replaced Niedermayer on the line with Matt Ellis and Cody McCormick.
- Goaltender Ryan Miller played 30:32 before Jhonas Enroth came in for some pre-playoff work. Miller turned away 21-of-22 shots.
- Tyler Ennis recorded his 20th goal of the year, becoming the first Sabres rookie to score 20 goals since Thomas Vanek scored 25 goals during the 2005-06 season.
- Chris Butler tied his career-high total in goals when he notched his second goal of the year during the second period.
- Center Paul Gaustad picked up his 100th career assist when he set up Chris Butler in the second.
- Brad Boyes received the second star of the night for his three-assist performance on Saturday night giving Boyes 199 career assists.
- This past Thursday, Portland Pirate Luke Adam was named the AHL’ Outstanding Rookie of the Year. He is the third straight Buffalo prospect to receive this award following Nathan Gerbe (2008-09) and Tyler Ennis (2009-10).
- Defenseman Marc-Andre Gragnani was also honored this past week as he received the AHL’s Outstanding Defenseman award. Grangani played in 63 games for Portland this year tallying 60 points (12+48) and a plus/minus of +22.
With the Stanley Cup Playoffs on tap, Buffalo will get a bit of time off. The NHL will officially announce the schedule for the first round of the postseason on Sunday, but qualifying teams can play as early as Wednesday, April 13. Buffalo is locked into seventh place in the Eastern Conference and will start on the road in Philadelphia. Sabres.com will have the official playoff schedule as soon as it is available. | https://www.nhl.com/sabres/news/the-aftermath-sabres-5-blue-jackets-4/c-558897 |
Knowing how to clean kitchen cabinets like a pro is vital. As the busiest and most popular room of any home, the kitchen is in the spotlight like no other. So, when things get a little grubby, it is hard to miss. Dark-colored and high gloss kitchens are particularly prone to emphasizing dust and fingerprints – especially those in south-facing rooms.
But even kitchens with low maintenance finishes in dimly lit spaces benefit from a deep clean every once in a while, for the sake of good hygiene and your own peace of mind.
The dirt levels in any kitchen are exacerbated by the steam from cooking pots and pans, which often contain minuscule oil particles. The most powerful extractor hood can’t stop some of this greasy steam from settling on kitchen surfaces.
Regular wipe downs will certainly make life easier when it comes to cleaning a kitchen deeply, which experts recommend should be scheduled at least once or twice a year. For a more comprehensive clean, follow our quick guide and enjoy kitchen cabinet ideas that sparkle from top to bottom, inside and out.
How To Clean Kitchen Cabinets
When cleaning kitchen cabinets – just as with any other similar task – the first step is emptying and decluttering them, and rethinking what they hold, where. Organizing kitchen cabinets at the same time will, after all, make the cleaning more impactful overall.
1. Start at The Top
Unless your cabinets fit flush to the ceiling, the very top of wall units is where the worst kitchen grime tends to linger, out of sight and out of mind. However, there are a couple of magic ingredients you can use to remove it – and cleaning with vinegar and cleaning with baking soda are both natural options, too.
2. Empty Everything Out
Begin with the highest cabinets and empty the contents in a methodical manner that will make it easy to return everything back to its original home. If you don’t have a lot of countertop space to stack items on, you might find it easier to clean kitchen cabinets two or three at a time, but always work from top to bottom.
Take the opportunity to check use-by dates on foodstuffs. If you find two packets of the same ingredient open, and still edible/in date, merge into one packet or decant into an airtight container. If anything is grubby or dusty, clean it as you go. Pop any crockery and glassware not in regular use through a quick cycle in the dishwasher to freshen it up.
3. Clean The Interiors Of Your Cabinets
Attach the upholstery nozzle and vacuum each cabinet and drawer out, taking care to get right to the back, into corners, and along shelving joints. This will get rid of major crumbs and any dust lurking in crevices.
Next, add a few drops of washing-up liquid to a bowl or sink of warm water until lightly soapy. Finally, dry down the surface with a towel or microfiber cloth.
4. Tackle The Cleaning Of Kitchen Cabinet Fronts
While the surfaces of kitchen doors and drawers are reasonably durable, they do require a gentle approach when cleaning in order to avoid damaging the finish. Laminate doors are probably the most durable, but even they can be scratched without due care. Whatever the finish of your kitchen cabinets, it is crucial to avoid using scrubbing brushes or any other abrasive cleaning tools, as well as cleaning products that include bleach or other harsh chemicals. Also resist spraying liquids directly onto the doors, even plain water, as any streaks or pools of liquid missed when drying may discolor painted and wooden finishes.
The best approach for the fronts of cabinets is to simply use a clean, damp cloth, working from the top of the door downwards in circular motions. If the door is greasy, a small amount of washing-up liquid or PH neutral cleaner in water sprayed onto the cloth should be all it takes to shift it. Then a second wipes down with fresh water to make sure any soap is removed. Finally, wipe once more with a dry, microfiber cloth ensuring the surface is dry and smear-free.
5. Wipe Handles, Knobs, And Hinges
When cleaning kitchen cabinets, don’t forget to give cabinet hardware a wipe-over with a damp cloth, using a little diluted washing-up liquid on any stubborn spots of grease. If metallic hardware is unlacquered – for example, antique brass or copper – take care to avoid any cleaning agents that contain lemon or other acidic ingredients as they will quickly discolor the finish. A soft-bristled toothbrush may be useful around the joints of hinges, where dirt and dust can build up, but take care not to damage the cabinet finish in the process. | https://rangecraft.com/clean-kitchen-cabinets/ |
Dubbelklik op de afbeelding voor groot formaat
In the 1980s, a farmer in Japan came up with the idea of making a cube-shaped watermelon. He created a special mould in which the fruit would grow, and the result was a wonderful, cubic watermelon that remained stable and was easier to store, pack, and ship.This practice might work for watermelons, but not for buildings. Density has nothing to do with the volumetric exploitation of the city. It is not a question of fitting in as many homes as possible, or reducing voids, because that would simply be for the sake of speculation. This volume is part of the “Density” series, initiated by a+t in 2002, which has become a reference for publications about collective housing worldwide.
Normale prijs: | https://www.naibooksellers.nl/why-density-debunking-the-myth-of-the-cubic-watermelon-a-plus-t-research-group.html |
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The non-profit organization that operates four lighthouses — the Big Sable Point Lighthouse, the Ludington North Breakwater Lighthouse, the Little Sable Point Lighthouse and the White River Light Station — is in dire need of operational funds.
“Because we were not able to open in 2020, we lost 90 percent of our projected income,” said SPLKA Executive Director Peter Manting. “We’ve got to raise $75,000 to open by June. We have operational expenses that we have to pay.”
SPLKA had a much tougher hill to climb in terms of having operational expenses two months ago. In December, Manting said, the organization was looking for $125,000 to help cover operational costs. Roughly, it costs the organization $25,000 a month to remain operational, and it needs the funds to get back to the summer months when it hopes to be open.
The loss of revenue was directly tied to the COVID-19 pandemic. Only the White River Light Station was open for the summer, and even it was receiving fewer visitors than in previous years because of the pandemic. SPLKA instituted measures for limiting groups of one to six at White River last year. However, attendance was slashed nearly in half at White River alone.
Manting said 75 percent of the revenues SPLKA receives is from visitors to the four lighthouses. Another significant portion, roughly 15 percent, came from different organizations that gave to the non-profit, but much of those funds chose to give to groups that were assisting those in need because of the pandemic such as food banks.
The remaining three lighthouses could only be opened with approval through the state. Manting said he and other groups around the state that work with lighthouses worked with the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy to make sure safety precautions were in place for any visitors. It was ultimately decided to not have those lighthouses open in 2020. Precautions, though, were put into place at White Lake, such as cleaning surfaces multiple times a day.
The operational expenses of SPLKA include the basics such as running electricity at each of the four stations. The organization is also responsible for the maintenance and upkeep for the four lighthouses. That is a bit trickier with two of them as the Ludington North Breakwater Light is at the end of the breakwater and Big Sable is at the end of a roughly 2 mile road near the shores of Lake Michigan at Ludington State Park.
With the road, Manting said SPLKA is responsible for 1 1/2 miles of the road, including keeping it plowed in the winter to ensuring that the gravel roadbed is in place during the year. And, last January, SPLKA was able to get permission from the DNR and EGLE to move sand inside the seawall at Big Sable Point because of some of the high water issues surrounding the lighthouse.
SPLKA also has a part-time staff and an office along Ludington Avenue that needs to have funding, too, through operational expenses.
“Our operations budget goes to help fund our staff,” Manting said. “Our staff, we’re all on part-time, but still working full-time hours. We have rented our building here. We figure we have $25,000 in costs per month. Normally during the winter season, we’re doing nice preservation projects, such as replastering. We just don’t have money this year to do that.”
Manting said there were other expenses that have been cut, too, because of the lack of revenue that came in for 2020.
The organization did receive help in the federal packages for COVID-19 relief through the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, and Manting said the organization will continue to seek out the loans for its workers and utilities.
The organization worked to raise funds for a capital campaign prior to the pandemic, and Manting said that campaign is holding off on the campaign to focus on keeping the organization going for the future.
Manting said SPLKA’s board will be meeting next month to determine how and if the lighthouses will open. The staff will be making some recommendations on not just financing itself for the year but also how it can open for the summer. He said he’s kept a positive outlook on making sure the lighthouses open for 2021.
“We’re looking forward to being open,” Manting said. “We’re going to do everything in our power to be open for the 2021 season. It’ll be a little different. We’re going to get people up the tower.”
One board member of the organization, Larry Stulz, worked with health and safety within the U.S. Air Force, and Manting said many ideas are being worked out not only on the cleaning of surfaces but also on the circulation of air at each of the lighthouses. The organization, Manting said, was committed to ensuring a safe experience as the pandemic continues.
And the response from volunteers for 2021 is about where it was before the pandemic, he said.
“People are looking forward to getting out and hopefully we can accommodate that,” Manting said.
There are several ways to assist SPLKA. On the organization’s website, www.splka.org, there is a live link to the Giving Tuesday fundraiser where more than $13,000 was raised out of a goal of $25,000. There is a link for donations for those interested, or they may become a member by clicking on the membership link.
The Managing Editor for the Ludington Daily News since June 2018 and on the staff since Oct. 2011, taking over for legendary Lloyd Wallace. Previously with The Chippewa Herald in Chippewa Falls, Wis., and the Tuscola County Advertiser in Caro. | |
The Bible: The Bible is the complete written Word of God, consisting of sixty-six books in the Old and New Testaments and was originally given by God through verbal/plenary inspiration in all parts and is therefore wholly without error (II Tim. 3:16-17, II Pet. 1:19-21).
The Trinity of God: The one true God exists eternally as three persons–the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Mark 12:29-30, Matt. 28:19, II Cor. 13:14, Titus 3:4-7).
Jesus Christ: Jesus Christ is God manifested in the flesh by virgin birth. He lived a sinless life, died for our sins, bodily arose from the dead, ascended into heaven, is presently preparing a place for us as our high priest and is coming again (John 1:1, 14:29; Matt. 1:18-23; Heb. 4:15; I Pet. 3:18; I Cor. 15:3-19).
The Holy Spirit: The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity. He convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8). At salvation, the Holy Spirit causes spiritual rebirth, empowers, indwells, seals, bestows gifts, and baptizes the believer into the Body of Christ (Rom. 8:9; I Cor. 2:12, 3:16, 12:11, 13). He continues to sanctify, guide and teach through the written Word of God, and fill the believer who walks in obedience to the Word (Acts 5:3-4; John 3:5; Rom. 8:9; Eph. 4:30; I Cor. 6:11, 19; Rom. 8:14; John 14:16-17; Eph. 5:18-21).
A note regarding The Gifts of the Holy Spirit. There are three categories of spiritual gifts in the New Testament; Sign gifts, speaking gifts, and serving gifts. It appears that as the church matured, the sign gifts decreased and what was left were the other two types of spiritual gifts; Speaking gifts and serving gifts are the only two types of gifts bestowed upon the Church today (1st Peter 4:10-11).
The sign gifts (primarily, speaking in tongues, the interpretation of tongues and apostolic miracles) are only mentioned in Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 12-14, a letter that was written around AD 54. Tongues are not mentioned again in Scripture and are not evidenced again in Church history.
In Paul’s letter to the Romans which was written several years later (around AD 58) he doesn’t mention sign gifts. Likewise, the letter to the Ephesians was written about AD 61-63, but when Paul mentions gifts in Ephesians he doesn’t include the sign gifts. Finally, 1st Peter was written even later, around AD 66. and the sign gifts were not mentioned there either.
We believe tongues were a known language, spoken by those who did not know the language to those who did.
We believe tongues were a sign for the unbelieving Jews (1 Cor. 14:22), and that they have ceased (1 Cor. 13:8).
Man: Man was supernaturally created in the image of God on the 6th 24-hour day of the creation week and is not a product of evolution. Man chose to sin and disobey God, resulting in spiritual death and all mankind is now sinful by nature and practice, unable to save himself from his sins (Gen. 1:26-28, 2:7, 3:1-24; Rom. 3:23, 5:12; Eph. 2:3).
Salvation: Eternal life is received as the gift of God by His grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the only way to everlasting life. There are no good deeds or works involved. (Rom. 6:23, Eph. 2:8-9, John 14:6, I Pet. 1:18-21, John 3:16, John 6:47).
The Church: All believers from Pentecost to the Rapture of the Church are members of the Body of Christ with Christ as the Head. This is manifest on earth in local churches where believers should assemble to glorify God, for teaching, fellowship, prayer and equipping for ministry (I Cor. 1:2; Col. 1:18, 24, 3:11; Heb. 10:25; Eph. 4:11-18; Gal. 6:10).
Ordinances: The observance of the biblical church practices of:
1. Baptism (of believers) by immersion.
2. Communion service consisting of bread and cup (Matt. 27:26-29, Mark 14:22-25, Luke 22:19-20, I Cor. 11:23-26).
Angels: God created all angels. Some followed the angel Satan the ruler of demons in his prideful rebellion against God and became demonic adversaries of God and His people. These angels are limited by God’s omnipotence and await final incarceration in the Lake of Fire. Other angels remained faithful to God and are God’s ministering spirits to His people. Humans do not become angels when they die. (Gen. 1:1, Ex.10:11, Ps.33:6; Rev.12:3-4; Matt.12:23-27; Job 2:1-2; Rev. 20:10; Matt. 25:41; Heb. 1:13- 14).
The Rapture of the Church and Second Coming of Jesus Christ: The personal, visible, and imminent return of Christ to remove His Church from the earth before The Day of the Lord (I Thess. 4:16-17; I Thess. 1:10, Rev. 3:10). After the Tribulation Jesus Christ will descend to establish his Millennial Kingdom upon the earth (Rev. 20:1-6).
Future Life: All believers shall live eternally with God in a “New Heaven and Earth.” Upon physical death, they go immediately to be with Christ and are given some sort of body (2 Corinthians 5:1-3) as they await the resurrection of their earthly body at Christ’s coming. All unbelievers, upon physical death, go immediately to Hades and await the bodily resurrection at the Great White Throne Judgment. At that time, they will be cast into the Lake of Fire for eternal punishment (Matt. 25:46; John 3:16, 5:24, 10:27-29; II Cor. 5:8; I Thess. 4:13-18; Jude 23-24; Luke 16:19-31; Rev. 20:11-15).
The Christian Life: In addition to being the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:4), and Ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20) and are to live a life of righteousness and good works, be separated unto God from worldliness, maintain a godly home, settle differences with believers in the church, avoid living in the flesh, exhibit the fruit and fullness of the Spirit, bring the Good News to people, and devote themselves to prayer and Bible study (Phil. 4:6; I Thess. 5:17-18; Eph. 6:18; II Tim. 2:15, 3:16-17; Rom. 12:1-2; Eph. 2:8-10, 5:22, 6:4; I Cor. 6:1-8; Gal. 5:16-23; Eph. 5:18-20; I Pet. 4:10-11).
A note regarding marriage. We believe marriage was instituted by God as a holy union between only one man and one woman for life. We do not recognize so-called same sex marriage. Genesis 1:27; 2:18,22-23; Malachi 2:15-16; Matthew 19:4-6; Mark 10:6-9). | https://hopenowbiblechurch.com/what-we-believe |
Protein, and the various amino acids that make up protein, are the main building blocks that create and resynthesise muscle mass. While most people focus on protein consumption directly after exercise, particularly a gym session, the total amount of protein that is consumed in a day/week will have a far greater impact on recovery and muscle building. In this article, we will take a look at:
- How to set and reach total protein targets
- What types of protein are best and why
- How best to time protein servings
- Amounts of protein in common foods
- Practical tips to implement all of the above
We’ve structured the article in terms of the overall amount of protein required and why (Total), followed by the various sources of protein we can consume (Type) and finally when is best to consume a serving, or servings of protein (Time).
Total
General health guidelines for overall protein intake come in around 0.8g/kg of total bodyweight. While this is often considered too low for even the general population to “perform” optimally, it is certainly too low for those who wish to perform at even a moderate level of sport. The majority of sports nutritionists will recommend 1.6 to 2.2g/kg of bodyweight. Before you open the calculator on your phone to work out how much you need check out the guidelines we’ve provided on how much you should eat based on bodyweight and on specific goals which will help in narrowing these recommendations below.
Table 1 – Ranges Of Protein Intake By Bodyweight
The range of protein recommendations is quite large. For example, an 80kg athlete could consume between 128 and 176 grams of protein a day and still be within the ideal range, although the difference could be up to two small chicken fillets. To refine the recommendations a little further we can align them to specific goals, whether they wish to increase (lean) weight, maintain current weight or lose weight. The lower end of recommendations will suit those wishing to gain weight as the main priorities are excess calories (generally 300-500 per day) and a stimulus (weight training). The extra calories (from either carbohydrate or fat) will provide more than enough fuel for recovery and growth. As protein is quite satiating (leaves you feeling fuller) it is advisable to aim for the lower end as you won’t feel as full and so find it easier to consume extra calories through carbohydrate and fat. The extra carbs will also help in fuelling the gym sessions required to increase muscle mass. Those who wish to maintain weight will need to remain in calorie balance (see previous article) and consuming 1.8 to 2g/kg will provide enough protein to ensure muscle mass is both maintained and in a position to recover from the normal demands placed upon them through general training. For those who wish to lose weight, protein recommendations are a little higher. It’s generally accepted that higher protein consumption will lead to greater muscle preservation (and so increased fat loss) although previous work by Eric Helms suggests that resistance training is the key determinant in maintaining muscle mass when losing weight. The key benefit to a higher protein intake when dieting is the aforementioned higher levels of satiety. Higher protein foods lead to a greater feeling of fullness and take longer to digest, which tends to leave us feeling fuller for longer. While it is possible to eat higher levels of protein than 2.2g/kg (as a number of studies by Jose Antonio showed no adverse effects) it often leads to a more expensive diet as foods higher in protein tend to cost more. Below are two lists of common foods. Table 2 is of foods that are quite high in protein and how many grams contained in a common portion. Table 3 is of some other foods which contain moderate amounts of protein and the calorie content of each.
Table 2 – Grams Per Portion Of “High Protein” Foods
*Portion sizes will vary based on individual suppliers and appetites
Table 3 – Grams & Calories Per Portion Of “Other” Foods
*Portion sizes will vary based on individual suppliers and appetites
It’s worth noting that many foods that are not traditionally known for their protein content are relatively high although the extra carbohydrate and/or fat will lead to increased calories. This can be beneficial to those who are looking to increase weight but caution should be exercised for those adhering to relatively strict calorie limits.
Type
The type of carbohydrate we eat gets a lot of attention (and will be explored in the next article of this series) but we rarely think about the type of protein we eat. The amino acids that make up protein vary across different food types. Recent research has found that of those amino acids, leucine contributes to muscle protein synthesis more so than any other. It’s certainly not necessary to spend ages reading the labels of our foods to examine their amino acid profile as foods derived from animal sources have the highest levels of leucine. Red and white meats such as beef, pork, ham, chicken and turkey along with various types of fish will provide enough leucine once we’re eating within the protein recommendations outlined above. Eggs and dairy products (such as milk and yoghurt) are also high in leucine as they are derived from animals. While it is possible to consume enough protein when eating an animal-free diet (such as vegan or vegetarian) it is more difficult and will be addressed in a separate article along with a number of other key points that should be taken into account when considering any form of specific diet.
Time
Most food timing considerations are applied to protein ingestion directly after exercise. I’ve often seen players rush to gulp down their protein milk on the side line before they’ve even begun the cool-down or gym-goers rattle their shaker while still on the last exercise for fear of limiting gains. While it certainly is important to consume a meal after training to aid recovery, the immediate rush for protein is most likely not required and it’s also likely that carbohydrate is even more important. Protein is digested quite slowly by the body, particularly when compared to carbohydrate. As we’d ideally have our pre-game meal 2-3 hours before the game starts, and this should include even a modest serving of protein, the amino acids from this meal would still be circulating in our bloodstream as the game or session ends. As figure 3 illustrates, we break down muscles when playing sport or in the gym via a number of micro tears. These tears can take up to 48 hours to heal. As it takes so long to heal, we require some level of protein to be in our system the majority of the time. Regularly eating 20-40g portions of protein will ensure we have access to the various amino acids that support recovery and muscle turnover. See figures 4A and 4B for two example days of eating. Both have the same overall protein content but example 2 spreads the portions out far more evenly across the day.
If we were to prioritise one particular meal that should include a decent serving of protein (although ideally they all would) then breakfast would be the most important as we’ve gone so long without any (because we’re hopefully asleep for 7-9 hours). See figure 5 for examples of protein based breakfasts.
Practical Tips
- The majority of this article spoke about grams of protein. While it is worth tracking what you eat for a week to ten days as an educational experience, it’s certainly not necessary all of the time. A simple way of measuring portions of protein is to aim for a palm-sized piece at each meal.
- As it can be harder to pick up decent portions of protein on the go, it’s worth batch cooking some options in advance such as:
- 4-6 chicken fillets at a time in the oven.
- Egg and ham muffins.
- Homemade beef or turkey burgers.
- Overnight oats with protein milk or whey protein.
- Try not to count protein bars towards your daily intake of protein. The content is generally quite poor and not easily digested by the body.
- Double cook your protein source at dinner time so you have an extra portion for tomorrow’s lunch.
- Whey and casein protein powders count as animal sources as they originally come from milk. They are also high quality protein in terms of how easily they can be absorbed by the body. They are not particularly satiating and often have minimal impact on hunger levels.
TL;DR
Eat 4-5 palm-sized portions of protein that mainly come from animal sources which are evenly spaced throughout the day.
The next instalment will look at carbohydrates and how they fuel the body.
If you want further information on anything said here then feel free to contact me (John) at [email protected].
You can find my profile on The Twitter Machine or The Gram for more recipes and nutrition info. | https://elite.deelysportscience.com/nutrition/nutrition-blog-2-macronutrients-protein-by-john-murphy-msc/ |
Lectures by Dr. Taras Oleksyk, professor at the University of Puerto Rico
Our guest next week is Dr. Taras Oleksyk from the University of Puerto Rico. He will give three talks and spend the week at the Center learning about our work and sharing his experience and expertise. See the three topics and a brief abstract for each one below (if you are interested but not on our seminar announcement list, please write to Valentina so we could inform you if there are any changes).
Lecture 1 – Monday, 26 August. 3 PM
A simple guide to discovering signatures of selection in the genome data
Detecting recent selected ‘genomic footprints’ applies directly to the discovery of disease genes and in the imputation of the formative events that molded modern population genetic structure. The imprints of historic selection/adaptation episodes left in human and animal genomes allow one to interpret modern and ancestral gene origins and modifications. Current approaches to reveal selected regions applied in genome-wide selection scans (GWSSs) fall into eight principal categories: (I) phylogenetic footprinting, (II) detecting increased rates of functional mutations, (III) evaluating divergence versus polymorphism, (IV) detecting extended segments of linkage disequilibrium, (V) evaluating local reduction in genetic variation, (VI) detecting changes in the shape of the frequency distribution (spectrum) of genetic variation, (VII) assessing differentiating between populations (FST), and (VIII) detecting excess or decrease in admixture contribution from one population. Here, we review and compare these approaches using available human genome-wide datasets to provide independent verification (or not) of regions found by different methods and using different populations. The lessons learned from GWSSs will be applied to identify genome signatures of historic selective pressures on genes and gene regions in other species with emerging genome sequences. This would offer considerable potential for genome annotation in functional, developmental and evolutionary contexts.
Lecture 2 – Tuesday, 27 August. 3 PM
Genetic history of Puerto Rico: origins, people and diseases
There is great scientific and popular interest in understanding the genetic history of populations in the Americas. We wish to understand how current inhabitants relate genetically to earlier populations of origin. Recent studies unraveled parts of the genetic history of the continent using genotyping arrays. We participated in the 1000 Genomes Project that provided a unique opportunity for improving our understanding of population genetic history sequencing genomes and exomes from Puerto Rican (PUR) populations we collected. Genomic contributions of Native American ancestry to PUR population are estimated to be 13% appear most closely related to Equatorial-Tucanoan-speaking populations, supporting a Southern America ancestry of the Taino people of the Caribbean. To develop our success, we implemented a new instructional strategy in the form of a research-oriented educational cycle: Local Genome Diversity Studies (LGDS), involving > 50 undergraduate students per semester that carried out sample collection, DNA extraction and genotyping in a series of individual projects within the educational LGDS cycle comprised of two research-based classes: Local Genome Diversity Studies and Monogenic Population Studies. As a result, a geographically representative sample of DNA from > 5,000 individuals across 78 municipalities of Puerto Rico have been collected and purified so far. Using our sample set, we are in the process identifying patterns of European, African and Amerindian admixture proportions across different parts of the island using a panel of Ancestry Informative Markers to develop a map of the local genome diversity and interpreted to uncover the complexity of the islands’ rich genetic history.
Related article in TheScientist:
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/33355/title/Polly-Wanna-Genome-/
Lecture 3 – Wednesday, 28 August. 5 PM
Parrots of the Caribbean: from one genome to an evolutionary model of island evolution
To achieve the first community-sponsored genome of an endangered species, we organized an outreach campaign resulting in a publication of the sequence of the critically endangered Puerto Rican parrot. We continue to engage students and promote issues in conservation and evolutionary genomics to the local public, while creating opportunities for scientific research for dozens of young researchers. Our early efforts have proven a success, and subsequent research has been reinforced by hundreds of small individual donations. Our research objective is to use a local model of island speciation centered on the endemic Caribbean group of parrots, starting with Puerto Rico’s own critically endangered Amazona vittata. Inferences about genome variation and population structure of this species are used to help decisions in the captive breeding programs. Crowdfunding has allowed for addition sequence data from the closely related A. ventralis, and various transcriptomes to annotate genes and to evaluate expression differences. In the next step, genomes of closely related parrot species from the Caribbean islands are assembled using the genome draft of A. vittata, and cross-examined for differences and conservation patterns to find genes, regulatory and structural elements. The genome alignments are further interrogated for similarities and differences in the evolutionary context examining past migration, colonization and adaptation events. Our hypothesis is that observed differences are rare, and point to the evolutionary adaptations and stepwise migration events from island to island. | http://dobzhanskycenter.spbu.ru/en/archives/2031 |
This report describes a Logistics Management Systems design project that is performed at KLM Aircraft Services (AS). AS is the part of KLM that is responsible for a large portion of the tasks that must be done to an aircraft that has landed and has to be used again. When an aircraft has landed the resources that are required to service the aircraft should be available. Getting a resource available has a certain lead time and the availability of resources is not infinite. To guarantee the availability of resources a planning must be made. At KLM AS this planning is done in the PRI chain. The basis for the activities in this chain is the timetable. The current PRI chain evolved from practice; on the basis of experiences the chain has originated. Modifications to the chain are made also on the basis of experiences and observations. AS had the feeling that the chain that is currently in place is not functioning optimally. The goal of this assignment was to make a new, ideal PRI chain, preferable derived from a generic chain that has been described in literature, that would result in a better performance of AS. Deriving a generic planning chain from literature was not possible because the chains that have been described in literature are per definition made for a specific situation. Because this was not possible a new PRI chain has to be designed. The new chain that has to be designed should be suitable for the planning problem that AS faces. A danger when making a new chain for the same problem as the current chain, is that the new chain will be very similar to the old chain. To overcome this danger, a constraint approach has been chosen. This means that the constraints that lie on the basis of AS's processes are taken as building blocks for the new chain. A constraint is an artifact that cannot be changed within the scope of this project. The constraints are identified by analyzing current processes, not the choices that AS has already made in the current chain. Based on the constraints, the ideal PRI chain has been described. The new chain describes for AS on what moments in time they have to make a decision. The timing of the decision is based on the constraints that were formulated to be sure that the decision is made in time. The new chain describes for both employee and equipment planning when to make what decision. For some decisions, guidelines are given about subjects that should be taken into account when making the decision. The new PRI chain contains stepwise decisions to be sure that sufficient employees and equipment are available on the day of operation. As the lead time for equipment is longer than for employees, the first step is to determine the required equipment one year ahead. The lead time for buying new equipment is one year, so new equipment is available when it is needed when the buying decision is made one year ahead. The decision whether or not to buy new equipment is based on a forecasted performance model. This model incorporates a forecasted timetable and determines the forecasted performance. Having more equipment available will increase the costs for equipment but will also increase the performance with less non-performance costs as a result. The model can be used to make a financially grounded decision about whether or not to acquire additional equipment. The second step is to make sure that sufficient employees with the right classifications are available. The same model as described above can be used for this purpose. For employees it is very important that a decision is made about the number of KLM employees and the number of flexible employees that is used. The third step of the new PRI chain uses the outcome of the first two steps. At the moment that this step is done, no adjustments on the available equipment and KLM employees can be made anymore. The number of flexible employees that is used can still be changed. In this step, actual information about the timetable is used to determine for every moment on the day of operation the need for equipment and employees. The availability of employees is bounded by CAO constraints. Therefore a planning is made in advance of the day of operation that tells how many employees of what kind are required for different moments of the day. By changing the number of flexible employees that is used shortly before the day of operation, the actual available employees are aligned with the planned number of employees that must be available. The design for the new PRI chain has been compared to the current PRI chain. This analysis revealed that the feeling that AS has about the non-optimal performance of the current PRI chain was true. In the current chain decisions about the required number of employees or the required amount of equipment are made too late or a made without having the required information. Because decisions are made too late or are based on too less information, capacity adjustments are not ready in time or are not in line with actual demand. This will have a negative effect on the performance of AS. This report ends with a set of recommendations to improve the current PRI chain, based on differences with the ideal PRI chain. The recommendations vary on the effort that is required to complete them, the effect they have and the moment in time when they can be fulfilled. The recommendations have been ordered graphically to give AS guidelines about what recommendation to start with. Implementing these recommendations will lead to a PRI chain that will perform better. The costs for executing all steps in the PRI chain will stay about the same. | https://research.tue.nl/en/publications/a-design-for-klm-aircraft-services-planning-rostering-indeling-ch |
Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure. This triumvirate has stood still for what seems to be since time immemorial on the Giza Necropolis a few kilometers outside present-day Cairo. Still as magnificent and mysterious as when they were first built some 4,500 years ago, they are a sight to behold. The largest one, Khufu (Cheops), built in 2560 BC stands at 146 meters tall and was for some 3,500 years the tallest structure on earth. The second one, Khafre (Chephren) is smaller at 136 meters but looks taller because it is slightly elevated and has part of its smooth casing still intact at the tip. The more modest one in size, Menkaure (Mykerinos), completes the whole pyramid complex with the Great Sphinx located a few hundred meters away. It is a vast place to explore and we spent the whole afternoon walking around in wonderment until the guards shooed as away at 5:00 PM when they were closing so I was unable to shoot them when they turn golden brown in the sunset. It’s amazing that of all the Seven Wonders of the ancient world only these pyramids survive.
Th Great Sphinx still stands guard in the complex.
The view of the pyramids as you approach Giza, 13 kms. from Cairo.
It’s not much of a pretty sight at the entrance which is so close to the buildings and houses around the area.
There are horse-drawn carriages that can ferry you around the site.
The tip of Khafre with the smooth limestone casing still intact.
The large stones at the base weighing 6-10 tons get progressively smaller as they go higher.
Part of the necropolis are these mastabas or tombs for the lesser royals.
You can take camel rides as well around the place.
This is part of the museum in the area where they displayed Khufu’s solar boat.
Tourists on a carriage passing by Khafre’s pyramid.
Look at the scale of the pyramid!
Try counting all 2,300,000 stone blocks of Khufu!
The camel-riding guard telling us to leave at closing time.
It’s been over 20 years since I visited yet seeing photos like these wax me nostalgic. It was my lifelong dream to see (and enter) the pyramids of Egypt. I admit I was surprised to find them so close to the metropolis. | https://sojournalpix.net/2018/06/19/the-three-pyramids-in-giza/ |
3 Homemade, Natural Pest Control Methods For Dealing With Your Roach Problem
If you have a roach problem, you may want to find ways of dealing with it that does not use chemicals. Below are three homemade methods for controlling the nasty, little invaders that are nontoxic and safe to use around your family.
Coffee Can And Bread Trap
If you have an area in your kitchen where the roaches like to congregate, set up a coffee can and bread trap. The bread serves as bait. Once they are in the can, the petroleum jelly smeared on the inside of the can keeps them from being able to get out.
To make the trap, place five slices of bread in the can and saturate them with water. Wipe the insides of the can dry and apply a thick layer of petroleum jelly to three inches down from the top of the can.
Place the can in a well-traveled area in your kitchen before you go to bed. When you wake up, check the trap to see if there are any bugs in it. If so, empty the contents into a doubled plastic bag, tie tightly, and throw it away.
The next night, reset the trap by following the above instructions. Repeat until you no longer see any roaches taking the bait.
Duct Tape Trap
When you have a broader traffic area to cover, the coffee-can trap may not be enough to get rid of the roaches. Instead, use a duct tape trap that uses bread as bait. When the insects try to eat it, they will become stuck to the adhesive and will not be able to get away.
In the areas where you have seen activity. lay two strips of duct tape side by side. Overlap the strips by a quarter of an inch. Break up a slice of bread into small pieces and place them along the seam.
Every morning, check for any stuck-on roaches. If you find them, simply wad up the tape and throw it in the garbage can outside of your home. Reset the trap using fresh tape.
Catnip And Bay Leaf Repellent Sachets
Once you bring your cockroach population down to a minimum, use these catnip and bay leaf repellent sachets as a repellent. Both catnip and bay leaves are repulsive to the insects and the smell will keep them away. For every sachet, you will also need a six-inch by 6-inch piece of fabric and four inches of twine or yarn.
In the center of the fabric, place a tablespoon of catnip and one bay leaf. Pull the corners up into the center. Then, wrap the twine or yarn and tie it in a knot.
After you have your sachet made, place it in areas the roaches are known to hang out. You can place them in your drawers and cabinets. You can also put them on the floor next to any potential entry points.
If you have cats, you may not want to place them in any open areas. Your furry felines may try to tear them open to get to the catnip or play with them as toys.
Once you have your sachets placed, check them every two weeks to see if their odor is still strong. If not, open them up and replace the catnip and bay leaves. Then, put them back. This will keep them fresh so they can continue to drive away the roaches.
The above methods should take care of small roach problems. However, if you find that you have a large infestation, you may want to contact a pest control company to discuss green ways of getting rid of your unwelcome guests. | http://thachphotography.com/2014/12/26/3-homemade-natural-pest-control-methods-for-dealing-with-your-roach-problem/ |
Urine is a material that is difficult to remove from any surface. Especially from the concrete surface which is full of pores. If you have pets that have used basements, garages, balconies or other paved surfaces as their private toilets, you may find it frustrating trying to get rid of their urine odor. Even if you wash it 100 times, it feels like the urine smell won't go away. This article will show you how to get rid of this urine odor with a little effort and some special cleaning fluids.
Step
Method 1 of 3: Preparing the Area to be Cleaned
Step 1. Clean the area of dirt or dirt
If there is a sticky residue on the floor, such as carpet glue residue, remove it using a scraper. If you start with a clean floor, you won't make the floor dirtier by applying chemicals to the floor or pushing dirt into the pores of the concrete surface.
Remove furniture that might hinder cleaning or that could be damaged by the harsh chemicals you use
Step 2. Choose an enzyme cleaner
Urine contains uric acid crystals that are difficult to decompose and adhere firmly to hard and porous concrete surfaces. Ordinary cleaning fluids such as soap and water will not be able to bind these uric acid crystals. Therefore, even if the area is cleaned with soap and water many times, the crystals will remain attached. Enzyme cleaners will break down uric acid crystals and release them from the concrete surface.
- Even if you think that the urine smell has gone after using regular cleaning products, a little bit of moisture (or even on a humid day) will cause the urine smell to reappear. Uric acid will release a very foul-smelling gas when water appears in the air.
- Look for an enzyme cleaner made specifically for cleaning pet urine (you can even look for one made specifically for dogs and cats).
Step 3. Use your nose or a flashlight with an ultraviolet light to look for places where urine is exposed
An ultraviolet light or black light can show where urine has been stained, especially if you've tried cleaning the area many times and there's no longer any visual sign of urine. Turn off the lights in the room and place the UV lamp at a height of 30 cm – 1 meter from the floor. The stain will appear yellow, blue or green. Use a stick of chalk to mark the place if you plan to only clean the stained area of the floor.
- If the stain is not visible with a UV light, try to smell the urine stained area. Bring fresh air into the room and search for odors in the room until a spot that has urine stains or smells of urine is found.
- Even if you only want to clean the stained areas, perhaps by cleaning them multiple times, it is highly recommended that you clean the entire floor so that the stained parts of the floor that are not visible with the UV lamp can still be cleaned.
- If you clean the entire floor, you won't see any spots on your floor. Cleaning with cleaning fluid often makes the color of the concrete floor look faded and look cleaner than other parts of the floor. By cleaning thoroughly, the floor will look clean, even and not streaky.
Method 2 of 3: Preparation Before Cleaning Concrete
Step 1. Purchase a high-quality cleaner such as trisodium phosphate (TSP)
A high-quality cleanser will ensure that all other elements of the urine (such as bacteria) are completely removed and the enzymatic cleaner can work quickly to break down uric acid crystals. Wear protective eyewear and rubber gloves as TSP can damage your skin.
- Stir the TSP in a bucket with hot water at a ratio of 113 grams for every 4 liters of water.
- If you don't want to use high-quality chemicals like TSP, you can use a mixture of water and vinegar (2 parts vinegar to 1 part water).
Step 2. Pour the TSP mixture onto the floor and use a broom brush to scrub the floor
Divide the cleaning area into small areas (about 1 x 1 meter). Don't let the TSP dry too quickly. The TSP must remain wet on the concrete surface for at least 5 minutes. If the TSP has dried before 5 minutes, add the TSP mixture or water to the cleaned area. The longer the floor is wet, the more the TSP seeps into the concrete.
You may feel the urine odor intensify as you prepare the floor for cleaning. This is normal because uric acid crystals react with water
Step 3. Pour hot water over the area to be cleaned and use a wet/dry vacuum to suck up all the liquid
The vacuum cleaner will also suck the TSP liquid from the floor. Clean the floor with hot water twice and let the floor dry naturally overnight.
- Do not use a fan to speed up the drying process. You should leave the concrete floor exposed to the cleaning liquid as long as possible and loosen as much urine residue as possible.
- If your vacuum cleaner smells like urine after vacuuming the TSP, turn on the vacuum and flush the hose with an enzyme cleaner (1 part concentrate cleaner diluted with 30 parts water). After that, turn off the vacuum cleaner. Spray and clean the dirty water tank inside the vacuum cleaner.
- If you use a carpet cleaning tool, do not defecate in the cleaning tool tank. Add water to the tank, then set the carpet cleaner on the rinse/removal cycle and turn it on.
Method 3 of 3: Cleaning Concrete
Step 1. Prepare the enzymatic cleaning concentrate according to the instructions
Some cleaners must first be mixed into the carpet cleaning fluid and some only require the addition of water. Follow the directions carefully and make sure the concentrate is not diluted with too much water.
Make sure the floor is completely dry after the pre-cleaning done the day before before you apply the enzyme cleaner
Step 2. Wet the area with an enzyme cleaner
You should work in small pieces (about 1 x 1 meter). Use enough liquid to wet the area for at least 10 minutes. Add liquid when the area starts to dry out again because the liquid must seep into every layer and pores of the concrete to break down the uric acid crystals.
- For easier application, use a “clean” household floor sprayer. A dirty sprayer will spray and transfer the dirt in it into the concrete and can cause another bad smell to appear in the concrete.
- In the areas you have marked stains with urine, use your muscles to thoroughly clean. You may need to scrub the floor with a brush to ensure the enzyme cleaner is working properly.
- In heavily stained areas, air bubbles may appear. Mark these areas. You may need to clean it again if the smell doesn't go away.
- Repeat the process until you have cleaned the entire floor.
Step 3. Let the floor dry overnight after you finish cleaning it
To prolong this process and give the enzymatic liquid time to work, you can cover the floor with a plastic tarp. Plastic sheeting can slow down the evaporation process of the cleaning liquid.
If the smell persists, clean the affected area again with an enzymatic cleaner
Step 4. You can coat your concrete floor when the smell is completely gone
This coating will make your floor easier to clean the next day and usually your floor will look more attractive.
Tips
- Wooden planks nailed to concrete floors and wooden stairs need more attention because urine stains often collect between the wood and concrete.
- Cleaning concrete that has been exposed to defecation with a pressure cleaner can make it difficult to remove odors especially when the water from the pressure cleaner is directed into the concrete with a slope higher than 45 degrees and/or when the pressure cleaner uses a spray with a small angle of inclination. Cleaning in this way will further push odor-causing materials into the concrete making it more difficult to reach and neutralize. | https://how-what-advice.com/13093056-3-ways-to-remove-pee-smell-from-concrete-surfaces |
A stochastic process is a process which evolves randomly in time and space. The dispersion of contaminants in gases and liquids, Brownian Motion and hydrodynamic Turbulence are well known examples, though all dynamical systems are stochastic to a lesser or greater degree. The randomness can arise in a variety of ways: through an uncertainty in the initial state of the system; the equation motion of the system contains either random coefficients or forcing functions; the system amplifies small disturbances to an extent that knowledge of the initial state of the system at the micromolecular level is required for a deterministic solution (this is a feature of NonLinear Systems of which the most obvious example is hydrodynamic turbulence).
As such, a system will evolve either temporally or spatially or both in a variety of ways, and to each outcome there is assumed to exist a unique probability of occurrence. More precisely if x(t) is a random variable representing all possible outcomes of the system at some fixed time t, then x(t) is regarded as a measurable function on a given probability space and when t varies one obtains a family of random variables (indexed by t), i.e., by definition a stochastic process, or a random function x(.) or briefly x.
Just as differential equations can be used to study the behavior of deterministic processes, so they can be used to study the behavior of stochastic processes. However, the theory of "stochastic" differential equations is concerned with probabilistic aspects of the process the equations describe: the explicit form of the solution of the equations is often useful but not essential. More precisely, one is interested in the determination of the distribution of x(t) (the probability density function (pdf) of x(t) or joint distributions at several instants or alternatively one seeks averages or moments associated with the pdf. Such averages are often referred to as ensemble averages to distinguish them from time averages associated with some function of x(t) as the system evolves over some sufficiently large period of time. (See Ergodic Process.)
As an example of a stochastic differential equation consider the equation frequently used to represent a simple diffusion process x(t), namely,
where μ and D are nonrandom functions and W(t) is a white noise (nondifferentiable) function with the property that dW(t) is distributed normally with zero mean and variance (dW)2 = dt. Note that because W(t) is nondifferentiable, the equation of motion cannot be represented as a standard differential equation. However, the equation for P(z,t), the pdf for the occurrence of a particular value z of x(t) at time t is a parabolic partial differential equation, namely,
The equation is commonly referred to as the Fokker-Planck equation in physical applications. The particular class of stochastic equations in Equation (1) which includes the well-known Langevin equation for Brownian motion has been used extensively to model atmospheric dispersion [MacInnes and Bracco (1992)], particle dispersion in turbulent flows (see Particle Transport in Turbulent Fluids) and as an analogue equation to generate fluid velocities in turbulent flows [Pope (1990)].
REFERENCES
MacInnes, J. M. and Bracco, F. V. (1992) Stochastic particle dispersion modeling and the tracer-particle limit, Phys. Fluids A, 4, 2809-2824.
Pope, S. B. (1990) The velocity-dissipation probability density function model for turbulent flows, Phys. Fluids A. 2, 1437-1449.
Useful Introductory Texts on Stochastic Processes
van Kampen, N. G. (1981) Stochastic Processes in Physics and Chemistry, North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam.
Wax, N. (1954) Noise and Stochastic Processes, Dover Publications, Inc., New York.
References
- MacInnes, J. M. and Bracco, F. V. (1992) Stochastic particle dispersion modeling and the tracer-particle limit, Phys. Fluids A, 4, 2809-2824. | https://thermopedia.com/content/1155/ |
The festive events organized Lithuanian Honorary Consul Gunar Lans were attended by the Lithuanian Ambassador to Sweden Eitvydas Bajarūnas, Commercial Attaché Audrius Masiulionis, Cultural Attaché Saulė Mažeikaitė and the representatives of Alytus region of Lithuania – Deputy Mayor of Alytus Nijolė Makštutienė, Director of Regional Development Department Vilija Vervečkienė, Director of Alytus County Hospital Artūras Vasiliauskas, and the principal of Alytus music school Aldona Vilkelienė.
Various seminars and meetings on business and culture topics took place in the framework of these events, as well as visits to the Jonköping culture centre and Ryhov regional hospital were organized.
A discussion about the further development of business relations between the regions of Sweden and Lithuania took place during the meeting with the Chair of the Jönköping Municipality Executive Committee Ann-Marie Nilsson, CEO of Jönköping Chamber of Commerce Jonas Ekeroth and the other representatives of the region and the city. The importance of expanding cultural relations was also highlighted.
A reception at Ryhov regional hospital concluded the sequence of events in Jonköping dedicated to the 25th Anniversary of the Restoration of the Independent State of Lithuania. The officials from Jonköping region, Lithuanian ambassador and the representatives of Alytus region gave speeches and later documentaries about Jonköping and Alytus where screened.
According to Bajarūnas, it is joyful that in Jonköping the 25th Anniversary of the Restoration of the Independent State of Lithuania is celebrated among friends. Jonköping and Alytus are developing friendly relations for almost 20 years – right after regaining independence of Lithuania. A special collaboration is being maintained between the hospitals of Ryhov and Alytus. Dozens of specialists have visited their colleagues over the sea and exchanged experience. “Facing Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and continuous threats in the region, now then never before we countries in the Nordic and Baltic region need to intensify cooperation not only in political, security, business areas, but also people-to-people level”, said Ambassador Eitvydas Bajarūnas.
The upcoming 25th Anniversary of the Restoration of the Independent State of Lithuania was also commemorated at the annual Swedish-Lithuanian association meeting in Ödeshög on 7th March. The members of the association were thanked for their many years lasting active contribution to the successful cooperation between the countries. The association unites Lithuanian and Swedish institutions and individuals who seek to strengthen business ties between the two countries, and to develop relations in such areas as environment, education and culture, as well as those who engaged in charitable activities.
Commemoration of 11th March in Stockholm is being organized by the Lithuanian community in Sweden. A Lithuanian film „We will sing“ will be screened at the event which is to take place at the Embassy of Lithuania. On the same day in Halmstad, with the initiative of another Lithuanian Honorary Consul Evert Grahn, an event for the commemoration of the Restoration of the Independent State of Lithuania will take place. Lithuanian ambassador Bajarūnas will also have bilateral meetings with Mayor of Halmstad Carl Fredrik Graf and governor Lena Sommestad.
Some other events are planned in Malmö, Kristianstad and other cities of Sweden. | https://lithuaniatribune.com/lithuanias-independence-25th-anniversary-celebrated-in-jonkoping-sweden/ |
Custom production of coats typically take 5-6 weeks from the time the order is placed. Once your order is dispatched from our warehouse you will receive an email with a shipping tracking number.
Please note 5-6 weeks is a general timeline we follow. There are cases that that custom orders arrive before 5 weeks and occasionally shortly past the 6 weeks mark due to unforeseen delays. Our tailors do their best to have all orders processed as quickly as possible. Due to a variety of unforeseen circumstances, we do not offer a Guarantee on the 6 week timeline.
We are proud to offer Free Ground Shipping for all orders within Europe.
In the case of custom-made goods, the Buyer is not entitled to withdraw from the Purchase contract, as these goods are made according to the Buyer’s instructions.
It is not possible to return these goods without an eligible reason. | https://liberallark.com/shipping/ |
Q:
Modular representation theory: central idempotents in $\mathbb{Z}_p[G]$
Let $G$ be a finite group and let $p$ be a prime dividing the order of $G$. Let $\chi$ be a $\mathbb{C}_p$-valued irreducible character of $G$ and let $e_{\chi} = |G|^{-1}\chi(1)\sum_{g \in G} \chi(g^{-1})g$ be the associated primitive central idempotent in $\mathbb{C}_p[G]$. Let $\mathbb{Q}_{p}(\chi)=\mathbb{Q}_p(\chi(g) : g \in G)$ be the character field. Let $H=\mathrm{Gal}(\mathbb {Q}_{p}(\chi)/\mathbb{Q}_p)$ and let $e=\sum_{h \in H} e_{\chi^h}$ ($H$ acts on characters in the usual way.) Then $e$ is a central primitive idempotent of $\mathbb{Q}_p[G]$. Let $v_p$ denote the usual $p$-adic valuation.
Claim: $v_p(|G|)=v_p(\chi(1))$ if and only if
$e \in \mathbb{Z}_p[G]$ and $e\mathbb{Z}_p[G]$ is a maximal $\mathbb{Z}_p$-order.
If $v_p(|G|)=v_p(\chi(1))$ then it is clear that $e \in \mathbb{Z}_p[G]$. That $e\mathbb{Z}_p[G]$ is a maximal $\mathbb{Z}_p$-order follows from Jacobinski's formula for the central conductor of $\mathbb{Z}_p[G]$ in a maximal order (see Curtis-Reiner, Methods of representation theory, vol 1 section 27).
For the converse, I can prove the claim for $p$ odd again using Jacobinski's formula and some calculations of the different of the extension $\mathbb{Q}_p(\chi)/\mathbb{Q}_p$.
Question: can anyone provide a proof of counterexample for the missing part for $p=2$?
Here is a related claim that would prove the claim and make everything much simpler if true:
If $e \in \mathbb{Z}_p[G]$ then $\mathbb{Q}_p(\chi)/\mathbb{Q}_p$ is unramified (i.e. $\mathbb{Q}_p(\chi) \subseteq \mathbb{Q}_p(\zeta_n)$ for some $n$ relatively prime to $p$).
Also, maybe I can drop the maximal order part of the claim altogether?
I have a reasonable knowledge of ordinary representation theory but have only really started to look at modular representation theory in the past few days. I know that this is related to "blocks of defect zero", but in the books I have looked at (Serre, Curtis-Reiner) it is assumed that the ground field is "sufficiently large", which doesn't really help me. But I suspect this is an easy problem for someone who knows the subject well.
A:
EDIT: There is a MUCH simpler proof than my first one, which I found after looking up the proof of (90.4) in Curtis-Reiner (Rep. Th. of finite groups...) mentioned by Florian Eisele in the comments:
The central idempotent $e\in \mathbb{Z}_p[G]$ is supported on $p$-regular elements. (By the way, a quite elementary proof of this fact can be given using the ideas in a paper of M. Leitz (Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 128 (2000), no. 11, 3149–3152, MR1676316), see also Külshammers paper cited at the end.)
Since
$$ e = \frac{\chi(1)}{|G|}\sum_{h\in H}\sum_{g\in G} \chi(g^{-1})^h g, $$
it follows that the character $\beta= \sum_{h\in H} \chi^h$ vanishes on $p$-singular elements. Let $P$ be a Sylow $p$-subgroup of $G$. Then $\beta$ vanishes on $P\setminus 1 $, so
the multiplicity of the trivial character of $P$ in the restriction $\beta_P$ is
$$ (\beta_P, 1_P) = \frac{\beta(1)}{|P|}= \frac{|H|\chi(1)}{|P|}. $$
On the other hand, we have
$$ (\beta_P,1_P) = \sum_{h\in H} (\chi^h_P,1_P)= |H|(\chi_P,1_P). $$
Thus $|P|=|G|_p$ divides $\chi(1)= |P|(\chi_P,1_P)$, q.e.d.
| |
Students might have noticed new artwork at the University Village Center on their way to grab a bite to eat. But what they might not have noticed is that the artwork is by their peers.
Senior visual art majors Jansen Howard and E.B. Jauer were selected as part of Kevin Kratt’s program to display their art at the University Village Center last October. Their sculptures were installed in May.
Kratt, president and founder of Kratt Commercial Properties and developer of the UVC, created a program that granted two students each year $5,000 to complete their public sculptures. The first student sculpture he featured at his shopping center was back in 2011.
In order to be approved to create one of these sculptures, juniors or seniors within the Visual Arts Program must submit a cover letter, their designs and a portfolio that includes images of their work. Once they have submitted all the required materials, Kratt will select two students.
Howard’s sculpture, ‘Synchronicity,’ is located at the south end of the line of sculptures at the UVC. She admitted that at first, she wasn’t sure what her sculpture would be.
“I wanted to go back to my routes and work with something I knew,” said Howard, “I loved geometry, and the size of the moon relative to Earth always fascinated me. I wanted to see if I could illustrate that through sacred geometry.”
Sacred geometry “involves sacred universal patterns used in the design of everything in our reality,” according to Crystalinks. It is the belief that geometry and mathematical ratios make up many sacred symbols we can identify throughout history.
Jauer’s sculpture, located next to Tokyo Joe’s, resembles a shooting star and is the first kinetic, or moving, piece to be installed.
Jauer explained how her design was impacted from the loss she felt in 2016 and, at the same time, inspired by one of her favorite artists, David Bowie.
“I have a tattoo that says, ‘I leave my love between the stars,’ so I was trying to think of something that was sort of like a memorial to him. At the same time, I wanted to come up with something where the stars moved because I was also influenced by Starr Kempf who was a local artist and works with a lot of kinetic art,” said Jauer.
Matthew Barton, associate professor and co-director of the Visual Art Program, said that the UVC projects usually begin in late January or early February and can last into the summer months.
According to Jauer, Kratt chooses sculptures that will be realistically made in a reasonable time frame and within the budget. He also looks for long-term and minimal maintenance pieces as well.
During the process, students can seek advice and assistance from fabricators – artists who will build the sculpture for or work collaboratively with the student — provided by Kratt.
Howard and Jauer both worked with Jody Bliss, a fabricator in Monument who has two of her own sculptures featured at the UVC. Jauer would visit Bliss every Thursday for about every hours a day for three weeks in a row.
“This fabricator was willing to open her shop to us and let us be a part of the process, which really offered us a great learning opportunity and first-hand experience working with the material to create the sculpture,” said Howard.
Both Howard and Jauer were excited to be chosen to complete a sculpture for Kratt and expressed how encouraging and supportive he was of their work. Howard explained what this opportunity meant to her and why she feels so grateful to Kratt for developing this program.
“As an artist, it is really hard to make a living even with a college degree, and to know how to put yourself out there. The experience we got of writing a proposal, budgeting, and working with deadlines is priceless experience going into the real world,” said Howard. | https://scribe.uccs.edu/student-sculptures-featured-in-the-university-village-center/ |
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I know sometimes there are recipes or foods that just kind of stay away from because of one reason or another. Well, steak was one of those for me as they always turned out tough when I cooked them.
Then there might come along a certain someone, aka Mr. Awesome, who really likes his steak. I tried to convince him that I was incapable of cooking a steak but he refused to give up on me. He has made some really great steaks on the grill but I really don’t grill that much anymore either so I wasn’t interested in trying that method.
After a little trial and error and a few burnt steaks, I’ve finally come up with an almost foolproof method that works for me. Now I do use my cast iron skillet for this so I don’t know how well this will work if you use something other than cast iron. These usually turn our about medium-rare so you may need to adjust the cooking times for your preferred level of doneness too.
If you cook the veggies before you cook your steak you get a whole new level of taste. This method usually results in a nice crust too. This is really so good that I’ve even impressed myself with this.
Sizzlin’ Skillet Steak
Ingredients:
- 2-6 T. butter
- 1 steak (we usually use ribeyes that at about 1 inch thick)
- Garlic salt (we like Lawry’s Garlic Salt with Parsley and it looks really pretty too)
- pepper
- sliced onions, mushrooms, green peppers for toppings (optional)
Directions:
Season both sides of your steak with garlic salt and pepper.
Heat your cast-iron skillet on medium-high heat.
Add 2-3 Tablespoons of butter and let melt.
Once melted, you can saute the vegetables until tender, if you choose. **
Remove the vegetables from the pan and set aside.
**If not using vegetables go directly to the next step but don’t add more butter to the pan.
Add another 2-3 Tablespoons of butter and let melt but don’t let it burn.
When the butter is melted and hot carefully place your steak in the pan.
Don’t touch it or move, just let it be for about 3-5 minutes.
Now carefully flip the steak.
Don’t touch it or move, just let it be for about 3-5 minutes.
Remove it from the heat and let it rest for another 3-5 minutes.
Serve with a simple salad, some baked potatoes, garlic bread, and top with sauteed veggies.
Enjoy!
**This post does contain affiliate links to products we use. We may earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you) if a purchase is made through links. These links help to support our family, our blog, and our homeschooling mission. Thank you! | https://kirbyskorner.site/2019/04/20/sizzlin-skillet-steak/ |
Pre-heat oven to 160°C/325°F. Beat butter and sugar in stand mixer before adding eggs one by one.
Step 2/4
- 9⅛ g chocolate shavings
- 9⅛ g ground almonds
- 4⅛ g flour
- ⅛ tsp cinnamon
- ⅛ tbsp rum
- baking sheet
- baking parchment
- large bowl
- rubber spatula
In a large bowl, mix chocolate shavings, ground almonds, flour, and cinnamon. Mix the flour mix, along with the rum, into the butter-sugar mix. Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake at 160°C/325°F for approx. 25 min.
Step 3/4
- 5½ g dark chocolate
- pot
- heatproof bowl
While the bars cool, melt chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pot filled with simmering water.
Step 4/4
- 4⅛ g chopped hazelnuts
- cutting board
- knife
Spread melted chocolate over the cooled bars. Sprinkle the chopped nuts on top. Leave to dry for approx. 30 min. and cut into rectangles for serving. Enjoy!
Enjoy your meal! | https://www.kitchenstories.com/en/recipes/chocolate-nut-bars |
Life on earth proceeds with daily cyclic changes in circumstances. Plants conduct photosynthesis during the daytime, and nocturnal animals forage for food at night. Many living organisms have developed intrinsic 24-h cycles called circadian clocks that enable the expression of activities at appropriate times. The molecular mechanisms of clocks have been investigated in detail since the first clock mutant was isolated from fruit flies [1]. Several clock genes are homologous from flies to mammals and thus circadian clock systems in all vertebrates have the same origin, whereas plants, fungi, and protists have developed other circadian systems [2]. Regardless of the molecular bases, transcriptional-translational feedback loops play critical roles in the generation or maintenance of circadian rhythms. The main feedback loop in mammals comprises several core clock genes, including Bmal1, Clock, Per1/2, and Cry1/2 [3]. In addition to these, other clock genes or clock-controlled genes, such as Rev-erbα/β, Rorα/β, Dbp, Dec1/2, CK1ε/δ, and NPAS2 cooperate to sustain mammalian circadian clocks. Genome-wide transcriptome and ChIP-seq analyses have shown that clock genes control the transcription of thousands of genes with chromatin remodeling [4–6]. Notably, posttranscriptional regulation plays a substantial role in controlling circadian mRNA expression [4]. The circadian control of transcribed genes leads to rhythmic physiological events.
Light/dark cycles entrain the central clock in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) that is located in the hypothalamus where it mainly dominates activity-related rhythms, such as sleep/wake cycles, the autonomic nervous system, core body temperature, and melatonin secretion. In contrast, feeding/fasting cycles entrain peripheral clocks that are located in most tissues including even part of the brain [7•]. Peripheral clocks dominate local physiological processes, including glucose and lipid homeostasis, hormonal secretion, xenobiotics, the immune response, and the digestion system [8]. As the central clock organizes local clocks through neuronal and humoral signals, desynchronization among clocks is believed to result in the development of unpreferable conditions, such as metabolic disorders, cancer, and psychiatric disorders [9].
Circadian clocks enable the anticipation of daily events, conferring a considerable advantage for saving time and the efficient use of energy. The central clock activates the sympathetic nervous system and increases body temperature and blood pressure ahead of the active phase, facilitating the start of activities. Digestion/absorption systems also prepare before breakfast based on the time of local clocks [7•, 10]. Because colonic motility also is regulated by the local clocks, gastrointestinal symptoms are prevalent among shift workers and time-zone travelers [11]. In addition to local physiological events in tissues, some activity rhythms also are affected by feeding. Scheduled feeding elicits food anticipatory activity that is independent of light/dark cues and is perceived as food-seeking behavior approximately 2 hours before feeding [7•, 12]. This activity rhythm persists in rodents with SCN lesions, indicating that the central clock is not essential for food anticipatory activity. Because food available timing can be occasionally restricted in the wild, circadian anticipatory control of behavior and energy metabolism probably increases food usage and energy efficiency. Indeed, many studies have shown that circadian clocks intimately control energy metabolism [13]. Many genes associated with glucose and lipid homeostasis, especially those encoding rate limiting enzymes in various metabolic processes, are under circadian control. Thus, mutations or deletions of clock genes lead to metabolic disorders [14]. Mice with mutant Clock have attenuated feeding rhythm, hyperphagic, and obesity as well as altered gluconeogenesis, insulin insensitivities, and lipid homeostasis [15, 16]. Glucose and lipid homeostasis are similarly impaired in Bmal1 knockout mice [17, 18], and altered lipid metabolism, attenuated nocturnal food intake with total overeating, and developing significant obesity on high-fat diet are reported in Per2 knockout mice [19, 20]. A few studies have suggested an association between genetic variance in clock genes and metabolic risk in humans [14, 21•]. In addition, an epigenetic state of clock genes might be associated with obesity [22]. These genetic associations indicate mutual interaction among circadian clocks, metabolism, and nutrition.
Recently, a novel field between nutrition and circadian clock system is referred as “chrononutrition” [7•, 10] (Fig. 1). In this article, we review recent findings regarding chrononutrition, food components that regulate circadian clocks, and meal times that affect metabolic homeostasis.
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The main character Jin Sakai in Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut can go through life as Aloy through a free update.
The free update adds a new outfit for the main character of the game developed by Sucker Punch Productions. The outfit available to Jin is based on Aloy from Horizon: Zero Dawn and Horizon: Forbidden West.
The outfit can be unlocked by traveling to the north of Iki Island and solving a puzzle there. This puzzle can be found at the Wind Shrine. Once you have solved this you can use the new outfit.
Update 2.15 also adds a number of improvements. These mainly relate to Legends mode. | https://www.newsy-today.com/dress-up-jin-in-ghost-of-tsushima-now-as-aloy/ |
A sandwich is a simple snack that can be served for breakfast, dinner or lunch. It contains bread, with other additions such as meat, vegetables, cheese or something sweet e.g. jam.
I personally associate sandwiches with school, because that’s when I mostly ate sandwiches 🙂
I rarely prepare sandwiches at home these days. For breakfast, I usually eat scrambled eggs, cheese spreads, sausages, various cold meats or sweet rolls. I also often make random breakfast dishes and eat those. So, anytime when there is an opportunity to munch a delicious sandwich, I go for it.
The recipe below is for sandwiches that I made the other for dinner – you can do that too 🙂 It was not such an ordinary sandwich, because it consisted of three slices of bread, delicious crispy bacon, vegetables and turkey ham. Such a sandwich is a good idea not only for breakfast or dinner, but it also works well as a party snack.
Find me on Instagram: mecooksblog and Facebook: MeCooksblog
Ingredients for club sandwich.
- 8 long strips of raw bacon
- 12 slices of toast bread
- 150 g slices of turkey meat
- 6 tablespoons of mayonnaise
- 6 teaspoons of mustard
- small head of lettuce (100 g)
- 1 big tomato (or a few cocktail tomatoes)
How to make club sandwich.
Place the slices of bread on a baking sheet, put it in an oven preheated to 180 degrees Celsius for 3 minutes. After that, turn them over and bake for another 2 minutes.
Cut the lettuce into wide strips and slice the tomato.
Put the slices of bacon on a non-sticky pan. Fry them over a medium heat until golden brown on both sides.
Assembling the sandwich: put the first slice of bread on a plate and brush it with mustard. Put the bacon and lettuce on the mustard and cover with the second slice of bread spread with mustard from the inner side. Cover the top of that slice with mayonnaise, put turkey and tomato slices on it. Cover with a third slice of bread spread with mayonnaise on the inner side.
Good to know when making club sandwich with turkey.
I used creamy mustard Russian type. You can use Dijon, English or French mustard.
I bought turkey already sliced. The slices were thin, that is why I could put quite a few of them in the sandwich.
From the given amount of ingredients, you can make four sandwiches in total.
Do you like turkey meat? If so, try our recipe for Broccoli salad with turkey. | https://www.mecooks.com/meat/club-sandwich/ |
|Too many red bricks!|
This article has an excess of red links in it.
Attention is requested to create new articles from these links. Please remove this message when finished.
Tim Timebuster was a minifigure who was first released in 1996. He was seen extensively in the Time Cruisers theme until its discontinuation in 1997, but still was in the Time Cruisers comic (1997 -2000) that ran in Europe. After that he appeared in many FreeStyle sets.
Background
As a boy, Tim loved to build things before becoming Dr. Cyber's apprentice.
LEGO's Description
Tim's description in an old catalogue page:
|This is a description taken from LEGO.com. Please do not modify it.|
|
|
Tim
Description
He has a blue cap, green torso with a "T" emblazoned on it, white arms, and blue legs. His face has freckles, and is one of a few featuring a nose. In Freestyle sets he has several different variations.
Appearances
Appearances in Time Cruisers
- 1853 Hypno Cruiser
- 6491 Rocket Racer
- 6492 Hypno Cruiser
- 6493 Flying Time Vessel
- 6494 Mystic Mountain Time Lab
Non-Set Appearances
Appearances in FreeStyle
(may or may not be him)
With green legs and blue cap
- 3233 Freestyle Contraption (FreeStyle) 1998
- 3047 Halloween Bucket (Holiday) 1998
- 4224 My Home Bucket (Basic) 1998
- 3233 Freestyle Contraption (FreeStyle) 1999
With blue legs and red cap
- 9287 Bonus LEGO Town (Dacta) 1996
- 4225 Basic Building Set, 5+ (Basic) 1996
With green legs and red cap
Variations
|One FreeStyle version.||Another FreeStyle version||A final FreeStyle variation.||Another FreeStyle Timmy||Tim's lookalike from World City.|
Notes
- His face is unique (although it is occasionally used on different Minifigures), as it has a nose and a different style of cartoon eyes.
- His favorite Time Cruise, according to LEGO Mania Magazine, was helping the Exploriens decode alien clues.
- Tim, or someone who looked like him, made a cameo appearance in World City.
- The Detective from Collectible Minifigures solved the case of "Timmy's Nose" which possibly refers to him being one of the little number of Minifigures to have a nose.
- His last name is Timebuster/Time Cruiser.
- According to the creator of the comics, Tim is Dr. Cyber's nephew. | https://brickipedia.fandom.com/wiki/Tim |
This past Monday, Bob and I loaded up at 6:00 a.m. with a friend, Dan Stringer, and headed out for Birding Pawnee National Grasslands. Well, of course, this was an exucse to make it a food event also. I mean, after all, ya have to eat too.
A few weeks ago, I was watching Ina Garten, Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network. She was packing a picnic lunch for a group of her friends. What caught my eye besides the food were the containers she used. Tangerine lunch bags, with matching Chinese take out containers for the side dish, parchment paper to wrap sandwiches. I must say, it was quite impressive. So, I headed over to the Container Store for my items. I bought clear plastic gift bags, matching Chinese take-out containers, lime green and black and white checkered tissue paper.
I decided on a sandwich I call “The Spaniard” a side of simple pasta salad and of course a Granny Smith Apple to match the lime green paper.
It looked as good as it tasted.
- 4 slices Pumpernickle Bread
- Good quality mayonnaise
- 4 slices Black-forest Ham (very thinly sliceed)
- ½ Roasted Red Bell Pepper
- Carmelized Onions
- Shavings of aged Manchego Cheeese
- Smear pumpernickle with mayo. Layer Mayo, ham, bell pepper, caramelized onion and Manchego. Broil until Manchego starts to melt and top with the remaining slice of bread.
When I’m not on the prairie, I will broil this for a few seconds to melt the cheese.
We sat at the group picnic area at Crow Valley Campgound, watched birds go by and had a delicious lunch. The gourmet olives from Whole Foods and Whole Foods Pico with chips helped.
We had a great day of spring migration birdwatching, with 74 species. | http://highlandsranchfoodie.com/2009/05/birding-pawnee-national-grasslands/ |
Metrologists study and practice the science of measurement. They develop quantity systems, units of measurement and measuring methods to be used in science. Metrologists establish new methods and tools to quantify and better understand information.
Would you like to know what kind of career and professions suit you best? Take our free Holland code career test and find out.
Personality Type
- Investigative / Realistic
- Realistic / Investigative
Knowledge
- Instrumentation engineering
The science and engineering discipline that attempts to control process variables of production and manufacturing. It also focuses on the design of systems with desired behaviours. These systems use sensors to measure the output performance of the device that is being controlled.
- Metrology
The methods and theory of measurement in a scientific context, including internationally accepted units of measurement, practical realisation of these units, and interpretation of measurements.
- Scientific research methodology
The theoretical methodology used in scientific research involving doing background research, constructing an hypothesis, testing it, analysing data and concluding the results.
Skills
- Develop calibration procedures
Develop test procedures for instrument performance testing.
- Perform scientific research
Gain, correct or improve knowledge about phenomena by using scientific methods and techniques, based on empirical or measurable observations.
- Create solutions to problems
Solve problems which arise in planning, prioritising, organising, directing/facilitating action and evaluating performance. Use systematic processes of collecting, analysing, and synthesising information to evaluate current practice and generate new understandings about practice.
- Study the relationships between quantities
Use numbers and symbols to research the link between quantities, magnitudes, and forms.
- Develop measuring equipment
Develop new measuring equipment for quantitatively measurable properties such as length, area, volume, speed, energy, force, and others.
- Order equipment
Source and order new equipment when necessary.
- Apply scientific methods
Apply scientific methods and techniques to investigate phenomena, by acquiring new knowledge or correcting and integrating previous knowledge.
- Operate precision measuring equipment
Measure the size of a processed part when checking and marking it to check if it is up to standard by use of two and three dimensional precision measuring equipment such as a caliper, a micrometer, and a measuring gauge.
- Assemble measuring equipment
Assemble and fit together the different components of the measuring equipment, such as circuit boards, control units, sensors, transmitters, and cameras, to create precision instruments that are able to measure, transmit, indicate, record, and control.
- Work analytically
Analyse information flows to reconstruct messages quickly and precisely. Navigate a language to explain the same sense or feeling in situations where there is no definite word or literal translation.
- Operate scientific measuring equipment
Operate devices, machinery, and equipment designed for scientific measurement. Scientific equipment consists of specialised measuring instruments refined to facilitate the acquisition of data.
- Write calibration report
Report on the instrument calibration measurements and results. A calibration report includes the objectives and approach of the test, descriptions of tested instruments or products, test procedures, and test results.
- Calibrate precision instrument
Examine the precision instruments and assess whether the instrument meets the quality standards and production specifications. Correct and adjust the reliability by measuring output and comparing results with the data of a reference device or a set of standardised results.
- Maintain technical equipment
Maintain an inventory of cultivation equipment and supplies. Order additional materials as needed.
- Use testing equipment
Use equipment to test performance and operation of machinery. | https://www.123test.com/professions/profession-metrologist/ |
Among the factors that affect the convergence towards the European Higher Education Area, university teaching staff’s motivation is fundamental, and consequently, it is crucial to empirically know what this motivation depends on. In this context, one of the most relevant changes in the teacher-student relationship is assessment. In fact, the transition from a static assessment -focused on only one temporal point (final exam)- to a dynamic assessment, will require changes in thought and action, both on the part of teachers and students. In this line, the objective of this paper is to analyze the determinants of teaching staff’s predisposition to the continuous assessment method. Specifically, we consider the following explanatory dimensions: teaching method used (which measures their degree of involvement with the ongoing adaptation process), type of subject (core, compulsory and optional), and teacher’s personal characteristics (professional status and gender). The empirical application carried out at the University of Alicante uses Logit Models with Random Coefficients to capture heterogeneity, and shows that “cooperative learning” is a clear-cut determinant of “continuous assessment” as well as “continuous assessment plus final examination”. Also, a conspicuous result, which in turn becomes a thought-provoking finding, is that professional status is highly relevant as a teacher’s engagement is closely related to prospects of stability. Consequently, the most relevant implications from the results revolve around the way academic institutions can propose and implement inducement for their teaching staff.
keywords: continuous assessment, european higher education area, teaching staff.
R. Ruiz-Callado, J.L. Nicolau Gonzálbez (2010) FOSTERING TEACHING STAFF’S ENGAGEMENT IN CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT, INTED2010 Proceedings, pp. 3054-3060. | https://library.iated.org/view/RUIZCALLADO2010FOS |
The Biggest Mistakes Investors Make — Part I
It happens every market correction. Well-intending investors who say they can tolerate 10-plus percent declines in market value do just the opposite of what they said they would (and should) do. They sell out their positions at their threshold of pain only to buy back into the market at a higher, more “comfortable” level. The problem is that while they alleviated short term pain, they have actually compounded their losses and dug themselves into a deeper hole. What do I mean by this?
Suppose Murray has a $100,000 portfolio that declines 10% in a tough market. Unable to stomach the volatility and the $10,000 loss, he instructs his advisor to get out of the market until things settle down. A few months pass and the markets start regaining ground. Encouraged, Murray decides to get back in at roughly the same level his accounts had peaked at a few quarterly statements ago. He now has $90,000 invested that will need to grow 11-plus percent to recoup the lost $10,000 ($10,000/$90,000 = 11.11%).
Thankfully, the markets have a stellar run and Murray gets back to $100,000 over the next year. Murray is feeling pretty good about himself. Not so bad, right? Wrong! Had Murray kept a long term perspective and stayed the course, he would now have over $111,000. The difference is what we call “opportunity cost.” In this case, Murray’s investor anxiety cost him $11,000.
In a more commonly played out scenario, Murray in the above example gets back into the market and the market declines another 8%. Frazzled and angry, Murray bails out again at the bottom. His $90,000 has turned into $82,800. He is now $17,200 in the hole and must earn a hefty 20.8% to get back to par! Had Murray worked his original plan from the beginning, he would only need to regain $8,000 (8.7%).
You can see how when repeated, this can easily become a vicious cycle of losses. By far, the Number 1 Biggest Mistake investors make is allowing emotions to govern their investment decisions. This is why many folks who invest do not actually profit from the stock market. King Solomon, the wisest and richest investor in history, offers this advice:
Cast your bread upon the water
And after many days it will return to you.
Divide your portion among seven or eight
Not knowing what disaster may come upon the land.
~ Ecclesiastes 11:1-2
The Lesson: Be willing to take on prudent risk to grow wealth and achieve your goals. You must, however, keep a healthy long-term perspective. Have a well-diversified long-term plan, monitor and adjust the plan as needed and have the discipline to stick to it. A Certified Kingdom Advisor can guide you in crafting a solid plan and making wise financial decisions. We would be honored to help you do just that! Please give us a call to schedule a complimentary first consultation (540) 312-2925. | http://www.beaconwealth.com/the-biggest-mistakes-investors-make-part-1/ |
LAMAR THAMES: There's more work ahead for Orange Park's Skip Cramer
I have come across a few dedicated volunteers in my life and they all seem to have been cut from a certain kind of cloth, born to lead and to be of service to mankind.
Orange Park resident Skip Cramer is the latest example of one of these servants.
Cramer recently received a Presidential Award for Excellence from the American Red Cross in the area of health and safety services, one of 22 in the nation and two from Northeast Florida to be recognized.
"It was a huge surprise when I learned I had won the award," Cramer said. "I had no idea I had even been nominated. I know three or four of the past recipients and I have tremendous respect for those people."
The award is given each year to American Red Cross employees and volunteers who demonstrate superior job performance aligning with the organization's priorities.
"The award was based on my service as a volunteer," he said, "especially my part in implementing the volunteer database regionally and helping with the restructuring of the Northeast Florida Red Cross chapter."
Cramer is well-known locally. He was commanding officer of Naval Air Station Jacksonville from August 1991 to August 1993 and assumed command of the regional Red Cross chapter in 1994 after retiring from the Navy. He transitioned from there to CEO of Jacksonville Community Council Inc., also known as JCCI, from 2004 to 2011. Even after leaving JCCI, Cramer knew he wasn't done and reconnected with the Red Cross, this time as a volunteer.
"While I was at NAS, I served on many local nonprofit boards," Cramer said. "I particularly liked the Red Cross because of its mission and the outstanding volunteers who responded to emergencies large and small every day around the clock. There were close ties to the military since the Red Cross was congressionally chartered to serve as the communications link between the U.S. Armed Forces and their families at home.
"I had indicated to the Red Cross board that if that job ever came open, I would be honored to serve as the chapter chief executive. Shortly after I left NAS for my next assignment at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., in late 1993, the job came open and I applied and was hired."
The other Northeast Florida award recipient was 20-year-old Max Ervanian of St. Johns County, who won the Navin Narayan Award named in honor of a former youth volunteer who died of cancer in 2000 at age 20.
Those who have worked with Cramer aren't shy about singing his praises.
"I have had the privilege of knowing Skip since I joined the Red Cross shortly after the tragedy on 9-11," said Fleming Island resident Russ Kamradt, who himself has won numerous accolades for his volunteer efforts. "Skip was more than just a 'hands-on executive.' He had those special people skills that so many managers never seem to find. He is the manager that I wish I had, especially in my corporate management career. Skip never had to demand respect, he just had it from everyone from the first time you met him."
Christian Smith, who was director of public support when Cramer ran the local chapter, called him her "mentor and my biggest supporter."
"He taught me to learn everything about the Red Cross and he's one of the biggest reasons why I am so passionate about the work we do," she said. "There are few leaders like Skip Cramer and I was so blessed to have him in my formative years."
Cramer credits his parents for the motivation toward public service.
"My dad retired in 1972 to Cocoa Beach, where he served as a community volunteer in local government. Both my parents were also active as volunteers for their political candidates."
At this point in his life, no one would blame Cramer if he spent the rest of his time, as he put it, "spending my children's inheritance on travel and cruises."
Instead, he has another project - studying the impact an aging population has on society.
It was a subject that intrigued him while he was CEO of JCCI. Now that he has reached the age of the subjects of the study, it intrigues him even more.
"It is not just about serving an aging population," he said, "but also about harnessing their resources, selling them services they need, building the homes they can live in for a lifetime, and building the support network to let them age in place."
With the 65-year-old group expected to double in the next 20 years, Cramer's next volunteer effort may be the most important one of all.
SINGER TAKES ANOTHER DIRECTION
Many of you may be wondering what happened to Orange Park's "American Idol" contestant Nalani Quintello.
It seems Nalani had another opportunity besides Idol and took the guaranteed prize that was behind Door No. 2 - to become the next female lead singer for the premier United States Air Force band, Max Impact.
Apparently, the Orange Park High School graduate learned of the opportunity while preparing to audition to get to the round of 24 on Idol.
At that point, she had to leave the auditions and head to basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. The timing is vague, partly because of the secrecy that Idol holds its contestants to in the early rounds of the show, which are taped well in advance of the actual airing.
"Nalani auditioned for Max Impact last fall and the judges were really impressed," said Chief Master Sgt. Jennifer Pagnard, who is the head of marketing and outreach for the Air Force bands. "She and her father [Neno Quintello] discussed the pros and cons of guaranteed benefits and salary and agreed the Air Force would be the way to go."
The Max Impact position opened when the current lead singer retired, Pagnard said.
"Nalani auditioned and really impressed the judges," she said.
To audition, candidates had to be eligible and agree to join the Air Force.
"She is in basic training right now," Pagnard said. "Rehearsals will start soon and she will be permanently stationed in Washington, D.C."
According to her father, Nalani "has assured me through many letters that she is doing well and already enjoying the next chapter in her life," he said on her Facebook page after the top 24 Idol contestants were named on Feb. 19.
"Once again, thank you all for the support you have given Nalani throughout the years," he said. "Anyone interested in contacting Nalani may do so by letter. We all know that receiving letters while in boot camp can be the highlight of the day."
Nalani's address is:
AB Nalani Quintello
322 TRS/FLT B150 (Dorm B-10)
1320 Truemper St. Unit 369541
JBSA Lackland, TX 78236-6407
Neno's news was greeted by many supportive well-wishers, including Kathy Haddock-Gafford, who said, "Well I think she has the highest honor … to serve and sing for her country."
I would have loved to see whether she would have made the round of 24. Plus, it would have given local Idol fans two local contestants to cheer for, the other being Jacksonville's Tyanna Jones, a student at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts.
SOAKING IN THE SIGHTS
"I can see clearly now, the rain is gone."
I am not the first person to benefit from cataract surgery - but as a journalist, I would be remiss in not extolling the virtues of such a procedure.
I had cataracts removed and a new lens placed in my left eye two weeks ago. While my vision is not perfect, I can tell you that I see better now than I ever have in my life. That might not mean much to the athletes who claim to be able to see the stitches on a 90-mph fastball, but it is to a person who started wearing glasses in the second grade. Even with glasses, I don't think I was able to get to 20-20 vision within the last 20 years.
Two days after receiving the new lens, I looked out the window of our house and could clearly see the trees across the pond near us - without the benefit of glasses. I nearly cried.
Vision is something that most people take for granted, and I even did until cataracts began clouding my vision. For the past few years my eyesight gradually got worse until that day I could no longer see my golf ball after I hit it off the tee.
"Once it gets out near 200 yards away, I can't see the ball," I whined to my wife.
You know what her answer was, don't you?
"Then don't hit it so far."
Right!
Of course, when I get self-absorbed like this, I think about the man who was upset about not having any shoes - until he met a man who had no feet.
Lamar Thames is the former editor of My Clay Sun. He can be contacted at [email protected] or (904) 403-6926. | https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/2015/03/06/lamar-thames-theres-more-work-ahead-orange-parks-skip-cramer/15653640007/ |
Information on this Old World Stork includes classification, pictures, breeding range and habitat, physical appearance, mating, colonies, behavior, diet, and predators.
Features images, native regions, key biomes, mating and nesting details, size and appearance, diet, behavior, senses, and CITES listing. From University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.
Covers, briefly, geographic regions and habitat, physical features, reproduction, flight and flocks, diet, predation, and listing status.
Information sheet discusses IUCN and CITES status, characteristics, historical and current range, primary habitat, feeding, colonial breeding, threats, and conservation.
Physical characteristics, habitat, diet, and breeding combine with images, threat level, PDF factsheet, and zoo animal profiles.
Species information includes basic facts, status, physical description, range and habitat, biology, threats, conservation, and glossary. Also offers pictures and videos.
Animal Bytes combines range and habitat detail with images, videos, taxonomy, measurements, species status, appearance, nesting, diet, feeding habits, and fun facts. | https://botw.org/top/Kids_and_Teens/Science_and_Math/Science/Living_Things/Animals/Birds/Wading_Birds/Storks/ |
TECHNICAL FIELD
This document relates to the technical field of communications.
BACKGROUND
In a communication network, a transmitter may transmit a signal over a communication channel to a receiver, where the signal is representative of digital information in the form of symbols or bits. The receiver may process the signal received over the communication channel to recover estimates of the symbols or bits. Various components of the communication network may contribute to signal degradation, such that the signal received at the receiver comprises a degraded version of the signal that was generated at the transmitter. In the case of an optical signal, degradation or distortion may be caused by polarization mode dispersion (PMD), polarization dependent loss or gain (PDL or PDG), state of polarization (SOP) rotation, amplified spontaneous emission (ASE), wavelength-dependent dispersion or chromatic dispersion (CD), and other effects. The degree of signal degradation may be characterized by a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), or alternatively by a noise-to-signal ratio (NSR).
The degradation and/or distortion observed in the received signal depends on the condition of the communication channel over which the signal is received. The condition of the communication channel may be characterized by the channel response, which may vary over time. By tracking time-varying changes in the channel response, it may be possible to compensate for those changes in the received signal, a process generally referred to as channel equalization.
SUMMARY
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According to a broad aspect, a receiver device comprises a communication interface configured to detect a received signal comprising a degraded version of a transmitted signal, the received signal suffering from degradations incurred over a communication channel. The receiver device is configured to apply an adaptive filter to a series of received blocks of a digital representation of the received signal, thereby generating respective filtered blocks, wherein each received block represents 2N frequency bins, and wherein N is a positive integer. The receiver device is further configured to calculate coefficients for use by the adaptive filter on a jreceived block using (i) error estimates associated with a (j−D−1)filtered block, wherein D is a positive integer representing a number of blocks, and wherein j is a positive integer greater than (D−1); and (ii) an inverse of an approximate covariance matrix associated with the (j−D−1)received block, wherein the approximate covariance matrix is a diagonal matrix of size L×L, and wherein L is a positive integer lower than 2N.
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According to some examples, the receiver device is configured to calculate the coefficients for use by the adaptive filter on the jreceived block using (iii) delay compensation terms dependent on a difference between coefficients used by the adaptive filter on a (j−D−1)received block and coefficients used by the adaptive filter on a (j−1)received block.
According to some examples, the approximate covariance matrix is expressed in the frequency domain and each one of L diagonal terms of the approximate covariance matrix corresponds to a different frequency.
According to some examples, the approximate covariance matrix is one of a plurality of sub-matrices comprised in a composite matrix, and the received device is further configured to calculate the coefficients using an inverse of each sub-matrix in the composite matrix.
According to some examples, the composite matrix consists of four diagonal L×L sub-matrices, each sub-matrix approximating a covariance matrix associated with a different polarization of the received signal.
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According to some examples, the receiver device is further configured to calculate the approximate covariance matrix for the (j−D−1)received block as a recursive function of a preceding approximate covariance matrix associated with a preceding received block of the series.
According to some examples, each received block comprises a respective digital representation of a plurality of samples of the received signal detected at the communication interface over a period of time.
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According to some examples, the received signal is representative of symbols and the receiver device is configured to decode estimates of the symbols represented by the (j−D−1)filtered block, and to calculate the error estimates associated with the (j−D−1)filtered block using the decoded estimates of the symbols.
According to some examples, the symbols include one or more predetermined symbols.
According to some examples, the communication channel comprises an optical communication channel.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1
illustrates an example communication network in accordance with some examples of the technology disclosed herein;
FIG. 2
illustrates an example receiver device in accordance with some examples of the technology disclosed herein;
FIG. 3
illustrates digital signal processing for an approximation of recursive least squares (RLS) equalization in accordance with a first example of the technology disclosed herein;
FIG. 4
illustrates digital signal processing for an approximation of RLS equalization in accordance with a second example of the technology disclosed herein;
FIG. 5
illustrates digital signal processing for an approximation of RLS equalization in accordance with a third example of the technology disclosed herein; and
FIG. 6
illustrates an example method for performing an approximation of RLS equalization in accordance with some examples of the technology disclosed herein.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
FIG. 1
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illustrates an example communication network , in accordance with some examples of the technology disclosed herein.
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The communication network may comprise at least one transmitter device and at least one receiver device , where the transmitter device is capable of transmitting signals over a communication channel, such as a communication channel , and where the receiver device is capable of receiving signals over a communication channel, such as the communication channel . According to some examples, the transmitter device is also capable of receiving signals. According to some examples, the receiver device is also capable of transmitting signals. Thus, one or both of the transmitter device and the receiver device may be capable of acting as a transceiver. According to one example, the transceiver may comprise a modem.
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The communication network may comprise additional elements not illustrated in . For example, the communication network may comprise one or more additional transmitter devices, one or more additional receiver devices, and one or more other devices or elements involved in the communication of signals in the communication network .
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According to some examples, the signals that are transmitted and received in the communication network may comprise any combination of electrical signals, optical signals, and wireless signals. For example, the transmitter device may comprise a first optical transceiver, the receiver device may comprise a second optical transceiver, and the communication channel may comprise an optical communication channel. According to one example, one or both of the first optical transceiver and the second optical transceiver may comprise a coherent modem.
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Each optical communication channel in the communication network may include one or more links, where each link may comprise one or more spans, and each span may comprise a length of optical fiber and one or more optical amplifiers.
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Where the communication network involves the transmission of optical signals, the communication network may comprise additional optical elements not illustrated in , such as wavelength selective switches, optical multiplexers, optical de-multiplexers, optical filters, and the like.
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Various elements and effects in the communication network may result in the degradation of signals transmitted between different devices. Thus, a signal received at the receiver device may comprise a degraded version of a signal transmitted by the transmitter device , where the degradation is caused by various impairments in the communication channel . For example, where the communication channel is an optical communication channel, the signal transmitted by the transmitter device may be degraded by polarization mode dispersion (PMD), polarization dependent loss or gain (PDL or PDG), state of polarization (SOP) rotation, amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise, and wavelength-dependent dispersion or chromatic dispersion (CD), nonlinear noise from propagation through fiber, and other effects. The degree of signal degradation may be characterized by a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), or alternatively by a noise-to-signal ratio (NSR). The signals transmitted in the communication network may be representative of digital information in the form of bits or symbols. The probability that bit estimates recovered at a receiver differ from the original bits encoded at a transmitter may be characterized by the Bit Error Ratio (BER). As the noise power increases relative to the signal power, the BER may also increase.
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The receiver device may receive a communication signal transmitted over the communication channel from the transmitter device , where the communication signal conveys symbols that are representative of digital information. At the receiver device , the decoded symbols that are recovered may comprise noisy versions of the symbols that were originally transmitted by the transmitter device .
FIG. 2
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illustrates an example receiver device , in accordance with some examples of the technology disclosed herein. The receiver device is an example of the receiver device . The receiver device may comprise additional components that are not described in this document.
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The receiver device is configured to receive an optical signal , which may comprise a degraded version of an optical signal generated by a transmitter device, such as the transmitter device . The optical signal generated by the transmitter device may be representative of information bits (also referred to as client bits) which are to be communicated to the receiver device . The optical signal generated by the transmitter device may be representative of a stream of symbols.
According to some examples, the transmitter device may be configured to apply forward error correction (FEC) encoding to the client bits to generate FEC-encoded bits, which may then be mapped to one or more streams of data symbols. The optical signal transmitted by the transmitter device may be generated using any of a variety of techniques such as polarization-division multiplexing (PDM), single polarization modulation, modulation of an unpolarized carrier, mode-division multiplexing, spatial-division multiplexing, Stokes-space modulation, polarization balanced modulation, and the like.
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The receiver device is configured to recover corrected client bits from the received optical signal . The receiver device may comprise a polarizing beam splitter configured to split the received optical signal into polarized components . According to one example, the polarized components may comprise orthogonally polarized components corresponding to an X polarization and a Y polarization. An optical hybrid is configured to process the components with respect to an optical signal produced by a laser , thereby resulting in optical signals . Photodetectors are configured to convert the optical signals output by the optical hybrid to analog signals . According to one example, the analog signals may comprise four signals corresponding, respectively, to the dimensions XI, XQ, YI, YQ, where XI and XQ denote the in-phase and quadrature components of the X polarization, and YI and YQ denote the in-phase and quadrature components of the Y polarization. Together, elements such as the beam splitter , the laser , the optical hybrid and the photodetectors may form a communication interface configured to receive optical signals from other devices in a communication network, such as the network .
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The receiver device may comprise an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) . The ASIC may comprise analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) which are configured to sample the analog signals , and to generate respective digital signals . Although illustrated as comprised in the ASIC , in an alternate implementation the ADCs or portions thereof may be separate from the ASIC . The ADCs sample the analog signals periodically at a sample rate that is based on a signal received from a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) at the receiver device (not shown).
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The ASIC is configured to apply digital signal processing to the digital signals , as will be described in more detail with respect to . The digital signal processing may comprise equalization processing designed to compensate for a variety of channel impairments, such as CD, SOP rotation, PMD including group delay (GD) and differential group delay (DGD), PDL or PDG, and other effects. The digital signal processing may further comprise carrier recovery processing, which includes calculating an estimate of carrier frequency offset (i.e., the difference between the frequency of the transmitter laser and the frequency of the receiver laser ). According to some examples, the digital signal processing may further comprise operations such as multiple-output (MIMO) filtering, clock recovery, and FDM subcarrier de-multiplexing. The digital signal processing further comprises symbol-to-bit demapping (or decoding) using a decision circuit, such that signals output by the digital signal processing are representative of bit estimates. Where the received optical signal is representative of symbols comprising FEC-encoded bits generated as a result of applying FEC encoding to client bits, the signals may further undergo FEC decoding to recover the corrected client bits .
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According to some examples, the equalization processing implemented as part of the digital signal processing may comprise one or more equalizers, where each equalizer is configured to compensate for impairments in the channel response. In general, an equalizer applies a filter to an input signal to generate an output signal that is less degraded than the input signal. The filter is characterized by compensation coefficients which may be incrementally updated from time to time, always with the goal of reducing the degradation observed in the output signal.
According to some examples, the equalization processing may comprise an equalizer filter which is designed to apply a first-order dispersive function to at least partially compensate for slowly changing channel impairments, such as CD. For example, compensation coefficients may be calculated through firmware using the estimated CD during start-up of the receiver device (also referred to the acquisition stage), and those coefficients may be applied to received signals (either by convolution in the time domain, or by multiplication in the frequency domain), thereby resulting in processed signals which are, at least partially, compensated for CD. This equalizer filter may be referred to as “static” because the updating of its compensation coefficients is relatively infrequent. For example, the coefficients may be periodically updated (e.g., once every second) based on information obtained downstream during the digital signal processing. The slow rate of change of the compensation coefficients means that the static equalizer filter may only be capable of tracking and compensating for relatively slow changes in the channel response, and not fast changes. For example, the static equalizer filter may be able to compensate for changes in CD, which are typically at a rate on the order of <1 Hz, but the static equalizer filter may be unable to compensate for changes in SOP rotation, which typically happen much more quickly.
According to some examples, the equalization processing may comprise an additional equalizer filter which uses feedback to compensate for relatively fast changes in the channel response, such as SOP changes, PMD changes, PDL changes, small amounts of CD, and analog characteristics of the transmitter and receiver, which change at a rate on the order of kHz. For example, a standard feedback equalizer may compensate for impairments varying at a rate of approximately 100 kHz.
According to some examples, feedback equalization may rely on a Least Mean Squares (LMS) feedback loop or adaptive Wiener filtering using a constant modulus algorithm (CMA) or an affine projection algorithm (APA) or a recursive least squares (RLS) algorithm. The technology proposed in this document will be described in the context of frequency-domain RLS equalization. However, the proposed technology may also be implemented using blocks in the time domain.
FIG. 3
FIG. 2
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illustrates digital signal processing for RLS equalization by approximation. The digital signal processing is an example of the digital signal processing shown in .
For ease of explanation, equalization processing will be described for a single polarization (X) while ignoring cross-polarization effects. However, it should be understood that similar processing may be used for additional dimensions (or polarizations) of a multidimensional signal. The technology described in this document may be applied to some or all of these dimensions.
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The digital signals corresponding to the X polarization may be denoted by a time-varying vector x. An overlap and save (OAS) operation may be applied to the digital signals , and the resulting output time-domain signals may then undergo a fast Fourier transform (FFT) operation to generate discrete frequency-domain signals . A FFT of length 2N (also referred to as a FFT matrix of size 2N×2N) is herein denoted by For 2N-FFT, wherein N denotes a positive integer. The corresponding inverse FFT (IFFT) of length 2N (also referred to as an IFFT matrix of size 2N×2N) is herein denoted by For 2N-IFFT. The FFT (and IFFT) operations described throughout this document may alternatively be performed using discrete Fourier transform (DFT) operations.
R×C
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For the purposes of the examples described herein, a matrix M comprising R rows and C columns is generally denoted by M, while a vector V comprising T terms is generally denoted by V. The notation diagvec(M) denotes a vector consisting of the diagonal terms of the matrix M. The notation diagmat(V) denotes a diagonal matrix with diagonal terms consisting of the terms of the vector V. The notation firstcol(M) denotes the first or leftmost column of the matrix M. The notation midcol(M) denotes the middle column of the matrix M. The notation circshift(V, p) denotes a circular shift of the vector V by an integer p. The notation Mdenotes the Hermitian of the matrix M.
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According to some examples, a given one of the time-domain signals may be expressed in the form of a circulant matrix denoted by {tilde over (x)}. Due to the circulant form of {tilde over (x)}, it follows that (F{tilde over (x)}F) is a diagonal matrix, herein denoted by X. By definition, the non-diagonal terms of the diagonal matrix Xare equal to zero. The 2N diagonal terms of Xmay be calculated by taking the 2N-FFT of the first column of the circulant matrix {tilde over (x)}. In other words, diagvec(X)=F(firstcol[{tilde over (x)}]).
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The discrete frequency-domain signals are made up of blocks, also referred to as FFT blocks, where each block comprises the 2N diagonal elements of a respective matrix X, each diagonal element comprising a complex value representing the in-phase and quadrature components of the frequency-domain signal at a different frequency bin. The diagonal matrix corresponding to the jblock of the discrete frequency-domain signals is denoted by X(j).
FIG. 3
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Referring back to , the digital signal processing involves applying a filter to the discrete frequency-domain signals , thereby resulting in respective filtered signals . The filter is characterized by compensation coefficients which may be expressed as a complex-valued vector H. As will be described in greater detail herein, the compensation coefficients may be periodically and incrementally adjusted, such that Htakes on different values over time. The adjustments may be designed to minimize the errors on the symbols that are currently being decoded at the receiver device . The values of the compensation coefficients applied to the jblock of the discrete frequency-domain signals are denoted by H(j). The filtered signals may be calculated from the product of the signals and the respective compensation coefficients applied by the filter , such that jblock of the filtered signals comprises the 2N diagonal terms of X(j)H(j), that is diagvec(X(j)H(j)).
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According to some examples, the filtered signals may undergo a down-sampling operation to generate respective down-sampled signals . As a result of the down-sampling operation , the jblock of the down-sampled signals comprises 2K elements, where K is a positive integer, and where K<N.
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310
309
According to some examples, the down-sampled signals may undergo a 2K-IFFT and discard operation to generate respective time-domain signals . Where the OAS operation is a 50% OAS, the discard applied at may discard half of the 2K elements of the down-sampled signals following the 2K-IFFT.
311
312
313
314
313
315
230
314
230
232
FIG. 2
According to some examples, the time-domain signals may undergo a carrier recovery operation to generate respective signals which are compensated for laser frequency offset and linewidth. A decision circuit may then apply a decoding operation to the signals to recover symbol estimates (represented by signals ) and corresponding bit estimates (represented by the signals ). According to some examples, the decoding operation may comprise soft decoding. The signals may subsequently undergo FEC decoding, such as the FEC decoding described with respect to .
A RLS feedback loop may be designed to minimize error in the symbol estimates by minimizing the cost function C expressed in Equation 1:
<math overflow="scroll"><mtable><mtr><mtd><mrow><mi>C</mi><mo>=</mo><mrow><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mn>1</mn><mo>-</mo><mi>λ</mi></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><munderover><mo>∑</mo><mrow><mi>p</mi><mo>=</mo><mn>0</mn></mrow><mi>j</mi></munderover><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msup><mi>λ</mi><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mi>p</mi></mrow></msup><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msubsup><mover><mi>e</mi><mi>^</mi></mover><mi>K</mi><mi>†</mi></msubsup><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>p</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msub><mover><mi>e</mi><mo>^</mo></mover><mi>K</mi></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>p</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mtd><mtd><mrow><mo>[</mo><mn>1</mn><mo>]</mo></mrow></mtd></mtr></mtable></math>
K
K
th
th
th
th
th
305
306
where ê(p) is a time-domain vector denoting the error signals for the pblock, and where λ is a real number in the range (0 . . . 1) which denotes a forgetting factor. Thus, for the jblock of signals being processed by the filter , the compensation coefficients are calculated to minimize the cost function C, which is dependent on the values of the error signals êat blocks p=j, p=j−1, p=j−2, . . . , p=0. The degree to which the cost function C depends on each block preceding the current jblock (i.e., the (j−1)block, the (j−2)block, etc.) depends on the value of the forgetting factor λ.
FIG. 3
K
K
K
K×K
K×2K
2K×2K
2N×2K
2N×2N
2N
th
01
−1
†
316
317
313
315
ê
j
{circumflex over (d)}
j
j
W
F
U
X
j
H
j
Referring to , the error signals ê(j) for the jblock may be calculated using an error calculation operation . The operation may generate error signals from the difference between the signals and the signals . This calculation is expressed in Equation 2:
()=()−Φ()()() [2]
K
K×K
K×2K
N×N
N×N
2K×2K
2N×2K
2N×2N
2N
th
th
01
−1
†
th
th
315
312
310
308
where {circumflex over (d)}(j) is a time-domain vector denoting signals representing the decoded symbol estimates of the jblock (corresponding to the signals ), where Φ(j) denotes a diagonal carrier recovery matrix for the jblock (corresponding to the operation ), where W=[0I] denotes a discard matrix which discards the first half of 2K input samples and where Fdenotes a 2K-IFFT matrix (corresponding to the operation ), where U denotes a down-sampling matrix which converts 2N input samples to 2K output samples (corresponding to the operation ), where X(j) denotes the diagonal matrix corresponding to the jblock of the discrete frequency-domain signals, and where the vector H(j) denotes the frequency-domain compensation coefficients applied to the jblock.
226
316
317
313
According to some examples, the digital signals may be representative of a stream of symbols, the stream comprising payload symbols and predetermined training symbols distributed over time. In such cases, the error calculation operation may generate the error signals by comparing the signals to signals representative of the known training symbols.
K
2N
2N
2N
2N×2N
2N×L
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×L
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N
305
H
j
H
j−
F
W
W
F
S
j−
F
W
W
F
X
j−
E
j−
10
10
†
−1
10
−1
10
†
−1
†
Given the error signals ê(j) expressed in Equation 2, minimization of the cost function C in Equation 1 may be achieved by configuring the filter to apply compensation coefficients H(j) as expressed in Equation 3:
()=(1)+μ[()(1)]()(1)(1) [3]
2N
2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×L
th
th
−1
10
where the vector H(j) denotes the frequency-domain compensation coefficients for the jblock, where the vector H(j−1) denotes the frequency-domain compensation coefficients for the (j−1)block, where μ denotes a real number referred to as the gain factor, where Fdenotes the 2N-FFT matrix and Fdenotes the 2N-IFFT matrix, where Wdenotes a zero-padding matrix which pads L samples with (2N−L) zeros to form a vector of length 2N (where L is a positive integer lower than 2N), where
<math overflow="scroll"><mrow><msup><mrow><mo>(</mo><msubsup><mi>W</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow><mrow><mn>1</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mn>0</mn></mrow></msubsup><mo>)</mo></mrow><mi>†</mi></msup><mo>=</mo><msup><mrow><mo>[</mo><mtable><mtr><mtd><msub><mi>I</mi><mrow><mi>L</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow></msub></mtd></mtr><mtr><mtd><msub><mn>0</mn><mrow><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow><mo>-</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow></msub></mtd></mtr></mtable><mo>]</mo></mrow><mi>†</mi></msup></mrow></math>
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N
†
th
th
th
denotes a matrix which windows signals from length 2N to length L, where I denotes an identity matrix, where X(j−1) denotes the Hermitian of the diagonal matrix X(j−1) corresponding to the (j−1)block of the discrete frequency-domain signals, where S(j−1) denotes a covariance matrix for the (j−1)block (to be discussed further below), and where E(j−1) is a frequency-domain vector denoting the error signals for the (j−1)block.
2N
K
2N
2N×2K
2K×2K
K×2K
K×K
K
th
01
†
†
E
j
U
F
W
j
ê
j
The frequency-domain error vector E(j) for the jblock is a function of the time-domain error vector ê(j) according to the expression in Equation 4:
()=()Φ()() [4]
2N×2K
2K×2K
K×2K
K×K
2N
K
K
K×K
K×2K
2K×2K
2N×2K
2N
01
†
†
th
†
01
†
318
320
322
324
308
310
312
317
318
312
319
320
319
310
321
322
321
310
323
324
323
308
325
where Udenotes an up-sampling matrix which converts 2K input samples to 2N output samples, where Fdenotes a 2K-FFT matrix, where (W) denotes a zero padding matrix which pads K samples with K zeros, and where Φ(j) denotes a derotation matrix for the jblock. The generation of the frequency-domain vector E(j) from the time-domain vector ê(j) is reflected by a series of operations , , , and . These operations effectively reverse the effects of the operations , , and . That is, the signals (corresponding to ê(j)) undergo a derotation operation (corresponding to Φ(j) in Equation 4) to reverse the effects of the carrier recovery operation , thereby resulting in respective signals . A zero padding operation (corresponding to (W) in Equation 4) is applied to the signals to reverse the effects of the discard applied by the operation , thereby resulting in respective signals . A 2K-FFT operation (corresponding to Fin Equation 4) is applied to the signals to reverse the effects of the 2K-IFFT operation , thereby resulting in respective signals . Finally, an up-sampling operation (corresponding Uin Equation 4) is applied to the signals to reverse the effects of the down-sampling operation , thereby resulting in respective signals , which correspond to the error vector E(j).
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2K
2K×2K
K×2K
K×2K
2K×2K
2N×2K
2N×2N
S
j
S
j−
X
j
U
F
W
W
F
U
X
j
†
01
†
01
−1
†
The covariance matrix Sin Equation 3 is a diagonal matrix that is calculated recursively according to the expression below:
()=λ(1)+(1−λ)()()() [5]
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2K
2N×2K
2K×2K
2K×2K
K×2K
K×2K
th
†
†
−1
01
†
01
where λ denotes the forgetting factor as defined in Equation 1, where X(j) denotes the diagonal matrix corresponding to the jblock of the discrete frequency-domain signals, where X(j) denotes the Hermitian of X(j), where Udenotes the up-sampling matrix, where U denotes the down-sampling matrix, where Fdenotes the 2K-FFT matrix and Fdenotes the 2K-IFFT matrix, where (W) denotes the zero padding matrix, and where Wdenotes the discard matrix.
2N
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×L
2N
th
10
†
−1
10
−1
Referring to Equation 3, it is apparent that the compensation coefficients H(j) for the jblock of the discrete frequency-domain signals are dependent, in part, on the expression [(W)FS(j−1)FW]. This expression is equivalent to inverting a matrix of size L×L. Thus, in order to calculate the compensation coefficients H(j) according to the exact RLS algorithm, it would be necessary to perform a matrix inversion of size L×L. In practice, the value of L may be quite large, such that the matrix inversion is very computationally expensive to implement. For example, a 30-tap RLS filter would require inverting a 30×30 matrix, which would be difficult if not impossible to implement in hardware.
2K×2K
K×2K
K×2K
2K×2K
01
†
01
−1
According to some examples, the term F(W)WFin Equation 5 may be simplified to
<math overflow="scroll"><mrow><mrow><mfrac><mn>1</mn><mn>2</mn></mfrac><mo>⁢</mo><msub><mi>I</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>K</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>K</mi></mrow></msub></mrow><mo>,</mo></mrow></math>
2N×2K
2N×2K
2N×2N
†
where I denotes an identity matrix. Furthermore, in the event that the roll-off factor of the pulse shaping (e.g., the product of transmitter filtering and receiver filtering which, in the case of matched filtering, may comprise, for example, the product of two root raised cosine filters) is close to zero, then UUmay also be approximated by an identity matrix of I. Using these approximations, Equation 5 may be simplified as expressed below:
<math overflow="scroll"><mtable><mtr><mtd><mrow><mrow><msub><mi>S</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>j</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>=</mo><mrow><mrow><mi>λ</mi><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msub><mi>S</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow><mo>+</mo><mrow><mfrac><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mn>1</mn><mo>-</mo><mi>λ</mi></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow><mn>2</mn></mfrac><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msubsup><mi>X</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow><mi>†</mi></msubsup><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>j</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msub><mi>X</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>j</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mtd><mtd><mrow><mo>[</mo><mn>6</mn><mo>]</mo></mrow></mtd></mtr></mtable></math>
2N×2N
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×L
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×L
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×L
10
†
−1
10
−1
10
†
−1
10
−1
10
†
−1
−1
10
W
F
S
j−
F
W
W
F
S
j−
F
W
Given the simplified version of S(j) in Equation 6, the expression [(W)FS(j−1)FW]in Equation 3 may be approximated as expressed below:
[()(1)]≈()[(1)] [7]
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N
−1
Because the matrix S(j−1) is a diagonal matrix, calculating the inverse matrix [S(j−1)]only requires calculating the inverse of each element on the diagonal, that is 2N elements. Thus, using the simplifications in Equations 6 and 7, the compensation coefficients H(j) may be calculated by inverting a vector of length 2N, rather than the more complex procedure of inverting a matrix of size L×L.
2N
The above approximations may significantly reduce the computational complexity associated with calculating the compensation coefficients H(j). However, the inversion of 2N elements may still prove costly when N is large.
According to the technology described herein, RLS equalization may be implemented using an approximation that involves inversion of a vector of length L (as opposed to a vector of length 2N, or a matrix of size L×L).
L×L
L×L
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×L
ŝ
j
W
F
S
j
F
W
10
†
−1
10
There is first introduced a time-domain matrix ŝ(j) defined as follows:
()=()(). [8]
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×L
2N×L
L×L
L×L
−1
10
†
10
As previously noted, the covariance matrix S(j) is a diagonal matrix, so it follows that the expression FS(j)Fis circulant. However, as a result of the windowing operation performed by the terms (W) and W, the matrix ŝ(j) is not circulant. A circular shift of the middle column of the matrix ŝ(j) (i.e., the column corresponding to the floor of (L/2), also denoted by
<math overflow="scroll"><mrow><mrow><mo>⌊</mo><mfrac><mi>L</mi><mn>2</mn></mfrac><mo>⌋</mo></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></math>
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
−1
−1
−1
−1
results in a corresponding circulant time-domain matrix which is denoted by {tilde over (s)}(j). Because the matrix {tilde over (s)}(j) is circulant, it follows that the expression F{tilde over (s)}(j)Fis a diagonal matrix, where Fdenotes the L-FFT matrix, and where Fdenotes the L-IFFT matrix. The diagonal terms of the matrix F{tilde over (s)}(j)Fmay be determined by calculating the L-FFT of the first column of matrix {tilde over (s)}(j). Accordingly, using previously defined notation, the matrix F{tilde over (s)}(j)Fmay be expressed as diagmat(F(firstcol[{tilde over (s)}(j)])). Furthermore, since {tilde over (s)}(j) is generated by a circular shift of the middle column of ŝ(j), which is expressed in Equation 8, it follows that (firstcol[{tilde over (s)}(j)]) may be expressed as
<math overflow="scroll"><mrow><mi>circshift</mi><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><mo> </mo><mrow><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mrow><mrow><mo>(</mo><msubsup><mi>W</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow><mn>10</mn></msubsup><mo>)</mo></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><mi>†</mi><mo>⁢</mo><mstyle><mspace width="0.3em" height="0.3ex" /></mstyle><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><mi>circshift</mi><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mrow><msubsup><mi>F</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msubsup><mo>⁢</mo><mi>diag</mi><mo>⁢</mo><mstyle><mspace width="0.3em" height="0.3ex" /></mstyle><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><mi>vec</mi><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mrow><msubsup><mi>X</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow><mi>†</mi></msubsup><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>j</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msub><mi>X</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>j</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow><mo>,</mo><mrow><mo>⌊</mo><mfrac><mi>L</mi><mn>2</mn></mfrac><mo>⌋</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow><mo>,</mo><mrow><mo>-</mo><mrow><mo>⌊</mo><mfrac><mi>L</mi><mn>2</mn></mfrac><mo>⌋</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow><mo>.</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow></math>
2N
2N
2N
2N
2N×2N
2N×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N
H
j
H
j−
F
W
F
{tilde over (S)}
j−
I
F
W
F
X
j−
E
j−
10
−1
−1
10
†
−1
†
It is herein proposed that, rather than calculating H(j) using Equation 3, H(j) may instead be calculated as follows:
()=(1)+μ[(1)+δ]·()(1)(1) [9]
L×L
L×L
−10
−6
where δ denotes a regularization parameter, and where {tilde over (S)}(j) denotes a diagonal frequency-domain matrix. The regularization parameter δ ensures that the matrix being inverted is not singular and there is no division by zero. The value of δ may be proportional to the power of the input signal. According to some examples, the value of δ may be in the range of 2to 2times the input power. The matrix {tilde over (S)}(j) may be expressed as:
<math overflow="scroll"><mtable><mtr><mtd><mrow><mrow><msub><mover><mi>S</mi><mo>~</mo></mover><mrow><mi>L</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>j</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>=</mo><mrow><mrow><mi>λ</mi><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msub><mover><mi>S</mi><mo>~</mo></mover><mrow><mi>L</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow><mo>+</mo><mrow><mfrac><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mn>1</mn><mo>-</mo><mi>λ</mi></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow><mn>2</mn></mfrac><mo>⁢</mo><mi>diag</mi><mo>⁢</mo><mstyle><mspace width="0.3em" height="0.3ex" /></mstyle><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><mi>mat</mi><mo>(</mo><mrow><msub><mi>F</mi><mrow><mi>L</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><mi>circshift</mi><mo>(</mo><mrow><mrow><msup><mrow><mo>(</mo><msubsup><mi>W</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow><mn>10</mn></msubsup><mo>)</mo></mrow><mi>†</mi></msup><mo>·</mo><mi>circshift</mi></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><mrow><mo> </mo><mrow><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mrow><msubsup><mi>F</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msubsup><mo>⁢</mo><mi>diag</mi><mo>⁢</mo><mstyle><mspace width="0.3em" height="0.3ex" /></mstyle><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><mi>vec</mi><mo>(</mo><mrow><mrow><msubsup><mi>X</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow><mi>†</mi></msubsup><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>j</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msub><mi>X</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>j</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>,</mo><mrow><mo>⌊</mo><mfrac><mi>L</mi><mn>2</mn></mfrac><mo>⌋</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow><mo>,</mo><mrow><mo>-</mo><mrow><mo>⌊</mo><mfrac><mi>L</mi><mn>2</mn></mfrac><mo>⌋</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow><mo>.</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mtd><mtd><mrow><mo>[</mo><mn>10</mn><mo>]</mo></mrow></mtd></mtr></mtable></math>
2N
2N
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
Thus, in contrast to the 2N inversions required to calculate the compensation coefficients H(j) using the approximations of Equations 6 and 7, only L inversions are required to calculate the compensation coefficients H(j) using Equations 9 and 10, where L may be significantly lower than 2N. Thus, by configuring the digital signal processing to implement Equation 9 (using {tilde over (S)}(j) as defined in Equation 10), it may be possible to reduce the computational complexity associated with RLS equalization, which in turn may offer various advantages, such as reduced power and heat. According to some examples, the matrix {tilde over (S)}(j−1), or alternatively the matrix [{tilde over (S)}(j−1)+δI], may be referred to as an approximate covariance matrix.
FIG. 3
306
325
304
306
304
th
Returning to , the compensation coefficients are dependent on the product of the error signals associated with a given FFT block and the conjugate of the signals for that same FFT block. The following example will consider the compensation coefficients to be applied to the jFFT block of the signals .
300
306
305
325
325
306
305
306
305
325
308
310
312
314
316
318
320
322
324
th
FIGS. 4 and 5
As a result of the feedback design of the digital signal processing , the compensation coefficients that are applied by the filter for a given FFT block are dependent on error signals that are calculated from a previous FFT block. Ideally, the filter that is applied to the jFFT block would use compensation coefficients calculated from the immediately preceding FFT block (j−1). However, in reality, the time required to generate the error signals leads to a delay in the updating of the compensation coefficients. For example, the compensation coefficients that are applied by the filter for FFT block j may have been calculated using an FFT block (j−D−1), where D is a positive integer denoting a number of FFT blocks. Equivalently, the compensation coefficients that are applied by the filter for FFT block (j+1) may have been calculated using an FFT block (j−D). According to one example, D=50. In the present example, the delay D may reflect the delay experienced by the error signals as a result of the inherent delays associated with the operations , , , , , , , , and . Techniques that may be used to account for the delay D in the calculation of the compensation coefficients will be described with respect to .
2N
2N×2N
2N
2N
2N×2N
2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
th
†
†
†
FIG. 3
326
304
327
327
328
329
329
According to Equation 9, the compensation coefficients Hfor the jblock are ideally calculated as a function of the product of X(j−1) and E(j−1). However, the following example assumes that H(j) is calculated as a function of X(j−D−1) and E(j−D−1). Thus, as illustrated in , a conjugate operation may be applied to the signals , thereby resulting in respective signals . A delay D may be applied to the signals by the delay operation , thereby resulting in respective signals . The signals may be expressed as X(j−D−1), which is the Hermitian of X(j−D−1).
330
329
325
331
332
331
333
334
333
335
334
336
335
337
336
334
332
2N×2N
2N
L×L
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N
L×L
2N×L
2N×2N
†
10
†
−1
†
10
†
−1
A multiplication operation may be applied to the signals and the signals , thereby resulting in respective signals which may be expressed as the product X(j−D−1)E(j−D−1). A 2N-IFFT operation may be applied to the signals , thereby resulting in respective time-domain signals . A windowing operation may be applied to the signals , thereby resulting in respective signals which may have improved SNR. Such windowing is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 8,005,368 to Roberts et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,385,747 to Roberts et al., U.S. Pat. No. 9,094,122 to Roberts et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 9,590,731 to Roberts et al. Other filtering may be used instead of or in addition to the time-domain window . An L-FFT operation is applied to the signals , thereby resulting in respective frequency-domain signals which may be expressed as F(W)FX(j−D−1)E(j−D−1), where Freflects the L-FFT operation , where the matrix (W) reflects the windowing operation , and where Freflects the 2N-IFFT operation .
339
304
327
340
341
340
342
2N×2N
2N×2N
†
A covariance calculation operation is applied to the signals and to the conjugate signals , thereby resulting in respective signals which may be expressed as the product X(j−1)X(j−1). A 2N-IFFT operation is applied to the signals , thereby resulting in respective signals which may be expressed as
<math overflow="scroll"><mrow><mrow><mi>circshift</mi><mo>(</mo><mrow><mrow><msubsup><mi>F</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msubsup><mo>⁢</mo><mi>diag</mi><mo>⁢</mo><mstyle><mspace width="0.3em" height="0.3ex" /></mstyle><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><mi>vec</mi><mo>(</mo><mrow><mrow><msubsup><mi>X</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow><mi>†</mi></msubsup><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msub><mi>X</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>,</mo><mrow><mo>⌊</mo><mfrac><mi>L</mi><mn>2</mn></mfrac><mo>⌋</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow><mo>.</mo></mrow></math>
343
342
344
A windowing operation is applied to the time-domain signals , thereby resulting in respective signals which may be expressed as
<math overflow="scroll"><mrow><mrow><mi>circshift</mi><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mrow><msup><mrow><mo>(</mo><msubsup><mi>W</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow><mn>10</mn></msubsup><mo>)</mo></mrow><mi>†</mi></msup><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><mi>circshift</mi><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mrow><msubsup><mi>F</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msubsup><mo>⁢</mo><mi>diag</mi><mo>⁢</mo><mstyle><mspace width="0.3em" height="0.3ex" /></mstyle><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><mi>vec</mi><mo>(</mo><mrow><mrow><msubsup><mi>X</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow><mi>†</mi></msubsup><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msub><mi>X</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>,</mo><mrow><mo>⌊</mo><mfrac><mi>L</mi><mn>2</mn></mfrac><mo>⌋</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow><mo>,</mo><mrow><mo>-</mo><mrow><mo>⌊</mo><mfrac><mi>L</mi><mn>2</mn></mfrac><mo>⌋</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>.</mo></mrow></math>
345
344
346
An L-FFT operation is applied to the windowed time-domain signals , thereby resulting in respective signals which may be expressed as
<math overflow="scroll"><mrow><mi>diag</mi><mo>⁢</mo><mstyle><mspace width="0.3em" height="0.3ex" /></mstyle><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><mi>mat</mi><mo>(</mo><mrow><msub><mi>F</mi><mrow><mi>L</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><mi>circshift</mi><mo>(</mo><mrow><msup><mrow><mo>(</mo><msubsup><mi>W</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow><mn>10</mn></msubsup><mo>)</mo></mrow><mi>†</mi></msup><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><mo> </mo><mrow><mo> </mo><mrow><mi>circshift</mi><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><mo> </mo><mrow><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mrow><msubsup><mi>F</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msubsup><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><mrow><mi>diag</mi><mo>⁢</mo><mi>v</mi><mo>⁢</mo><mi>ec</mi></mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mrow><mrow><msubsup><mi>X</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow><mi>†</mi></msubsup><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msub><mi>X</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow><mo>,</mo><mrow><mo>⌊</mo><mfrac><mi>L</mi><mn>2</mn></mfrac><mo>⌋</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>,</mo><mrow><mo>-</mo><mrow><mo>⌊</mo><mfrac><mi>L</mi><mn>2</mn></mfrac><mo>⌋</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow><mo>.</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></math>
347
346
348
L×L
An averaging operation is applied to the signals , thereby resulting in respective signals which, for a given dimension or polarization of the received signal, may be expressed as the diagonal matrix {tilde over (S)}(j−1) according to the definition in Equation 10.
349
348
350
351
350
352
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
−1
−1
An inversion operation may be applied to the signals using the regularization parameter δ, thereby resulting in respective signals corresponding to the term [{tilde over (S)}(j−1)+δI]in Equation 9. Because the matrix {tilde over (S)}(j−1) for each dimension or polarization is diagonal, inversion of the matrix only requires the inversion of L elements. A matching delay may be applied to the signals , such that the resulting signals are representative of [{tilde over (S)}(j−D−1)+δI].
338
337
352
353
354
353
355
L×L
L×L
L×L
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N
−1
10
†
−1
†
−1
−1
10
†
−1
†
A multiplication operation may be applied to the signals and the signals , thereby resulting in respective signals which may be expressed as the product [{tilde over (S)}(j−1)+δI]F(W)FX(j−D−1)E(j−D−1). An L-IFFT operation is applied to the signals , thereby resulting in respective signals which are expressed as F[{tilde over (S)}(j−D−1)+δI]F(W)FX(j−D−1)E(j−D−1).
356
355
357
ĥ
j
ĥ
j−
F
{tilde over (S)}
j−D−
I
F
W
F
X
j−D−
E
j−D−
L
L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N
−1
−1
10
†
−1
†
An accumulation operation may be applied to the signals , thereby resulting in respective signals , which may be expressed as:
()=(1)+μ[(1)+δ]·()(1)(1) [11]
L
L
th
th
where ĥ(j) is a vector denoting the time-domain compensation coefficients for the jblock, where ĥ(j−1) is a vector denoting the time-domain compensation coefficients for the (j−1)block.
358
357
359
360
359
306
H
j
H
j−
F
W
F
{tilde over (S)}
j−D−
I
F
W
F
X
j−D−
E
j−D−
2N
2N
2N×2N
2N×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N
10
−1
−1
10
†
−1
†
A zero padding operation may be applied to the signals , thereby resulting in respective signals . A 2N-FFT operation may be applied to the signals , thereby resulting in the respective signals , which may be expressed as:
()=(1)+μ[(1)+δ]·()(1)(1) [12]
2N
2N×2N
2N×L
L
2N
2N×2N
2N×L
L
2N×2N
2N×L
10
th
10
th
10
306
306
360
358
where H(j)=FWĥ(j) is a vector denoting the frequency-domain compensation coefficients for the jblock (corresponding to the current values of the signals , where H(j−1)=FWĥ(j−1) is a vector denoting the frequency-domain compensation coefficients for the (j−1)block (corresponding to the values of the signals for the immediately preceding clock cycle), where Fdenotes the 2N-FFT matrix (corresponding to the operation ), and where Wis a zero-padding matrix (corresponding to the operation ).
2N
300
By generating the compensation coefficients H(j) using the processing , it is possible to perform an approximation of RLS equalization that is less computationally expensive than other proposed methods.
th
2N
2N
FIG. 3
It is apparent in Equation 12 that the compensation coefficients used for the jFFT block, H(j), are dependent on error values E(j−D−1) that are outdated by the delay D. As a result of this delay, the approximated RLS equalizer illustrated in may be unable to track and compensate for relatively fast changes in the channel response. This may limit the SNR that is achievable, for example, in the presence of SOP transients.
2N
2N×2N
2N
2N
2N×2N
2N
2N
2N
2N
2N
2N
2N
2N×2N
2N×L
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×L
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N
2N
†
†
10
10
†
−1
10
−1
10
†
−1
†
H
j
H
j−
F
W
W
F
S
j−D−
F
W
W
F
X
j−D−
E
j−D−
A
j
For a FFT block being filtered at a current clock cycle j, it may be of interest to apply compensation coefficients that have been calculated using information from the most recent clock cycle (j−1), rather than using stale information from an older clock cycle (j−D−1). In other words, rather than H(j) being dependent on X(j−D−1) and E(j−D−1), it may be of interest to make H(j) effectively dependent on X(j−1) and E(j−1), thereby compensating for the effect of the delay D on the value of H(j). As will now be described in more detail, this delay compensation may be achieved using a series of processing steps designed to apply an appropriate adjustment to the compensation coefficients H(j). Referring back to Equation 3, compensation for a delay D may be achieved by adding a vector A(j) to the error vector E(j−D−1), as expressed below:
()=(1)+μ[()(1)]·()(1)[(1)+()] [13]
2N
2N
2N×2K
2K×2K
K×2K
K×2K
2K×2K
2N×2K
2N×2N
2N
A
j
U
F
W
W
F
U
·X
j−D−
H
j−
01
†
01
−1
†
where the vector A(j) is expressed as:
()=α()(1)Δ(1) [14]
2N
2N
2N
2N
H
j
H
j−D−
H
j−
where α is a real number in the range [0 . . . 1] reflecting the degree of delay compensation, and where ΔH(j) is a vector expressed as:
Δ()=(1)−(1). [15]
2K×2K
K×2K
K×2K
2K×2K
01
†
01
−1
The term F(W)WFin Equation 14 may be simplified to
<math overflow="scroll"><mrow><mfrac><mn>1</mn><mn>2</mn></mfrac><mo>⁢</mo><msub><mi>I</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>K</mi><mo>×</mo><mrow><mi>K</mi><mo>.</mo></mrow></mrow></msub></mrow></math>
2N×2K
2N×2K
2N×2N
2N
†
Furthermore, in the event that the roll-off factor of the pulse shaping (e.g., the product of transmitter filtering and receiver filtering which, in the case of matched filtering, may comprise, for example, the product of two root raised cosine filters) is close to zero, then UU may also be approximated by I. Under these circumstances, the vector A(j) may be simplified to
<math overflow="scroll"><mrow><mrow><mrow><msub><mi>A</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>j</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>=</mo><mrow><mfrac><mn>1</mn><mn>2</mn></mfrac><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msub><mi>αX</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mi>D</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msub><mi>ΔH</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>j</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow><mo>,</mo></mrow></math>
and Equation 13 may be rewritten as:
<math overflow="scroll"><mtable><mtr><mtd><mrow><mrow><msub><mi>H</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>j</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>=</mo><mrow><mrow><msub><mi>H</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>+</mo><mrow><msub><mi>μF</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msup><mrow><msubsup><mi>W</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow><mn>10</mn></msubsup><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>[</mo><mrow><msup><mrow><mo>(</mo><msubsup><mi>W</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow><mn>10</mn></msubsup><mo>)</mo></mrow><mi>†</mi></msup><mo>⁢</mo><msubsup><mi>F</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msubsup><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msub><mi>S</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mi>D</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><msub><mi>F</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁢</mo><msubsup><mi>W</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow><mn>10</mn></msubsup></mrow><mo>]</mo></mrow></mrow><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup><mo>·</mo><msup><mrow><mo>(</mo><msubsup><mi>W</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow><mn>10</mn></msubsup><mo>)</mo></mrow><mi>†</mi></msup></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><msubsup><mi>F</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msubsup><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msubsup><mi>X</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow><mi>†</mi></msubsup><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mi>D</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><mo> </mo><mrow><mo>[</mo><mrow><mrow><msub><mi>E</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mi>D</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>+</mo><mrow><mfrac><mn>1</mn><mn>2</mn></mfrac><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msub><mi>αX</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mi>D</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><mi>Δ</mi><mo>⁢</mo><mstyle><mspace width="0.3em" height="0.3ex" /></mstyle><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msub><mi>H</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow><mo>]</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mtd><mtd><mrow><mo>[</mo><mn>16</mn><mo>]</mo></mrow></mtd></mtr></mtable></math>
2N
2N
2N
2N
2N
2N
2N
315
The vector A(j) is designed to compensate for the difference between H(j−D−1) and H(j−1), thereby compensating for the presence of the delay D in Equation 3. In other words, the vector A(j) comprises delay compensation terms which are used to modify the filter coefficients H(j) to achieve a more up-to-date equalization of the incoming signals. Notably, in the event that α=0, there is no delay compensation applied (i.e., A(j)=0 and Equation 16 is identical to Equation 3). In that event that α=1, the full amount of delay compensation is applied. In practice, α may be set to a value between zero and one, such that only a portion of the full delay compensation is applied, thereby reducing the likelihood that an erroneous symbol estimate will result in a large error in H(j).
2N×2N
2N×2N
†
A further simplification of Equation 16 may be achieved by using the statistical expectation of the covariance term X(j−D−1)X(j−D−1), expressed as follows:
<math overflow="scroll"><mtable><mtr><mtd><mrow><mrow><msub><mi>H</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>j</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>=</mo><mrow><mrow><msub><mi>H</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>+</mo><mrow><msub><mi>μF</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msup><mrow><msubsup><mi>W</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow><mn>10</mn></msubsup><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>[</mo><mrow><msup><mrow><mo>(</mo><msubsup><mi>W</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow><mn>10</mn></msubsup><mo>)</mo></mrow><mi>†</mi></msup><mo>⁢</mo><msubsup><mi>F</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msubsup><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msub><mi>S</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mi>D</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><msub><mi>F</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁢</mo><msubsup><mi>W</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow><mn>10</mn></msubsup></mrow><mo>]</mo></mrow></mrow><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup><mo>·</mo><msup><mrow><mo>(</mo><msubsup><mi>W</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow><mn>10</mn></msubsup><mo>)</mo></mrow><mi>†</mi></msup></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msubsup><mi>F</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msubsup><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>[</mo><mrow><mrow><mrow><msubsup><mi>X</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow><mi>†</mi></msubsup><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mi>D</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msub><mi>E</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mi>D</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow><mo>+</mo><mrow><mfrac><mn>1</mn><mn>2</mn></mfrac><mo>⁢</mo><mi>αɛ</mi><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><mo>{</mo><mrow><mrow><msubsup><mi>X</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow><mi>†</mi></msubsup><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mi>D</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msub><mi>X</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mi>D</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow><mo>}</mo></mrow><mo>⁢</mo><mi>Δ</mi><mo>⁢</mo><mstyle><mspace width="0.3em" height="0.3ex" /></mstyle><mo>⁢</mo><mrow><msub><mi>H</mi><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow><mo>]</mo></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mrow></mtd><mtd><mrow><mo>[</mo><mn>17</mn><mo>]</mo></mrow></mtd></mtr></mtable></math>
where ε{ } denotes the expectation.
X
j−D−
X
j−D−
X
j−D−
U
F
W
W
F
U
X
j−D−
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2K
2K×2K
K×2K
K×2K
2K×2K
2N×2K
2N×2N
†
†
01
†
01
−1
†
It may be shown that the following approximation holds true:
ε{(1)(1)}=2·ε{(1)()(1)} [18]
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
†
It follows that ε{X(j−D−1)X(j−D−1)} may be approximated as the 2 ·S(j−D−1), where S(j) is as expressed in Equation 5.
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N
2N
2N×2N
2N×L
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×L
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N
2N×2N
2N
†
10
10
†
−1
10
−1
10
†
−1
†
H
j
H
j−
F
W
W
F
S
j−
F
W
W
F
X
j−D−
E
j−D−
S
j−D−
H
j−
Where the matrix 2·S(j−D−1) is used in place of the expectation ε{X(j−D−1)X(j−D−1)}, Equation 17 may be rewritten as:
()=(1)+μ[()(1)]·()[(1)(1)+α(1)Δ(1)] [19]
H
j
H
j−
F
W
W
F
S
j−D−
F
W
W
F
X
j−D−
E
j−D−
H
j−
2N
2N
2N×2N
2N×L
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×L
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N
2N
10
10
†
−1
10
−1
10
†
−1
†
In turn, Equation 19 may be rewritten as:
()=(1)+μ[()(1)]·()(1)[(1)+αμΔ(1)] [20]
2N
2N
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
2N
2N
2N
2N×2N
2N×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N
2N
10
†
−1
10
−1
−1
−1
10
−1
−1
10
†
−1
†
H
j
H
j−
F
W
F
{tilde over (S)}
j−
I
F
W
F
X
j−D−
E
j−D−
H
j−
Equation 20 represents the frequency-domain compensation coefficients H(j) for RLS equalization using statistical delay compensation. A comparison of Equation 20 to Equation 3 shows that the delay compensation is achieved by simply adding the term αμΔH(j−1). Furthermore, as explained previously, the expression [(W)FS(j−D−1)FW]may be simplified to F[{tilde over (S)}(j−1)+δI]F, where {tilde over (S)}(j) is the diagonal frequency-domain matrix expressed in Equation 10. With this simplification, an approximation of the frequency-domain compensation coefficients H(j) for RLS equalization using statistical delay compensation is expressed as:
()=(1)+μ[(1)+δ]·()(1)(1)+αμΔ(1) [21]
FIG. 4
FIG. 2
400
400
228
400
300
illustrates digital signal processing for an approximation of RLS in accordance with a second example of the technology disclosed herein. The digital signal processing is an example of the digital signal processing shown in . The digital signal processing includes all of the processing operations of the digital signal processing , as well as additional processing operations designed to achieve the statistical delay compensation of Equation 21.
2N
2N
450
As described above, the statistical delay compensation may be achieved by adding the term αμΔH(j−1) to the calculation of the compensation coefficients H(j). An example of processing that may be used to implement this is shown in box .
356
401
401
411
402
403
411
450
403
404
405
405
406
408
405
407
409
L
L
L
L
L
L
L
ĥ
j
ĥ
j−D−
ĥ
j−
The accumulation operation generates signals which are representative of the time-domain compensation coefficients ĥ(j). The signals are added to signals by an addition operation , thereby resulting in respective signals . The signals are a function of the values of ĥat a previous block. In addition to being output from the box , the signals undergo a delay of 1 block by a delay operation , thereby resulting in respective signals denoted by ĥ(j−1). The signals undergo a delay of D blocks by a delay operation , thereby resulting in respective signals denoted by ĥ(j−D−1). A difference operation is applied to the signals and the signals , thereby resulting in respective difference signals which are expressed as:
Δ()=(1)−(1) [22]
L
2N
The vector Δĥ(j) is the time-domain version of the vector ΔH(j) expressed in Equation 15.
410
409
411
411
401
L
th
A multiplication operation calculates the product of the signals and the constant αμ, thereby resulting in the respective signals which are expressed as αμΔĥ(j). The signals are then added to the signals of the (j+1)block.
403
450
ĥ
j
ĥ
j−
F
{tilde over (S)}
j−D−
I
F
W
F
X
j−D−
E
j−D−
ĥ
j−
L
L
L×L
L×L
L×L
L×L
2N×L
2N×2N
2N×2N
2N
L
−1
−1
10
†
−1
†
Accordingly, for a given block j, the signals output by the box may be expressed as:
()=(1)+μ[(1)30 δ]·()(1)(1)+αμΔ(1) [23]
403
358
360
306
400
306
2N
2N
2N×2N
2N×L
L
FIG. 4
10
The signals may undergo the zero padding operation and the 2N-FFT operation , thereby resulting in the respective signals that are representative of the frequency-domain compensation coefficients H(j). As a result of the digital signal processing shown in , the signals are expressed by Equation 21, where ΔH(j−1)=FWΔĥ(j−1).
FIG. 5
FIG. 2
500
500
228
illustrates digital signal processing for an approximation of RLS in accordance with a third example of the technology disclosed herein. The digital signal processing is an example of the digital signal processing shown in .
330
331
332
334
337
345
501
503
501
331
502
331
503
340
504
340
2N×2N
2N
†
FIGS. 3 and 4
FIG. 5
As described in the preceding examples, the multiplication operation generates signals which may be expressed as X(j−D−1)E(j−D−1). However, in place of the 2N-IFFT operation , the windowing operation , and the L-FFT operations and illustrated in , frequency-domain smoothing and decimation operations and are used. The frequency-domain smoothing may be implemented, for example, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,005,368 to Roberts et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,385,747 to Roberts et al., U.S. Pat. No. 9,094,122 to Roberts et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 9,590,731 to Roberts et al. As shown in , the operation is applied to the signals , thereby resulting in respective signals which represent smoothed, decimated versions of the signals . The operation is applied to the signals , thereby resulting in signals which represent smoothed, decimated versions of the signals .
347
504
505
349
505
506
351
506
507
338
502
507
508
356
The averaging operation is applied to the signals , thereby resulting in respective signals . The inversion operation is applied to the signals , thereby resulting in respective signals . The matching delay is applied to the signals , thereby resulting in respective signals . The multiplication operation multiplies the signals by the signals , thereby resulting in respective signals that are input to the accumulation operation .
508
356
509
404
510
510
406
511
408
510
511
512
L
L
L
L
L
L
H
j
H
j−D−
H
j−
The signals are frequency-domain signals, rather than time-domain signals. Accordingly, the accumulation operation generates respective frequency-domain signals which are representative of the frequency-domain compensation coefficients H(j). The delay operation generates frequency-domain signals which are representative of the frequency-domain compensation coefficients of the preceding clock cycle, that is H(j−1). The signals undergo the delay D applied by the delay operation , thereby resulting in respective signals denoted by H(j−D−1). The difference operation is applied to the signals and the signals , thereby resulting in respective difference signals which are expressed as:
Δ()=(1)−(1) [24]
410
516
513
513
509
514
L
th
The multiplication operation calculates the product of the signals and the constant αμ, thereby resulting in the respective signals which are expressed as αμΔH(j). The signals are then added to the signals of the (j+1)block, thereby resulting in signals .
354
358
360
515
515
515
514
306
305
FIGS. 3 and 4
FIG. 5
2N
In this example, in place of the L-IFFT operation , the zero padding operation , and the 2N-FFT operation illustrated in , a linear interpolation operation is used. The linear interpolation operation is implemented in the frequency domain and is used to take an input vector of length L and output a vector of length 2N. As shown in , the linear interpolation operation is applied to the signals , thereby resulting in the respective signals that are representative of the frequency-domain compensation coefficients H(j) to be used by the filter .
FIG. 6
600
600
104
200
illustrates an example method for performing an approximation of RLS equalization in accordance with some examples of the technology disclosed herein. According to some examples, the method may be performed at a receiver device, such as the receiver device or .
602
106
102
104
204
200
206
204
208
210
216
218
216
220
224
226
220
102
FIG. 2
At , the receiver device detects a received signal comprising a degraded version of a transmitted signal, the received signal suffering from degradations incurred over a communication channel, such as the communication channel between the transmitter device and the receiver device . According to some examples, the transmitted signal and the received signal are optical signals. According to one example, as described with respect to , the received optical signal may be detected by a communication interface of the receiver device . The polarizing beam splitter may split the optical signal into the polarized components , which may be processed by the optical hybrid , thereby resulting in the optical signals . The photodetectors may convert the optical signals into the analog signals , and the ADCs may generate the respective digital signals from the analog signals . According to some examples, the received signal may be representative of data and FEC redundancy that is dependent on the data, the FEC redundancy having been generated as a result of the data having undergone FEC encoding, for example, at the transmitter device . According to some examples, the received signal may be representative of symbols. The symbols may include one or more predetermined symbols (also referred to as training symbols).
604
604
305
228
300
400
500
604
222
226
224
308
FIGS. 3, 4, and 5
At , the receiver device applies an adaptive filter to a series of received blocks of a digital representation of the received signal, thereby generating respective filtered blocks, where each received block represents 2N frequency bins, and where N is a positive integer. For example, the adaptive filter applied at may comprise the filter as described with respect to any one of . As part of the digital signal processing (and , , and ), the adaptive filter applied at may be implemented by circuitry such as the ASIC , either in the time domain or the frequency domain. According to one example, the digital representation of the received signal may refer to the time-domain signals generated by the ADCs . According to another example, the digital representation of the received signal may refer to the frequency-domain signals . In general, a received block may be understood as comprising a digital representation of a plurality of samples of the received signal detected at the communication interface over a period of time.
606
317
325
319
321
323
350
506
352
507
th
th
th
At , the receiver device calculates coefficients for use by the adaptive filter on a jreceived block. The coefficients are calculated as a function of (i) error estimates associated with a (j−D−1)filtered block, where D is a positive integer representing a number of blocks, and where j is a positive integer greater than (D−1), and (ii) an inverse of an approximate covariance matrix associated with the (j−D−1)received block, where the approximate covariance matrix is a diagonal matrix of size L×L, and where L is a positive integer lower than 2N, that is L<2N. According to some examples, L may be significantly lower than 2N, that is L<<2N. According to one example, L could be on the order of 30, while 2N could be on the order of 1024. The error estimates may be represented, for example, by the signals or the signals , or any of the intermediate signals , , or . The inverse of the approximate covariance matrix may be represented, for example, by the signals or (or by the signals or ). As previously noted, the inversion of a diagonal matrix of size L×L amounts to inverting a vector of length L. This may offer a substantial reduction in computational complexity (e.g., processing time) relative to the approximation of Equation 7, which involves an inversion of 2N elements.
606
th
th
th
According to some examples, the approximate covariance matrix (of which the inverse is used at ) may be expressed in the frequency domain, such that each one of the L diagonal terms of corresponds to a different frequency. As expressed in Equation 10, the approximate covariance matrix for the (j−D−1)received block may be calculated as a recursive function of a preceding approximate covariance matrix associated with a preceding received block of the series. For example, the approximate covariance matrix for the (j−D−1)received block may be calculated as a recursive function of the immediately preceding approximate covariance matrix associated with the (j−D−2)received block of the series.
348
According to some examples, the approximate covariance matrix is one of a plurality of sub-matrices comprised in a composite matrix. For example, in the case of a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system (such as a system that processes received signals in the X and Y polarizations), the signals may be expressed as:
<math overflow="scroll"><mtable><mtr><mtd><mrow><mrow><msub><mover><mi>S</mi><mo>~</mo></mover><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>L</mi><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>⁢</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mo>=</mo><mrow><mo>[</mo><mtable><mtr><mtd><msub><mrow><msub><mover><mi>S</mi><mo>~</mo></mover><mrow><mi>L</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mi>XX</mi></msub></mtd><mtd><msub><mrow><msub><mover><mi>S</mi><mo>~</mo></mover><mrow><mi>L</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mi>XY</mi></msub></mtd></mtr><mtr><mtd><msub><mrow><msub><mover><mi>S</mi><mo>~</mo></mover><mrow><mi>L</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mi>YX</mi></msub></mtd><mtd><msub><mrow><msub><mover><mi>S</mi><mo>~</mo></mover><mrow><mi>L</mi><mo>×</mo><mi>L</mi></mrow></msub><mo>⁡</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>-</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow><mi>YY</mi></msub></mtd></mtr></mtable><mo>]</mo></mrow></mrow></mtd><mtd><mrow><mo>[</mo><mn>25</mn><mo>]</mo></mrow></mtd></mtr></mtable></math>
L×L
XX
L×L
XY
L×L
YX
L×L
YY
2L×2L
2L×2L
L×L
XX
L×L
YX
L×L
YY
600
where {tilde over (S)}(j−1), {tilde over (S)}(j−1), {tilde over (S)}(j−1), {tilde over (S)}(j−1)denote the four diagonal sub-matrices which are approximations of the covariance matrices associated with the X polarization, the XY cross-polarization, the YX cross-polarization, and the Y polarization, respectively, of the received signal. Since each sub-matrix has size L×L, it follows that the composite matrix {tilde over (S)}(j−1) has size 2L×2L. In such cases, the method may comprise calculating the coefficients by inverting the composite matrix. In this example, inversion of the composite matrix {tilde over (S)}(j−1) involves the inversion of the four diagonal sub-matrices {tilde over (S)}(j−1), {tilde over (S)}(j−1), {tilde over (S)}(j−1), which amounts to inverting four vectors of length L. This is equivalent to inverting L 2×2 diagonal sub-matrices.
600
411
513
th
th
According to some examples, the method may further comprise calculating the filter coefficients using delay compensation terms which are dependent on a difference between coefficients used by the adaptive filter on a (j−D−1)received block and coefficients used by the adaptive filter on a (j−1)received block. The delay compensation terms may be represented, for example, by the signals or the signals .
FIGS. 3, 4, and 5
304
According to some examples, the proposed techniques for approximating RLS equalization described in this document may be used in conjunction with other equalization operations. For example, although not illustrated in , a static equalizer filter may be applied to the signals prior to the approximated RLS equalization, in order to compensate for relatively slow changes in the channel response. Additionally or alternatively, techniques for feedforward equalization as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16/903,792, filed Jun. 17, 2020, may be used in conjunction with the delay-compensated feedback equalization techniques described herein to compensate for very fast changes in channel response.
In general, various controls and operations may overlap or operate within any of the adaptive filtering loops described in this document, including, for example, clock recovery, jitter suppression, carrier frequency recovery, carrier phase recovery, maximum-likelihood symbol detection, DC offset, transient tracking, noise whitening, quantization, clipping, and gain control.
In general, any of the adaptive filtering loops described in this document may include approximations, quantization, clipping, windowing, DC-balance, leaking, scaling, rounding, filtering, averaging, or various other operations that are not explicitly described but are familiar to persons skilled in the art.
The scope of the claims should not be limited by the details set forth in the examples, but should be given the broadest interpretation consistent with the description as a whole. | |
The Agent Utilization metric gives you insight into several aspects of your service desk’s operation. First, it shows you how much of your agents’ time is spent in handling customer calls. As such it’s a measure of productivity.
Second, the Agent Utilization metric relates directly to the Cost Per Call metric. Because personnel costs (salary, benefits, etc.) are the largest component of overall service desk expense, having agents sitting idle raises the Cost Per Call metric. On the other hand, high Agent Utilization rates indicate those personnel dollars are being used efficiently.
Third, as discussed below, very high Agent Utilization rates can signal unrest among the agent population.
What Is the Agent Utilization metric?
The Agent Utilization is the ratio of time spent on calls divided by the total time agents are logged in and assisting customers, or are available to assist customers.
What Is the Agent Utilization Formula?
Because this metric intends to measure the overall productivity of all agents, there are a few different options for making the calculation.
In the simplest case:
However, to make even this simple case practical, you’ll need to define a few parameters.
- What “given period” do you want to use? Weekly scores will give you more data for trend plotting, although many service desks default to monthly periods.
- Be sure the “total time worked” includes only that time agents are actively logged in and helping (or are available to help) customers.
- You may want to consider the time spent doing after-call research needed to resolve the case. After all, a ten-minute call that requires an agent to spend an hour doing research should be reflected in the metric.
- If you have several teams working at different levels of competency, do you want to develop metrics for each group?
- To be entirely accurate in calculating your metric you may want to look at the denominator carefully. Do you want to factor in break times for each agent, then average them for the entire team? How about vacation or sick days taken from the “pool” of available work hours? What about training time? Do you really need to delve into that level of detail? It can be hard to come by, depending on the amount of data your ACD or ticketing system provides. If you want to avoid that fine-detail level, there’s an alternate way to make the computation.
EXAMPLE:
Your service desk handles 250 calls per period and spends an average of 10 minutes per call.
The period you want to measure is a calendar week. With your desk operating 7 days for 10 hours per day, you have 600 minutes per day.
The same considerations as noted for the simpler formula above apply here, too.
And, if you want to sharpen up the metric without trying to capture every non-productive moment, you could use your existing software systems to determine the time lost to breaks, vacations, etc.—then add a few points to the metric. For instance, you might look at service-desk-wide figures for non-productive time. You may find, say, 580 is a more accurate figure for minutes worked each day. That would move your metric to 61.6%.
Impact of Poor Agent Utilization Scores
- Poor scores that can hurt your service desk performance can occur both at the low and high end of the range.
- A low score suggests low productivity, perhaps due to over staffing, with agents sitting idly waiting for calls.
- A high score, much above 60 or 70 percent is likely to lead to agent turnover. While it might seem that an even higher percentage utilization would be desirable from the standpoint of service desk operating expense, such high values can have psychological impact on people who feel “maxed out” with no time to breathe between calls. Such agents are not likely to be as helpful to customers, which may begin to depress your customer sat metrics as well.
How to Monitor Agent Utilization
Every service desk manager needs to identify issues related to the desk’s performance—both from the standpoint of expense, and of effectiveness in serving customers. Traditionally, managers have turned to the reports produced by their ACD and ticketing systems. However, studying reports looks backwards. It tells you nothing about what is happening right now. Service desk operation is a living event, changing each moment. A service desk monitoring tool that shows you real-time metrics and that consolidates information from many different technologies, even siloed systems, gives you the ability to manage proactively, all on one dashboard—one that requires a single login to present data from numerous disparate software tools you already have. Using the right tool gives you an in-the-moment early warning system to better manage your expenses and to enhance customer satisfaction. | http://blog.rdtmetrics.com/how-agent-utilization-is-affecting-the-efficiency-and-cost-of-your-service-desk/ |
To deal with the ever-increasing complexity of surgical practice, all surgeons must be conversant in the emerging science of human interface technology. This field of study focuses on how people perceive, relate to, and use their surroundings.
Similarly, What is an example of a human technology interface?
The devices with large touchscreen surfaces, such as iPad-like devices, touchscreen ECG interfaces, in-room touchscreen vital sign monitors, etc., are those human-technology interfaces that typically work very well for both patients and nurses; their success is due to our current society’s pervasive touchscreen technology.
Also, it is asked, When was human machine interface invented?
In 1975, Carlisle made use of it for the first time. The phrase is meant to express that, unlike other technologies with narrowly defined purposes, computers have a wide range of applications that often entail an ongoing conversation between the user and the computer.
Secondly, What is the term that denotes the ease with which people can use an interface to achieve a particular goal?
The phrase used to describe how simple it is for users to utilize an interface to accomplish a certain objective is ” .” Usability.
Also, Which of the following is output device for human machine interface?
4.3. An HMI is an input-output device that displays process data for human operators to operate.
People also ask, What is human technology interface in nursing informatics?
To deal with the ever-increasing complexity of surgical practice, all surgeons must be conversant in the emerging science of human interface technology. This field of study focuses on how people perceive, relate to, and use their surroundings.
Related Questions and Answers
What is the interface between human and computer?
Man-machine studies or man-machine interaction were the earlier names for human computer interface (HCI). It focuses on the development, implementation, and evaluation of computer systems and associated phenomena that are intended for human use.
What is HCI and why is it important?
Human-computer interaction’s function in the workplace. In order to design and create technical products that fulfill human requirements, the multidisciplinary areas of human computer interaction (HCI) and user experience (UX) consult human-centered academic topics including psychology and sociology.
How does Human Machine Interface work?
PLCs, RTUs, and IEDs may all be accessed by an operator via the use of human-machine interfaces. HMIs represent the digital controls that are used to perceive and affect that process graphically in lieu of the manually operated switches, knobs, and other electrical controls.
What is the meaning of task analysis?
Task analysis is a methodical approach to investigating the actions users take to accomplish their objectives. The process starts with research to compile tasks and objectives, then a thorough analysis of the activities actually performed.
Which of the following is are characteristic s of usability?
Understanding the five usability criteria of effective, efficient, engaging, fault tolerant, and simple to learn aids in directing user-centered design efforts toward the creation of usable products.
Is the term used to describe the action or execution of a series of tasks in a prescribed sequence?
Workflow. This term is used to describe the performance of many tasks in a predetermined order. A work process is defined as a series of stages (tasks, events, and interactions).
Why is HMI important?
HMI: The technological aspect and significance HMI systems, in a nutshell, provide the controls necessary for a user to manipulate a device or instrument. When done correctly, they provide simple, dependable accessibility and streamline the operation of technology.
What are the components of HMI?
HMI operations Pushbuttons, lighted pushbuttons, emergency stop switches, keylock switches, buzzers, joysticks, and lever switches are just a few of the HMI components that EAO offers. Our extensive selection is completed by several more HMI Components.
What are 5 common technological devices used in healthcare?
programmable IV pumps. The doses and drips administered to patients are managed by automated IV pumps. Portable displays. smar beds Wearable technology. Records of electronic health. Command centers that are centralized. Apps and telehealth.
Why is the Hitech Act important?
The HITECH Act pushed healthcare organizations to embrace electronic health records and enhance security and privacy safeguards for patient information. This was accomplished via monetary incentives for using electronic health records (EHRs) and stiffer penalties for breaking the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules.
What are the 3 main components of HCI?
Human-computer interaction, or HCI, is the study of how humans interact with computers and how well or poorly they are designed to work with people. HCI, as its name suggests, comprises of three components: the user, the computer, and how they interact.
What are the benefits of HCI?
The key benefits of HCI are cost reductions – for smaller setups -, simplicity, and ease of deployment and maintenance. You handle fewer systems thanks to HCI. The deployment times for several apps are shortened by hyper-converged clouds. They also lessen integration complexity and design time for solutions.
What are the 7 HCI principles?
The Seven Principles of Norman Make sure the user mental model is correctly mapped to the conceptual and designed models. Convert limitations into benefits (Physical constraints, Cultural constraints, Technological constraints). Design for Mistake. Standardize if everything else fails.
What are the three 3 main types of HMI screens?
The overseer, the data handler, and the pushbutton replacer are the three fundamental kinds of HMIs. The overseer, the data handler, and the pushbutton replacer are the three fundamental kinds of HMIs.
Is HMI a hardware or software?
The hardware used, such as an operator interface terminal (OIT), an embedded PC, or PC-based, often influences the human-machine interface (HMI) software.
What are the four types of task analysis HCI?
Performance analysis is the broad category for task analysis. Analysis of cognitive tasks. content evaluation. Analyzing Learning. Analyzing activity.
How can the use of a task analysis help in the teaching complex skills?
Understanding every step required to complete a job may help identify those that may need more training and can aid in teaching the work in a logical progression.
What is efficiency in HCI?
Efficiency is defined in terms of HCI or usability as the resources used by the user in proportion to the precision and thoroughness of objectives attained (ISO standard 9241).
What are the goals of interaction design in HCI?
The purpose of interaction design is to develop products that help users accomplish their goals as effectively as possible.
When healthcare professionals work with information and generate information and knowledge as a product they can be described as?
Knowledge workers are people who produce knowledge and information as a result of their work with information. people who produce knowledge and information as a result of working with it.
How can safe offsite use of portable devices best be accomplished?
What enables the secure usage of mobile devices like smartphones away from a location? Data may be protected through encryption, access restrictions, and remote data deletion.
What is a non value added activity quizlet Informatics?
Process steps that are required for compliance or regulatory reasons but do not advance its completion or improve the product or service in any way.
What is the difference between GUI and HMI?
To summarize, an HMI is a kind of control system that enables a human operator to manage a machine or piece of equipment. In contrast, a GUI is a control interface that has been digitally developed and is used to operate an electronic equipment.
Conclusion
The “examples of human-technology interface” is a term that has been used to describe the ways in which humans interact with technology. These interactions can be seen in many different forms, but they all share one common goal: to make our lives easier.
This Video Should Help:
The “examples of human-technology interface in healthcare” is a process that has been around for a long time. It’s also one of the most important parts of many modern technologies such as smartphones, smartwatches, and even self-driving cars. The “Humantechnology Interface” is the term used to describe this process. | https://zplug.sh/what-is-the-humantechnology-interface-2/ |
Q:
iPhone Open GL ES using FBX - How do I import animations from FBX into iPhone?
I've been researching this extensively.
We have a game that's 90% complete, using custom game logic in iPhone 4.0. We've been asked to import a 3D model and have it animate when various events happen in the game.
I've put together an OpenGL view (based on Eagl and several examples), and used Blender to import the model, as well as Jeff LeMarche's script to export the .h file. After much trial, it worked, and I was able to show a rotating model (unskinned).
However, the 3d artist hadn't UV unwrapped the model, so provided me a new model, this one as a Maya file, along with animation in a FBX format, a .obj file, and .tga texture unwrapped.
My question is : how can I use FBX inside OpenGL ES inside iPhone to run through animations? And what's the pipeline to get this Maya file into Blender to be able to create a .h file. I've tried the obj2opengl however the model is missing normals (did it have it in the first place?) and the skin isn't applying at all (possibly a code issue, something I think I can fix).
I'm trying to use Jeff LeMarche's animation tutorial but can't figure out how to get the model files into a proper .h file for use.
Any advice?
A:
I am not sure if Maya has Collada format export by default. I guess it does. Only in the case it does not, you might then just install a plugin: http://sourceforge.net/projects/colladamaya/ .Then, use a Blender build that supports collada import in at least in bones, weights, animation. I think latest blender beta builds do support it. You might try one or several of the latest here: http://www.graphicall.org/builds/
So, if all that works, means you can export as collada file from Maya, import that file into Blender, and from blender, export as just blend file (ie, for using in that engine mentioned) , or export as directx *.x file (perhaps the import might also work as well, and I think there are x exporters for Maya) , or, reported to work, export from Blender as FBX file,lastly, but with some tech problems of the md2 file format, you could use md2. You could as well just "bake" all frames inside an "Action" in blender, there's a button for that, so to be able to export an OBJ per frame, or, less memory/performance waste, one per x frames, then, in your code, use interpolation, linear or spline, between keyframes, if you can. You might need to do a conversion from these OBJ files to your .h files in a way that your code interpolates (blends motion between two keyframes), as so many objs might be too much memory for the iphone.
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What are the challenges of using Artificial Intelligence?Posted on .
Artificial intelligence is going to change every industry, but we have to understand its limits.
The principle limitation of AI is that it learns from the data. There is no other way in which knowledge can be incorporated. That means any inaccuracies in the data will be reflected in the results. And any additional layers of prediction or analysis have to be added separately.
Today’s AI systems are trained to do a clearly defined task. The system that plays poker cannot play solitaire or chess. The system that detects fraud cannot drive a car or give you legal advice. In fact, an AI system that detects health care fraud cannot accurately detect tax fraud or warranty claims fraud.
In other words, these systems are very, very specialized. They are focused on a single task and are far from behaving like humans.
Likewise, self-learning systems are not autonomous systems. The imagined AI technologies that you see in movies and TV are still science fiction. But computers that can probe complex data to learn and perfect specific tasks are becoming quite common. | http://histechup.com/what-are-the-challenges-of-using-artificial-intelligence/ |
After a long day of traveling for a total of 9 hours by car & plane, my family finally arrived home. As I walked up the stairs, I noticed a package by the front door, and figured that it was just more parts for the computer that my brother is building [AKA the computer he is paying my cousin to build for him]. When I came downstairs later, though, Larry had taken the package to the kitchen and was asking my dad what it was.
A bomb? I thought idly as I loaded laundry into the washing machine.
Upon opening the package, we were faced with another box.
“It’s upside down,” Larry said, observing the This Side Up arrows on the side. Dad flipped the box over and out dropped a flimsy cardboard box of…pastries.
After I ravaged the contents.
I suppose the “baking company” was a hint, but we couldn’t help but wonder who the hell would be sending us a box of cookies without any notification. They looked delicious, though, and I blocked out thoughts of poisonous baked goods as I reached for a chocolate chip cookie.
On the lid of the inside box was a name, address and phone number. The intended recipient of these cookies turned out to be Yanling Yin from Downers Grove; my father’s name is Yanling Li.
For food that was 6 days old, everything inside was surprisingly delicious. Mother ended up calling the phone number, but it was apparently the number to an office, and Yanling Yin was out of town until the 10th. I’m not exactly sure why this package ended up at our house, but I am enjoying the spoils nonetheless.
You are currently reading This Made My Day at auradis. | https://auradis.com/2009/08/05/this-made-my-day/ |
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Point Addis is featured in Jen's book "Quilt Recipes" and is one of the projects in the book that has an Acrylic Template Only Set (ATO). The 5 other template sets from the book are Wensleydale, Diamond Exchange, Tomar, Winki Stars and Clopin Cushion. Please note ATOs do not include instructions these are only available in the Quilt Recipe book.
Set of acrylic templates to make Jen Kingwell's Point Addis quilt. Templates only; pattern and instructions NOT included. | https://www.sweethomequilting.com/shop/Notions/p/Point-Addis-Acrylic-Template-Only-by-Jen-Kingwell-x59101037.htm |
Access to the M25 (Junction 1a) is within 0.5 mile (800 metres) of the property and is some 0.8 miles (1.3 km) west of Stone Crossing Railway Station. Other well-known occupiers on the Business Park include, Laing O’Rourke, Kuehne and Nagel, HSBC, Mazda Motors, John Lewis Distribution Centre and Howdens.
The property comprises a modern mid-terraced, two storey office building completed in 2009. Constructed from a steel frame with brick and metal clad elevations, the property benefits from 12 marked car parking spaces (including one disabled space) set within a U-shaped office complex.
The ground floor is let to Graypen Limited on a full repairing and insuring lease for a term of 6 years from 2nd September 2015, expiring on 1st September 2021. There is a tenant’s break option on 1st September 2018, subject to 6 months’ prior written notice. The current passing rent is £24,000 per annum (£253.27 per sq m / £23.53 per sq ft). The lease is outside 1954 Act protection.
The first floor is let to Global Intelligent Logistics (UK) Limited on a full repairing and insuring lease for a term of 5 years from 27th July 2016, expiring on 26th July 2021. There is a tenant’s break option on 27th July 2019, subject to 3 months’ prior written notice. The current passing rent is £24,000 per annum (£253.51 per sq m / £23.55 per sq ft). The tenant benefits from a 3 month rent free period, expiring on 26th October 2016. The vendor will cover this shortfall by way of an adjustment on completion of the sale. A rent deposit of £14,400 (inclusive of VAT) is held by the Landlord. The lease is outside 1954 Act protection.
Therefore, the total income is £48,000 per annum.
Graypen was established in 1969 and provides services to the shipping industry which include port agency, hub agency, STS transfers, LNG Operations, customs clearance and EU-ACD. They operate from 25 offices around the UK and Holland. For further information please visit www.graypen.com.
Global Intelligent Logistics (UK) Limited, (Co. No. 09096729) has reported a Shareholders’ Deficit of £109,345 for the year ending 30th June 2015. A rent deposit of £14,400 (inclusive of VAT) is held by the Landlord.
We are instructed to seek offers in the region of £570,000 (Five Hundred and Seventy Thousand Pounds), subject to contract, reflecting a net initial yield of 8.02% and a capital value of £3,009 per sq m / £280 per sq ft, assuming purchaser’s costs of 4.96%. | https://www.singerviellesales.com/properties/london-office-investment-opportunity-dartford-unit-2 |
The Houthi Consumer Protection Association said on Saturday it has seized a large shipment of expired flour that had been imported by the World Food Programme in Yemen aid.
The shipment of 163.000 bags of expired flour arrived at Hodeidah seaport and was rejected by Yemen Standardization Metrology and Quality Control Organisation on May 18th, the association said in a statement carried by the Houthi-run Saba news agency. "The flour was unfit for human consumption," the statement said.
In April, the WFP imported 15.000 empty bags of flour but the organisation rejected them because dates of production, expiration and country of origin were written on them in advance, it said.
In addition, the authorities seized 24.570 bags of expired flour at WFP warehouses during a campaign by the association and the industry and trade ministry between the period from 16 Shaaban until 16 Ramadan across Yemen, the association said, adding that it has destroyed 90 tons of expired flour.
"Such quantity was allocated for only one month. Throughout the year during the past years, food assistance has been wasted this way because food aid materials did not conform to specifications".
The statement comes amid increasing tensions between the Houthis and the WFP after the latter accused the Houthis of stealing aid and blocking delivery of aid to population in need.
The association called for reconsidering the role of the WFP and establishing a new mechanism of aid distribution, suggesting the new mechanism should be offering cash assistance through banks and buying domestically produced food materials instead of imported ones.
Yemen has been devastated by a five-year armed conflict which has caused the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The UN says around 24 million Yemeni people are in need of some form of humanitarian or protection assistance, including 8.4 million people who don't know where their next meal will come from. And there are more than two million children suffering from acute malnutrition.
Days ago, the WFP threatened to suspend aid distribution in Houthi controlled regions citing practices by Houthi leaders affecting its humanitarian operations.
In response, Houthi leader Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi, chair of the supreme revolutionary committee, said the WFP attack on them was triggered by pressure placed on the WFP by state members of a Saudi-led military coalition. The coalition has been fighting in Yemen since March 2015.
"It was also revenge after the Yemeni authorities rejected the shipment of expired aid," Al-Houthi said. | https://debriefer.net/en/news-8627.html |
The 10,603.57 square kilometers of the Principality of Asturias stand out in all its extension for its beautiful natural landscapes and the history that awaits for the hiking lovers.
Located to the North of the Iberian Peninsula and bathed by the Bay of Biscay, Asturias is geologically the most mountainous region of Spain, which is always good news for us walkers. And there are always pleasant temperatures that allow us to escape from the intense summer heat.
So from Walkaholic we present you 6 hiking routes that you should visit in Asturias, convinced that you will enjoy them in full.
El desfiladero de los Arrudos
Located in the Redes Natural Park, the desfiladero de los Arrudos (Arrudos gorge route) is one of the major natural attractions of the Principality of Asturias. Throughout it we can admire how the water has opened its path in the limestone, creating wonderful valleys and gorges.
The presence of the Atlantic forests, always beautiful but perfect in autumn, also stands out in this path. In addition to the beech forests, there are also pastoral sheds and the Ubales Lake, the only one that can be accessed in the Redes Natural Park near the Cascayón peak, with 1,954 meters of height.
The route of the Arrudos Gorge starts at Caleao and ends at La Fontona. Although it has around 22 kilometers in total, since it is of low difficulty and the slope is only about 400 meters it can be traveled in around 4 hours.
The Bear Path
If you do not mind sharing the road with cyclists, this route is ideal for hikers and has the honor of being the most visited greenway in Asturias. This is not a serious problem, since the Bear Path (Senda del Oso in Spanish) has enough natural and ethnographic richness for everyone.
The Senda del Oso is linked to the mining past of the area, since it was built as a railroad section to transport coal from the towns of Proaza and Teverga to Trubia. After a century of exploitation, the road was abandoned.
Now, it has been taken advantage of the 22 kilometers that separate Tuñón from Entrago as an asphalted road with a protective fence to practice sports while admiring the flora and fauna, the monuments of the area or taking alternative routes.
The whole route is signposted and there are many informative banners. Do not forget to visit the Asturian bears “Paca” and “Molina” in a sanctuary next to the path. That site is managed by the Oso de Asturias Foundation.
El desfiladero de Xanas
Although shorter than the famous Cares Gorge, this path has nothing to envy it in spectacularity and beauty. Many claim that it is even richer in ecosystems.
With an approximate round-trip length of 8 km, this path goes between Villanueva to Pedroveya. Since it is of low difficulty, it can be travelled in 2-3 hours. This time is enough to cross the natural gorge and return to the starting point.
This magical route lives up to its name, since the Xana is the Asturian fairy, who lives in rivers and fountains. Therefore, it is not surprising that in this journey there is a lot of water, which help to endure the summer temperatures.
Another route that you must take into account is PR-AS-187 Route, it has a circular route of approximately 10 km. You just need to link with the Valdolayés Route that starts next to Pedroveya and that will take you almost to the starting point of the Xanas route.
La ruta de las majadas (The route of the sheepfolds)
Immersed in the deep silence of the Picos de Europa National Park, pastoral herds are resting places for shepherds and sheep in the midst of mountainous landscapes and high lakes.
Going through them is a true feast for the eyes and a return to our oldest roots. This route has approximately 25 kilometers, linking Covadonga Lakes to the Poncebos town in Cabrales.
The route of the sheepfolds will allow you a day of rest from the hectic modern life: it takes almost nine hours to reach the ending point.
La Vega de Orandi
This route has about 8 km and a slope of 700 meters, to be walked in 4 hours through one of the most amazing places in the Asturian orography.
Taking as a starting point the Covadonga sanctuary, we can admire La Santina cave, where a waterfall comes from the Orandi. In his backwater we must not forget to leave a coin, so our prayers can be heard.
The route traces the path by climbing Mount Auseva, to look for the source of the fountain that feeds the praying place. The very name of the mountain tells us that the Vega de Orandi is a sacred place: «mount on the divinized water».
Covadonga is also the burial place of Don Pelayo and Alfonso I, the Catholic, two of the Kings of Asturias. So their tombs in the Holy Cave are other places that you must check.
Las aguas bravas del Alba (The Alba whitewaters)
The Alba route, parallel to the homonymous river, is one of the walks that most bring us closer to the Asturian nature. It has an approximate round trip length of 16 km, with a slope of 380 meters to be traveled in just over 5 hours.
It was a shepherds and muleteers’ path that linked the Sobrescobio town with the council of Aller. After, the route was used to move iron from the Carmen mine on the Llaímo mountain.
It is precisely in the Llaímo fora that the road gains in beauty, thanks to its beech forest. You can find there deer, chamois, wild boar, roe deer, wolves and grouses. The fauna of the Alba River itself is not far behind, rich in aquatic blackbirds, trout and funny otters.
The Route of the Alba is contained within the Redes Natural Park, Biosphere Reserve since 2001.
Of course, this is just a sample of the many routes that a hiker can travel in Asturias. Other beautiful routes that you should take into account are the Cares route, the Archdeacon trail and many others.
But if you have a favorite route and it is not on our list, do not hesitate to mention it in a comment so that we can all benefit from your experience. Who knows? Maybe one of these days we will meet on the road, traveling the best routes in Asturias.
Apúntate a nuestra newsletter semanalTe enviaremos un correo cada semana con el nuevo artículo junto a las novedades de nuestra app móvil de senderismo. | https://blog.walkaholic.me/en/spain-trekking/the-beautiful-hiking-trails-in-asturias-that-you-should-know/ |
From The Publisher:
Dingo's Dreams is a delightful and clever family game for 2-4 players. Each player competes to be the first to successfully guide his animal through the dream world.
Each player starts with a grid of 25 tiles, set up at random in a 5x5 dreamscape. Each player also starts with one extra tile, with a picture of their animal on it. The opposite side of all dreamscape tiles also has a picture of the animal. Each turn, a random card is drawn, telling players which tile they should flip. When a player flips a tile, it means their animal is traveling through a part of the dreamscape. Each player's goal is to guide their animal through the dreamscape by positioning him in a specified pattern (which is different each game). After a card is drawn, a player takes their extra animal and slides him into the dreamscape, shifting one row or column of tiles until a new, different tile emerges from the opposite side.
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Imperial Hobbies — Role Playing Games | Board Games | Hobbies | Models | Toys — An Infinite Creation. | http://www.imperialhobbies.ca/store/product_detail.php?p=365-RVM011&pn=0 |
The Loving Wrath of Mother Nature
Once upon a time there lived a well-intentioned man. This man was sitting in his garden one afternoon when he noticed a newly formed caterpillar’s cocoon. After studying the cocoon for several days and observing no apparent changes, a small opening began to appear in the cocoon’s thick protective shell.
Later that evening, the man saw a butterfly beginning to emerge from the tiny hole. For several hours, the new-born butterfly struggled to force its body through the extremely small hole. Indeed, many hours passed, but it seemed as if the butterfly was not making any progress at all. It appeared to the man that the butterfly had gotten as far as it was physically able to go and it could not progress any further.
So, being the good-intentioned man that he was, he decided to assist the butterfly. He used a pair of scissors and snipped open a larger hole in the cocoon. Minutes later, the butterfly emerged alive. The man was pleased by his good deed and patently waited for the butterfly to flap its wings and join its brothers in the sky.
But the butterfly that emerged did not look like a typical butterfly. It had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings, even hours after emerging from the cocoon. In fact, that butterfly spent the rest of its days feebly crawling around the man’s garden, unable to carry the weight of its enlarged body and slight wings.
The well-intentioned man soon realized that the restrictions of the cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to emerge through its tiny opening was Mother Nature’s way of forcibly constricting the butterfly’s body and strengthening the butterfly’s wings for flight.
It seems that the Infinite Intelligence actually imposes certain restrictions and challenges on man and animal alike in order to strengthen us for future hardships and tests. Without accepting and conquering the challenges it is asked to face at birth, the butterfly is unable to fly. So too without accepting and conquering our own challenges, we are also unable to fly. Just as the butterfly fails to live out its true nature in being unable to fly, so do we cheat human nature by not welcoming challenges and accepting hardships. | http://nikiturner.com/archives/2008/03/07/the-loving-wraath-of-mother-nature/ |
Challenge #17 in the The Company Of Animals series. Hosted by Patchandcrew.
Challenge has finished
Statues, models / toys/decorations of any species of animal [ including sci-fi/mythical non humanoid creatures ]
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Announced:
Sunday, 19th December, 2010 (GMT)
Submissions:
Sunday, 26th December, 2010 – Saturday, 1st January, 2011 (GMT)
Voting:
Sunday, 2nd January, 2011 – Saturday, 8th January, 2011 (GMT)
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"The Real Deal"
|Camera:|
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|Submitted:||Monday, 27th December, 2010 02:56 (GMT)|
|Taken:||Sunday, 25th January, 2009|
|Focal length:||105 mm|
|Shutter speed:||1/640 sec|
|Aperture:||F5|
|ISO:||320|
|Notes:|
|Views:||190|
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Skaggs, Terry
Terry B. Skaggs, 62, of Spotsylvania, passed away peacefully on Thursday, May 30, 2019 at Mary Washington Hospital surrounded by his family. Terry was a devoted husband, loving father, and a devoted Christian. Terry's greatest joy was time spent with his family and listening to his sons play music. He unselfishly cared for everyone and always put others first. Terry took great pride and enjoyment in his career at Lockheed Martin and loved his work family. Survivors include his wife, Carey Skaggs; children Jason Skaggs (Alyssa) and Troy Skaggs (Isabella Hergenrother); brother Kevin Skaggs (Nancy) of DeSoto, Mo.; brother-in-law Henry Iddings of Caroline County; and several nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his father and mother, Arthur Skaggs and Juanita Hallmark; and his sister Janet Iddings. A service will be held at 11 a.m. on Thursday, June 6, 2019 at Highway Assembly of God, 2221 Jefferson Davis Hwy., Fredericksburg 22401. A reception will follow at the church. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the ALS Association- DC/MD/VA Chapter, 30 West Gude Dr., Suite 150, Rockville, MD 20850 or at www.alsinfo.org. Online guestbook is available at covenantfuneralservice.com
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Obituaries include a story written about the deceased and a photo. They are available to funeral homes and the public for a charge. For more information, call the Freelance Star Obituary Desk at 540-374-5410. Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. | |
Adopted by the Board of Directors on April 19, 2012
The Chamber’s Mission: Business is the priority.
The Chamber’s Vision: To create and promote economic vitality for business in the south metro region.
Economic vitality results from a combination of many factors, ranging from local circumstances and activities to national and international events. The Chamber Board generally believes economic vitality means sustained business growth sufficient to provide jobs and incomes resulting in a stable and comfortable community environment.
The Chamber the Board of Directors needs a mechanism to provide consistent and focused guidance to evaluate existing and proposed Public Policies.
Guiding Principles for Policy Evaluation:
We envision Wilsonville as a great place to operate a business, raise a family and find engaging entertainment and culture. Our vision is to create a business-friendly place that fosters innovation and entrepreneurship, encourages business growth and supports regional partnerships and collaboration. As an economic development plan is created for our city, the Wilsonville Area Chamber of Commerce adheres to the following core guiding principles.
The Wilsonville Area Chamber of Commerce stands ready to support these core guiding principles and to work with all public and private stakeholders to see this vision become a reality. We believe this flexible and multi-faceted approach will help ensure long term prosperity for Wilsonville and the South Portland Metro region.
- Partnerships and collaboration: Leverage efforts and resources in retention, marketing, and recruitment – and address challenges together. Collaborate between local governments, the chamber, educational and research institutions, businesses, and community members.
- Business retention and growth: Help our existing businesses to thrive is a top priority, whether they are small or large, or located in urban or rural areas. Create strong, diverse and healthy business vitality for the region.
- Business recruitment: Attract strategic industry clusters and firms that have the strongest potential to thrive here, invest here and create steady, family-wage jobs.
- Planning and development: Have a reputation among the business and economic development community for being fair, consistent and timely in the review and approval processes for commercial development and business-related permits.
- Process improvement: Develop a customer-focused culture to create easy, friendly service oriented processes for business owners, developers, and citizens. Create a culture of continuous improvement that strives for zero waste and maximum customer value.
- Communication and marketing: Provide strong, effective, proactive and motivating marketing of our region’s strengths while building community pride and identity. Support networking and communications among the economic and community development stakeholders and businesses.
- Transportation and infrastructure: Plan for future infrastructure needs including transportation, water, and sewer, and others, and implement improvements within a reasonable timeframe that supports economic development and growth.
- Workforce and education: Ensure there are skilled workers available to meet the growing and changing needs of employers. Connect education to jobs in our area. Support and enhance educational institutions at all levels.
- Tourism: Tourism is an industry which employs one-twelfth of all the people on our planet. It is one of Oregon’s top industries pouring over $2 billion into Oregon’s economy. The opportunities for Wilsonville to take advantage of its own tourism offerings are on the rise. We have new dining establishments, new night-time activities, new lodging companies renovating their properties and new parks and recreational activities getting regional and national attention. Every dollar a visitor brings into our city changes hands an average of four to six times. We should concentrate on marketing our tourism activities, events and lodging properties with newfound enthusiasm.
Public Policy Decision Filters:
To further assist the board in advancing our mission and vision a set of decision filters has been developed. These filters are intended to guide all decisions and actions of the board and its various standing committees in their efforts to evaluate public policies.
When the chamber considers supporting or opposing public policy issues, answers to the following questions will help guide and frame the decision making process and outcome:
1. Decision Making Process:
- Does it meet the Chamber’s Core Guiding Principles?
- Is the decision making process transparent, and inclusive of the appropriate stake holders?
- Does the policy promote timely and complete decisions supporting increased economic activity?
2. Outcomes of Policy Decisions: To further our mission and vision, the Wilsonville Area Chamber of Commerce believes it is essential to advocate for a positive business environment. The following questions are designed to help evaluate the expected outcomes of various public policies:
- Will the policies promote local and/or regional business retention, growth and expansion?
- Will the policies take a balanced and reasonable approach that protects the environment without putting unnecessary burdens on business and economic growth?
- Will the policies support opportunities for job creation within Commercial and Industrial zoned lands?
- Will the policies help to streamline the development permitting process, by eliminating unnecessary and unintentional barriers to desired development?
- Are development standards consistent with the building and site development needs of the intended users within each zoning district?
- Are revenue sources derived from the broadest possible base?
- Are public funds expended in a manner that results in business support and growth, while at the same time recognizing public benefit? | https://wilsonvillechamber.com/about/standing-public-policy/ |
ONLINE CATALOGUE:
Catalogue: Maps
Displaying Maps number 3204;
Database Type: Maps
Item ID Number: 3204
Map Number
3204
Cartographer
Title
A Plan of the Harbour of Chebucto and Town of Halifax
Date
1750
Publisher
Gentleman's Magazine
Place of Publication
London
Image Size (mm)
220 x 270
Image Size (Inches)
8.625 x 10.625
Coloring
Hand Colored
Condition
Very Good,
Notes
Rare and decorative map of the Greater Halifax Area.
References
Jolly, D, "Maps in British Periodicals 1", GENT-70
Price (US$)
1250
Short Description
Maps City Maps; Maps Canada East Nova Scotia Halifax
Picture
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Copyright 2021 Alexandre Antique Prints, Maps & Books. All rights reserved. | http://alexandremaps.com/map_detail.php?MapID=3204 |
Code of Conduct
We, the AstorMueller group, are committed to continue the responsibilities in the field of social and environmental compliance for all our actions worldwide. We have a responsibility towards the millions of people buying our products or taking part in their production and distribution.
In order to make our position clear to our suppliers, our own staff, as well as to any other parties, we have set up this AstorMueller group code of conduct. It is a non-negotiable requirement from our side that all our suppliers, and their subcontractors, without exception, should follow this Code. Most of the requirements of this Code of Conduct follow the official ILO conventions and Recommendations, or similar international instruments.
The intention of the AstorMueller group Code of Conduct is to establish and develop its social and environmental standards with suppliers and subcontractors, and not simply to terminate the business relationship in the case of a non-compliance.
Our general rule is that our suppliers must in all of their activities, follow this AstorMueller group Code of Conduct. Should any of the following standards of the AstorMueller group be less demanding than the National Law of any country or territory, the National Law and therefore the higher standard should always be followed. In such a case, the suppliers must always inform the AstorMueller group immediately upon receiving this Code.
Rules or provisions already existing apart from the National Law, and demanding higher standards, will remain unaffected and must be observed.
“Supplier” is the contractual partner that is responsible for the product, process or service and is able to ensure that social accountability is exercised. This definition may apply to manufacturers, distributors, importers, assemblers, service organisations, etc.
“Subcontractor” is a business entity in the supply chain which directly or indirectly, provides the supplier with goods and/or services integral to, and utilized in/for the production of the supplier’s goods and/or services.
1. Child Labour
Defined as any work by a person less than 15 years of age, unless local minimum age law stipulates a higher age for work or mandatory schooling, in which case the higher age would apply. If, however, local minimum age law is set at 14 years of age in accordance with developing country exceptions under ILO Convention 138, the lower age will apply.
A young worker is any worker over the age of a child as defined above and under the age of 18.
a)
The supplier shall not engage in or support the use of child labour as defined above.
b)
The supplier shall establish, document, maintain, and effectively communicate to personnel and other interested parties policies and procedures for remedial support of children (all necessary support and actions to ensure the safety, health, education and development of children who have been subjected to child labour, as defined above, and are dismissed) found to be working in situations which fit the definition of child labour abeve, and shall provide adequate support to enable such children to attend and remain in school until no longer a child as defined above.
c)
The supplier shall establish, document, maintain, and effectively communicate to personnel and other interested parties policies and procedures for promotion of education for children covered under ILO Recommendation 146 and young workers who are subject to local compulsory education laws or are attending school, including means to ensure that no such child or young worker is employed during school hours and that combined hours of daily transportation (to and from work and school), school, and work time does not exceed 10 hours a day.
d)
The supplier shall not expose young workers to situations in or outside of the workplace that are hazardous, unsafe or unhealthy.
2. Forced Labour
All work or service that is extracted from any person under the menace of any penalty for which said person has not offered himself / herself voluntarily.
The supplier shall not engage in or support the use of forced, including bonded and prison labour, nor shall personnel be required to lodge “deposits” or identity papers upon commencing employment with the supplier.
The supplier shall not engage in or support the use of physical, sexual, psychological or verbal harassment or abuse. Every employee shall be treated with respect and dignity.
3. Discrimination
The supplier shall not engage in or support discrimination, especially not in hiring, compensation, access to training, promotion, termination or retirement based on race, caste, national origin, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation, membership of associations or political affiliation.
The supplier shall not interfere with the exercise of the rights of personnel to observe tenets or practices, or to meet needs relating to race, caste, national origin, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation, membership of associations, or political affiliation.
The supplier shall not allow behaviour, including gestures, language or physical contact, that is sexually coercive, threatening, abusive, or exploitative.
Female employees must be accorded the agreed maternity leave before and after the birth. Employees may not be dismissed on account of pregnancy. Pregnant employees may not be employed in work – places which could have a negative effect on their health.
4. Compensation
Employees are entitled to a written contract of employment, with at least the following point governed: time that work starts, working hours, remuneration, vacation entitlement, security against dismissal, maternity protection.
The supplier shall ensure that wages paid for a standard working week shall at least meet legal standards and shall always be sufficient to meet the basic needs of personnel and provide some discretionary income.
The supplier shall ensure that deductions from wages are not made for disciplinary purposes, and shall ensure that wage and benefits composition are detailed clearly and regularly for workers.
The supplier shall also ensure that wages and benefits are rendered in full compliance with all applicable laws and that compensation is rendered either in cash or cheque form, in a manner convenient to workers.
The supplier shall ensure that labour only contracting arrangements and false apprenticeship schemes are not undertaken in an effort to avoid fulfilling its obligations to personnel under applicable laws pertaining to labour and social security legislation and regulations.
5. Hours of Work
The supplier shall comply with applicable laws and industry standards on working hours. In any event, personnel shall not, on a regular basis, be required to work in excess of 48 hours per week and shall be provided with at least one day off for every seven day period.
If overtime work (more than 48 hours per week) is needed by the supplier, the supplier shall ensure that I is always remunerated at a premium rate. Overtime work shall always be voluntarily, accepted by the employee.
6. Freedom of Association & Right to Collective Bargaining
The supplier shall respect the right of all personnel to form and join employee associations of their choice and to bargain collectively.
The supplier shall, in those situations in which the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining are restricted under law, facilitate parallel means of independent and free association and bargaining for all such personnel.
The supplier shall ensure that representatives of such personnel are not the subject of discrimination and that such representatives have access to their members in the workplace.
7. Health and Safety
The supplier, bearing in mind the prevailing knowledge of the industry and of any specific hazards, shall provide a safe, clean, and healthy working environment and shall take adequate steps to prevent accidents and injury to health, arising out of or associated with the course of work, by minimizing the cause(s) of hazards inherent in the working environment.
The supplier shall appoint a senior management representative responsible for the health and safety of all personnel, and accountable for the implementation of the health and safety elements of these standards.
The supplier shall ensure that all personnel receive regular and recorded health and safety training, and that such training is repeated for new and reassigned personnel.
The supplier shall provide, for use by all personnel, clean bathrooms, access to drinkable clean water, and, if appropriate, sanitary facilities for food storage.
The supplier shall ensure that dormitory facilities, if provided for personnel, are clean, safe, and meet the basic needs of the personnel.
8. Environmental Protection
The supplier must comply with all applicable environmental laws and regulations in the country of operation.
The supplier shall conduct its business in a manner that utilizes natural resources as efficiently as possible.
Hazardous substances should be limited wherever possible. They may only be used if handled correctly and if the environment does not suffer through their use.
The environmentally compatible disposal of waste and containers must be guaranteed and proven upon request. All the waste that occurs during production must be disposed of in the correct manner.
9. Obligation for supplier
The supplier shall take positive actions to implement the requirements of this standards, to incorporate the standard into all of its operations, and to make the standard an integral part of its overall philosophy and general policy.
The supplier shall assign responsibility for all matters pertaining to this code of Conduct to a manager within its organization.
Top management of the supplier shall periodically review the operation of the requirements of this standard.
The supplier accepts responsibility for observing the requirements of this standard with respect to all employees and workers that it supervises and agrees
a) to assign responsibility for implementing this standard at each place that it owns or controls to an employee;
b) to ensure that all employees and workers are aware of the standard by communicating its contents in a language understood by them. Code of Conduct training is to be conducted on a regular basis;
c) to refrain from disciplining, dismissing or otherwise discriminating against any employee for providinginformation concerning observance of this standard.
The supplier shall maintain appropriate records to demonstrate conformance to the requirements of this standard, and shall be able to provide reasonable information and access to parties approved by the AstorMueller group seeking to verify conformance.
The supplier will make observance of this Code of Conduct a condition of all agreements that it enters into with subcontractors. These agreements shall oblige these subcontractors to conform to all requirements of this standard (including this clause) and participate in the supplier’s monitoring activities as requested.
10. Management Systems / Auditing and Monitoring
To evaluate the compliance of this Code of Conduct, we may make use of independent auditors to conduct social and environmental audit services on behalf of the AstorMueller group.
We have the right to monitor the compliance of this Code of Conduct by systematic, unannounced inspections, conducted by members of the AstorMueller group or independent auditors.
The AstorMueller group Code of Conduct sets the standards that our partners are expected to meet in operating their manufacturing sites. We are aware that some of these relatively high expectations can not be met at once.
In the case of a non-compliance it is important for the AstorMueller group that the supplier takes all necessary corrective actions to improve the situation and meet the requirements within a reasonable period of time.
This time allowance is dependent on the nature of the corrective action. If repeated violations are established without any effort by the supplier to take appropriate corrective actions, it is our duty to terminate the cooperation with this supplier. | https://www.daniel-hechter-shoes.ch/index.php?id=85&L=1 |
Oct. 28, 2014 (Archdruid Report) -- The political transformations that have occupied the last four posts in this sequence can also be traced in detail in the economic sphere.
A strong case could be made, in fact, that the economic dimension is the more important of the two, and the political struggles that pit the elites of a faliing civilization against the proto-warlords of the nascent dark age reflect deeper shifts in the economic sphere. Whether or not that’s the case -- and in some sense, it’s simply a difference in emphasis -- the economics of decline and fall need to be understood in order to make sense of the trajectory ahead of us.
One of the more useful ways of understanding that trajectory was traced out some years ago by Joseph Tainter in his book The Collapse of Complex Societies. While I’ve taken issue with some of the details of Tainter’s analysis in my own work, the general model of collapse he offers was also a core inspiration for the theory of catabolic collapse that provides the basic structure for this series of posts, so I don’t think it’s out of place to summarize his theory briefly here.
Tainter begins with the law of diminishing returns: the rule, applicable to an astonishingly broad range of human affairs, that the more you invest -- in any sense -- in any one project, the smaller the additional return is on each unit of additional investment. The point at which this starts to take effect is called the point of diminishing returns. Off past that point is a far more threatening landmark, the point of zero marginal return: the point, that is, when additional investment costs as much as the benefit it yields. Beyond that lies the territory of negative returns, where further investment yields less than it costs, and the gap grows wider with each additional increment.
The attempt to achieve infinite economic growth on a finite planet makes a fine example of the law of diminishing returns in action. Given the necessary preconditions -- a point we’ll discuss in more detail a bit later in this post -- economic growth in its early stages produces benefits well in excess of its costs. Once the point of diminishing returns is past, though, further growth brings less and less benefit in any but a purely abstract, financial sense; broader measures of well-being fail to keep up with the expansion of the economy, and eventually the point of zero marginal return arrives and further rounds of growth actively make things worse.
Mainstream economists these days shove these increments of what John Ruskin used to call “illth” -- yes, that’s the opposite of wealth -- into the category of “externalities,” where they are generally ignored by everyone who doesn’t have to deal with them in person. If growth continues far enough, though, the production of illth overwhelms the production of wealth, and we end up more or less where we are today, where the benefits from continued growth are outweighed by the increasingly ghastly impact of the social, economic, and environmental “externalities” driven by growth itself. As The Limits to Growth pointed out all those years ago, that’s the nature of our predicament: the costs of growth rise faster than the benefits and eventually force the industrial economy to its knees.
Tainter’s insight was that the same rules can be applied to social complexity. When a society begins to add layers of social complexity -- for example, expanding the reach of the division of labor, setting up hierarchies to centralize decisionmaking, and so on -- the initial rounds pay off substantially in terms of additional wealth and the capacity to deal with challenges from other societies and the natural world. Here again, though, there’s a point of diminishing returns, after which additional investments in social complexity yield less and less in the way of benefits, and there’s a point of zero marginal return, after which each additional increment of complexity subtracts from the wealth and resilience of the society.
There’s a mordant irony to what happens next. Societies in crisis reliably respond by doing what they know how to do. In the case of complex societies, what they know how to amounts to adding on new layers of complexity -- after all, that’s what’s worked in the past. I mentioned at the beginning of this month, in an earlier post in this sequence, the way this plays out in political terms. The same thing happens in every other sphere of collective life -- economic, cultural, intellectual, and so on down the list. If too much complexity is at the root of the problems besetting a society, though, what happens when its leaders keep adding even more complexity to solve those problems?
Any of my readers who have trouble coming up with the answer might find it useful to take a look out the nearest window. Whether or not Tainter’s theory provides a useful description of every complex society in trouble -- for what it’s worth, it’s a significant part of the puzzle in every historical example known to me -- it certainly applies to contemporary industrial society. Here in America, certainly, we’ve long since passed the point at which additional investments in complexity yield any benefit at all, but the manufacture of further complexity goes on apace, unhindered by the mere fact that it’s making a galaxy of bad problems worse. Do I need to cite the US health care system, which is currently collapsing under the sheer weight of the baroque superstructure of corporate and government bureaucracies heaped on top of what was once the simple process of paying a visit to the doctor?
We can describe this process as intermediation -- the insertion of a variety of intermediate persons, professions, and institutions between the producer and the consumer of any given good or service. It’s a standard feature of social complexity, and tends to blossom in the latter years of every civilization, as part of the piling up of complexity on complexity that Tainter discussed. There’s an interesting parallel between the process of intermediation and the process of ecological succession. Just as an ecosystem, as it moves from one sere (successional stage) to the next, tends to produce ever more elaborate food webs linking the plants whose photosynthesis starts the process with the consumers of detritus at its end, the rise of social complexity in a civilization tends to produce ever more elaborate patterns of intermediation between producers and consumers.
Contemporary industrial civilization has taken intermediation to an extreme not reached by any previous civilization, and there’s a reason for that. White’s Law, one of the fundamental rules of human ecology, states that economic development is a function of energy per capita. The jackpot of cheap concentrated energy that industrial civilization obtained from fossil fuels threw that equation into overdrive, and economic development is simply another name for complexity. The U.S. health care system, again, is one example out of many; as the American economy expanded metastatically over the course of the 20th century, an immense army of medical administrators, laboratory staff, specialists, insurance agents, government officials, and other functionaries inserted themselves into the notional space between physician and patient, turning what was once an ordinary face to face business transaction into a bureaucratic nightmare reminiscent of Franz Kafka’s The Castle.
In one way or another, that’s been the fate of every kind of economic activity in modern industrial society. Pick an economic sector, any economic sector, and the producers and consumers of the goods and services involved in any given transaction are hugely outnumbered by the people who earn a living from that transaction in some other way -- by administering, financing, scheduling, regulating, taxing, approving, overseeing, facilitating, supplying, or in some other manner getting in there and grabbing a piece of the action. Take the natural tendency for social complexity to increase over time, and put it to work in a society that’s surfing a gargantuan tsunami of cheap energy, in which most work is done by machines powered by fossil fuels and not by human hands and minds, and that’s pretty much what you can expect to get.
That’s also a textbook example of the sort of excess complexity Joseph Tainter discussed in The Collapse of Complex Societies, but industrial civilization’s dependence on nonrenewable energy resources puts the entire situation in a different and even more troubling light. On the one hand, continuing increases in complexity in a society already burdened to the breaking point with too much complexity pretty much guarantees a rapid decrease in complexity not too far down the road -- and no, that’s not likely to unfold in a nice neat orderly way, either. On the other, the ongoing depletion of energy resources and the decline in net energy that unfolds from that inescapable natural process means that energy per capita will be decreasing in the years ahead -- and that, according to White’s Law, means that the ability of industrial society to sustain current levels of complexity, or anything like them, will be going away in the tolerably near future.
Add these trends together and you have a recipe for the radical simplification of the economy. The state of affairs in which most people in the work force have only an indirect connection to the production of concrete goods and services to meet human needs is, in James Howard Kunstler’s useful phrase, an arrangement without a future. The unraveling of that arrangement, and the return to a state of affairs in which most people produce goods and services with their own labor for their own, their families’, and their neighbors’ use, will be the great economic trend of the next several centuries.
That’s not to say that this unraveling will be a simple process. All those millions of people whose jobs depend on intermediation, and thus on the maintenance of current levels of economic complexity, have an understandable interest in staying employed. That interest in practice works out to an increasingly frantic quest to keep people from sidestepping the baroque corporate and bureaucratic economic machine and getting goods and services directly from producers.
That’s a great deal of what drives the ongoing crusade against alternative health care -- every dollar spent on herbs from a medical herbalist or treatments from an acupuncturist is a dollar that doesn’t go into feeding the gargantuan corporations and bureaucracies that are supposed to provide health care for Americans, and sometimes even do so. The same thing is driving corporate and government attacks on local food production, since every dollar a consumer spends buying zucchini from a backyard farmer doesn’t prop up the equally huge and tottering mass of institutions that attempt to control the production and sale of food in America.
It’s not uncommon for those who object to these maneuvers to portray them as the acts of a triumphant corporate despotism on the brink of seizing total power over the planet. I’d like to suggest that they’re something quite different. While the American and global economies are both still growing in a notional sense, the measures of growth that yield that result factor in such things as the manufacture of derivatives and a great many other forms of fictive wealth.
Subtract those from the national and global balance sheet, and the result is an economy in contraction. The ongoing rise in the permanently jobless, the epidemic of malign neglect affecting even the most crucial elements of America’s infrastructure, and the ongoing decline in income and living standards among all those classes that lack access to fictive wealth, among many other things, all tell the same story. Thus it’s far from surprising that all the people whose jobs are dependent on intermediation, all the way up the corporate food chain to the corner offices, are increasingly worried about the number of people who are trying to engage in disintermediation -- to buy food, health care, and other goods and services directly from the producers.
Their worries are entirely rational. One of the results of the contraction of the real economy is that the costs of intermediation, financial and otherwise, have not merely gone through the roof but zoomed off into the stratosphere, with low earth orbit the next logical stop. Health care, again, is among the most obvious examples. In most parts of the United States, for instance, a visit to the acupuncturist for some ordinary health condition will typically set you back well under $100, while if you go to an MD for the same thing you’ll be lucky to get away for under $1,000, counting lab work and other costs -- and you can typically count on 30 or 40 minutes of personal attention from the acupuncturist, as compared to five or 10 minutes with a harried and distracted MD. It’s therefore no surprise that more and more Americans are turning their backs on the officially sanctioned health care industry and seeking out alternative health care instead.
They’d probably be just as happy to go to an ordinary MD who offered medical care on the same terms as the acupuncturist, which happen to be the same terms that were standard a century ago for every kind of health care. As matters stand, though, physicians are dependent on the system as it presently exists; their standing with their peers, and even their legal right to practice medicine, depends on their willingness to play by the rules of intermediation -- and of course it’s also true that acupuncturists don’t generally make the six-figure salaries that so many physicians do in America. A hundred years ago, the average American doctor didn’t make that much more than the average American plumber; many of the changes in the U.S. health care system since that time were quite openly intended to change that fact.
A hundred years ago, as the United States moved through the early stages of its age of imperial excess, that was something the nation could afford. Equally, all the other modes of profiteering, intermediation, and other maneuvers aimed at maximizing the take of assorted economic sectors were viable then, since a growing economy provides plenty of slack for such projects. As the economics of growth gave way to the economics of stagnation in the last quarter of the 20th century, such things became considerably more burdensome. As stagnation gives way to contraction, and the negative returns on excess complexity combine with the impact of depleting nonrenewable resources, the burden is rapidly becoming more than the US economy or the wider society can bear.
The result, in one way or another, will be disintermediation: the dissolution of the complex relations and institutions that currently come between the producer and the consumer of goods and services, and their replacement by something much less costly to maintain. “In one way or another,” though, covers a great deal of ground, and it’s far from easy to predict exactly how the current system will come unglued in the United States or, for that matter, anywhere else.
Disintermediation might happen quickly, if a major crisis shatters some central element of the U.S. economic system -- for example, the financial sector -- and forces the entire economy to regroup around less abstract and more local systems of exchange. It might happen slowly, as more and more of the population can no longer afford to participate in the intermediated economy at all, and have to craft their own localized economies from the bottom up, while the narrowing circle of the well-to-do continue to make use of some equivalent of the current system for a long time to come. It might happen at different rates in different geographical areas -- for example, cities and their suburbs might keep the intermediated economy going long after rural areas have abandoned it, or what have you.
Plenty of people these days like to look forward to some such transformation, and not without reason. Complexity has long since passed the point of negative returns in the U.S. economy, as in most other aspects of American society, and the coming of disintermediation across a wide range of economic activities will arguably lead to significant improvements in many aspects of our collective life. That said, it’s not all roses and affordable health care. The extravagant rates of energy per capita that made today’s absurdly complex economy possible also made it possible for millions of Americans to make their living working in offices and other relatively comfortable settings, rather than standing hip deep in hog manure with a shovel in their hands, and it also allowed them to earn what currently passes for a normal income, rather than the bare subsistence that’s actually normal in societies that haven’t had their economies inflated to the bursting point by a temporary glut of cheap energy.
It was popular a number of years back for the urban and suburban middle classes, most of whom work in jobs that only exist due to intermediation, to go in for “voluntary simplicity” -- at best a pallid half-equivalent of Thoreau’s far more challenging concept of voluntary poverty, at worst a marketing gimmick for the consumption of round after round of overpriced “simple” products. For all its more embarrassing features, the voluntary simplicity movement was at least occasionally motivated by an honest recognition of the immediate personal implications of Tainter’s fundamental point -- that complexity taken past the point of diminishing returns becomes a burden rather than a benefit.
In the years ahead of us, a great many of these same people are going to experience what I suppose might best be called involuntary simplicity: the disintermediation of most aspects of economic life, the departure of lifestyles that can only be supported by the cheap abundant energy of the recent past, and a transition to the much less complex -- and often, much less comfortable -- lifestyles that are all that’s possible in a deindustrial world. There may be a certain entertainment value in watching what those who praised voluntary simplicity to the skies think of simple living when it’s no longer voluntary, and there’s no way back to the comforts of a bygone era.
That said, the impact of involuntary simplicity on the economic sphere won’t be limited to the lifestyles of the formerly privileged. It promises to bring an end to certain features of economic life that contemporary thought assumes are fixed in place forever: among them, the market economy itself. We’ll talk about that next week.
***
In other news, I'm pleased to report that Twilight's Last Gleaming, my novel of the fall of America's empire based on 2012's "How It Could Happen" series of posts, is hot off the press and available from the publisher with free shipping worldwide. The novel also has its own Facebook page for fans of social media. By all means check it out. | https://worldnewstrust.com/dark-age-america-involuntary-simplicity-john-michael-greer |
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Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have become deeper and more complic...
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Deeper neural networks are more difficult to train. We present a residua...
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We investigate in this paper the architecture of deep convolutional netw...
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This paper introduces a new architectural framework, known as input
fast...
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Training a deep convolutional neural net typically starts with a random
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In the most recent ILSVRC competition , it was demonstrated [9, 10] that CNN accuracy can be improved even further by increasing the network size: both the depth (number of levels) and the width (number of units at each level). On the down side, bigger size means more and more parameters, which makes back-propagation slower to converge and prone to overfitting [9, 10]. To overcome this problem, Simonyan and Zisserman propose to initialize deeper networks with parameters of pre-trained shallower networks. However, this pre-training is costly and the parameters may be hard to tune. Szegedy et al.
propose to add auxiliary classifiers connected to intermediate layers. The intuitive idea behind these classifiers is to encourage the feature maps at lower layers to be directly predictive of the final labels, and to help propagate the gradients back through the deep network structure. However, Szegedy et al. do not systematically address the questions of where and how to add these classifiers. Independently, Lee et al. introduce a related idea of deeply supervised networks (DSN) where auxiliary classifiers are added at all intermediate layers and their “companion losses” are added to the loss of the final layer. They show that this deep supervision yields an improved convergence rate, but their experiments are limited with a not-so-deep network structure.
In this work, to train deeper networks more efficiently, we also adopt the idea of adding auxiliary classifiers after some of the intermediate convolutional layers. We give a simple rule of thumb motivated by studying vanishing gradients in deep networks. We use our strategy to train models with 8 and 13 convolutional layers, which is deeper than the original AlexNet with 5 convolutional layers, though not as deep as the networks of [9, 10], which feature 16 and 21 convolutional layers, respectively. Our results on ImageNet and the recently released larger MIT Places dataset confirm that deeper models are indeed more accurate than shallower ones, and convincingly demonstrate the promise of deep supervision as a training method. Compared to the very deep GoogleNet model trained on MIT Places dataset
, an eight convolutional layer network trained with our method can give similar accuracy but with faster feature extraction. Our model on the Places Dataset is released in the Caffe Model Zoo.
Since very deep models have only made their début in the 2014 ILSVRC contest, the problem of how to train them is just beginning to be addressed. Simonyan and Zisserman initialize the lower convolutional layers of their deeper networks with parameters obtained by training shallower networks, and initialize the rest of the layers randomly. While they achieve very good results, their training procedure is slow and labor-intensive, since it relies on training models of progressively increasing depth, and may be very sensitive to implementation choices along the way. Szegedy et al. connect auxiliary classifiers (smaller networks) to a few intermediate layers to provide additional supervision during training. However, their report does not give any general principles for deciding where these classifiers should be added and what their structure should be.
Lee et al. give a more comprehensive treatment of the idea of adding supervision to intermediate network layers. Their deeply-supervised nets
(DSN) put an SVM classifier on top of the outputs of each hidden layer; at training time, they optimize a loss function that is a sum of the overall (final-layer) loss and companion losses associated with all intermediate layers. Our work has a number of differences from
. First, they add supervision after each hidden layer, while we decide where to add supervision using a simple gradient-based heuristic described below. Second, the classifiers of are SVMs with a squared hinge loss. By contrast, our supervision branch is more similar to that of – it is a small neural network composed of a convolutional layer, several fully connected layers, and a softmax classifier (see Fig.(1)). Since feature maps at the lower convolutional layers are very noisy, to achive good performance, we have found it important to put them through dimensionality reduction and discriminative non-linear mapping before feeding them into a classifier.
To decide where to add the supervision branches, we follow an intuitive rule of thumb. First, we run a few (10-50) iterations of back-propagation for the deep model with supervision only at the final layer and plot the mean gradient values of intermediate layers (using the standard initialization for AlexNet : weights are sampled from a Gaussian with zero mean, std=0.01, and bias=0). Then we add supervision after the layer where the mean gradient value vanishes (in our implementation, becomes less than ). As shown in Fig.(2), in our eight-layer model, the gradients in the fourth convolutional layer tend to vanish. Therefore, we add auxiliary supervision right after this layer.
The top of Fig.(1) shows the resulting network structure, consisting of a main and an auxiliary supervision branch. In the main branch, weights are associated with the eight convolutional and three fully connected layers. The auxiliary branch comes with weights . Let and denote the concatenations of the two respective sets of parameters:
Given a training example that produces feature map
at the softmax layer, for each possible labelthis layer computes the response
where is the th element of response . The associated loss for the entire network is
where if the example has label and 0 otherwise.
Analogously, given feature map before the softmax layer of the auxiliary supervision branch, we have the output
where is the th element of response and associated auxiliary loss
Note that this loss depends on , not just , because the computation of the feature map involves the weights of the early convolutional layers .
The combined loss function for the whole network is given by a weighted sum of the main loss and the auxiliary supervision loss :
|(1)|
where controls the trade-off between the two terms. In the course of training, in order to use the second term mainly as regularization, we adopt the same strategy as in , where
decays as a function of epoch(with being the total number of epochs):
|(2)|
We train our deeply supervised model using stochastic gradient descent. When doing back-propagation,, are only affected by the main loss . Similarly, are only affected by the auxiliary loss . However, starting from , where the gradients tend to vanish, the term successfully magnifies the gradients, as can be seen from the before-and-after comparisons in Fig.(2)(b-d).
In addition to our 8-layer model, we have also experimented with a 13-layer model (Fig.(1), middle). For this model, gradients tend to decay every three to four layers, and we get good results by putting the supervision branches after the 10th, 7th, and 4th layers. All the auxiliary losses have the same weights (starting with 0.3 and then decaying according to eq. (2)). We do not give the resulting loss functions here, but their derivation is straightforward.
In the following, we will refer to our training method as CNDS (Convolutional Networks with Deep Supervision).
Sections 3.1 and 3.2 will present an evaluation of our models trained on the two largest datasets currently available: ImageNet (ILSVRC) and MIT Places .
We report results on the ILSVRC subset of ImageNet , which includes 1000 categories and is split into 1.2M training, 50K validation, and 100K testing images (the latter have held-out class labels). The classification performance is evaluated using top-1 and top-5 classification error. Top-5 error is the proportion of images such that the ground-truth class is not within the top five predicted categories.
All our ImageNet models are trained with Cuda-convnet2 (https://code.google.com/p/cuda-convnet2/) using epoch unit. Because Cuda-convnet2 supports multi-GPU training, we can train deeper networks in a reasonable time. We use Caffe default setting for training ImageNet, that is, we crop one center and four corner patches of size pixels (out of ) and do horizontal flipping. We do not use model averaging or multi-scale training/testing. Please see the supplementary material for details of all the implementation settings for our models.
First, we survey the top systems in the ILSVRC competitions from 2012 to 2014. For models with five convolutional layers, in the 2012 version of the contest, the highest results were achieved by Krizhevsky et al. , who have reported 40.7% top-1 and 18.2% top-5 error rate using a single net. Subsequently, Zeiler and Fergus have obtained 36.0% top-1 and 16.7% top-5 error rates by refining Krizhevsky’s filters and combining six nets. In the 2013 competition, Sermanet et al.’s OverFeat obtained 34.5% top-1 and 13.2% top-5 error rate by combining seven nets. In the 2014 competition, big progress was made by deeper models: the VGG group has trained a series of deep models to get 25.5% top-1 and 8.0% top-5 error. And a 22-layer GoogLeNet has achieved a top-5 error rate of 6.7%. For a fair comparison, Table 1(a) lists single-model results from each of these systems.
In this work, we train networks with 8 and 13 convolutional layers using deep supervision. First, as a baseline, we train an ImageNet-CNN-8 model, which contains 8 convolutional layers and 3 fully connected layers, using the strategy in : we first train a network with five convolutional layers, and then we initialize the first five convolutional layers and the last three fully connected layers of the deeper network with the layers from the shallower network. The other intermediate layers are initialized randomly. Including the time for training the shallower network, ImageNet-CNN-8 takes around 6 days with 80 epochs on two NVIDIA Tesla K40 GPUs with batch size 128.
Next, we train an ImageNet-CNDS-8 model using our deep supervision method. This model is trained with auxiliary supervision added after the fourth convolutional layer as shown in Fig.(1). This model takes around 5 days to train with 65 epochs on two K40 GPUs with batch size 128. The weight starts with 0.3 in all our CNDS training and decays according to eq. (2). Apart from the initialization and training procedure, we use the same network and parameter settings for both ImageNet-CNDS-8 and ImageNet-CNN-8. It should be noted that in the testing phase, the auxiliary supervision branch of the CNDS model is cut off so it has the same feedforward path as the CNN model.
In order to go deeper, we also train an ImageNet-CNDS-13 model with structure shown in Fig. (1). ImageNet-CNDS-13 takes around 5 days on four GPUs using 67 epochs with batch size 128. Since initializing weights for such a deep structure is in itself an open problem, we only train it with our CNDS method.
Table 1(b) shows the top-1 and top-5 accuracies of our models on the validation set of ILSVRC. First, both our 8-layer models outperform state-of-the-art 5-layer models from the literature, and the 13-layer model outperforms the 8-layer models. Therefore, “going deeper” really is an effective way to improve classification accuracy. Second, ImageNet-CNDS-8 is 1% more accurate than ImageNet-CNN-8, while taking less time to train. It is important to emphasize that both models have the exact same structure at test time. Therefore, we can think of deep supervision as a form of regularization that gives better local minima for the classification task (since eventually decays to zero, at the end, the loss we are optimizing is the original loss ).
In absolute terms, our models are still less accurate than the VGG models of the same depth. However, we believe that this difference mainly comes from the network settings. In particular, we use a stride of 2 and filter size of 7 at the first layer, while they use a stride of 1 and filter size of 3, which gives them a finer-grained representation; we use single-scale training, while they use multi-scale. However, all other factors being equal, deep supervision may be a more promising strategy for training very deep networks than the iterative deepening scheme of, since it is less complex and takes less time to train.
ImageNet images mainly have center around objects, while the recently released MIT Places dataset is scene-centric. For training of deep networks, a subset of Places, called Places-205, has been created, which contains 2.4M training images from 205 categories, with 5000-15000 images per category. The validation set contains 100 images per category and the test set contains 200 images per category (with held-out class labels). The training set of Places is almost two times larger than the ILSVRC training set and 60 times larger than the SUN dataset .
As a baseline, we use the five-layer net that was released along with Places. It was trained using the Caffe package on a GPU NVIDIA Tesla K40. As reported in , the process took 6 days and 300K iterations. We train two models for comparison: Places-CNN-8 and Places-CNDS-8, whose structure and parameters are the same as those of ImageNet-CNN-8 and ImageNet-CNDS-8. The only difference is that we train these models using Caffe instead of Cuda-convnet2, to stay consistent with the pre-trained Places model. Places-CNN-8 is trained the same way as ImageNet-CNN-8, using a pre-trained five-layer network as initialization. Including the pre-training time, Places-CNN-8 takes around 8 days with 240,000 iterations on a single K40 GPU with batch size 256 (Caffe only allows single-GPU training). Places-CNDS-8 takes around 6 days with 190,000 iterations. Same as for ImageNet, the weight starts with 0.3 and decays according to eq. (2).
Following the evaluations in , we give the top-1 and top-5 accuracy on both validation and test set. Note that for the test set, the ground-truth labels are not released. Instead, we sent our the prediction of both top 1 and top 5 labels to the MIT testing website (http://places.csail.mit.edu/submit.html) and got the results automatically.
From Table (2), we can see that Places-CNN-8 and Places-CNDS-8 both outperform the original Places-CNN-5. Consistent with the results on ImageNet, our CNDS model surpasses Places-CNN-8 by about 1%. Overall, with a combination of a deeper model and deep supervision, we achieve about 5% higher accuracy than the baseline number reported in . Our network compares favorably with the one trained with the GoogleNet structure, and has faster feature extraction speed since it is not as deep.
This work has focused on the idea of training very deep networks with auxiliary supervision inserted at intermediate layers. We have attempted to formulate sound design principles of where and how deep supervision should be added. Our experiments have also shown the advantage of this technique over alternative methods that require pre-training of shallower networks . Along the way, we have reported new state-of-the-art results on the recently released very large Places dataset .
Sun database: Large-scale scene recognition from abbey to zoo.In Computer vision and pattern recognition (CVPR), 2010 IEEE conference on, pages 3485–3492. IEEE, 2010.
Learning Deep Features for Scene Recognition using Places Database.NIPS, 2014. | https://deepai.org/publication/training-deeper-convolutional-networks-with-deep-supervision |
A database that consists of two or more data files located at different sites on a computer network. Because the database is distributed, different users can access it without interfering with one another. However, the DBMS must periodically synchronize the scattered databases to make sure that they all have consistent data, or in other words we can say that a distributed database is a database that is under the control of a central database management system (DBMS) in which storage devices are not all attached to a common CPU. It may be stored in multiple computers located in the same physical location, or may be dispersed over a network of interconnected computers.
Collections of data (e.g. in a database) can be distributed across multiple physical locations. A distributed database can reside on network servers on the Internet, on corporate intranets or extranets, or on other company networks. Replication and distribution of databases improve database performance at end-user worksites.
To ensure that the distributive databases are up to date and current, there are two processes:
Replication.
Duplication.
Replication involves using specialized software that looks for changes in the distributive database. Once the changes have been identified, the replication process makes all the databases look the same. The replication process can be very complex and time consuming depending on the size and number of the distributive databases. This process can also require a lot of time and computer resources.
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Duplication on the other hand is not as complicated. It basically identifies one database as a master and then duplicates that database. The duplication process is normally done at a set time after hours. This is to ensure that each distributed location has the same data. In the duplication process, changes to the master database only are allowed. This is to ensure that local data will not be overwritten. Both of the processes can keep the data current in all distributive locations.
Besides distributed database replication and fragmentation, there are many other distributed database design technologies. For example, local autonomy, synchronous and asynchronous distributed database technologies. These technologies’ implementation can and does depend on the needs of the business and the sensitivity/confidentiality of the data to be stored in the database, and hence the price the business is willing to spend on ensuring data security, consistency and integrity.
Basic architecture
A database User accesses the distributed database through:
Local applications
Applications which do not require data from other sites.
Global applications
Applications which do require data from other sites.
A distributed database does not share main memory or disks.
Main Features and Benefits of a Distributed System
A common misconception among people when discussing distributed systems is that it is just another name for a network of computers. However, this overlooks an important distinction. A distributed system is built on top of a network and tries to hide the existence of multiple autonomous computers. It appears as a single entity providing the user with whatever services are required. A network is a medium for interconnecting entities (such as computers and devices) enabling the exchange of messages based on well-known protocols between these entities, which are explicitly addressable (using an IP address, for example).
There are various types of distributed systems, such as Clusters , Grids , P2P (Peer-to-Peer) networks, distributed storage systems and so on. A cluster is a dedicated group of interconnected computers that appears as a single super-computer, generally used in high performance scientific engineering and business applications. A grid is a type of distributed system that enables coordinated sharing and aggregation of distributed, autonomous, heterogeneous resources based on users’ QoS (Quality of Service) requirements. Grids are commonly used to support applications emerging in the areas of e-Science and e-Business, which commonly involve geographically distributed communities of people who engage in collaborative activities to solve large scale problems and require sharing of various resources such as computers, data, applications and scientific instruments. P2P networks are decentralized distributed systems, which enable applications such as file-sharing, instant messaging, online multiuser gaming and content distribution over public networks. Distributed storage systems such as NFS (Network File System) provide users with a unified view of data stored on different file systems and computers which may be on the same or different networks.
The main features of a distributed system include:
Functional Separation: Based on the functionality/services provided, capability and purpose of each entity in the system.
Inherent distribution: Entities such as information, people, and systems are inherently distributed. For example, different information is created and maintained by different people. This information could be generated, stored, analyzed and used by different systems or applications which may or may not be aware of the existence of the other entities in the system.
Reliability: Long term data preservation and backup (replication) at different locations.
Scalability: Addition of more resources to increase performance or availability.
Economy: Sharing of resources by many entities to help reduce the cost of ownership. As a consequence of these features, the various entities in a distributed system can operate concurrently and possibly autonomously. Tasks are carried out independently and actions are co-ordinate at well-defined stages by exchanging messages. Also, entities are heterogeneous, and failures are independent. Generally, there is no single process, or entity, that has the knowledge of the entire state of the system.
Various kinds of distributed systems operate today, each aimed at solving different kinds of problems. The challenges faced in building a distributed system vary depending on the requirements of the system. In general, however, most systems will need to handle the following issues:
Heterogeneity: Various entities in the system must be able to interoperate with one another, despite differences in hardware architectures, operating systems, communication protocols, programming languages, software interfaces, security models, and data formats.
Transparency: The entire system should appear as a single unit and the complexity and interactions between the components should be typically hidden from the end user.
Fault tolerance and failure management: Failure of one or more components should not bring down the entire system, and should be isolated.
Scalability: The system should work efficiently with increasing number of users and addition of a resource should enhance the performance of the system.
Concurrency: Shared access to resources should be made possible.
Openness and Extensibility: Interfaces should be cleanly separated and publicly available to enable easy extensions to existing components and add new components.
Migration and load balancing: Allow the movement of tasks within a system without affecting the operation of users or applications, and distribute load among available resources for improving performance.
Security: Access to resources should be secured to ensure only known users are able to perform allowed operations. Several software companies and research institutions have developed distributed computing technologies that support some or all of the features described above.
Fragment Allocation in Distributed Database Design
On a Wide Area Network (WAN), fragment allocation is a major issue in distributed database design since it concerns the overall performance of distributed database systems. Here we propose a simple and comprehensive model that reflects transaction behavior in distributed databases. Based on the model and transaction information, two
Heuristic algorithms are developed to find a near-optimal allocation such that the total communication cost is minimized as much as possible. The results show that the fragment allocation found by the algorithms is close to being an optimal one. Some experiments were also conducted to verify that the cost formulas can truly reflect the communication cost in the real world.
INTRODUCTION:
Distributed database design involves the following interrelated issues:
(1) How a global relation should be fragmented,
(2) How many copies of a fragment should be replicated?
(3) How fragments should be allocated to the sites of the communication network,
(4) What the necessary information for fragmentation and allocation is. These issues complicate distributed database design. Even if each issue is considered individually, it is still an intractable problem. To simplify the overall problem, we address the fragment allocation issue only, assuming that all global relations have already been fragmented. Thus, the problem investigated here is determining the replicated number of each fragment and then finding a near-optimal allocation of all fragments, including
The replicated ones, in a Wild Area Network (WAN) such that the total communication cost is minimized. For a read request issued by a transaction, it may be simple just to load the target fragment at the issuing site, or it may be a little complicated to load the target fragment from a remote site. A write request could be most complicated since a write propagation should be executed to maintain consistency among all the fragment copies if multiple fragment copies are spread throughout the network. The frequency of each request issued at the sites must also be considered in the allocation model. Since the behaviors of different transactions maybe result in different optimal fragment allocations, cost formulas should be derived to minimize the transaction cost according to the transaction information.
Alchemi: An example distributed system
In a typical corporate or academic environment there are many resources which are generally under-utilized for long periods of time. A “resource†in this context means any entity that could be used to fulfill any user requirement; this includes compute power (CPU), data storage, applications, and services. An enterprise grid is a distributed system that dynamically aggregates and co-ordinates various resources within an organization and improves their utilization such that there is an overall increase in productivity for the users and processes. These benefits ultimately result in huge cost savings for the business, since they will not need to purchase expensive equipment for the purpose of running their high performance applications.
The desirable features of an enterprise grid system are:
Enabling efficient and optimal resource usage.
Sharing of inter-organizational resources.
Secure authentication and authorization of users.
Security of stored data and programs.
Secure communication.
Centralized / semi-centralized control.
Auditing.
Enforcement of Quality of Service (QoS) and Service Level Agreements (SLA).
Interoperability of different grids (and hence: the basis on open-standards).
Support for transactional processes.
Alchemi is an Enterprise Grid computing framework developed by researchers at the
GRIDS Lab, in the Computer Science and Software Engineering Department at the University of Melbourne, Australia. It allows the user to aggregate the computing power of networked machines into a virtual supercomputer and develop applications to run on the Grid with no additional investment and no discernible impact on users. The main features offered by the Alchemi framework are:
Virtualization of compute resources across the LAN / Internet.
Ease of deployment and management.
Object-oriented “Grid thread” programming model for grid application development.
File-based “Grid job” model for grid-enabling legacy applications.
Web services interface for interoperability with other grid middleware.
Open-source .Net based, simple installation using Windows installers.
Alchemi Grids follow the master-slave architecture, with the additional capability of
Connecting multiple masters in a hierarchical or peer-to-peer fashion to provide
Scalability of the system. An Alchemi grid has three types of components namely the
Manager, the Executor, and the User Application itself. The Manager node is the master / controller whose main function is to service the user
Requests for workload distribution. It receives a user request, authenticates the user, and distributes the workload across the various Executors that are connected to it. The
Executor node is the one which actually performs the computation. Alchemi uses role based Security to authenticate users and authorize execution. A simple grid is created by Installing Executors on each machine that is to be part of the grid and linking them to a Central Manager Component.
Advantages of distributed databases
Management of distributed data with different levels of transparency.
Increase reliability and availability.
Easier expansion.
Reflects organizational structure database fragments are located in the departments they relate to.
Local autonomy a department can control the data about them (as they are the ones familiar with it.)
Protection of valuable data if there were ever a catastrophic event such as a fire, all of the data would not be in one place, but distributed in multiple locations.
Improved performance data is located near the site of greatest demand, and the database systems themselves are parallelized, allowing load on the databases to be balanced among servers. (A high load on one module of the database won’t affect other modules of the database in a distributed database.)
Economics it costs less to create a network of smaller computers with the power of a single large computer.
Modularity systems can be modified, added and removed from the distributed database without affecting other modules (systems).
Reliable transactions – Due to replication of database.
Hardware, Operating System, Network, Fragmentation, DBMS, Replication and Location Independence.
Continuous operation.
Distributed Query processing.
Distributed Transaction management.
Disadvantages of distributed databases
Complexity extra work must be done by the DBAs to ensure that the distributed nature of the system is transparent. Extra work must also be done to maintain multiple disparate systems, instead of one big one. Extra database design work must also be done to account for the disconnected nature of the database for example, joins become prohibitively expensive when performed across multiple systems.
Economics increased complexity and a more extensive infrastructure means extra labour costs.
Security remote database fragments must be secured, and they are not centralized so the remote sites must be secured as well. The infrastructure must also be secured (e.g., by encrypting the network links between remote sites).
Difficult to maintain integrity — in a distributed database, enforcing integrity over a network may require too much of the network’s resources to be feasible.
Inexperience distributed databases are difficult to work with, and as a young field there is not much readily available experience on proper practice.
Lack of standards there are no tools or methodologies yet to help users convert a centralized DBMS into a distributed DBMS.
Database design more complex besides of the normal difficulties, the design of a distributed database has to consider fragmentation of data, allocation of fragments to specific sites and data replication.
Additional software is required.
Operating System should support distributed environment.
Concurrency control: it is a major issue. It is solved by locking and time stamping.
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The U.S. government's intrusion detection and prevention program known as Einstein has limited ability to detect breaches of federal information systems, according to a new Government Accountability Office report.
See Also: OnDemand | Zero Tolerance: Controlling The Landscape Where You'll Meet Your Adversaries
"It doesn't do a very good job in identifying deviations from normal network traffic," says Gregory Wilshusen, the GAO director of information security issues who co-authored the audit of the Department of Homeland Security's National Computer Protection System, or NCPS, which includes Einstein.
Einstein comes up short, according to the report, because it relies on known signatures - patterns of malicious data - to identify intrusions rather than a more complex anomaly-based approach, which compares network activity to predefined "normal behavior" to identify deviations and identify previously unknown threats.
Citing DHS documents and officials, GAO says the DHS always intended the NCPS to be a signature-based intrusion detection system. "By employing only signature-based intrusion detection, NCPS is unable to detect intrusions for which it does not have a valid or active signature deployed," Wilshusen says. "This limits the overall effectiveness of the program."
Overview of NCPS Intrusion Prevention Capability Design
NCPS is an integrated "system of systems" that delivers a range of capabilities, including intrusion detection, analytics, intrusion prevention and information sharing to federal civilian agencies.
The federal government has spent $1.2 billion from fiscal year 2009 to 2014 on the NCPS system, designed to protect civilian agencies, according to a GAO analysis of unaudited DHS expenditures. For the current fiscal year, DHS requested $480 million for network security deployment to safeguard government networks.
Mark Weatherford, a former DHS deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity, questions whether the government is getting value from its protection systems investments, especially Einstein. "Expectations are that Einstein is this magic pill that will fix everything cyber, and that's just not the case," says Weatherford, chief cybersecurity strategist at the data center security provider vArmour. "... You probably can get something several orders of magnitude less than the cost of that to do the same thing."
Agencies Use Commercial Tools
Indeed, the GAO audit points out that some agencies use commercially available detection and prevention systems, which likely include more signatures than Einstein. "The agencies' intrusion detection systems would be able to compare their network traffic against a larger set of potential exploits," Wilshusen says.
The audit also reveals that NCPS does not evaluate all types of network traffic. For instance, officials tell GAO that no signatures exist with NCPS that would detect threats embedded in some types of network traffic. "Without an ability to analyze all types of traffic, DHS is unable to detect threats embedded in such traffic and [that] increases the risk that agencies could be negatively impacted by such threats," Wilshusen says.
GAO finds that DHS has yet to develop most of the planned functionality for NCPS's information sharing capability, and requirements were only recently approved. Also, the audit says agencies and DHS did not always agree about whether notifications of potentially malicious activity had been sent or received, and agencies gave mixed reviews about the usefulness of these notifications. DHS did not always solicit - and agencies did not always provide - feedback on them.
Adoption Varies
Federal agencies' adoption of NCPS varies widely. The 23 agencies required to implement the intrusion detection capabilities had routed some traffic to NCPS intrusion detection sensors. but only five of them received intrusion prevention services, the audit says.
GAO says agencies have not taken all the technical steps needed to implement the system, such as ensuring that all network traffic is being routed through NCPS sensors. This occurred in part because DHS has not provided network routing guidance to agencies. "As a result," Wilshusen says, "DHS has limited assurance regarding the effectiveness of the system."
A DHS official says the NCPS program office is incorporating information from the department's continuous diagnostic and mitigation initiative to help develop new intrusion-detection and prevention capabilities. The program office is partnering with the General Services Administration to ensure DHS cybersecurity requirements are incorporated into future network services contracts.
Developing Metrics
The official says DHS is developing metrics to clearly measure the effectiveness of NCPS's efforts, including the quality, efficiency and accuracy of actions related to detecting and preventing intrusions.
GAO offered nine recommendations for improving NCPS, including determining the feasibility of adding functionality to detect deviations from normal network behaviors as well as scan more traffic. DHS concurs with all of the recommendations, "many of which are already being addressed as part of ongoing efforts to improve system functionality and customer satisfaction," a department spokesman says. | https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/gao-feds-einstein-program-comes-up-short-a-8833 |
We conducted a Java performance tuning survey during October 2014. The main goal of the survey was to gathering insight into Java performance world to improve the Plumbr product offering. However, we are happy to share the interesting results with you as well. The data that we collected provided material for a lengthy analysis, so we decided to divide the results into a series of blog posts. This is the first one, trying to answer the following questions:
Who deals with Java performance issues?
How widespread are the Java performance issues?
How long does it take to solve such issues?
Where is this time spent?
Engineering roles who answered our survey
In total, 308 respondents answered our call and completed the survey during October 2014. We also profiled the respondents based on their roles, and following chart illustrates the different titles used:
Zooming further out on this distribution, we can say that the data is distributed by respondent role as follows:
73% engineering
6% operations
2% QA
14% management
5% failed to categorize
We can conclude that the survey is mostly based on engineering roles, with a slight touch from management, operations and QA people.
93% of the respondents faced performance issues during the past year
“Have you faced any Java performance issues during the past 12 months?” was the very first question building the overall foundation for the rest of the survey. Out of the 308 respondents, 286, or 93% confirmed that they have faced a performance issue with Java during the last year. For these 286 people we had nine more questions in the survey to answer.
For the remaining 22 who did not face any Java performance issues during the last year, this was also the last question of the survey.
We do admit that the selection of people answering our survey was likely biased and this number is not truly representing the status in the Java world. After all, when you are building performance monitoring tools, people who tend to hang around your web site are more likely to have been recently involved in performance monitoring domain. Thus we cannot really claim that 93% of the people working with Java applications face performance issues on a yearly basis.
What we definitely can claim is that we have data from 286 unique examples about performance issues in Java applications. So let’s see what the issues were all about.
Most of the time is spent on reproducing, evidence gathering and root cause analysis.
Out of the 308 respondents, 156 chose to answer to the “What was the most time consuming part of the process” question. This was a free-text question and we were able to categorize 146 of the answers.
These answers proved to be one of the most interesting outcomes of the survey. It is rather astonishing to see that 76% of the respondents struggle the most with the “trying to reproduce – gather evidence – make sense of the evidence – link evidence to the root cause” cycle:
20% of the respondents spent most of the time trying to reproduce the issue, so that they could start gathering evidence
of the respondents the issue, so that they could start gathering evidence 25% struggled the most with trying to gather evidence (such as log files or heap/thread dumps) and to make sense of the evidence
the most with trying (such as log files or heap/thread dumps) and to make sense of the evidence 30% spent most of the time while trying to link the evidence to the root cause in source code/configuration
To be fair, you should also note that there is a rather significant (13%) amount of respondents claiming that building the actual solution to the problem was the most time-consuming part of the process. Even though it is a noticeable amount, it is still more than five times less than the amount of users spending most of the time in the vicious cycle of trying to get down to the root cause.
How long did it take you to solve the performance issue?
In this section we asked respondents to quantify the pain they faced when trying to detect the root cause. Again, we had 284 respondents answering this question:
The answers confirm that even though some of the cases are easy to detect and troubleshoot, most of the performance issues are tough solve. Kudos to the eight respondents who found and fixed the issue in less than an hour, but let’s stop for a moment and focus on the 48 respondents (17% of the cases) for whom tracing down and solving a performance issue means that more than a month is spent to it.
Another way to interpret the data above is to look at the median and average time spent:
Median time falls into the “more than a day but less than a week” range, translating several days spent for detection and troubleshooting.
Average is a bit trickier to calculate due to the missing upper boundary, but when assuming that “more than a month” translates to “exactly two months”, the average time spent finding and fixing the root cause is 80 hours.
If we look at the total time spent, the numbers start to look even more scary – the 284 respondents spent 22,600 hours in total on detecting and troubleshooting a single performance issue each. This is equivalent to a bit more than 130 man-months. Just thinking of that number alone is a clear sign that this domain is in dire need for better solutions.
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Teen Leadership Workshop at Washington College
A glimpse of the future was on display July 14 on Washington College campus, when young participants in the Maryland Leadership Workshops gave presentations drawing on their activities over the previous week. Anyone inclined to grumble about “kids these days” would have found ample reason to revise their opinion as students from 14 to 18 years old showed how teamwork, problem-solving and creative skills can be applied to real-world problems.
The seven-day summer program brings in middle-school and high-school students from Maryland and the surrounding region for intensive work in building skills to help them succeed in college and careers. These include the basics of verbal and written communication, working in teams to develop ideas, and different kinds of decision-making. At the end of the week, the students give a public presentation showing what they have gathered from the session.
In the morning, Bridge delegates — students entering grades 8 or 9 — took the stage in Norman James Theatre where they told the story of their generation through creative self-expression including poems and dramatic sketches and even a magic trick with cards. Their assignment was to express their response to the biggest challenges facing their generation, the events that have defined them, and the issues or causes that are important to their peer group. An interesting phenomenon to us was that instead of reading from notes on paper, they all read their poems or scripts off their cell phones. Talk about reflecting their generation!
The choice of topics included issues that apply well beyond the teenage years. A group of girls gave their perspective on body image and how it deflects attention from character. They stressed that what you wear is not as important as how you think and behave. Another group offered a series of skits acting out the theme of “Like a girl” — throwing, running, and other activities where girls’ participation is often mocked. The final line was “I (do X) like a girl because I am a girl.”
Another group, illustrating the theme that black lives matter, enacted a robbery in which police shot a black bystander thinking he was the criminal, and the trial in which the officer was acquitted. The participants concluded with short speeches on what racism meant to them.
Another recurring theme was bullying, with one presenter noting that the suicide rate among young girls is three times that of their male counterpart.
The presentations were followed by questions from the audience. Several attendees were teachers who wanted to know how to incorporate some of the insights of the workshop into their own classrooms. The students said that school clubs can allow students to find others with whom they can be more open and share feelings about issues instead of “sweeping them under the rug.”
The afternoon presentation, in Hynson Lounge, featured Advanced Leadership Seminar delegates (students entering grades 10 through 12). For their workshop, they partnered with Baltimore Corps, a social impact organization focused on a citywide approach to equity and racial justice. The ALS delegates were asked to investigate challenges currently facing Baltimore City and then to design integrated solutions to these issues. At this presentation, they shared what they have learned about these issues, and presented their recommendations for the City Council and the Board of Education.
The discussion focused on a poor neighborhood facing problems such as “food deserts” caused by a lack of grocery stores, poor schools, lack of transportation, and voter apathy. Each group took on a specific problem, looking at several possible solutions and advocating for one. For example, they suggested creating food co-ops to address the problem of food deserts. For transportation, the suggestion was to create a pool of public motorbikes that can be used by any one needing a ride to a job interview or a doctor’s appointment. The presentations considered pluses and minuses of each suggestion. The level of research was impressive — the students gave examples of how similar programs were working in other cities in the U.S. and around the world.
Maryland Leadership Workshops is a non-profit organization founded in 1955 by Felix Simon, a guidance counselor in the Baltimore public school system. Many of the instructors are themselves former delegates – an experience that gives them a clearer understanding of how to motivate the young people attending the workshops. One man in the audience at the public presentation said that he was both a former instructor and delegate. He had attended the workshop as a student thirty years ago then later became an instructor. He told the students that his involvement with the Maryland Leadership Workshops had had a huge impact on his life. We’re betting that thirty years from now many of today’s participants will say the same. | |
It seems to me that this extract from a blog post of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge captures, in a very succinct way, the essential purposes of Higher Education.
Students engage actively with knowledge, in the process developing themselves as critical, creative and caring thinkers. This prepares students to take their place in professional life and in society. Our task, as teachers in higher education, is to help to make a reality of this vision of higher education. I argue that this can be achieved by trying to create classroom communities of inquiry.
What is a community of inquiry?
A community of inquiry has been described as:
‘any group that makes it its collective task to construct new meaning in a field of knowledge through collaborative, dialogical deliberation’ (Kennedy and Kennedy, 2012); and
‘a group of individuals who collectively engage in purposeful critical discourse and reflection to construct personal meaning and confirm mutual understanding’ (Garrison, 2011)
In a sense, this is a ‘back to the future’ vision of teaching and learning in higher education; small groups of students work with a more experienced teacher to actively create new understandings, new knowledge.
The communities of inquiry pedagogy calls to mind the idea of the Oxford tutorial. Students use the knowledge resources and ways of thinking that characterize their discipline and produce their own solutions to some of the major problems that interest experts in the field.
Maharg (2007) comments that. ‘active learning should be structured upon the intellectual tasks required by disciplines’. Through this process of active learning, students learn to think like experts. They are inducted into scholarly and professional communities of practice.
Learning is inquiry not memorisation
The communities of inquiry pedagogy is process-driven; learning is about the ability to engage in the process of inquiry carefully and competently. Teaching is about ‘content discoursed upon, actively researched and represented interactively in real social settings’ (Jones, 2011). It is not about learning a collection of right answers.
This contrasts with a commonly encountered ‘information transmission’ approach to teaching and learning which places the accurate transmission of an 'official’ body of knowledge from teacher to student at the heart of education. Learning, on this view, involves memorizing this knowledge and reproducing it in an examination. Students ‘acquire bits of knowledge that, like ice cubes … remain inert and incapable of interacting with one another’ (Lipman, 2003).
The communities of inquiry approach invites students to engage in collaborative knowledge-building; in the community of inquiry, students build on pre-existing knowledge and shared perspectives to create new knowledge. Not so in the information transmission approach.
The communities of inquiry approach helps students to understand that knowledge is socially constructed by professionals working in their disciplines. In the communities of inquiry approach, students learn through collaborative discourse; in a sense, they teach each other under the supervision of a more experienced and knowledgeable guide.
The communities of inquiry approach sees value in the work done by students that includes but goes far beyond the awarding of a grade. Learning is about engaging in and reflecting on the process of critical inquiry.
The information transmission approach, by contrast, sees students as spectators of the research process and passive recipients of its fruits. It is an approach that is all too easy to fall into given the demands of a curriculum to be covered, large numbers of students to be taught and even the physical layout of the lecture theatre.
It is not that lecturing, even information transmission, has no place in the community of inquiry; it is just that lecturing and other ways of inducting students into disciplinary knowledge are subordinate to student inquiry. They are examples of scaffolding that allow the student to get further, more quickly, than might otherwise be possible.
The community of inquiry offers the right pedagogical basis for e-learning
Helping students to engage actively with inherited knowledge and with the work of knowledge creation takes on extra urgency with the advent of learning management systems and other e-learning tools. These tools can facilitate careful, critical, collaborative discourse in a community of inquiry; they make possible student production of useful knowledge artefacts such as blog posts, videos and podcasts. Equally, they can replicate and reinforce the information transmission approach. The starting point is the pedagogical design chosen by the teacher. As Selwyn (2014) reminds us, there is no guarantee that the hoped for benefits of digital technologies will be realized.
The challenge of collaborative learning
Creating classroom communities of inquiry clearly presents challenges for the teacher. Students may have little prior experience of working in collaborative groups. They may have a lively awareness of the ways in which things might go wrong, without having received any guidance as to how these pitfalls can be managed or accommodated. They may not appreciate the professional benefits of learning how to work collaboratively. Law students may feel more accustomed to an established model based on individual competition and assessment that is designed to sort the ‘strong’ from the ‘weak’ (Zimmerman, 1999).
The Practical Inquiry Model
Garrison et al (2000) provides a four stage ‘Practical Inquiry Model’ of the process of critical inquiry in a community of inquiry:
A ‘triggering event’ (some difficult text, issue or research question that evokes a sense of puzzlement, that there is something troubling but interesting, that requires and merits investigation);
‘Exploration’ (a divergent phase involving discussion and information sharing);
‘Integration’ (a convergent phase where students synthesise the ideas that they have discovered or generated and propose solutions); and
‘Resolution’ (real-world testing and defence of the solutions proposed).
This model provides a template for teachers in the work of design and for the process of engaging in and reflecting on the process of collaborative, critical discourse. It also provides a model of the process of inquiry that can be used to explain this process to students. Part of the promise of the community of inquiry is that students can internalize an understanding the processes of critical thought by applying it and seeing it applied in the work of the community of inquiry.
The resolution phase of the community of inquiry can be thought of as an opportunity for students to develop ideas that are a useful contribution to public knowledge. Scardamalia and Bereiter (2006) comment that creative knowledge work, ‘advances the state of knowledge within some community of practice’ involving the creation of ‘epistemic artefacts’. They suggest that, ‘'student-generated theories and models are to be judged not so much by their conformity to accepted knowledge as by their value as tools enabling further growth’.
Students as knowledge producers
Chang (2005) provides an example of what is possible. Students in a final year undergraduate course in the History of Science were each required to carry out a research project, with each project relating to a common theme, ‘that was focused yet flexible .. conducive to building a community that could accommodate students with various interests and inclinations’. The theme chosen was the history of the chemical element chlorine.
The student projects completed by one cohort were handed down to students in the next year for them to improve upon. Some of the projects were being developed as articles for publication in scholarly journals and the author intended to gather the projects together as a book for publication. This project reveals, in Chang’s words, that: ‘[l]earning can go beyond knowledge acquisition to take the form of knowledge production’.
The benefits of the communities of inquiry approach
Creating classroom communities of inquiry can develop students’ critical thinking and research skills. By making the process of critical inquiry explicit, it can help students’ develop an understanding of their own capacity to engage in critical inquiry. Working in groups can help students to be aware of any gaps in their own knowledge or ideas. The communities of inquiry approach gives students the opportunity to practice working in small collaborative groups; a very important skill in the contemporary workplace.
Golding (2015) argues that members benefit from participation in the community of inquiry because they: clarify their personal conceptions and make them more explicit; better understand the inquiry topic and the concepts of other participants; arrive at better conceptions than they could have articulated before participating; and develop a stronger community.
The communities of inquiry approach can develop students’ digital literacies if they are asked to produce, for example, a blog post, video or podcast. Students can learn to present their ideas in these digital forms. Kennedy and Kennedy (2012) point out the new communicative possibilities opened up by the online environment; a new balance is struck between orality, literacy and the imagistic. They also make the point that online writing is a distinctive ‘orality-tinged’ form which is always for a real and immediate other.
The communities of inquiry approach helps students to see that knowledge is embedded in professional or scholarly communities of practice; that it is the fruit of work carried on in those communities and that it is always provisional and open to development. It offers students the possibility of seeing themselves as legitimate peripheral participants in those communities (Lave and Wenger, 1991).
Students are no longer spectators of the work of inquiry that goes on in universities but take part in it themselves. Students are offered the opportunity to acquire a new identity, a new way of making sense of their place in higher education and a new way of appraising the significance of the work that they do at university.
Communities of inquiry in the age of super-complexity
Understanding the ethos of the community of inquiry, learning how to contribute effectively to the work of a community of inquiry, is more important than ever before. Traditional ways of organizing knowledge through the professions are subject to disruption due to the rise of Artificial Intelligence (Susskind and Susskind, 2015). Education has to prepare students for life in the Knowledge Economy and the Knowledge Society (Hargreaves, 2003).
In the era of fake news, the ability, developed through the process of higher education ‘to distinguish sense from nonsense’ (Barnett, 1990) is more important than ever; the communities of inquiry approach engages students in the process of collaborative, critical inquiry that is characteristic of higher education.
Barnett (2000) argues that we now live in a world, not of complexity, but of supercomplexity: ‘a world where nothing can be taken for granted, where no frame of understanding or of action can be entertained with any security’. As a result, ‘[h]igher education is called upon to develop meta-qualities of self-reliance ... that will enable graduates not just to survive amid super-complexity but also to prosper in it and even to go on contributing to it’. Carefully constructed communities of inquiry, I suggest, can be important elements of higher education for the age of supercomplexity.
References
Barnett, R. (1990) The idea of higher education. Buckingham / Bristol , PA: SRHE and Open University Press
(2000) Supercomplexity and the curriculum. Studies in Higher Education, 25:3, 255 - 265
Chang H, (2005) Turning an undergraduate class into a professional research community. Teaching in Higher Education. 10:3, 387 – 394
Garrison, D. (2011) E-learning in the 21st century: a framework for research and practice. New York: Routledge
Garrison, D., Anderson, T. and Archer, W. (2000) Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in Higher Education. The Internet and Higher Education. 2, 87 – 105
Golding, C. (2015) The Community of Inquiry: Blending philosophical and empirical research. Studies in Philosophy and Education. 34, 205 - 216
Jones, A. (2011) Teaching history through communities of inquiry. Australian Historical Studies. 42, 168 - 193
Kennedy, D. and Kennedy, N. (2012) Community of philosophical inquiry online and off: Retrospectus and prospectus. In Akyol, Z. and Garrison, R. Educational communities of inquiry: theoretical foundations, research and practice. Hershey, Pa: IGI Global, pp. 12 – 29
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge / New York / Melbourne: Cambridge University Press
Lipman, M. (2003) Thinking in Education. (2nd ed). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Maharg, P. (2007) Transforming legal education: learning and teaching the law in the early twenty-first century. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Company
Scardamalia, M and Bereiter. C. (2006) Knowledge building. Theory, pedagogy and technology. In Sawyer, K. (ed.) Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences. New York: Cambridge University Press
Selwyn, N. (2014) Distrusting educational technology. Critical questions for changing times. New York / Abingdon: Routledge. | https://www.learning.law.cuhk.edu.hk/post/2018/07/19/coi-undergraduate-edu-part-1 |
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The placebo effect has evolved from being thought of as a nuisance in clinical research to a biological phenomenon worthy of scientific investigation. The study of the placebo effect and of its evil twin, the nocebo effect, is basically the study of the therapeutic ritual around the patient, and it plays a crucial role in the therapeutic outcome. In recent years, different types of placebo responses have been analyzed with sophisticated biological tools that have uncovered specific mechanisms at the neuroanatomical, neurophysiological, biochemical, and cellular levels. Most of our knowledge about the neurobiological mechanisms of the placebo response comes from pain and Parkinson's disease, whereby the neuronal networks involved in placebo responsiveness have been identified. In the first case, opioid, cannabinoid, and cholecystokinin circuits have been found to be involved. In the second case, dopaminergic activation in the striatum and neuronal changes in basal ganglia have been described. This recent research has revealed that these placebo-induced biochemical and cellular changes in a patient's brain are very similar to those induced by drugs. This new way of thinking may have profound implications in clinical trials and medical practice both for pharmacological interventions and for nonpharmacological treatments such as acupuncture.
Copyright © 2012. Published by Elsevier B.V.
National Center for
Biotechnology Information, | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22682270?dopt=Abstract |
A night of satisfying sleep can become a distant dream with each passing decade. It is a problem that is literally giving sleepless nights to many middle-aged as well as elderly individuals.
As you age a lot changes in your body. The quality of sleep generally deteriorates with increasing number of age-related disturbances like body pain, frequent urge to urinate, sleep apnea, etc.
Did you know that middle-aged men are affected by changing sleep patterns more than women?
A study shows that middle-aged men tend to wake up more easily from the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of their sleep than women. It means that men tend to spend less time in the dream phase of their sleep.1 Maybe that is why men can’t remember what they dreamt of. (Am I right, ladies?) Also, men are twice more likely to suffer from sleep apnea which is never good for their sleep.2
Unfortunately, you can’t control these changes. You can’t run against time to restore what is already lost, but you can definitely change and adapt accordingly to make your life better.
1. Check Your Medication
Is the prescribed medication hampering your sleep? You can easily examine if that’s the case. If the sleep disruption has started after you started the medication, then it might be the problem. Talk to your doctor and check if you could be prescribed something different that won’t hamper your sleep.
2. Watch Your Fluid Intake At Night
If you are diabetic or have urinary incontinence, then you would urinate frequently. You may seek treatment for your incontinence. Also, you may try to reduce fluid intake two hours prior to bed time to reduce the chances of going to the bathroom. This may help you sleep well without disruptions. However, be careful, as reduced intake could make you thirsty and wake you up in the middle of the night. Monitor your intake and see what works best for you.
3. Treat Your Pain
Persistent pain can make it hard for you to sleep, peacefully. It can also significantly, restrict your motion. Unfortunately, a small movement can trigger intense pain enough to wake you up from sleep. Check with your physician if you could be prescribed pain relief medication, also work with him/her to identify the real cause of pain.
4. Keep Your Bedroom Dark
Darkness helps induce sleep. Research shows that darkness helps increase the production of melatonin, a hormone secreted in our body that helps us fall asleep. Make sure your room is appropriately dark before going to bed. One way to do that is to keep it gadget free. Switch off the TV, laptops or computers, and mobile phones.
5. Drink Caffeine In Moderation
Caffeine boosts energy. It is a great drink to start your morning with but it is a bad way to end your day. Caffeine can rob you of your sleep. So, limit your caffeine intake and avoid having any of it at least eight hours before you go to sleep. This will allow you to have a good sleep.
6. Limit Your Alcohol Consumption
You may think that drinking alcohol can help you sleep well. While it may help you fall asleep quickly, once its effect wears off you will be snapped out of sleep! So, it is advised that you limit your alcohol consumption before sleeping.
7. You Can Try Melatonin Medication
You can also opt for melatonin tablets to help you sleep. But, before you start, consult with your doctor about the safe usage, dosage, and frequency.
There are many things out there that can help you with your problem. Mindful meditation can help you get some peaceful shuteye.3 Music can affect your parasympathetic system in a wonderful manner and help you beat your age-related sleeping woes and blues.4
Remember, you are not alone in this. If sleep disturbance is taking a toll on you, then don’t hesitate to seek help. | https://curejoy.com/content/ways-to-ensure-good-sleep-as-you-age/ |
All Publications
Abstract
Math anxiety is a negative emotional reaction that is characterized by feelings of stress and anxiety in situations involving mathematical problem solving. High math-anxious individuals tend to avoid situations involving mathematics and are less likely to pursue science, technology, engineering, and math-related careers than those with low math anxiety. Math anxiety during childhood, in particular, has adverse long-term consequences for academic and professional success. Identifying cognitive interventions and brain mechanisms by which math anxiety can be ameliorated in children is therefore critical. Here we investigate whether an intensive 8 week one-to-one cognitive tutoring program designed to improve mathematical skills reduces childhood math anxiety, and we identify the neurobiological mechanisms by which math anxiety can be reduced in affected children. Forty-six children in grade 3, a critical early-onset period for math anxiety, participated in the cognitive tutoring program. High math-anxious children showed a significant reduction in math anxiety after tutoring. Remarkably, tutoring remediated aberrant functional responses and connectivity in emotion-related circuits anchored in the basolateral amygdala. Crucially, children with greater tutoring-induced decreases in amygdala reactivity had larger reductions in math anxiety. Our study demonstrates that sustained exposure to mathematical stimuli can reduce math anxiety and highlights the key role of the amygdala in this process. Our findings are consistent with models of exposure-based therapy for anxiety disorders and have the potential to inform the early treatment of a disability that, if left untreated in childhood, can lead to significant lifelong educational and socioeconomic consequences in affected individuals.Math anxiety during early childhood has adverse long-term consequences for academic and professional success. It is therefore important to identify ways to alleviate math anxiety in young children. Surprisingly, there have been no studies of cognitive interventions and the underlying neurobiological mechanisms by which math anxiety can be ameliorated in young children. Here, we demonstrate that intensive 8 week one-to-one cognitive tutoring not only reduces math anxiety but also remarkably remediates aberrant functional responses and connectivity in emotion-related circuits anchored in the amygdala. Our findings are likely to propel new ways of thinking about early treatment of a disability that has significant implications for improving each individual's academic and professional chances of success in today's technological society that increasingly demands strong quantitative skills.
Abstract
Competency with numbers is essential in today's society; yet, up to 20% of children exhibit moderate to severe mathematical learning disabilities (MLD). Behavioural intervention can be effective, but the neurobiological mechanisms underlying successful intervention are unknown. Here we demonstrate that eight weeks of 1:1 cognitive tutoring not only remediates poor performance in children with MLD, but also induces widespread changes in brain activity. Neuroplasticity manifests as normalization of aberrant functional responses in a distributed network of parietal, prefrontal and ventral temporal-occipital areas that support successful numerical problem solving, and is correlated with performance gains. Remarkably, machine learning algorithms show that brain activity patterns in children with MLD are significantly discriminable from neurotypical peers before, but not after, tutoring, suggesting that behavioural gains are not due to compensatory mechanisms. Our study identifies functional brain mechanisms underlying effective intervention in children with MLD and provides novel metrics for assessing response to intervention.
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting nearly 1 in 88 children, is thought to result from aberrant brain connectivity. Remarkably, there have been no systematic attempts to characterize whole-brain connectivity in children with ASD. Here, we use neuroimaging to show that there are more instances of greater functional connectivity in the brains of children with ASD in comparison to those of typically developing children. Hyperconnectivity in ASD was observed at the whole-brain and subsystems levels, across long- and short-range connections, and was associated with higher levels of fluctuations in regional brain signals. Brain hyperconnectivity predicted symptom severity in ASD, such that children with greater functional connectivity exhibited more severe social deficits. We replicated these findings in two additional independent cohorts, demonstrating again that at earlier ages, the brain of children with ASD is largely functionally hyperconnected in ways that contribute to social dysfunction. Our findings provide unique insights into brain mechanisms underlying childhood autism.
Neural predictors of individual differences in response to math tutoring in primary-grade school childrenPROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICASupekar, K., Swigart, A. G., Tenison, C., Jolles, D. D., Rosenberg-Lee, M., Fuchs, L., Menon, V.2013; 110 (20): 8230-8235
Abstract
Now, more than ever, the ability to acquire mathematical skills efficiently is critical for academic and professional success, yet little is known about the behavioral and neural mechanisms that drive some children to acquire these skills faster than others. Here we investigate the behavioral and neural predictors of individual differences in arithmetic skill acquisition in response to 8-wk of one-to-one math tutoring. Twenty-four children in grade 3 (ages 8-9 y), a critical period for acquisition of basic mathematical skills, underwent structural and resting-state functional MRI scans pretutoring. A significant shift in arithmetic problem-solving strategies from counting to fact retrieval was observed with tutoring. Notably, the speed and accuracy of arithmetic problem solving increased with tutoring, with some children improving significantly more than others. Next, we examined whether pretutoring behavioral and brain measures could predict individual differences in arithmetic performance improvements with tutoring. No behavioral measures, including intelligence quotient, working memory, or mathematical abilities, predicted performance improvements. In contrast, pretutoring hippocampal volume predicted performance improvements. Furthermore, pretutoring intrinsic functional connectivity of the hippocampus with dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal cortices and the basal ganglia also predicted performance improvements. Our findings provide evidence that individual differences in morphometry and connectivity of brain regions associated with learning and memory, and not regions typically involved in arithmetic processing, are strong predictors of responsiveness to math tutoring in children. More generally, our study suggests that quantitative measures of brain structure and intrinsic brain organization can provide a more sensitive marker of skill acquisition than behavioral measures.
Abstract
Cognitive skills undergo protracted developmental changes resulting in proficiencies that are a hallmark of human cognition. One skill that develops over time is the ability to problem solve, which in turn relies on cognitive control and attention abilities. Here we use a novel multimodal neurocognitive network-based approach combining task-related fMRI, resting-state fMRI and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to investigate the maturation of control processes underlying problem solving skills in 7-9 year-old children. Our analysis focused on two key neurocognitive networks implicated in a wide range of cognitive tasks including control: the insula-cingulate salience network, anchored in anterior insula (AI), ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex, and the fronto-parietal central executive network, anchored in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and posterior parietal cortex (PPC). We found that, by age 9, the AI node of the salience network is a major causal hub initiating control signals during problem solving. Critically, despite stronger AI activation, the strength of causal regulatory influences from AI to the PPC node of the central executive network was significantly weaker and contributed to lower levels of behavioral performance in children compared to adults. These results were validated using two different analytic methods for estimating causal interactions in fMRI data. In parallel, DTI-based tractography revealed weaker AI-PPC structural connectivity in children. Our findings point to a crucial role of AI connectivity, and its causal cross-network influences, in the maturation of dynamic top-down control signals underlying cognitive development. Overall, our study demonstrates how a unified neurocognitive network model when combined with multimodal imaging enhances our ability to generalize beyond individual task-activated foci and provides a common framework for elucidating key features of brain and cognitive development. The quantitative approach developed is likely to be useful in investigating neurodevelopmental disorders, in which control processes are impaired, such as autism and ADHD.
Abstract
Functional and structural maturation of networks comprised of discrete regions is an important aspect of brain development. The default-mode network (DMN) is a prominent network which includes the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), medial temporal lobes (MTL), and angular gyrus (AG). Despite increasing interest in DMN function, little is known about its maturation from childhood to adulthood. Here we examine developmental changes in DMN connectivity using a multimodal imaging approach by combining resting-state fMRI, voxel-based morphometry and diffusion tensor imaging-based tractography. We found that the DMN undergoes significant developmental changes in functional and structural connectivity, but these changes are not uniform across all DMN nodes. Convergent structural and functional connectivity analyses suggest that PCC-mPFC connectivity along the cingulum bundle is the most immature link in the DMN of children. Both PCC and mPFC also showed gray matter volume differences, as well as prominent macrostructural and microstructural differences in the dorsal cingulum bundle linking these regions. Notably, structural connectivity between PCC and left MTL was either weak or non-existent in children, even though functional connectivity did not differ from that of adults. These results imply that functional connectivity in children can reach adult-like levels despite weak structural connectivity. We propose that maturation of PCC-mPFC structural connectivity plays an important role in the development of self-related and social-cognitive functions that emerge during adolescence. More generally, our study demonstrates how quantitative multimodal analysis of anatomy and connectivity allows us to better characterize the heterogeneous development and maturation of brain networks.
Abstract
The ontogeny of large-scale functional organization of the human brain is not well understood. Here we use network analysis of intrinsic functional connectivity to characterize the organization of brain networks in 23 children (ages 7-9 y) and 22 young-adults (ages 19-22 y). Comparison of network properties, including path-length, clustering-coefficient, hierarchy, and regional connectivity, revealed that although children and young-adults' brains have similar "small-world" organization at the global level, they differ significantly in hierarchical organization and interregional connectivity. We found that subcortical areas were more strongly connected with primary sensory, association, and paralimbic areas in children, whereas young-adults showed stronger cortico-cortical connectivity between paralimbic, limbic, and association areas. Further, combined analysis of functional connectivity with wiring distance measures derived from white-matter fiber tracking revealed that the development of large-scale brain networks is characterized by weakening of short-range functional connectivity and strengthening of long-range functional connectivity. Importantly, our findings show that the dynamic process of over-connectivity followed by pruning, which rewires connectivity at the neuronal level, also operates at the systems level, helping to reconfigure and rebalance subcortical and paralimbic connectivity in the developing brain. Our study demonstrates the usefulness of network analysis of brain connectivity to elucidate key principles underlying functional brain maturation, paving the way for novel studies of disrupted brain connectivity in neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism.
Abstract
Functional brain networks detected in task-free ("resting-state") functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have a small-world architecture that reflects a robust functional organization of the brain. Here, we examined whether this functional organization is disrupted in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Task-free fMRI data from 21 AD subjects and 18 age-matched controls were obtained. Wavelet analysis was applied to the fMRI data to compute frequency-dependent correlation matrices. Correlation matrices were thresholded to create 90-node undirected-graphs of functional brain networks. Small-world metrics (characteristic path length and clustering coefficient) were computed using graph analytical methods. In the low frequency interval 0.01 to 0.05 Hz, functional brain networks in controls showed small-world organization of brain activity, characterized by a high clustering coefficient and a low characteristic path length. In contrast, functional brain networks in AD showed loss of small-world properties, characterized by a significantly lower clustering coefficient (p<0.01), indicative of disrupted local connectivity. Clustering coefficients for the left and right hippocampus were significantly lower (p<0.01) in the AD group compared to the control group. Furthermore, the clustering coefficient distinguished AD participants from the controls with a sensitivity of 72% and specificity of 78%. Our study provides new evidence that there is disrupted organization of functional brain networks in AD. Small-world metrics can characterize the functional organization of the brain in AD, and our findings further suggest that these network measures may be useful as an imaging-based biomarker to distinguish AD from healthy aging.
Abstract
Causal estimation methods are increasingly being used to investigate functional brain networks in fMRI, but there are continuing concerns about the validity of these methods.Multivariate Dynamical Systems (MDS) is a state-space method for estimating dynamic causal interactions in fMRI data. Here we validate MDS using benchmark simulations as well as simulations from a more realistic stochastic neurophysiological model. Finally, we applied MDS to investigate dynamic casual interactions in a fronto-cingulate-parietal control network using Human Connectome Project (HCP) data acquired during performance of a working memory task. Crucially, since the ground truth in experimental data is unknown, we conducted novel stability analysis to determine robust causal interactions within this network.MDS accurately recovered dynamic causal interactions with an area under receiver operating characteristic (AUC) above 0.7 for benchmark datasets and AUC above 0.9 for datasets generated using the neurophysiological model. In experimental fMRI data, bootstrap procedures revealed a stable pattern of causal influences from the anterior insula to other nodes of the fronto-cingulate-parietal network.MDS is effective in estimating dynamic causal interactions in both the benchmark and neurophysiological model based datasets in terms of AUC, sensitivity and false positive rates.Our findings demonstrate that MDS can accurately estimate causal interactions in fMRI data. Neurophysiological models and stability analysis provide a general framework for validating computational methods designed to estimate causal interactions in fMRI. The right anterior insula functions as a causal hub during working memory.
Abstract
The medial temporal lobe (MTL), encompassing the hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus (PHG), is a heterogeneous structure which plays a critical role in memory and cognition. Here, we investigate functional architecture of the human MTL along the long axis of the hippocampus and PHG. The hippocampus showed stronger connectivity with striatum, ventral tegmental area and amygdala-regions important for integrating reward and affective signals, whereas the PHG showed stronger connectivity with unimodal and polymodal association cortices. In the hippocampus, the anterior node showed stronger connectivity with the anterior medial temporal lobe and the posterior node showed stronger connectivity with widely distributed cortical and subcortical regions including those involved in sensory and reward processing. In the PHG, differences were characterized by a gradient of increasing anterior-to-posterior connectivity with core nodes of the default mode network. Left and right MTL connectivity patterns were remarkably similar, except for stronger left than right MTL connectivity with regions in the left MTL, the ventral striatum and default mode network. Graph theoretical analysis of MTL-based networks revealed higher node centrality of the posterior, compared to anterior and middle hippocampus. The PHG showed prominent gradients in both node degree and centrality along its anterior-to-posterior axis. Our findings highlight several novel aspects of functional heterogeneity in connectivity along the long axis of the human MTL and provide new insights into how its network organization supports integration and segregation of signals from distributed brain areas. The implications of our findings for a principledunderstanding of distributed pathways that support memory and cognition are discussed.
Abstract
Mathematical disabilities (MD) have a negative life-long impact on professional success, employment, and health outcomes. Yet little is known about the intrinsic functional brain organization that contributes to poor math skills in affected children. It is now increasingly recognized that math cognition requires coordinated interaction within a large-scale fronto-parietal network anchored in the intraparietal sulcus (IPS). Here we characterize intrinsic functional connectivity within this IPS-network in children with MD, relative to a group of typically developing (TD) children who were matched on age, gender, IQ, working memory, and reading abilities. Compared to TD children, children with MD showed hyper-connectivity of the IPS with a bilateral fronto-parietal network. Importantly, aberrant IPS connectivity patterns accurately discriminated children with MD and TD children, highlighting the possibility for using IPS connectivity as a brain-based biomarker of MD. To further investigate regional abnormalities contributing to network-level deficits in children with MD, we performed whole-brain analyses of intrinsic low-frequency fluctuations. Notably, children with MD showed higher low-frequency fluctuations in multiple fronto-parietal areas that overlapped with brain regions that exhibited hyper-connectivity with the IPS. Taken together, our findings suggest that MD in children is characterized by robust network-level aberrations, and is not an isolated dysfunction of the IPS. We hypothesize that intrinsic hyper-connectivity and enhanced low-frequency fluctuations may limit flexible resource allocation, and contribute to aberrant recruitment of task-related brain regions during numerical problem solving in children with MD.
Abstract
One of the most fundamental features of the human brain is its ability to detect and attend to salient goal-relevant events in a flexible manner. The salience network (SN), anchored in the anterior insula and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, plays a crucial role in this process through rapid detection of goal-relevant events and facilitation of access to appropriate cognitive resources. Here, we leverage the subsecond resolution of large multisession fMRI datasets from the Human Connectome Project and apply novel graph-theoretical techniques to investigate the dynamic spatiotemporal organization of the SN. We show that the large-scale brain dynamics of the SN are characterized by several distinctive and robust properties. First, the SN demonstrated the highest levels of flexibility in time-varying connectivity with other brain networks, including the frontoparietal network (FPN), the cingulate-opercular network (CON), and the ventral and dorsal attention networks (VAN and DAN). Second, dynamic functional interactions of the SN were among the most spatially varied in the brain. Third, SN nodes maintained a consistently high level of network centrality over time, indicating that this network is a hub for facilitating flexible cross-network interactions. Fourth, time-varying connectivity profiles of the SN were distinct from all other prefrontal control systems. Fifth, temporal flexibility of the SN uniquely predicted individual differences in cognitive flexibility. Importantly, each of these results was also observed in a second retest dataset, demonstrating the robustness of our findings. Our study provides fundamental new insights into the distinct dynamic functional architecture of the SN and demonstrates how this network is uniquely positioned to facilitate interactions with multiple functional systems and thereby support a wide range of cognitive processes in the human brain.
Abstract
State-space multivariate dynamical systems (MDS) (Ryali et al. 2011) and other causal estimation models are being increasingly used to identify directed functional interactions between brain regions. However, the validity and accuracy of such methods are poorly understood. Performance evaluation based on computer simulations of small artificial causal networks can address this problem to some extent, but they often involve simplifying assumptions that reduce biological validity of the resulting data. Here, we use a novel approach taking advantage of recently developed optogenetic fMRI (ofMRI) techniques to selectively stimulate brain regions while simultaneously recording high-resolution whole-brain fMRI data. ofMRI allows for a more direct investigation of causal influences from the stimulated site to brain regions activated downstream and is therefore ideal for evaluating causal estimation methods in vivo. We used ofMRI to investigate whether MDS models for fMRI can accurately estimate causal functional interactions between brain regions. Two cohorts of ofMRI data were acquired, one at Stanford University and the University of California Los Angeles (Cohort 1) and the other at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (Cohort 2). In each cohort, optical stimulation was delivered to the right primary motor cortex (M1). General linear model analysis revealed prominent downstream thalamic activation in Cohort 1, and caudate-putamen (CPu) activation in Cohort 2. MDS accurately estimated causal interactions from M1 to thalamus and from M1 to CPu in Cohort 1 and Cohort 2, respectively. As predicted, no causal influences were found in the reverse direction. Additional control analyses demonstrated the specificity of causal interactions between stimulated and target sites. Our findings suggest that MDS state-space models can accurately and reliably estimate causal interactions in ofMRI data and further validate their use for estimating causal interactions in fMRI. More generally, our study demonstrates that the combined use of optogenetics and fMRI provides a powerful new tool for evaluating computational methods designed to estimate causal interactions between distributed brain regions.
Abstract
Plasticity of white matter tracts is thought to be essential for cognitive development and academic skill acquisition in children. However, a dearth of high-quality diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data measuring longitudinal changes with learning, as well as methodological difficulties in multi-time point tract identification have limited our ability to investigate plasticity of specific white matter tracts. Here, we examine learning-related changes of white matter tracts innervating inferior parietal, prefrontal and temporal regions following an intense 2-month math tutoring program. DTI data were acquired from 18 third grade children, both before and after tutoring. A novel fiber tracking algorithm based on a White Matter Query Language (WMQL) was used to identify three sections of the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) linking frontal and parietal (SLF-FP), parietal and temporal (SLF-PT) and frontal and temporal (SLF-FT) cortices, from which we created child-specific probabilistic maps. The SLF-FP, SLF-FT, and SLF-PT tracts identified with the WMQL method were highly reliable across the two time points and showed close correspondence to tracts previously described in adults. Notably, individual differences in behavioral gains after 2 months of tutoring were specifically correlated with plasticity in the left SLF-FT tract. Our results extend previous findings of individual differences in white matter integrity, and provide important new insights into white matter plasticity related to math learning in childhood. More generally, our quantitative approach will be useful for future studies examining longitudinal changes in white matter integrity associated with cognitive skill development.
Abstract
Coordinated attention to information from multiple senses is fundamental to our ability to respond to salient environmental events, yet little is known about brain network mechanisms that guide integration of information from multiple senses. Here we investigate dynamic causal mechanisms underlying multisensory auditory-visual attention, focusing on a network of right-hemisphere frontal-cingulate-parietal regions implicated in a wide range of tasks involving attention and cognitive control. Participants performed three 'oddball' attention tasks involving auditory, visual and multisensory auditory-visual stimuli during fMRI scanning. We found that the right anterior insula (rAI) demonstrated the most significant causal influences on all other frontal-cingulate-parietal regions, serving as a major causal control hub during multisensory attention. Crucially, we then tested two competing models of the role of the rAI in multisensory attention: an 'integrated' signaling model in which the rAI generates a common multisensory control signal associated with simultaneous attention to auditory and visual oddball stimuli versus a 'segregated' signaling model in which the rAI generates two segregated and independent signals in each sensory modality. We found strong support for the integrated, rather than the segregated, signaling model. Furthermore, the strength of the integrated control signal from the rAI was most pronounced on the dorsal anterior cingulate and posterior parietal cortices, two key nodes of saliency and central executive networks respectively. These results were preserved with the addition of a superior temporal sulcus region involved in multisensory processing. Our study provides new insights into the dynamic causal mechanisms by which the AI facilitates multisensory attention.
Abstract
Male predominance is a prominent feature of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), with a reported male to female ratio of 4:1. Because of the overwhelming focus on males, little is known about the neuroanatomical basis of sex differences in ASD. Investigations of sex differences with adequate sample sizes are critical for improving our understanding of the biological mechanisms underlying ASD in females.We leveraged the open-access autism brain imaging data exchange (ABIDE) dataset to obtain structural brain imaging data from 53 females with ASD, who were matched with equivalent samples of males with ASD, and their typically developing (TD) male and female peers. Brain images were processed with FreeSurfer to assess three key features of local cortical morphometry: volume, thickness, and gyrification. A whole-brain approach was used to identify significant effects of sex, diagnosis, and sex-by-diagnosis interaction, using a stringent threshold of p
Abstract
Early childhood anxiety has been linked to an increased risk for developing mood and anxiety disorders. Little, however, is known about its effect on the brain during a period in early childhood when anxiety-related traits begin to be reliably identifiable. Even less is known about the neurodevelopmental origins of individual differences in childhood anxiety.We combined structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging with neuropsychological assessments of anxiety based on daily life experiences to investigate the effects of anxiety on the brain in 76 young children. We then used machine learning algorithms with balanced cross-validation to examine brain-based predictors of individual differences in childhood anxiety.Even in children as young as ages 7 to 9, high childhood anxiety is associated with enlarged amygdala volume and this enlargement is localized specifically to the basolateral amygdala. High childhood anxiety is also associated with increased connectivity between the amygdala and distributed brain systems involved in attention, emotion perception, and regulation, and these effects are most prominent in basolateral amygdala. Critically, machine learning algorithms revealed that levels of childhood anxiety could be reliably predicted by amygdala morphometry and intrinsic functional connectivity, with the left basolateral amygdala emerging as the strongest predictor.Individual differences in anxiety can be reliably detected with high predictive value in amygdala-centric emotion circuits at a surprisingly young age. Our study provides important new insights into the neurodevelopmental origins of anxiety and has significant implications for the development of predictive biomarkers to identify children at risk for anxiety disorders.
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by social and communication deficits. While such deficits have been the focus of most research, recent evidence suggests that individuals with ASD may exhibit cognitive strengths in domains such as mathematics.Cognitive assessments and functional brain imaging were used to investigate mathematical abilities in 18 children with ASD and 18 age-, gender-, and IQ-matched typically developing (TD) children. Multivariate classification and regression analyses were used to investigate whether brain activity patterns during numerical problem solving were significantly different between the groups and predictive of individual mathematical abilities.Children with ASD showed better numerical problem solving abilities and relied on sophisticated decomposition strategies for single-digit addition problems more frequently than TD peers. Although children with ASD engaged similar brain areas as TD children, they showed different multivariate activation patterns related to arithmetic problem complexity in ventral temporal-occipital cortex, posterior parietal cortex, and medial temporal lobe. Furthermore, multivariate activation patterns in ventral temporal-occipital cortical areas typically associated with face processing predicted individual numerical problem solving abilities in children with ASD but not in TD children.Our study suggests that superior mathematical information processing in children with ASD is characterized by a unique pattern of brain organization and that cortical regions typically involved in perceptual expertise may be utilized in novel ways in ASD. Our findings of enhanced cognitive and neural resources for mathematics have critical implications for educational, professional, and social outcomes for individuals with this lifelong disorder.
Abstract
Analyzing Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) of resting brains to determine the spatial location and activity of intrinsic brain networks--a novel and burgeoning research field--is limited by the lack of ground truth and the tendency of analyses to overfit the data. Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is commonly used to separate the data into signal and Gaussian noise components, and then map these components on to spatial networks. Identifying noise from this data, however, is a tedious process that has proven hard to automate, particularly when data from different institutions, subjects, and scanners is used. Here we present an automated method to delineate noisy independent components in ICA using a data-driven infrastructure that queries a database of 246 spatial and temporal features to discover a computational signature of different types of noise. We evaluated the performance of our method to detect noisy components from healthy control fMRI (sensitivity = 0.91, specificity = 0.82, cross validation accuracy (CVA) = 0.87, area under the curve (AUC) = 0.93), and demonstrate its generalizability by showing equivalent performance on (1) an age- and scanner-matched cohort of schizophrenia patients from the same institution (sensitivity = 0.89, specificity = 0.83, CVA = 0.86), (2) an age-matched cohort on an equivalent scanner from a different institution (sensitivity = 0.88, specificity = 0.88, CVA = 0.88), and (3) an age-matched cohort on a different scanner from a different institution (sensitivity = 0.72, specificity = 0.92, CVA = 0.79). We additionally compare our approach with a recently published method. Our results suggest that our method is robust to noise variations due to population as well as scanner differences, thereby making it well suited to the goal of automatically distinguishing noise from functional networks to enable investigation of human brain function.
Abstract
IMPORTANCE Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects 1 in 88 children and is characterized by a complex phenotype, including social, communicative, and sensorimotor deficits. Autism spectrum disorder has been linked with atypical connectivity across multiple brain systems, yet the nature of these differences in young children with the disorder is not well understood. OBJECTIVES To examine connectivity of large-scale brain networks and determine whether specific networks can distinguish children with ASD from typically developing (TD) children and predict symptom severity in children with ASD. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Case-control study performed at Stanford University School of Medicine of 20 children 7 to 12 years old with ASD and 20 age-, sex-, and IQ-matched TD children. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Between-group differences in intrinsic functional connectivity of large-scale brain networks, performance of a classifier built to discriminate children with ASD from TD children based on specific brain networks, and correlations between brain networks and core symptoms of ASD. RESULTS We observed stronger functional connectivity within several large-scale brain networks in children with ASD compared with TD children. This hyperconnectivity in ASD encompassed salience, default mode, frontotemporal, motor, and visual networks. This hyperconnectivity result was replicated in an independent cohort obtained from publicly available databases. Using maps of each individual's salience network, children with ASD could be discriminated from TD children with a classification accuracy of 78%, with 75% sensitivity and 80% specificity. The salience network showed the highest classification accuracy among all networks examined, and the blood oxygen-level dependent signal in this network predicted restricted and repetitive behavior scores. The classifier discriminated ASD from TD in the independent sample with 83% accuracy, 67% sensitivity, and 100% specificity. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Salience network hyperconnectivity may be a distinguishing feature in children with ASD. Quantification of brain network connectivity is a step toward developing biomarkers for objectively identifying children with ASD.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The default mode network (DMN), a brain system anchored in the posteromedial cortex, has been identified as underconnected in adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, to date there have been no attempts to characterize this network and its involvement in mediating social deficits in children with ASD. Furthermore, the functionally heterogeneous profile of the posteromedial cortex raises questions regarding how altered connectivity manifests in specific functional modules within this brain region in children with ASD. METHODS: Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and an anatomically informed approach were used to investigate the functional connectivity of the DMN in 20 children with ASD and 19 age-, gender-, and IQ-matched typically developing (TD) children. Multivariate regression analyses were used to test whether altered patterns of connectivity are predictive of social impairment severity. RESULTS: Compared with TD children, children with ASD demonstrated hyperconnectivity of the posterior cingulate and retrosplenial cortices with predominately medial and anterolateral temporal cortex. In contrast, the precuneus in ASD children demonstrated hypoconnectivity with visual cortex, basal ganglia, and locally within the posteromedial cortex. Aberrant posterior cingulate cortex hyperconnectivity was linked with severity of social impairments in ASD, whereas precuneus hypoconnectivity was unrelated to social deficits. Consistent with previous work in healthy adults, a functionally heterogeneous profile of connectivity within the posteromedial cortex in both TD and ASD children was observed. CONCLUSIONS: This work links hyperconnectivity of DMN-related circuits to the core social deficits in young children with ASD and highlights fundamental aspects of posteromedial cortex heterogeneity.
Underconnectivity between voice-selective cortex and reward circuitry in children with autismPROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICAAbrams, D. A., Lynch, C. J., Cheng, K. M., Phillips, J., Supekar, K., Ryali, S., Uddin, L. Q., Menon, V.2013; 110 (29): 12060-12065
Abstract
Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) often show insensitivity to the human voice, a deficit that is thought to play a key role in communication deficits in this population. The social motivation theory of ASD predicts that impaired function of reward and emotional systems impedes children with ASD from actively engaging with speech. Here we explore this theory by investigating distributed brain systems underlying human voice perception in children with ASD. Using resting-state functional MRI data acquired from 20 children with ASD and 19 age- and intelligence quotient-matched typically developing children, we examined intrinsic functional connectivity of voice-selective bilateral posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS). Children with ASD showed a striking pattern of underconnectivity between left-hemisphere pSTS and distributed nodes of the dopaminergic reward pathway, including bilateral ventral tegmental areas and nucleus accumbens, left-hemisphere insula, orbitofrontal cortex, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Children with ASD also showed underconnectivity between right-hemisphere pSTS, a region known for processing speech prosody, and the orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala, brain regions critical for emotion-related associative learning. The degree of underconnectivity between voice-selective cortex and reward pathways predicted symptom severity for communication deficits in children with ASD. Our results suggest that weak connectivity of voice-selective cortex and brain structures involved in reward and emotion may impair the ability of children with ASD to experience speech as a pleasurable stimulus, thereby impacting language and social skill development in this population. Our study provides support for the social motivation theory of ASD.
Abstract
Understanding the organization of the human brain requires identification of its functional subdivisions. Clustering schemes based on resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data are rapidly emerging as non-invasive alternatives to cytoarchitectonic mapping in postmortem brains. Here, we propose a novel spatio-temporal probabilistic parcellation scheme that overcomes major weaknesses of existing approaches by (i) modeling the fMRI time series of a voxel as a von Mises-Fisher distribution, which is widely used for clustering high dimensional data; (ii) modeling the latent cluster labels as a Markov random field, which provides spatial regularization on the cluster labels by penalizing neighboring voxels having different cluster labels; and (iii) introducing a prior on the number of labels, which helps in uncovering the number of clusters automatically from the data. Cluster labels and model parameters are estimated by an iterative expectation maximization procedure wherein, given the data and current estimates of model parameters, the latent cluster labels, are computed using α-expansion, a state of the art graph cut, method. In turn, given the current estimates of cluster labels, model parameters are estimated by maximizing the pseudo log-likelihood. The performance of the proposed method is validated using extensive computer simulations. Using novel stability analysis we examine the sensitivity of our methods to parameter initialization and demonstrate that the method is robust to a wide range of initial parameter values. We demonstrate the application of our methods by parcellating spatially contiguous as well as non-contiguous brain regions at both the individual participant and group levels. Notably, our analyses yield new data on the posterior boundaries of the supplementary motor area and provide new insights into functional organization of the insular cortex. Taken together, our findings suggest that our method is a powerful tool for investigating functional subdivisions in the human brain.
Abstract
While there is almost universal agreement amongst researchers that autism is associated with alterations in brain connectivity, the precise nature of these alterations continues to be debated. Theoretical and empirical work is beginning to reveal that autism is associated with a complex functional phenotype characterized by both hypo- and hyper-connectivity of large-scale brain systems. It is not yet understood why such conflicting patterns of brain connectivity are observed across different studies, and the factors contributing to these heterogeneous findings have not been identified. Developmental changes in functional connectivity have received inadequate attention to date. We propose that discrepancies between findings of autism related hypo-connectivity and hyper-connectivity might be reconciled by taking developmental changes into account. We review neuroimaging studies of autism, with an emphasis on functional magnetic resonance imaging studies of intrinsic functional connectivity in children, adolescents and adults. The consistent pattern emerging across several studies is that while intrinsic functional connectivity in adolescents and adults with autism is generally reduced compared with age-matched controls, functional connectivity in younger children with the disorder appears to be increased. We suggest that by placing recent empirical findings within a developmental framework, and explicitly characterizing age and pubertal stage in future work, it may be possible to resolve conflicting findings of hypo- and hyper-connectivity in the extant literature and arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of the neurobiology of autism.
Immature integration and segregation of emotion-related brain circuitry in young childrenPROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICAQin, S., Young, C. B., Supekar, K., Uddin, L. Q., Menon, V.2012; 109 (20): 7941-7946
Abstract
The human brain undergoes protracted development, with dramatic changes in expression and regulation of emotion from childhood to adulthood. The amygdala is a brain structure that plays a pivotal role in emotion-related functions. Investigating developmental characteristics of the amygdala and associated functional circuits in children is important for understanding how emotion processing matures in the developing brain. The basolateral amygdala (BLA) and centromedial amygdala (CMA) are two major amygdalar nuclei that contribute to distinct functions via their unique pattern of interactions with cortical and subcortical regions. Almost nothing is currently known about the maturation of functional circuits associated with these amygdala nuclei in the developing brain. Using intrinsic connectivity analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging data, we investigated developmental changes in functional connectivity of the BLA and CMA in twenty-four 7- to 9-y-old typically developing children compared with twenty-four 19- to 22-y-old healthy adults. Children showed significantly weaker intrinsic functional connectivity of the amygdala with subcortical, paralimbic, and limbic structures, polymodal association, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Importantly, target networks associated with the BLA and CMA exhibited greater overlap and weaker dissociation in children. In line with this finding, children showed greater intraamygdala connectivity between the BLA and CMA. Critically, these developmental differences were reproducibly identified in a second independent cohort of adults and children. Taken together, our findings point toward weak integration and segregation of amygdala circuits in young children. These immature patterns of amygdala connectivity have important implications for understanding typical and atypical development of emotion-related brain circuitry.
Abstract
Characterizing interactions between multiple brain regions is important for understanding brain function. Functional connectivity measures based on partial correlation provide an estimate of the linear conditional dependence between brain regions after removing the linear influence of other regions. Estimation of partial correlations is, however, difficult when the number of regions is large, as is now increasingly the case with a growing number of large-scale brain connectivity studies. To address this problem, we develop novel methods for estimating sparse partial correlations between multiple regions in fMRI data using elastic net penalty (SPC-EN), which combines L1- and L2-norm regularization We show that L1-norm regularization in SPC-EN provides sparse interpretable solutions while L2-norm regularization improves the sensitivity of the method when the number of possible connections between regions is larger than the number of time points, and when pair-wise correlations between brain regions are high. An issue with regularization-based methods is choosing the regularization parameters which in turn determine the selection of connections between brain regions. To address this problem, we deploy novel stability selection methods to infer significant connections between brain regions. We also compare the performance of SPC-EN with existing methods which use only L1-norm regularization (SPC-L1) on simulated and experimental datasets. Detailed simulations show that the performance of SPC-EN, measured in terms of sensitivity and accuracy is superior to SPC-L1, especially at higher rates of feature prevalence. Application of our methods to resting-state fMRI data obtained from 22 healthy adults shows that SPC-EN reveals a modular architecture characterized by strong inter-hemispheric links, distinct ventral and dorsal stream pathways, and a major hub in the posterior medial cortex - features that were missed by conventional methods. Taken together, our findings suggest that SPC-EN provides a powerful tool for characterizing connectivity involving a large number of correlated regions that span the entire brain.
Abstract
Analysis of dynamical interactions between distributed brain areas is of fundamental importance for understanding cognitive information processing. However, estimating dynamic causal interactions between brain regions using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) poses several unique challenges. For one, fMRI measures Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) signals, rather than the underlying latent neuronal activity. Second, regional variations in the hemodynamic response function (HRF) can significantly influence estimation of causal interactions between them. Third, causal interactions between brain regions can change with experimental context over time. To overcome these problems, we developed a novel state-space Multivariate Dynamical Systems (MDS) model to estimate intrinsic and experimentally-induced modulatory causal interactions between multiple brain regions. A probabilistic graphical framework is then used to estimate the parameters of MDS as applied to fMRI data. We show that MDS accurately takes into account regional variations in the HRF and estimates dynamic causal interactions at the level of latent signals. We develop and compare two estimation procedures using maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) and variational Bayesian (VB) approaches for inferring model parameters. Using extensive computer simulations, we demonstrate that, compared to Granger causal analysis (GCA), MDS exhibits superior performance for a wide range of signal to noise ratios (SNRs), sample length and network size. Our simulations also suggest that GCA fails to uncover causal interactions when there is a conflict between the direction of intrinsic and modulatory influences. Furthermore, we show that MDS estimation using VB methods is more robust and performs significantly better at low SNRs and shorter time series than MDS with MLE. Our study suggests that VB estimation of MDS provides a robust method for estimating and interpreting causal network interactions in fMRI data.
Abstract
The inferior parietal lobule (IPL) of the human brain is a heterogeneous region involved in visuospatial attention, memory, and mathematical cognition. Detailed description of connectivity profiles of subdivisions within the IPL is critical for accurate interpretation of functional neuroimaging studies involving this region. We separately examined functional and structural connectivity of the angular gyrus (AG) and the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) using probabilistic cytoarchitectonic maps. Regions-of-interest (ROIs) included anterior and posterior AG subregions (PGa, PGp) and 3 IPS subregions (hIP2, hIP1, and hIP3). Resting-state functional connectivity analyses showed that PGa was more strongly linked to basal ganglia, ventral premotor areas, and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, while PGp was more strongly connected with ventromedial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate, and hippocampus-regions comprising the default mode network. The anterior-most IPS ROIs, hIP2 and hIP1, were linked with ventral premotor and middle frontal gyrus, while the posterior-most IPS ROI, hIP3, showed connectivity with extrastriate visual areas. In addition, hIP1 was connected with the insula. Tractography using diffusion tensor imaging revealed structural connectivity between most of these functionally connected regions. Our findings provide evidence for functional heterogeneity of cytoarchitectonically defined subdivisions within IPL and offer a novel framework for synthesis and interpretation of the task-related activations and deactivations involving the IPL during cognition.
Abstract
Multivariate pattern recognition methods are increasingly being used to identify multiregional brain activity patterns that collectively discriminate one cognitive condition or experimental group from another, using fMRI data. The performance of these methods is often limited because the number of regions considered in the analysis of fMRI data is large compared to the number of observations (trials or participants). Existing methods that aim to tackle this dimensionality problem are less than optimal because they either over-fit the data or are computationally intractable. Here, we describe a novel method based on logistic regression using a combination of L1 and L2 norm regularization that more accurately estimates discriminative brain regions across multiple conditions or groups. The L1 norm, computed using a fast estimation procedure, ensures a fast, sparse and generalizable solution; the L2 norm ensures that correlated brain regions are included in the resulting solution, a critical aspect of fMRI data analysis often overlooked by existing methods. We first evaluate the performance of our method on simulated data and then examine its effectiveness in discriminating between well-matched music and speech stimuli. We also compared our procedures with other methods which use either L1-norm regularization alone or support vector machine-based feature elimination. On simulated data, our methods performed significantly better than existing methods across a wide range of contrast-to-noise ratios and feature prevalence rates. On experimental fMRI data, our methods were more effective in selectively isolating a distributed fronto-temporal network that distinguished between brain regions known to be involved in speech and music processing. These findings suggest that our method is not only computationally efficient, but it also achieves the twin objectives of identifying relevant discriminative brain regions and accurately classifying fMRI data.
Abstract
Over the past several decades, structural MRI studies have provided remarkable insights into human brain development by revealing the trajectory of gray and white matter maturation from childhood to adolescence and adulthood. In parallel, functional MRI studies have demonstrated changes in brain activation patterns accompanying cognitive development. Despite these advances, studying the maturation of functional brain networks underlying brain development continues to present unique scientific and methodological challenges. Resting-state fMRI (rsfMRI) has emerged as a novel method for investigating the development of large-scale functional brain networks in infants and young children. We review existing rsfMRI developmental studies and discuss how this method has begun to make significant contributions to our understanding of maturing brain organization. In particular, rsfMRI has been used to complement studies in other modalities investigating the emergence of functional segregation and integration across short and long-range connections spanning the entire brain. We show that rsfMRI studies help to clarify and reveal important principles of functional brain development, including a shift from diffuse to focal activation patterns, and simultaneous pruning of local connectivity and strengthening of long-range connectivity with age. The insights gained from these studies also shed light on potentially disrupted functional networks underlying atypical cognitive development associated with neurodevelopmental disorders. We conclude by identifying critical gaps in the current literature, discussing methodological issues, and suggesting avenues for future research.
Abstract
Concept specific lexicons (e.g. diseases, drugs, anatomy) are a critical source of background knowledge for many medical language-processing systems. However, the rapid pace of biomedical research and the lack of constraints on usage ensure that such dictionaries are incomplete. Focusing on disease terminology, we have developed an automated, unsupervised, iterative pattern learning approach for constructing a comprehensive medical dictionary of disease terms from randomized clinical trial (RCT) abstracts, and we compared different ranking methods for automatically extracting con-textual patterns and concept terms. When used to identify disease concepts from 100 randomly chosen, manually annotated clinical abstracts, our disease dictionary shows significant performance improvement (F1 increased by 35-88%) over available, manually created disease terminologies.
Abstract
Reuse of ontologies is important for achieving better interoperability among health systems and relieving knowledge engineers from the burden of developing ontologies from scratch. Most of the work that aims to facilitate ontology reuse has focused on building ontology libraries that are simple repositories of ontologies or has led to keyword-based search tools that search among ontologies. To our knowledge, there are no operational methodologies that allow users to evaluate ontologies and to compare them in order to choose the most appropriate ontology for their task. In this paper, we present, Knowledge Zone - a Web-based portal that allows users to submit their ontologies, to associate metadata with their ontologies, to search for existing ontologies, to find ontology rankings based on user reviews, to post their own reviews, and to rate reviews.
Abstract
In order to make more informed healthcare decisions, consumers need information systems that deliver accurate and reliable information about their illnesses and potential treatments. Reports of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) provide reliable medical evidence about the efficacy of treatments. Current methods to access, search for, and retrieve RCTs are keyword-based, time-consuming, and suffer from poor precision. Personalized semantic search and medical evidence summarization aim to solve this problem. The performance of these approaches may improve if they have access to study subject descriptors (e.g. age, gender, and ethnicity), trial sizes, and diseases/symptoms studied. We have developed a novel method to automatically extract such subject demographic information from RCT abstracts. We used text classification augmented with a Hidden Markov Model to identify sentences containing subject demographics, and subsequently these sentences were parsed using Natural Language Processing techniques to extract relevant information. Our results show accuracy levels of 82.5%, 92.5%, and 92.0% for extraction of subject descriptors, trial sizes, and diseases/symptoms descriptors respectively.
Abstract
To build a common controlled vocabulary is a formidable challenge in medical informatics. Due to vast scale and multiplicity in interpretation of medical data, it is natural to face overlapping terminologies in the process of practicing medical informatics [A. Rector, Clinical terminology: why is it so hard? Methods Inf. Med. 38 (1999) 239-252]. A major concern lies in the integration of seemingly overlapping terminologies in the medical domain and this issue has not been well addressed. In this paper, we describe a novel approach for medical ontology integration that relies on the theory of Algorithmic Semantic Refinement we previously developed. Our approach simplifies the task of matching pairs of corresponding concepts derived from a pair of ontologies, which is vital to terminology mapping. A formal theory and algorithm for our approach have been devised and the application of this method to two medical terminologies has been developed. The result of our work is an integrated medical terminology and a methodology and implementation ready to use for other ontology integration tasks.
Abstract
The Stanford Tissue Microarray Database (TMAD) is a repository of data amassed by a consortium of pathologists and biomedical researchers. The TMAD data are annotated with multiple free-text fields, specifying the pathological diagnoses for each tissue sample. These annotations are spread out over multiple text fields and are not structured according to any ontology, making it difficult to integrate this resource with other biological and clinical data. We developed methods to map these annotations to the NCI thesaurus and the SNOMED-CT ontologies. Using these two ontologies we can effectively represent about 80% of the annotations in a structured manner. This mapping offers the ability to perform ontology driven querying of the TMAD data. We also found that 40% of annotations can be mapped to terms from both ontologies, providing the potential to align the two ontologies based on experimental data. Our approach provides the basis for a data-driven ontology alignment by mapping annotations of experimental data.
Abstract
Randomized clinical trials (RCT) papers provide reliable information about efficacy of medical interventions. Current keyword based search methods to retrieve medical evidence,overload users with irrelevant information as these methods often do not take in to consideration semantics encoded within abstracts and the search query. Personalized semantic search, intelligent clinical question answering and medical evidence summarization aim to solve this information overload problem. Most of these approaches will significantly benefit if the information available in the abstracts is structured into meaningful categories (e.g., background, objective, method, result and conclusion). While many journals use structured abstract format, majority of RCT abstracts still remain unstructured.We have developed a novel automated approach to structure RCT abstracts by combining text classification and Hidden Markov Modeling(HMM) techniques. Results (precision: 0.98, recall: 0.99) of our approach significantly outperform previously reported work on automated categorization of sentences in RCT abstracts.
Abstract
Medical Terminologies play a vital role in clinical data capture, reporting, information integration, indexing and retrieval. The Web Ontology language (OWL) provides an opportunity for the medical community to leverage the capabilities of OWL semantics and tools to build formal, sound and consistent medical terminologies, and to provide a standard web accessible medium for inter-operability,access and reuse. One of the tasks facing the medical community today is to represent the extensive terminology content that already exists into this new medium. This paper addresses one aspect of this challenge - how to incorporate multilingual, structured lexical information such as definitions, synonyms, usage notes, etc. into the OWL ontology model in a standardized, consistent and useful fashion.
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PCR strategies [electronic resource] / edited by Michael A. Innis, David H. Gelfand, and John J. Sninsky.Material type: TextPublisher: San Diego : Academic Press, c1995Description: 1 online resource (xv, 373 p.) : illISBN: 9780123721822; 0123721822; 9780080538549 (electronic bk.); 0080538541 (electronic bk.); 1281046566; 9781281046567Other title: Polymerase chain reaction strategiesSubject(s): Polymerase chain reaction -- Methodology | Polymerase Chain Reaction -- Laboratory Manuals | SCIENCE -- Life Sciences -- Cell Biology | Polymerase kettingreactie | Wetenschappelijke technieken | Cadena de reacci�on de la polimerasa | ADN polimerasa | ARN polimerasa | DNAGenre/Form: Electronic books.Additional physical formats: Print version:: PCR strategies.DDC classification: 574.87/3282 LOC classification: QP606.D46 | P367 1995ebOnline resources: ScienceDirect
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Principles of PCR Amplification: Preface. The Use of Co-Solvents to Enhance Amplification By the Polymerase Chain Reaction. DNA Polymerase Fidelity: Misinsertion and Mismatch Extension. Extraction of Nucleic Acids: Sample Preparation from Paraffin-Embedded Tissues. Thermostable DNA Polymerases. Direct RNA Amplification. Nucleic Acid Hybridization & Unconventional Bases. Molecular Phylogentic Analysis. The Dutp-Uracil Glycosylase System for Caryover Control and Enhanced Specificity. Quantitation. Analysis of PCR Products: Carrier Detection of Cystic Fibrosis Mutations Using PCR-Amplified DNA and a Mismatch-Binding Protein, Muts. Single-Stranded Conformational Polymorphisms (SSCP). Analysis of PCR Products By Covalent Reverse Dot Blot Hybridization. HPLC Analysis of PCR Products. Rare Mutation Detection. Heteroduplex Mobility Shift Assays for Phylogenetic Analysis. Considerations for Use of RNA: Amplified DNA Hybrid Detection Using a Monoclonal Antibody Conjugate. PCR Amplification of Vntrs. Site-Specific Mutagenesis Using the Polymerase Chain Reaction. Exact Quantification of DNA/RNA Copy Numbers By PCR/TGGE. PCR in Situ: Amplification and Detection of DNA in a Cellular Context. Chromosome Specific PCR: Maternal Blood. DNA and RNA Fingerprinting Using Arbitrarily Primed PCR. PCR-Based Screening of Yeast Artificial Chromosome (YAC) Libraries. Oligonucleotide Ligands that Discriminate Between Theophylline and Caffeine. Generation of Single Chain Antibody Fragments By PCR. Longer PCR Amplifications. Rapid Screening for Mutations Using Intercalating Dyes. Direct Analysis of Specific Bands from Arbitrarily Primed PCR Reaction. Detection of Leber's Hereditary Optic Neuropathy By Nonradioactive-LCR. Detection of Listeria Monocytogenes By PCR-Coupled Ligase Chain Reaction (LCR). 3SR as an Amplification Strategy for RNA.
PCR Strategies expands and updates the landmark volume PCR Protocols. It is a companion laboratory manual that provides a completely new set of up-to-date strategies and protocols for getting the most from PCR. The editors have organized the book into four sections, focusing on principles, analyses, research applications, and alternative strategies for a wide variety of basic and clinical needs. If you own PCR Protocols, you will want PCR Strategies. If you don't own PCR Protocols, you will want to buy both! Key Features * Concepts explained * Methods detailed * Trouble-shooting emphasized * Novel applications highlighted * Major sections * Key concepts for PCR * Analysis of PCR products * Research applications * Alternative amplification strategies.
Description based on print version record.
There are no comments on this title. | https://opac.nitrkl.ac.in/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=168 |
- Astellas Pharma US, Inc.
- Location
- Northbrook, Illinois
- Posted
- May 20, 2022
- Hotbed
- Best Places to Work, BioMidwest
- Required Education
- Masters Degree/MBA
- Position Type
- Full time
Do you want to be part of an inclusive team that works to develop innovative therapies for patients? Every day, we are driven to develop and deliver innovative and effective new medicines to patients and physicians. If you want to be part of this exciting work, you belong at Astellas!
Astellas Pharma Inc. is a pharmaceutical company conducting business in more than 70 countries around the world. We are committed to turning innovative science into medical solutions that bring value and hope to patients and their families. Keeping our focus on addressing unmet medical needs and conducting our business with ethics and integrity enables us to improve the health of people throughout the world. For more information on Astellas, please visit our website at www.astellas.com .
Astellas is announcing a Patient Centricity Fellowship Medical Intelligence & Patient Insights opportunity. This position is based in Northbrook, Illinois. Remote work from certain states may be permitted in accordance with Astellas' Responsible Flexibility Guidelines. Candidates interested in remote work are encouraged to apply.
Purpose:
The Patient Centricity PInS Fellow will report to Director (or above) in Patient Centricity PInS team and will be assigned to work with a PInS team member(s) on planning and execution of PInS projects(s)/initiative(s) with Medical and Development, Commercial, Regulatory, Rx+, Advanced Information & Analytics (AIA), and other departments. Fellow will be responsible for execution of projects and interactions with internal and external stakeholders as relevant to the projects. Fellow will use technical, medical, and scientific expertise gained from patient-centric approaches and other pharmaceutical industry training/experience to meet objectives. Toward that end, this role will require some knowledge of multiple areas of patient care and access to care including the ability to research and provide insights into areas such as epidemiology, patient journey, gathering of the patient perspective, digital health, Real-World Evidence (RWE) and others. PInS group focuses on patient driven solutions based on the real-world conditions of patients with a particular emphasis on behavioral science, digital/technology use, and utilization of Real-World Evidence (RWE).This role will support PInS projects conducted with/for internal Astellas customers across global enterprise.
Essential Job Responsibilities:
Fellow's responsibilities will include but not limited to:
Gather patient and caregiver insights for the PInS projects
Develop a deep understanding of patients, care partners, and other healthcare stakeholders' perspective to support business needs
Collaborate with Astellas Rx+/Digital Health teams to utilize new technologies/wearables to better understand the context in which our patients live in the real-world environment
Work closely with a newly developed Behavioral Science Consortium to integrate behavioral aspects of care from a patient and practitioner standpoint
Collaborate closely with other Patient Centricity teams to align appropriate patient input for projects being evaluated
Support aligning protocols and measured outcomes with patient expectations
Quantitative Dimensions:
Incumbent will interact with a wide range of departments and position levels, including but not limited to global staff in Medical and Development, Global/Regional Brand Team, Rx+, AIA, Market Access, and others. Position has direct impact on the company's ability to meet goals creating and delivering value to patients and their caregiver, ensuring delivery on VALUE Gene and CSP. Position challenges incumbent to manage multiple project goals and timelines. Incumbent must be able to work independently on PInS project(s) under minimal direction from a manager. Incumbent should be able to apply scientific/medical knowledge to assigned projects, and use working knowledge of relevant guidelines to assist in the success of projects and programs.
Organizational Context:
Position reports to a Director or above in the Patient Insights and Solutions (PInS) group within Patient Centricity Division. Entry level into the Patient Centricity and/or Medical Affairs
Qualifications:
Required:
PharmD or other advanced science degree. MBA beneficial;
Typically 0-1 years previous industry or healthcare field related experience
Ability to apply scientific and/or business knowledge to assigned projects
Understands compliance concepts as they relate to performing immediate job functions
Effective writing skills and oral presentation skills
Ability to understand healthcare environment and apply concepts to perform job function
Proficiency in Microsoft tools: PowerPoint, Excel
Preferred:
- PharmD or PhD in scientific discipline
Benefits: | https://www.biospace.com/job/2553621/patient-centricity-fellowship-pins/ |
Young people need abilities to see things from others’ perspectives, to suspend judgment, actively listen, and recognize how different values, life opportunities, and obstacles have shaped others.
Empathy development involves learning to relate to others with acceptance, understanding, and sensitivity to their diverse perspectives and experiences. Learning empathy goes hand-in-hand with learning about the self, and out-of-school programs can be powerful contexts for young people to develop greater understanding of both self and others.
As youth become more conscious of their own emotions and how life experiences have shaped who they are, they become better able to understand others’ perspectives and feelings. A central component of empathy development is learning how limits in one’s own experiences can create stereotypes that distort how one perceives people from different backgrounds.
Key Youth Experiences
Staff Practices
Related Resource
Activity
Exploring Life Experiences
Join the Discussion
When has empathy proven important in your programs? | https://www.selpractices.org/domain/empathy |
Guest Editors:
Nick Barter, Griffith University, [email protected]
Kathleen Herbohn, UQ Business School, The University of Queensland, [email protected]
What's the special issue topic?
Social and environmental disclosures have become increasingly complex and are more often than not made in stand-alone sustainability reports. Integrated Reporting (IR) has been developed in response to these trends with the laudable aim of integrating social, environmental, financial and governance information into the one report (de Villiers, Rinaldi and Unerman, 2014). Integrated reporting has been variously defined but common elements include: an emphasis on the process of integrated thinking leading to the production of a periodic integrated report; and a focus on value creation in the short, medium and long-term taking into account various capitals (e.g. financial, manufactured, intellectual, human, social and relationship, natural).
Integrated reporting is held up as a way forward for business and key stakeholders and similar to the natural capitalism model (Hawken et al, 2000), it brings that, which was previously unaccounted for into a standard form of accounting language; which is likely to be monetary. There are certain benefits to placing a monetary value on that which has previously been unaccounted for, one key benefit is it that could help foster more systemic and embedded thinking in organisational leaders. However, like all innovations, while integrated reporting could realise benefits at the same time a potential set of unintended consequences is possible being released. Those unintended consequences are exemplified by the unleashing of economic models and theories onto that which was previously outside of the sphere of economics.
For example, if the integrated reporting methodology is followed to its conclusion, we humans may price all things and processes and drag them into the realm of economic rationality and the concept of supply and demand dynamics impacting price. In such a world, it becomes a potentially perfectly economically rational act to increase the price of oxygen by decreasing the supply. While such an account can appear extreme, particularly from our current paradigm. The inherent performativity that is aligned to many theories implies that such an outcome is rational.
It has been argued that in society we are currently “haunted by the belief that the only meaningful concepts are those capable of mathematical elucidation” (Gladwin, Newburry and Reiskin, 1997, p. 248; see also, Cummings 2005; Boisot and McKelvey, 2010). Further this is a type of rationalism that “supports the doctrine that facts are separate from values…and that truth is a function of objective reality” (Gladwin, et al., 1997, pp. 248). While Integrated Reporting methodologies may not advocate the calculation of monetary values to all that is currently out of the economic sphere, it is perhaps a logical next step with regard to the methodology and its application. Thus while calculating monetary values may not be advocated, it is hypothesised that a lack of advocacy is not likely to stop calculation.
The challenge ultimately lies in whether the Integrated Reporting framework further pushes a move towards anything meaningful, only being so because it is capable of being accounted for by accountants and in turn this would likely mean being accounted for numerically. In this context, this special issue would like to explore the nexus between integrated thinking, integrated reporting and governance
Submissions are weclome on:
Submissions are encouraged which explore, but are not restricted to, the following aspects of integrated reporting and its consequences (both intended and unintended):
- How can integrated reporting foster a more sustainable organisation?
- What would be the impact of integrated reporting on employees if an organisation embraced it? Similarly the impact on the locality of the workplace and or business operations?
- How would integrating reporting impact the interpretation of good governance
- In applying integrated reporting what have been the positive outcomes? What have been the negative outcomes
- What would be the impact of integrated reporting on enterprise systems software? What are the changes we would expect to see with accountants and how they should be trained?
- Does integrated reporting collapse the moral framework to numbers? What are the implications?
- What are the underlying metaphors in the integrated reporting framework?
- Has integrated reporting driven organisational change (intended and unintended) around core activities, processes and approaches?
- How has the implementation of integrated reporting assisted organisations to resolve the significant challenge of providing information to capital providers to appraise current firm prospects, whilst discharging their accountability to societal stakeholder regarding value creation in relation to intellectual, human, social and relationship, and natural capitals?
- Has integrated reporting led to new forms of exploitation of human, social and relationship, and natural capitals?
- In light of the focus on the creation of value in the future, are integrated reports incrementally informative to capital market participants
- Has integrated reporting affected the activities of external auditors? Interesting issues for consideration include the development of innovative risk assessment procedures, assurance of future-oriented information and exposure to litigation risk
- Have regulators and/or entrenched, privileged organisational stakeholders ‘hijacked’ integrated reporting policy initiatives and debate?
Submissions and deadlines
- The closing date for submissions for this special issue is March 31 2018
- Manuscripts submissions should be made via Scholar One Manuscripts
- Selecting the special issue from the list
- Please check the author guidelines before submitting
- The guest editors welcome enquiries and declarations of interest in submitting. All papers will be reviewed in accordance with SAMPJ's normal processes. Enquiries can be sent to the guest Editors.
References
Boisot, M. and McKelvey, B (2010) ‘Integrating Modernist and Postmodernist Perspectives on Organizations: A Complexity Science Bridge.’ Academy of Management Review, 35(3), 415–433.
Cummings, S (2005). Recreating Strategy. London: Sage.
De Villiers, C., Rinaldi, L. and J. Unerman, (2014), ‘Integrated reporting: Insights, gaps and an agenda for future research’, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 27(7), pp. 1042-1067.
Gladwin, T. N., Newburry, W. E., and Reiskin, E. D (1997) ‘Why is the northern elite mind biased against community, the environment and a sustainable future?’, In M.H. Bazerman, et al. (Eds.), Environment, Ethics and Behavior: The Psychology of Environmental Valuation and Degradation. San Francisco: The New Lexington Press.
Hawken, P., Lovins, L.H. & Lovins, Amory B. (Amory Bloch) 2000, Natural capitalism: the next industrial revolution, Earthscan, London. | https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/archived/products/journals/call_for_papers.htm%3Fid%3D6788 |
EPSRC Reference:
EP/D064090/1
Title:
The environmental control of house dust mites: public dissemination
Principal Investigator:
Oreszczyn, Professor T
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Twenty Twenty Television
Department:
Bartlett Sch of Graduate Studies
Organisation:
UCL
Scheme:
Partnerships- Public Engage
Starts:
01 November 2005
Ends:
28 February 2006
Value (£):
15,673
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Building Ops & Management
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Environment
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
The faecal pellets of the house dust mite play a major role in allergic disease, especially in asthma. House dust mites (HDMs) feed off human skin scale and live where a) skin scale is plentiful and b) hygrothermal conditions (i.e. temperature and relative humidity) are suitable. Mites can potentially be controlled by manipulating the hygrothermal conditions in the home. However, such conditions in mite habitats are very variable and average values of temperature and RH are poor indicators of whether mites are likely to prosper. Because of the complexity of the many interacting factors, a modelling approach is thus required.By successfully developing a sophisticated hygrothermal population model of house dust mites in beds, the multi-disciplinary team involved in the current EPSRC-funded project (ref. GR/S70678/01) have become international leaders in a field of growing relevance. The model has been developed in a collaboration between University College London (UCL), Cambridge University (UC), Kingston University, Insect Research and Development and other partners. This proposal is to obtain funds for the public dissemination of the current EPSRC project, by means of a 2 hour TV programme 'Dispatches', on Channel 4, produced by the company 'Twenty Twenty Television'. The programme aims to demonstrate how mite allergen avoidance can help prevent asthma symptoms in children. The programme features some case studies taking place over 6 to 8 weeks and involve 12 children aged between 6 and 14. The main interventions will be: thorough cleaning of the whole house; replacement of carpets in the child's bedroom with laminate flooring; covering mattresses, pillows and duvets with micro porous mite proof sheets; spraying soft furnishing and carpets throughout the house with anti allergen spray; removing cuddly toys; providing advice on reducing moisture levels in the dwellings. Mite levels will also be tested before and after the interventions. Given its short time frame and small sample size, the producers do not intend this study as a scientific proof of the effectiveness of the interventions, but rather they wish to demonstrate to viewers that quality of life can be significantly improved by making certain adjustments to lifestyle and the home environment.The research team involved in the current EPSRC project has been approached by the TV producers for advice, ideas, and filming opportunities. The research team suggested that the TV programme should also include the following further activities: monitoring temperature and humidity inside and outside the dwelling for the whole study, as well as modelling mite population growth to better assess the effect of the interventions. In addition, the research team will visit the households and provide them with tailored advice on moisture and mite control, based on building surveys, pressure-tests, thermal imaging, interviews with occupants, hygrothermal data. Finally, encapsulated sealed mite will be used in the bedrooms, in order to specifically monitor the effect of the moisture-reducing interventions on mite populations. However, in order to perform all the additional activities described above, a level of equipment and funding is required, which the TV producers cannot provide, hence this grant proposal.Should this proposal be successful, the current EPSRC project and its applications would be discussed more at length during the programme than in a case where more general interviews are given by the researchers. Furthermore, a broader view of the research project would be given, which would also highlight its multidisciplinary and challenging nature. In addition to increasing the scientific input into the TV programme, improving the media coverage of EPSRC-funded research and helping educate junior researchers in how the media works, the additional monitored data will be of use to the current and future EPSRC dust mite research projects.
Key Findings
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
Potential use in non-academic contexts
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
Impacts
Description
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
Summary
Date Materialised
Sectors submitted by the Researcher
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
Project URL:
Further Information:
Organisation Website: | https://gow.epsrc.ukri.org/NGBOViewGrant.aspx?GrantRef=EP/D064090/1 |
Author: Amado Sánchez de Camps
The Third Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) had previously established the criterion that an employer did not fulfill his responsibility if he hired a non-national (foreign) worker with an irregular migratory status and did not register him with the Dominican Social Security System (SDSS), since the authorities did not establish the mechanisms for such workers to be registered. In this sense, the employer did not breach his social security duty because he was not obliged to do the impossible. The Supreme Court of Justice applied this precedent consistently for about a decade.
However, the Assembled Chambers of the SCJ amended that criterion in a sentence dated 21 April 2022 (SCJ-SR-22-0006), establishing that employers are well-informed of the law and the related regulations and therefore cannot omit such information from their applications, since they would inevitably benefit from their own faults. Similarly, the decision indicates that the previous thesis promoted hiring foreign workers so as not to comply with their social security duties, which is contrary to what the International Labour Organization dictates.
Key Action Points for Human Resources and In-house Counsel
It is not recommended to hire foreign employees if they lack a valid passport, work visa and residence permits, particularly if such requirements allow them to boast a regular immigration status that facilitates their ability to be registered with the Dominican Social Security System (SDSS). | https://leglobal.org/2022/06/28/dominican-republic-new-criteria-for-employers-hiring-foreign-nationals/ |
Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
44 Why 85th or 50th Percentile Speed? Currently, the predominant method for setting speed limits is with the use of the 85th per- centile speed. It was viewed as being representative of a safe speed that would minimize crashes, and the 1964 Solomon study (45) is frequently quoted as being the source to justify the use of the 85th percentile speed. The use of the 85th percentile speed has been supported because it: ⢠Represents a safe speed that minimizes crashes. ⢠Promotes uniform traffic flow along a corridor. ⢠Is a fair way to set the speed limit based on the driving behavior of most of the drivers (i.e., 85 percent). ⢠Represents reasonable and prudent drivers since the fastest 15 percent of drivers are excluded. ⢠Is enforceable in that it is fair to ticket the small percentage (15 percent) of drivers that exceed the posted speed limit. Criticisms of the 85th percentile speed method have included the following: ⢠Setting the posted speed limit based on existing driver behavior may create unsafe road condi- tions because drivers may not see or be aware of all the conditions present within the corridor. ⢠Setting the posted speed limit on existing driver behavior rather than the roadway context may not adequately consider vulnerable roadway users such as pedestrians and bicyclists. ⢠Drivers are not always reasonable and prudent, or they only consider what is reasonable and prudent for themselves and not for all users of the system. ⢠Using measured operating speeds could cause operating speeds to increase over time (i.e., speed creep). Drivers frequently select speeds a certain increment above the posted speed limit, anticipating that they will not receive a ticket if they are not above that assumed enforce- ment speed tolerance. If this occurs, the resulting operating speed would be above the posted speed limit. Using the 85th percentile speed approach in this situation would result in rec- ommending a posted speed limit that is higher than the existing posted speed limit. Posting that higher speed limit would set up the cycle that the next spot speed study may again find a higher operating speed because of drivers using the assumed speed enforcement tolerance to select their speed. ⢠Most of the early research justifying the use of the 85th percentile speed was conducted on rural roads; therefore, it may not be appropriate for urban roads. The NCHRP Project 17-76 research team focused Phase II on collecting data for suburban and urban roads to investigate the relationships among crashes, roadway characteristics, and posted speed limit to fill the known research gap for city streets. The team found that crashes were lowest when the operating speed was within 5 mph of the average operating speed (see Appendix D of NCHRP Web-Only Document 291). Therefore, the research team recommended that the 50th percentile speed also be a consideration within the SLS-Procedure. S E C T I O N 8 Other Considerations When Setting Posted Speed Limits
Other Considerations When Setting Posted Speed Limits 45  For the SLS-Procedure, the research team suggested the consideration of measured operating speed as the starting point for selecting a posted speed limit, but that the measured operating speed be adjusted based on roadway conditions and the crash experience on the segment. Identifying the Segment Limits Roadway segments are defined based on roadway characteristics and roadway context and type. In general, segments should be homogeneous; that is, the key variables listed in Table 22 should be reasonably uniform throughout the length of the segment. Whenever a significant change in a variable occurs, a new segment should be defined. In particular, a new segment should be defined if the number of lanes, roadway context, or roadway type changes. New seg- ments may also be defined at logical break points based on traffic operations, such as at a major intersection with high turning volumes or a large freeway system interchange. Consider the following rules of thumb in defining break points between segments: ⢠Roadway context: any change. ⢠Roadway type: any change. ⢠AADT or directional design-hour volume: a change of 10 percent or more. ⢠Number of lanes: any change. ⢠Median type: any change. ⢠LW: change of 1 ft or more (length-weighted average for the overall segment). ⢠Outside or ISW: change of 2 ft or more (length-weighted average for the overall segment). ⢠Number of interchanges, traffic signals, or access points: the number per mile changes by 50 percent or more. ⢠Pedestrian or bicyclist activity: any change. ⢠Sidewalk presence/width: any change. ⢠Sidewalk buffer presence: any change. ⢠On-street parking activity, parallel parking presence, or angle parking presence: any change. Some of these rules of thumb are based on the principles described for the segmentation pro- cess in Section 18.5.2 of the HSM but with somewhat higher tolerances permitted for segmenta- tion in speed limit calculation than for safety prediction model application. Table 24 provides minimum segment lengths based on the speed limit. If segments are defined with shorter lengths than the minimums, the roadway may have too many speed limit changes Speed Limit (mph) Minimum Length (miles) 20 0.30 25 0.30 30 0.30 35 0.35 40 0.40 45 0.45 50 0.50 55 0.55 60 1.20 65 3.00 70 6.20 75 6.20 80 6.20 85 6.20 Source: FHWA, USLIMITS 2, Table 2, page 34 (44). Table 24. Minimum segment length for a particular speed limit.
46 Posted Speed Limit Setting Procedure and Tool: User Guide along its length, and record keeping for the roadway will be more complex. If the roadway has a large number of short segments, it may be necessary to combine adjacent segments that are reasonably similar or apply speed limits from adjacent segments to the segment of interest, if appropriate. However, at locations where a significant change in roadway context occurs, it may be desirable to include short sections where the speed limit transitions from a high value to a low value. For example, if a rural principal arterial approaches a rural town, several short segments may be used to reduce speeds to a value consistent with rural town traffic. Roadway segments may have individual concerns, such as a sharp horizontal curve, that require lower speeds. These concerns should be addressed with treatments that consider the specific location, such as posting an advisory speed, rather than by lowering the regulatory speed limit for the entire segment. Gathering Operating Speed In a general sense, the term operating speed relates to the speed at which drivers operate their vehicles along a section of roadway. Typically, for speed limit setting purposes, operating speeds are collected for a representative sample of free-flowing vehicles traveling along a road segment. Free-flowing vehicles are those that are unimpeded by other vehicles or TCDs. Speed data are typically collected at a specific location (or spot) to represent the operating speed along an entire homogeneous segment. The speed data should be collected outside the influence area of a traffic control signal, which is generally considered to be approximately 0.5Â miles. If the signal spac- ing is less than 1Â mile, the speed study should be at approximately the middle of the segment. Attention should also be given to collect data away from other potential traffic interruptions, including stops signs, driveways, and bus stops. Further, data should only be collected during dry conditions and during off-peak daytime periods. Various types of equipment may be used to collect spot speed data, including equipment placed on the road surface (e.g., road tubes, piezoelectric sensors, tape switches, etc.) or hand- held from the roadside (e.g., radar or LIDAR). While each of these devices is appropriate for purposes of setting speed limits, it is important to understand how the data are collected such that only free-flowing vehicles are used in the speed study. For road tubes and other on-road equipment, speeds are collected for all vehicles traveling over the roadway during the duration of the study. These data must be filtered to only include free-flowing vehicles that are unimpeded by other vehicles. Similarly, when using radar or LIDAR, the data collection technician must ensure that free-flowing vehicles are selected at random. Gathering Crash Data Crash data should be collected from a query of crash records for the jurisdiction of interest. At least 3Â years of crash data should be used, but the SLS-Tool can accommodate crash counts for times as short as 1Â year. Two crash counts need to be computed for the segment: all crashes (KABCO), and fatal and injury crashes (KABC). The SLS-Tool compares the crash counts to the computed average and critical crash rates for similar segments. The user may enter average crash rates (computed from similar segments in the state or region) or leave the average crash rate input cells blank. If the cells are left blank, the SLS-Tool computes average crash rates based on HSIS data. In addition to setting speed limits, the crash data query can also be used to identify sites that could benefit from implementing engineering or enforcement treatments to manage speed.
Other Considerations When Setting Posted Speed Limits 47  Design Speed The relationship between design speed and posted speed was addressed in a 2015 memo- randum from FHWA (46). The memo started with quoting Joseph S. Tooleâs foreword to the 2009 FHWAâs Speed Concepts: Informational Guide (47): âdesigners of highways use a desig- nated design speed to establish design features; operators set speed limits deemed safe for the particular type of road; but drivers select their speed based on their individual perception of safety. Quite frequently, these speed measures are not compatible and their values relative to each other can vary.â The 2009 guide (47) introduced the concept of âinferred design speedâ and defined that term as âthe maximum speed for which all critical design-speed-related criteria are met at a particular location.â Stated in another manner, a given set of roadway characteristics can be used to infer the design speed met by that roadway section. The results of a 2003 NCHRP project examining the relationship between design speed, posted speed, and operating speed concluded that âwhile a relationship between operating speed and posted speed limit can be defined, a relationship of design speed to either operating speed or posted speed cannot be defined with the same level of confidenceâ (6). The research also found that design speed appears to have minimal impact on operating speeds unless a tight horizontal radius or a vertical curve with a low K-value is present. Large variance in operating speed was found for a given inferred design speed on rural two-lane highways. The research also concluded that when posted speed exceeds design speed, liability concerns may arise even though drivers can safely exceed the design speed. The FHWA memo (46) stated that the selection of a posted speed is an operational deci- sion for which the owner and operator of the facility is responsible and that inferred design speeds less than the posted speed limit do not necessarily present an unsafe operating con- dition. The memo recommended that âif a state legislature or highway agency establishes a speed limit greater than a roadwayâs inferred design speed, FHWA recommends that a safety analysis be performed to determine the need for appropriate warning or informational signs such as advisory speeds on curves or other mitigation measures prior to posting the speed limitâ (46). Relationships Among Safety, Speed, and Roadway Characteristics, Including Posted Speed Limit The relationships among safety, speed, and roadway characteristics, including posted speed limit, are complex. The association among these variables can vary widely. Table 25 provides a brief and simple overview of the relationship for different variables with operating speed and crash frequencies by rural and urban facility. A short synthesis on key variables follows. Addi- tional details about these relationships are available in the NCHRP Web-Only Document 291, especially in Appendices A and B (2). Traffic Variables For a motor vehicle crash to occur or to measure how fast a driver is moving, a vehicle must be present. The quantity of traffic and the characteristics of that traffic have an obvious relationship with both speed and safety. Traffic variables include: ⢠AADT: Traffic flow measure AADT is considered the most determinant variable for the occurrence of crashes. Many safety performance functions consider only traffic flow and seg- ment length in the model development. The relationship between traffic volume and crashes
48 Posted Speed Limit Setting Procedure and Tool: User Guide can be affected by whether the section is undivided or divided. The effect of this variable on crash frequencies differs based on the facility type. Usually, roadways with higher AADT values are associated with higher operating speeds on both urban and rural roadways. However, Jessen et al. (15) found lower operating speeds to be associated with higher AADT roadways. The researchers commented that motorists may view increases in traffic volume as a motiva- tion to slow down. ⢠Operating speed: The operating speed measures are evaluated to assess the consistency of the adopted design values along the designed road alignment. Operating speeds reflect the speed behavior of drivers who are affected by roadway geometry, surroundings, traffic, and other variables. A study using 179 roadway sections in Israel explored the relationship between operating speeds (obtained from global positioning system devices) and crashes on rural two- lane roadways with 50-mph posted speed limit (48). The main finding of the study was that in both day and night hours, the number of injury crashes increased with an increase in the segment mean speed, while controlling for traffic exposure and road infrastructure condi- tions. Wang et al. (49) reviewed several previous studies to identify factors, especially traffic and road geometry factors, related to crashes. The authors concluded that some studies found increased speed reduces safety, and other studies found the opposite. ⢠Other traffic variables: Other traffic variables include congestion and the percentage of trucks. Several studies showed that congestion increases risk of traffic crashes. The percentage of trucks has a mixed effect on operating speeds. Category Variables Rural Operating Speed Rural Crash Frequency Urban Operating Speed Urban Crash Frequency Traffic AADT Operating speed Congestion Percent truck TCD Posted speed limit Signalized intersection Passing lane/zones Roadway Geometry Horizontal alignment Vertical alignment Presence of median Median width Number of lanes LW SW Bike lanes Intersection angle Intersection lighting Surroundings Access density (driveways and intersections) School Parking Liquor store Sidewalk presence Development (surrounding land and use) Other variables One-way or two-way Note: ⧠= increase with increase of the attribute, â© = decrease with increase of the attribute, â©â§ = mixed effect, â = relationship not identified or unknown. Table 25. Effect of variables on operating speeds and crash frequencies.
Other Considerations When Setting Posted Speed Limits 49  TCD Variables The type of TCDs present can influence operating speeds and crashes. For example, when traffic signals are timed to optimize progression along a corridor, drivers tend to operate at that speed to avoid having to stop at the next signal. Most signs and markings, however, do not have such a major impact on speeds with the exception of the posted speed limit sign. TCD variables include: ⢠Posted speed limit: Prior studies showed that posted speed limit has a significant effect on operating speed on urban streets. For rural high-speed highways, posted speed limits are typi- cally established with consideration of several factors, including the roadway design speed. Several studies showed that vehicular operating speeds are impacted by the posted speed limit, with vehicular speeds tending to increase as the posted speed limit increases. However, the magnitude of the increase in operating speed is typically only a fraction of the amount of the actual speed limit increase. The research literature generally suggests that the resulting change in operating speeds would likely lead to an increase in the overall crash rate and would also shift the severity distribution toward crashes of greater severity. ⢠Other TCD variables: Other important TCD variables include the presence of intersections and passing lanes. For urban roadways, the presence of an intersection is associated with higher crash frequencies and lower operating speeds. Passing lanes are effective in crash reduction on rural roadways. However, passing lanes are associated with higher intersection- related crash frequencies on rural roadways. Roadway Geometry Variables The design of the roadway can influence either operating speed or crashes in select cases. Roadway geometry variables include: ⢠Horizontal alignment: Horizontal curves have been identified as the geometric variable that is the most influential on driver speed behavior and crash risk. The measures used in the studies varied and included the degree of curve, length of curve, deflection angle, and/or superelevation rate. Horizontal alignment is also associated with negatively affecting safety as shown in the HSM (43). Prior research has shown that crash frequency increases with the length and/or degree of horizontal curvature (43, 50) although there is a value where the influ- ence is no long present. ⢠Vertical alignment: Studies showed that roadways with vertical alignment experience lower operating speeds once the vertical alignment exceeds a certain value. Prior research has showed that steeper vertical alignments could induce higher crash potentials (13). Total crash rates typically increase with the degree of vertical alignments, mainly in the presence of hidden horizontal curves, intersections, or driveways. Safety risks associated with higher speed limits increased on segments with steeper vertical curves. ⢠Median: Median barriers are associated with severe crash rate reduction but have also been found to be associated with more property-damage-only crashes. A Michigan study found that the presence of a TWLTL was associated with a significant increase in total and injury crashes but was also associated with a significant decrease in fatal crashes (50). ⢠SW: Wider shoulder widths are associated with higher operating speeds. The HSM suggests that the width of the paved shoulder along non-freeways has a similar effect on crashes as travel lane widths, and that wider widths are associated with fewer crashes (43). The increased recovery and vehicle storage space and increased separation from roadside hazards are asso- ciated with fewer crashes.
50 Posted Speed Limit Setting Procedure and Tool: User Guide ⢠Other roadway geometry variables: Other roadway geometry variables that may have an effect on speed or crashes include the LW, number of lanes, presence of bike lane, intersection angle, and intersection lighting. Variables Associated with Roadway Surroundings The characteristics of the roadâs surroundings, including the neighboring land use, affect both operating speed and crashes. Variables associated with roadway surroundings include: ⢠Access density (driveways and intersections): Prior studies have demonstrated that as the density of access points (or the number of intersections and/or driveways per mile of high- way) increases, the frequency of traffic crashes also increases. This occurs partially due to driving errors caused by intersections and/or driveways that may result in rear-end and/or sideswipe type crashes. Specifically, NCHRP Report 420 concluded that an increase in crashes occurs due to the higher number of access points (51). Roadways with high access densities usually experience lower operating speeds. ⢠Other variables associated with surroundings: Other variables associated with surround- ings include the presence of schools, presence of liquor stores, presence of sidewalks, and development. | https://www.nap.edu/read/26216/chapter/10 |
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For the Raspberry Sauce:
Raspberries 1 cup
Water 2 tbsp
Sugar 2 tbsp
For the Lava Cakes:
Unsalted butter 1 cup (cubed)
Semisweet chocolate chips 1 1/3 cups
Large eggs 5
Sugar 1/2 cup
Salt 1/8
All purpose flour 4 tsp
Cooking Instructions
For the Raspberry Sauce:
Mix the raspberries, water and sugar in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat.
When starts boiling reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes until thickened, stirring frequently to break apart the raspberries.
Once the mixture has thickened, set it aside to cool while you make the chocolate lava cakes.
For the Lava Cakes:
Preheat the oven to 200 degree C.
Fill a large saucepan with water and bring to a boil.
Melt butter and chocolate in double boiler.
Stir the ingredients constantly until smooth then set the mixture aside to cool slightly.
Beat the eggs, sugar and salt until the sugar dissolves.
Quickly mix the egg mixture into the melted chocolate, and then fold in the flour.
Line a muffin tin with paper cupcake cups coated with cooking spray.
Divide the batter equally among the 12 cups and bake for 8 to 10 minutes, just until the edges of the cakes are firm and the centers and still liquid.
Remove from the oven and let the cakes cool on wire rack for 5 minutes.
Remove the cakes from the muffin tin, remove the paper lining and top with raspberry sauce and serve.
03 Apr 2017
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BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS
First Embodiment
Second Embodiment
Modification of Embodiments
Other Embodiments
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to image processing for improving a viewing density of an image and for reducing the amounts of consumed color materials.
2. Description of the Related Art
As an apparatus for forming an image on a printing medium (to be also referred to as “printing paper” hereinafter), an image forming apparatus for executing image formation based on an electrophotography system (electrophotographic printer) is known. The electrophotographic printer forms an image by transferring toners as color materials onto a printing medium, and fixing the toners on the printing medium by heating and pressing the transferred toners.
In recent years, the use application of the electrophotographic printer is extended from a normal copying machine and printer to POD (Print On Demand) as a light printing range. Accordingly, a toner consumption amount reduction requirement to reduce running cost, and a further image quality enhancement requirement to improve the worth of a printed product itself are increasing.
2
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A wide variety of types of printing media are used for the electrophotographic printer. For example, plain paper (high-quality paper, recycled paper, etc.) is used in an office, and actual printing paper (art paper, coat paper, lightweight coat paper, etc.) is used in POD. Various kinds of such paper which have paper weights as weights per unit area ranging from about 50 g/mto 300 g/mor more are available, and are set as supported paper in various electrophotographic printers.
In general, as paper has a lower paper weight, it has higher transmittance (transmissivity). Paper having high transmittance causes a phenomenon that when printed paper sheets are stacked, an image printed on an underlying paper is seen through, and when paper is viewed from a backside (reverse) face side, an image printed on a front (obverse) face is seen through (to be referred to as “show-through” hereinafter).
Various techniques have been proposed to suppress occurrence of show-through when double-sided printing is executed using printing paper having high transmittance. As one of these techniques, a corrected image is generated by multiplying, by correction coefficients, an image obtained by mirror-reversing an image to be printed on a backside face of printing paper (to be referred to as “backside image” hereinafter), and pixel values of the corrected image are subtracted from those of an image to be printed on a front face of the printing paper (to be referred to as “front image” hereinafter). Also, in another technique, after one face of printing paper is printed, transmittance of that printing paper is detected, and when the transmittance is high, one of processes for “inhibiting double-sided printing”, “changing an image density”, and “changing a fixing temperature” is executed. Furthermore, in still another technique, after one face of printing paper is printed, transmittance of the printing paper is detected, and an exposure amount upon printing an image on the other face is controlled.
As a problem caused by the transmittance of printing paper, not only the aforementioned show-through but also a problem of a viewing density change is posed. With this problem, transmitted light intensity difference from the backside face due to transmittance difference influences densities and colors viewed on a printed product.
FIG. 1
A general viewing environment of a printed product includes light which is reflected by a wall, desk, or the like and enters the backside face in addition to directly illuminated light on a viewing face of a printed product. This phenomenon will be described below with reference to .
FIG. 1
FIG. 1
FIG. 1
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is a conceptual view of a state in which a printed product is illuminated with light when viewed from a side sectional direction of the printed product. In , the printed product includes printing paper and a toner layer fixed on that paper. A light ray comes from an illumination such as a ceiling illumination or illumination stand and directly enters on a viewing face (front face) of the printed product. A light ray is reflected by a wall, desk, or the like, and enters the backside face of the printed product. As shown in , the light ray , which enters the front face of the printed product, is absorbed or scattered by the toner layer , or is transmitted through the toner layer and is reflected by the front face of the printing paper , and is viewed as a reflected light ray from the printed product.
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The light ray , which enters the backside face of the printed product, is transmitted through the printing paper and toner layer , and is viewed as a transmitted light ray . As will be described in detail later, a light ray is scattered by the toner layer , and returns to the backside face of the printed product. Light intensity of the transmitted light ray from the backside face to the front face depends on transmittance of the printing paper , and increases with increasing transmittance. Light intensity, which is actually viewed by the user as the printed product formed by the toner layer , includes that of the reflected light ray and that of the transmitted light ray . Therefore, printing paper having higher transmittance has larger light intensity, and a density (viewing density) viewed as the toner layer consequently lowers.
Also, the transmitted light intensity from the backside face to the front face of the printed product varies depending not only on the transmittance of the printing paper but also that of toner fixed on the printing paper. The transmittance of toner varies depending on a fixing state of toner although the mounted amount (applied amount) of that toner (a weight of toner per unit area) remains the same. This is because a void ratio and spatial density of pigment in the toner layer change depending on heat and pressure differences in a fixing process, and degrees of absorption and scattering of light on the toner layer change.
As described above, image quality deterioration caused by the transmittance of printing paper includes the show-through and viewing density change. As a technique for suppressing image quality deterioration, a technique for taking a measure against the show-through like in the aforementioned technique has been proposed. However, a technique for taking a measure against the viewing density change is not available.
Also, as for the toner consumption amount reduction requirement, a technique so-called a toner saving mode, which reduces a toner consumption amount at the sacrifice of a formed image density, is known. However, a technique which reduces a toner consumption amount while maintaining a viewing density of an image is not available.
In one aspect, an image processing apparatus comprises an acquisition unit configured to acquire transmission information indicating transmittance of light of a printing medium used in image formation; a first setting unit configured to set a reduction ratio with respect to a maximum amount of mounted color materials used in the image formation based on the transmission information; and a second setting unit configured to set a fixing index indicating a fixing state of the color materials with respect to the printing medium based on the transmission information.
According to the aspect, a viewing density of an image can be enhanced, and a consumption amount of color materials can be reduced.
Further features of the present invention will become apparent from the following description of exemplary embodiments with reference to the attached drawings.
Image processing according to embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail hereinafter with reference to the drawings. Note that the following embodiments do not limit the present invention related to the scope of the claims, and all of combinations of characteristic features described in the embodiments are not indispensable for solution of the present invention.
[Color Developing Mechanism in Consideration of Transmitted Light ]
FIGS. 2 to 4
FIG. 15
Prior to the description of image processing of this embodiment, color developing in consideration of transmitted light will be described below with reference to and .
FIG. 2
FIG. 2
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is sectional view of a printed product having an incomplete fixing layer in which toner is not completely fixed. In general, in an electrophotographic printer, toner transferred onto printing paper has a different degree of melting depending on degrees of heat and pressure in a fixing process. shows toner layers and fixed on printing paper under a certain fixing condition.
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The toner layer is a complete fixing layer in which toner particles are completely melted and fixed. The toner layer is an incomplete fixing layer in which toner particles are not completely melted in a fixing process, and toner particles themselves and voids between toner particles are left. Since the toner layer has a lower toner density than the toner layer as the complete fixing layer, light to be absorbed per unit length is decreased. Since many voids and non-melted toner particles exist, light to be scattered per unit length is increased.
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FIG. 1
FIG. 1
Such increase in scattering increases light intensity of scattered light corresponding to a light ray shown in in the toner layer . As described above, the light ray shown in is that which returns to the backside face due to scattering of a toner layer . When the light intensity of the light ray is increased, that of a transmitted light ray which is transmitted through the toner layer is decreased. On the other hand, in the toner layer as the incomplete fixing layer, light intensity to be absorbed per unit length is decreased. However, it is considered that since a decrease in thickness of the toner layer due to heating and pressing is smaller than in the complete fixing layer, transmitted light intensity is consequently the same as that of the complete fixing layer.
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That is, in the toner layer as the incomplete fixing layer, although light absorption does not change depending on a fixing state, since light intensity which returns to the backside face due to scattering of light is increased, the transmitted light intensity is decreased. Also, light intensity of a reflected light ray changes due to a change in absorption and scattering per unit thickness. That is, as a degree of absorption is smaller or that of scattering is larger, light intensity of light which returns to a viewing face (front face of a printed product) is increased.
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A rate of a thickness of a complete fixing layer to that of an entire toner layer including complete and incomplete fixing layers will be referred to as “fixing rate” hereinafter. The light intensities of the reflected light ray and transmitted light ray change according to the fixing rate, and a density of an image to be viewed (viewing density) also changes according to this light intensity change.
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Also, the light intensity of the transmitted light ray changes by not only the fixing rate, but also the transmittance of printing paper, and is increased with increasing transmittance of the printing paper.
FIG. 3
FIG. 3
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shows the relationship between the fixing rate and viewing density. In , a curve expresses the relationship between the fixing rate and viewing density when no light enters the backside face of a printed product. Likewise, curves and express the relationships between the fixing rate and viewing density when light of the same light intensity enters the backside face of a printed product. A difference between the curves and is that between transmittance of printing paper sheets. In this case, the transmittance of the printing paper corresponding to the curve is higher than that of the printing paper corresponding to the curve .
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In the example of the curve , the viewing density is highest at a point A where a toner layer fully becomes a complete fixing layer. This is simply because scattering of light is increased if an incomplete fixing layer is included, and light intensity of the reflected light ray is consequently increased, thus lowering the viewing density.
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On the other hand, the example of the curve indicates that the viewing density is higher when an incomplete fixing layer is included at a predetermined rate or less compared to a point B where a toner layer fully becomes a complete fixing layer. That is, the viewing density at a fixing rate or more of a point E is not less than that at the point B, and is maximized at a point D. This is because light intensity of the reflected light ray is increased due to scattering of light if an incomplete fixing layer is included, while light intensity of the transmitted light ray is decreased due to an increase in light intensity of the light ray which returns to the backside face.
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302
106
303
Likewise, in the example of the curve , a viewing density at a fixing rate or more of a point G is not less than that at a point C, and is maximized at a point F. By comparing these curves and at the same fixing rate, the curve has a higher density. This is because the transmittance of the printing paper corresponding to the curve is higher, and light intensity of the transmitted light ray is smaller. Also, as can be seen from comparisons of density differences between the points B and D and between the points C and F, a density change based on the fixing rate of the curve corresponding to the higher transmittance of the printing paper is larger.
FIG. 15
FIG. 15
FIG. 3
FIG. 3
1501
1502
1503
1504
1501
1503
302
1502
1504
303
shows the relationship between the mounted amount and viewing density when light enters the backside face of a printed product. In , curves and express changes in viewing density with respect to the mounted amount of toner when the fixing rate is appropriately controlled to maximize the viewing density. Also, curves and express changes in viewing density with respect to the mounted amount of toner when the fixing rate is 100%. Note that the curves and correspond to printing paper having low transmittance, and correspond to the curve in . Also, the curves and correspond to printing paper having high transmittance, and correspond to the curve in .
FIG. 15
1502
1504
1501
1503
In , as can be seen from examination of differences between mounted amounts which attain the maximum viewing density at the fixing rate=100% and that between mounted amounts required to obtain the viewing density equivalent to the maximum viewing density at the fixing rate=100% by controlling the fixing rate, a difference ΔA2 between the curves and corresponding to the printing paper having the high transmittance is larger than a difference ΔA1 between the curves and corresponding to the printing paper having the low transmittance. That is, when the maximum viewing density corresponding to the fixing rate=100% is attained by appropriately controlling the fixing rate, a toner amount that can be saved is larger as the transmittance of printing paper is higher.
FIG. 4
FIG. 4
FIG. 4
FIG. 3
FIG. 4
is a graph showing a change in viewing density in an image formed with complete and incomplete fixing layers. Lines indicated by broken lines in are equivalent mounted amount lines indicating constant mounted amounts. In , as a color is darker, a viewing density of an image is higher. Note that the curves shown in indicate viewing density changes on the equivalent mounted amount lines in .
FIG. 4
FIG. 4
FIG. 4
In , a point P indicates a case in which a mounted amount is 100%, and a toner layer is fully complete layer, a point Q indicates a case in which a mounted amount is 100%, and an incomplete fixing layer is formed under a complete fixing layer, and a point R indicates a case in which a mounted amount is 90%, and an incomplete fixing layer is formed under a complete fixing layer. As can be seen from , even when the mounted amount remains the same, the viewing density at the point Q including the incomplete fixing layer is higher than that at the point P including the full complete fixing layer. Thus, by appropriately controlling the fixing rate, a higher viewing density can be attained. Also, as can be seen from , the viewing density at the point P where the mounted amount is 100% and the full complete fixing layer is formed is equal to that at the point R where the mounted amount is 90% and the incomplete fixing layer is included. That is, by appropriately controlling the fixing rate, printed products having the same viewing density can be obtained even when reducing a toner amount.
[Arrangement of Image Forming Apparatus]
The arrangement of an image processing apparatus according to this embodiment will be described below.
Image Processing Apparatus
FIG. 5
501
502
is a block diagram showing the arrangement of the image processing apparatus of this embodiment. An image input unit inputs image data to be printed. A printing condition setting unit inputs a user instruction of a printing condition. The printing condition includes a size of output printing paper, double-sided printing setting, page layout, color mode, a type of the output printing paper (to be referred to as “paper type” hereinafter), printing intent, printing quality, printing mode, use style of a printed product, and the like. Note that the size of the output printing paper, double-sided printing setting, page layout, and color mode are the same as those in a condition set in a general printer, and a description thereof will not be given.
As the paper type, types of printing paper such as coat paper and plain paper, and a paper weight of printing paper can be selected. As the printing intent, types of image data to be printed such as general, DTP (Desk Top Publishing), graphics, photo, CAD (Computer Aided Design), and high-resolution document can be selected. As the printing quality, a resolution, the number of tones, a type of halftone processing, and the like can be selected.
FIG. 7
FIG. 7
The printing mode and use style will be described below with reference to . shows an example of a user interface which allows the user to select the printing mode and use style. The user can select one of “viewing-density priority” which enhances a viewing density and “toner saving (color material saving)” which saves a use amount of toner. As the use style of a printed product, the user can select one of “holding”, “flat placing”, and “bookbinding”.
FIG. 7
The use style is deeply related to the viewing condition of a printed product. That is, in this embodiment, information of these use styles is used as backside light intensity information indicating a degree of light intensity which may come from the backside face of a viewing face in association with a printed product. In case of “holding”, that is, when the user views a printed product while holding it in his or her hand, light intensity which enters the backside face of the printed product is assumed to be large. In case of “flat placing”, that is, when the user views a printed product while placing it on, for example, a desk, light intensity which comes from the backside face of the printed product is assumed to be small except for a case in which the printed product is placed on a desk of a light color or is affixed on a wall of a light color. On the other hand, in case of “bookbinding”, white printing paper is assumed to exist on the back side of a printed product except for a case in which a high-density object is printed on the backside face of a page of the printed product to be viewed or on the next page. Therefore, in case of “bookbinding”, since reflected light from printing paper comes from the backside face of a printed product, light intensity coming from the backside face falls between “holding” and “flat placing”. Note that the use styles are not limited to the examples shown in , and other items corresponding to possible viewing conditions (for example, “poster” which assumes that a printed product is affixed on a wall) may be added.
502
502
Note that the printing condition setting unit may be installed in a printer driver which runs on a computer (PC) or may be installed in a printer main body to allow the user to select the use style using a touch panel or the like of a printer. Alternatively, the printing condition setting unit may be installed in both the PC and printer without posing any problem. Also, especially, as for the paper type setting, a paper type determination sensor may be arranged in the apparatus. In this case, information associated with transmittance of printing paper, which is measured by the paper type determination sensor, can be acquired without prompting the user to select a paper type.
503
501
506
An image processing unit applies various image processes to image data input from the image input unit , and outputs the image data which has undergone the image processes to an image forming unit . Details of the image processes will be described later.
504
502
506
505
506
506
A reduction ratio setting unit sets a toner reduction ratio (to be described later) based on the printing condition set by the printing condition setting unit , and outputs the toner reduction ratio to the image forming unit . A fixing index setting unit sets a fixing index (to be described later) based on the printing condition, and outputs the fixing index to the image forming unit . The image forming unit forms a visible image on printing paper based on the toner reduction ratio and fixing index.
Image Forming Unit
506
506
506
506
501
505
600
600
FIG. 6
FIG. 6
FIG. 5
FIG. 5
FIG. 6
The arrangement of the image forming unit will be described below. Assume that the image forming unit executes image formation on a printing medium by a 1-drum type electrophotography process, and is a sectional view of the image forming unit . That is, shows the arrangement of the image forming unit shown in , and the remaining units to in are arranged in a control unit shown in or in an image processing apparatus as a computer connected to the control unit .
FIG. 6
FIG. 5
621
600
622
623
506
624
625
501
505
600
625
In , a CPU (microcontroller) of the control unit executes a program stored in a ROM (Read Only Memory) using a RAM (Random Access Memory) as a work memory, and controls the operations of respective components of the image forming unit through an I/O (input/output port) , thereby executing an image formation process of image data input through an I/F (communication interface) . When the units to in are arranged in the external image processing apparatus, the control unit receives information indicating the toner reduction ratio and fixing index, and a print job including image data to be printed from the image processing apparatus through the I/F .
603
604
605
601
805
603
602
603
FIG. 6
A photosensitive drum as a photosensitive body is uniformly discharged by a discharger , and is then uniformly charged by a charger . A laser diode emits a laser beam corresponding to binary image data generated by a quantization unit (to be described later). The laser beam exposes and scans the surface of the photosensitive drum as an image carrier, which is rotating in a direction of an arrow shown in , via a polygon mirror and fθ lens (not shown). As a result, an electrostatic latent image according to the binary image data is formed on the surface of the photosensitive drum .
606
607
608
The electrostatic latent image is developed as a toner image by toner supplied from a developer . The toner image is transferred onto an intermediate transfer belt , which is extended between a plurality of rollers and is endlessly driven, upon operation of a primary transfer unit .
606
606
606
606
606
607
The aforementioned series of operations, that is, charging, exposure, development, and transfer operations are repeated while switching developing units of respective colors (cyan C, magenta M, yellow Y, and black K) used in the developer . In this manner, toner images of a plurality of colors, which are sequentially transferred onto the intermediate transfer belt , are formed.
610
613
614
609
614
607
610
609
610
611
610
On the other hand, a printing medium is conveyed from a paper feed tray to registration rollers , and is then conveyed to a secondary transfer unit at an appropriate timing by the registration rollers . Then, the toner images of the plurality of colors transferred onto the intermediate transfer belt , are transferred onto the conveyed printing medium by the secondary transfer unit . The printing medium , on which the toner images are transferred, passes through a fixing unit , and the toner images are fixed on the printing medium .
610
616
615
610
617
615
615
614
610
609
614
610
610
616
After that, when a double-sided printing mode is not selected, the printing medium is discharged onto a discharge tray by discharge rollers . On the other hand, when the double-sided printing mode is selected, the printing medium is guided onto a convey path upon reverse rotation of the discharge rollers when its trailing end reaches the discharge rollers , and is conveyed to the registration rollers . Then, the printing medium is conveyed again to the secondary transfer unit at an appropriate timing by the registration rollers , and toner images are transferred and fixed on a second face of the printing medium . Then, the printing medium is discharged onto the discharge tray .
603
612
610
607
618
Residual toner which remains on the photosensitive drum is scraped and recovered by a photosensitive drum cleaner . After the printing medium is separated, residual toner on the intermediate transfer belt is scraped by an intermediate transfer belt cleaner such as a blade.
506
506
Note that this embodiment has exemplified the image forming unit which adopts the 1-drum type electrophotography system. However, the image forming unit is not limited to such specific example, and may also be implemented by a tandem type electrophotography system having respective mechanisms for corresponding developers of a plurality of colors, or other printing systems.
Image Processing Unit
503
8
503
503
501
502
FIG. 8
The image processes in the image processing unit will be described below with reference to FIG. . is a block diagram showing the arrangement of the image processing unit . The image processing unit executes the following image processes in accordance with image data input from the image input unit and the printing condition set by the printing condition setting unit .
801
801
A color conversion unit maps signal values (RGB values, CMYK values, etc.) of the input image data onto a device-independent color space (a color space such as CIELab or CIEXYZ). In general, since the color reproduction range of the printer is narrower than that of the monitor, the color conversion unit maps colors of the input image data to those within a reproducible range of the printer. This mapping is executed based on, for example, a lookup table (LUT) which describes the correspondence relationship between RGB values and L*a*b* values. Alternatively, matrix calculations may be made.
802
506
803
A color separation unit color-separates values on the device-independent color space represented by the image data after mapping into signal values (CMYK values, etc.) corresponding to respective color materials included in the image forming unit . A conversion method in this color separation is not particularly limited. For example, conversion is executed with reference to a color separation LUT which describes the correspondence relationship between L*a*b* values and CMYK values.
804
804
A gamma correction unit applies lightness correction processing, which is required to obtain satisfactory tones of an image printed on printing paper, to the image data after color separation. As lightness information to be corrected in this unit, for example, luminance information, lightness information, density information, or the like is used. Also, the gamma correction unit controls the image data according to the paper type indicated by the printing condition so that a total of the mounted amount of color materials does not exceed a maximum amount of mounted toner. Note that the maximum amount of mounted toner corresponds to an upper limit of a mounted amount which can prevent toner transferred onto printing paper or intermediate transfer belt from being scattered in the electrophotography process.
805
804
506
805
506
A quantization unit quantizes each of the image data using halftone processing (e.g., an error diffusion method and green noise method) set up as the printing condition, which correspond to the respective color materials and have undergone the lightness correction in the gamma correction unit , to the number of bits which can be processed by the image forming unit . Then, the quantization unit outputs the quantized 1-bit image data per color to the image forming unit .
Condition Setting Unit
504
505
FIG. 9
The reduction ratio setting processing of the reduction ratio setting unit and the fixing index setting processing of the fixing index setting unit will be described below with reference to the flowchart shown in .
504
The reduction ratio setting unit sets a toner reduction ratio required to control an exposure condition. The toner reduction ratio indicates maximum percentages of a mounted amount of toner with respect to the maximum amount of mounted toner.
505
610
611
611
The fixing index setting unit sets a fixing index required to control a fixing condition. A degree of melting and fixing of toner particles changes depending on a pressure, temperature, and time when the printing medium on which toner images have been transferred passes through the fixing unit . That is, the fixing index indicates percentages of the degree of melting and fixing to have, as 100%, a state of the highest degree of melting and fixing within a range that does not cause any trouble, and totally indicates degrees of heating, pressing, and speed of the fixing unit .
504
505
The aforementioned “fixing rate” of toner is controlled by the magnitudes of the toner reduction ratio and fixing index. A combination of the reduction ratio setting unit and fixing index setting unit will be referred to as “condition setting unit” hereinafter.
901
901
The condition setting unit acquires paper information (S). The paper information can be information indicating light transmission of printing paper, and may be, for example, information of transmittance, paper weight, thickness, and the like. More specifically, transmission information is acquired in step S.
902
Next, the condition setting unit acquires printing mode information (S). The printing mode information is information indicating “viewing-density priority” or “toner saving”, as described above.
903
903
Next, the condition setting unit acquires use style information of a printed product (S). The use style is that of a printed product, as described above, that is, it is information indicating backside light intensity information coming from the backside of the printed product by one of “holding”, “flat placing”, and “bookbinding”. That is, the backside light intensity information is acquired in step S.
901
902
903
904
Then, the condition setting unit sets the toner reduction ratio and fixing index based on the respective pieces of information acquired in steps S, S, and S (S).
Toner Reduction Ratio and Fixing Index
FIGS. 10A and 10B
FIGS. 10A and 10B
901
show correspondence examples between the transmittance of printing paper, and the toner reduction ratio and fixing index. show only toner reduction ratios and fixing indices corresponding to two different transmittance for the sake of simplicity, but toner reduction ratios and fixing indices for higher transmittance (for example, 30%) of printing paper are desirably prepared. When toner reduction ratios and fixing indices corresponding to, for example, a transmittance=13% of printing paper are not available, those for the closest transmittance may be used, or they may be calculated by interpolation calculations based on the toner reduction ratios and fixing indices for the transmittance=10% and 20%. On the other hand, when the paper information acquired in step S does not directly indicate transmittance, toner reduction ratios and fixing indices corresponding to transmittance may be specified with reference to, for example, a table which describes the correspondence relationship between values (paper weight, thickness, etc.) acquired as the paper information and transmittance.
FIGS. 10A and 10B
According to , a smaller toner reduction ratio is set for a certain transmittance irrespective of the use style when the printing mode is “toner saving” compared to a case in which it is “viewing-density priority”. Also, a fixing index is set to be larger in turn for the use styles in an order of “holding”, “bookbinding”, and “flat placing”. This is because light intensity coming from the backside face of a printed product to be viewed is assumed to be increased in an order of “holding”, “bookbinding”, and “flat placing”.
FIG. 3
The reason why lower fixing indices are set for “holding” and “bookbinding” is that when incident light intensity from the backside face is large, the viewing density is highest when the fixing rate is lower than 100%, as has been described using . Hence, in case of “holding” and “bookbinding”, that is, when incident light comes from the backside face, a fixing index, which sets a lower degree of melting of toner as transmittance of printing paper is higher, that is, which sets a higher void ratio between particles without completely melting toner, in other words, a lower fixing rate, is set.
When the transmittance of printing paper is high, a change between a toner reduction ratio of “viewing-density priority” and that of “toner saving” is set to be large. In other words, a large toner reduction amount is set. This is because a maximum viewing density corresponding to the fixing rate=100% can be attained by appropriately controlling the fixing rate even when the mounted amount of toner is reduced as the transmittance of the printing paper is higher, as described above.
FIG. 11
FIG. 11
FIG. 4
FIG. 4
1102
1103
1101
1101
1102
1103
is a graph showing the relationship between the fixing rate and viewing density when mounted amounts of toner are different on single printing paper. Curves and in correspond to the equivalent mounted amount lines shown in , and a curve when reflected light from the backside face can be ignored is further added. That is, the curve expresses the relationship between the fixing rate and viewing density in case of the mounted amount=100% and “flat placing”. The curve expresses the relationship between the fixing rate and viewing density in case of the mounted amount=100% and “holding”. The curve expresses the relationship between the fixing rate and viewing density in case of the mounted amount=90% and “holding”. That is, as also described above using , the point P indicates a case in which the mounted amount is 100% and the fixing rate is 100%, the point Q indicates a case in which the mounted amount is 100% and the fixing rate is 70%, and the point R indicates a case in which the mounted amount is 90% and the fixing rate is 80%.
FIG. 11
FIG. 11
FIGS. 10A and 10B
1101
According to , the viewing density at the point Q is higher than that at the point P, and the viewing densities at the points R and P are nearly equal to each other. Note that in the case of “flat placing” expressed by the curve , the viewing density is higher with increasing fixing rate. Note that does not show an example of “bookbinding”, but it is expressed by an intermediate curve between “flat placing” and “holding”. In this embodiment, a table required to determine the toner reduction ratio and fixing index according to the transmittance of printing paper, printing mode, and use style is generated based on such relationship among the mounted amount of toner, fixing rate, and viewing density, as shown in .
Exposure Control
600
506
601
600
FIGS. 12A to 12C
The control unit of the image forming unit executes exposure control for controlling the exposure condition (a pulse width or pulse amplitude of a pulse signal to be supplied to the laser diode ) so as to attain exposure according to the toner reduction ratio. The exposure control in the control unit will be described below with reference to .
FIGS. 12A to 12C
FIG. 12A
601
603
are explanatory charts of the exposure control, and show the correspondence between a pulse signal used to control the laser diode to emit a laser beam and the scanning positions on the photosensitive drum . For example, in case of a black solid region of K=100%, the pulse signal is supplied, as shown in .
FIG. 12B
FIG. 12A
FIG. 12B
FIG. 12A
603
603
shows a pulse signal example when a total amount of light with which the photosensitive drum is irradiated is reduced by applying pulse-width modulation to the pulse signal shown in . The pulse signal shown in has a narrower ON width than that of the pulse signal shown in , and the light intensity with which the photosensitive drum is irradiated is consequently reduced.
FIG. 12C
FIG. 12A
FIG. 12C
FIG. 12A
603
601
603
shows a pulse signal example when a total amount of light with which the photosensitive drum is irradiated is reduced by applying pulse-width modulation to the pulse signal shown in . The pulse signal shown in has the same ON width as that of the pulse signal shown in , but has a smaller signal value. As a result, a light emitting amount of the laser diode is decreased, and the light intensity with which the photosensitive drum is irradiated is reduced.
FIG. 12A
FIG. 12B
12
In other words, corresponds to a pulse signal for a solid region when the toner reduction ratio is 100% (without reducing the amount of mounted toner), and or C corresponds to a pulse signal for a solid region when the toner reduction ratio is, for example, 80%.
506
603
603
600
In this manner, even when an image signal after quantization as an image formation target of the image forming unit remains the same, the exposure control is executed in the image formation process, thus changing the exposure amount on the photosensitive drum , changing a latent image potential on the photosensitive drum accordingly, and changing a toner amount to be developed consequently. That is, the control unit can control the mounted amount of toner to be transferred onto printing paper according to the toner reduction ratio.
600
601
600
That is, when the control unit holds, in advance, a table which indicates the relationship between the pulse width or pulse amplitude of a pulse signal to be supplied to the laser diode , and one of the latent image potential, developing amount, and mounted amount of toner, the pulse width or pulse amplitude can be appropriately controlled in accordance with the toner reduction ratio. With this control, the control unit can appropriately control the amount of mounted toner in correspondence with a target value (toner reduction ratio). That is, as the toner reduction ratio is larger, the mounted amount of toner is increased. Conversely, as the toner reduction ratio is smaller, the mounted amount of toner can be decreased.
Fixing Control
600
610
611
The control unit executes fixing control required to control a pressure, temperature, and time when the printing medium on which toner images have been transferred passes through the fixing unit , so as to attain fixing according to the fixing index.
611
600
600
600
600
600
600
In the fixing unit , within a range in which no trouble called hot offset, that is, unwanted transfer of some toner particles to a fixing roller occurs, as a fixing pressure is higher, as a fixing temperature is higher, and as a fixing time is longer (that is, a fixing rate is lower), a degree of melting and fixing of toner particles is higher. Note that even when the degree of melting and fixing of toner remains the same, a fixing rate varies depending on the type and mounted amount of toner. That is, the control unit holds, in advance, the relationship between the fixing condition (fixing pressure, fixing temperature, and fixing time) and the fixing index for each toner type and each mounted amount of toner, thus controlling the fixing condition according to the fixing index. Thus, the control unit can appropriately control the degree of melting and fixing of toner particles in correspondence with a target value (fixing index). That is, the control unit completely fixes the toner layer by increasing the degree of melting and fixing of toner particles as the fixing index is larger. Conversely, the control unit leaves an incomplete fixing layer of toner by weakening the degree of melting and fixing of toner particles as the fixing index is smaller. For example, when the fixing index assumes a maximum value=100%, the control unit controls the fixing condition so as to completely fix color materials transferred onto printing paper. As the fixing index is smaller, the control unit controls the fixing condition so as to increase an incomplete fixing layer of color materials transferred onto printing paper.
600
In this manner, the control unit executes the exposure control based on the set toner reduction ratio and the fixing control based on the set fixing index, thereby forming an image having a fixing rate corresponding to the toner reduction ratio and fixing index.
This embodiment controls a fixing rate according to transmittance of printing paper by focusing attention on a case in which an image having a higher viewing density is obtained by leaving an incomplete fixing layer in place of complete fixing of a toner layer when transmitted light from the backside face exists. By controlling the fixing rate, both a high viewing density of a formed image, and a reduction of a toner consumption amount can be attained. That is, when the printing mode is “viewing-density priority”, control is made to attain a maximum viewing density of a formed image; when the printing mode is “toner saving”, a toner consumption amount can be reduced while suppressing a decrease in viewing density of a formed image.
The second embodiment according to the present invention will be described below. The aforementioned first embodiment has explained the example in which the mounted amount of toner is controlled by the exposure control. However, the control method of the mounted amount is not limited to this example. The second embodiment will explain a method of controlling the mounted amount of toner using a developing condition. Note that since the arrangement of an image processing apparatus according to the second embodiment is the same as that of the first embodiment, the same reference numerals denote the same components, and a detailed description thereof will not be repeated. Only parts especially different from the first embodiment will be described below.
FIG. 13
FIGS. 10A and 10B
1301
600
506
600
606
is a block diagram showing the arrangement of the image processing apparatus of the second embodiment. A developing bias setting unit of the second embodiment sets a toner reduction ratio based on , sets a developing bias as a developing condition based on the set toner reduction ratio, and outputs information indicating the set developing bias to a control unit of an image forming unit . The control unit controls a developing bias of a developer based on the input information indicating the developing bias.
FIG. 14
FIG. 14
FIG. 14
1301
1301
shows the relationship between the developing bias and developing toner amount. According to a graph shown in , a developing bias required to develop a predetermined toner amount can be determined. That is, when the developing bias setting unit holds, in advance, a table indicating the relationship between the developing bias and developing toner amount shown in , the developing bias can be appropriately controlled in accordance with the toner reduction ratio. Thus, the developing bias setting unit can appropriately control the mounted amount of toner in correspondence with a target value (toner reduction ratio).
501
804
However, when the developing bias is changed, the relationship between image signal values input by an image input unit and lightness values of an image formed on printing paper changes. For this reason, a gamma correction unit changes a gamma correction table to be used in accordance with the set developing bias.
503
1301
505
506
600
506
506
As described above, according to the second embodiment, an image signal processed by an image processing unit , a developing bias set by the developing bias setting unit based on a printing condition, and a fixing index set by a fixing index setting unit are supplied to the image forming unit . The control unit of the image forming unit executes an image formation process by controlling operations of respective components of the image forming unit based on the input developing bias and fixing index. As a result, an image according to the printing condition is formed on printing paper.
As described above, by controlling the mounted amount of toner based on the developing bias, which is set based on the toner reduction ratio, the fixing rate of toner is controlled in the same manner as in the first embodiment, thus attaining both a high viewing density of a formed image and a reduction of a toner consumption amount.
802
804
In the aforementioned first embodiment, the mounted amount of toner is controlled based on the toner reduction ratio by the exposure control. Also, in the second embodiment, the mounted amount of toner is controlled based on the toner reduction ratio by controlling the developing bias. However, the control method of the mounted amount of toner is not limited to these specific embodiments. For example, when the color separation unit and gamma correction unit selectively use tables corresponding to the toner reduction ratio, the mounted amount of toner may be controlled.
The aforementioned embodiments have explained the example in which the toner reduction ratio and fixing index are determined in accordance with information associated with transmittance of printing paper, a printing mode, and a use style of a printed product. However, the application range of the present invention is not limited to this example.
Since a printed product of the electrophotographic printer cannot normally ignore incident light from the backside face, it is not indispensable to set the use style. In this case, since cases of “flat placing” in which a printed product is viewed on an object such as a dark desk or table are assumed to be minor, toner reduction ratios and fixing indices corresponding to “holding” or “bookbinding” are preferably used.
FIG. 11
Also, it is not indispensable to set the printing mode, and a toner reduction ratio required to suppress the mounted amount of toner may be set as a default. In this case as well, by appropriately controlling the fixing rate, as described using , a viewing density equivalent to that of the related art can be attained. Also, when a toner reduction ratio which does not suppress the mounted amount of toner is set as a default, a printed product having a higher viewing density than that of the related art can be obtained by appropriately controlling the fixing rate.
In the example of the above description, the present invention is applied to image formation in the electrophotographic printer. Also, the present invention is applicable to an image formation process in which color materials mounted to a printing medium are fixed to form a visible image on the printing medium like in an inkjet printing system or thermal transfer system using pigment inks.
Aspects of the present invention can also be realized by a computer of a system or apparatus (or devices such as a CPU or MPU) that reads out and executes a program recorded on a memory device to perform the functions of the above-described embodiment(s), and by a method, the steps of which are performed by a computer of a system or apparatus by, for example, reading out and executing a program recorded on a memory device to perform the functions of the above-described embodiment(s). For this purpose, the program is provided to the computer for example via a network or from a recording medium of various types serving as the memory device (e.g., computer-readable medium).
While the present invention has been described with reference to exemplary embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed exemplary embodiments. The scope of the following claims is to be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and equivalent structures and functions.
This application claims the benefit of Japanese Patent Application No. 2012-242215 filed Nov. 1, 2012 which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1
is a conceptual view showing a state in which a printed product is illuminated with light when viewed from a side sectional direction of the printed product.
FIG. 2
is a sectional view of a printed product having a toner incomplete fixing layer.
FIG. 3
is a graph showing the relationship between the fixing rate and viewing density.
FIG. 4
is a graph showing a density change in an image formed with a complete fixing layer and incomplete fixing layer.
FIG. 5
is a block diagram showing the arrangement of an image processing apparatus according to the first embodiment.
FIG. 6
is a sectional view showing the arrangement of an image forming unit.
FIG. 7
is a view showing an example of a user interface which allows the user to select a printing mode and use style.
FIG. 8
is a block diagram showing the arrangement of an image processing unit.
FIG. 9
is a flowchart showing setting processing of a toner reduction ratio and fixing index.
FIGS. 10A and 10B
are tables showing a correspondence example between the transmittance of printing paper, and a toner reduction ratio and fixing index.
FIG. 11
is a graph showing the relationship between a fixing rate and viewing density according to a mounted amount of toner.
FIGS. 12A to 12C
are explanatory charts of exposure control.
FIG. 13
is a block diagram showing the arrangement of an image processing apparatus according to the second embodiment.
FIG. 14
is a graph showing the relationship between a developing bias and developing toner amount.
FIG. 15
is a graph showing the relationship between a mounted amount and viewing density when light enters a backside face of a printed product. | |
In Combating Piracy: Intellectual Property Theft and Fraud, Jay S. Albanese and his contributors provide new analyses of intellectual property theft and how perpetrators innovate and adapt in response to shifting Intellectual property theft.
He is currently professor of government and public policy at Virginia Commonwealth University.4/4(1). In September ofMr. Kingstone and his company won the largest jury verdict, $42 million, in the history of the State of Florida for an intellectual property crime.
The case against a group of counterfeiters based in Shanghai, China took three Intellectual property theft to bring to trial.
Details Intellectual property theft, 2002 FB2
Mr/5(10). Get this from a library. Intellectual property theft, [Mark Motivans; United States. Bureau of Justice Statistics.]. in to 92 in The Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) in the Crimi-nal Division of Justice oversees the Federal prosecution of IP theft and Intellectual Property Theft, 3 In U.S.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported nearly 5, seizures of IP worth over $99 million U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Fraud and piracy of products and ideas have become Intellectual property theft in the early twenty-first century, as opportunities to commit them expand, and technology makes fraud and piracy easy to carry out.
In Combating Piracy: Intellectual Property Theft and Fraud, Jay S. Albanese and his contributors provide new analyses of intellectual property theft and how perpetrators innovate and adapt in response to.
Law No. 82 of Pertaining to the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights The People's Assembly has passed the following law, and it is hereby promulgated: Article One The protection of intellectual property rights shall be governed by the attached law.
Article.
Description Intellectual property theft, 2002 EPUB
Debates over the nature and scope of intellectual property law are centuries old, yet “new” at the same time. Over years ago, America's founders struggled with the issue of intellectual property (IP) protection when they were authoring the Constitution.
In truth, Osterweil’s book undermines her own argument. Like every book on the market, its publishing declares that “the scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property”.
Apparently. Theft of intellectual property happens when someone knowingly uses, misappropriates, takes, or steals property that falls under the protection of laws around intellectual property.
For example, if someone copies the logo that belongs to another company and knows that it belongs to someone else, this would be 2002 book intellectual property theft. Plagiarism is defined in the Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics () as the unauthorized or unacknowledged appropriation of the words, graphic images, or ideas from another person.
As such plagiarism can be a violation of intellectual property rights, although it is not in all cases illegal. A second definition is provided by MerriamWebster Online as the act of stealing and.
The theft of intellectual property has become so rampant in recent years that U.S. officials are starting to convene entire conferences just to.
Protect your book from intellectual property theft. 8th Aug Ugne Rinkeviciute; 1 Comment; One thing most employed people don’t have to deal with, but we creatives do, is legally protecting their projects – the babies of months and months of hard work.
Unfortunately, as much as we’d like to build forts around our books and surround them with an army of lawyers, there’s not that. InNapster was shut down.
Grokster, another music-sharing site, surged on for a few more years, but it too stopped operating when the Supreme Court ruled against it. Intellectual property theft involves robbing people or companies of their ideas, inventions, and creative expressions—known as “intellectual property”—which can include everything from.
Download Intellectual property theft, 2002 PDF
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The most well-known types are copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade modern concept of intellectual property developed in England in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Net retail giant suesalleging that the rival book and music e-tailer illegally copied Amazon's patented 1-Click technology. Jan. 2, p.m. Intellectual Property Theft - National Crime Prevention. In fact, copying a book was considered a scholarly act, there were no intellectual property theft cases.
The idea of a “scribe”, or a person who. Contact an intellectual property attorney. If you believe your intellectual property has been stolen or mis-appropriated by a former employee, customer, competitor, or other party, and your self-help actions have not fixed the situation, then you may have to file a lawsuit for : 34K.
This book is an introduction to intellectual property law, the set of private legal rights that allows individuals and corporations to control intangible creations and marks—from logos to novels to drug formulae—and the exceptions and limitations that define those rights.
It focuses on the three graphmain forms of US federal intellectual property—trademark, copyright and patent—but. The desire to steal the Intellectual Property (IP) of others be they creative individuals or the fruits of company teams working in patent pools to create new innovations remains the same.
Political methods have become more sophisticated in terms of devaluing the output of creative humans by creating open source access which can be taken freely.
Individual Chapters from the 4th Edition of our Open Course Book This page offers the full book and each of the individual chapters from our open coursebook on Intellectual Property in a variety of formats.
It is also a nice way to browse through the Table of Contents. The book is under a Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike License. See facts on intellectual property theft covering intellectual property and trade secret theft in the news.
Download IPR protection software. Download IPR protection software that uses digital rights management controls to prevent the theft of your intellectual property – pdf documents, files, web pages, portals, websites, html, images. Intellectual Property Theft.
Intellectual property is a type of property that is intangible and includes creations of the human mind. Inventions, artistic and literary works, designs, symbols, trade secrets, and names fall under this category.
Like any other type of property, there are laws protecting intellectual property. ISBN: OCLC Number: Notes: Prepared for distribution at a program of the same name, New York City, October, Chicago.
Intellectual property laws are widely accepted internationally in the ongoing effort by movie studios and other creators to reduce various types of IP theft, from outright story plagiarism to bootlegging or hacking movies, scripts, or shows, and posting them online.
Firstly, cases of intellectual property theft are too common to ignore nowadays. And the size of a company never matters- startups and small businesses are no less affected. Intellectual property theft is widespread on the internet.
It is often difficult to catch those who steal intellectual property because the internet is full of intellectual property and infringers. Take this into consideration if you discover intellectual property theft on the : 46K.
While this won’t stop all instances of intellectual property theft by employees, it gives your business a more solid legal foundation to pursue damages if you have to take it to court.” 3.
Internal Reporting Systems. Implement a system that allows for both employees and external sources to report counterfeit products or IP theft. Any grand bargain will require progress on a key structural issue: intellectual property (IP) rights.
According to some reports, Chinese IP theft has cost the United States $ billion to $. Doing business in China can be a difficult and contentious proposition for companies in many countries.
Yet even with charges of intellectual property theft, forced partnerships and tight. A Little IP Theft Is OK—If It Supports American Jobs.
When it comes to Chinese theft of American intellectual property, Sen. Marsha Blackburn. Fortunately, if this happens, the law is on your side, as using a company’s intellectual property without permission is a form of stealing.
If you believe that someone has stolen your intellectual property, it is important to retain the help of a Fort Lauderdale business litigation attorney to help prove the theft and advise you of your rights.
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Cavaliers trust James to bounce back against Celtics
Exclusive lists are nothing new to LeBron James.
From Oscar Robertson and Michael Jordan to even Wilt Chamberlain, James has put himself among the NBA’s all-time greats with his performances the last five seasons.
But how about Joe Fulks?
James enters to¬night’s Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Celtics on a list with him that no one would have imagined a week ago. He comes into the game shooting a historically low 19 percent after the first two games of the series, both Boston wins.
“I don’t think he’s ever had two games like this,” teammate Wally Szczerbiak said Friday. “But the poor guy’s got so much on his shoulders. He’s got to carry the weight of the team, the weight of the offense, and he’s got everyone pointing fingers at him and trying to stop him.”
James seems to be taking things in stride. After Game 2 on Thursday, he said, “I’m going to stay positive and get my way through it.”
He didn’t talk with media Friday at Cleveland Clinic Courts, but didn’t appear uptight. Once practice ended, James relaxed by taking a few more shots before trying some trick shots and then playing Amanda Mercado, director of basketball communications, in a game of P-I-G, taking his shots left-handed.
James’ 8-of-42 shooting is the worst after two games to open a playoff series in the shot-clock era by a player with at least 30 shots. Only Fulks has shot lower, 17.6 percent in 1948 with the Philadelphia Warriors.
It’s also the lowest percentage of the shot-clock era for any two consecutive playoff games among players with at least 40 shots, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The previous low belonged to Boston’s Tom Heinsohn, now a broadcaster for the team, when he shot 19.5 percent (8 for 41) in 1961.
Fulks and Heinsohn each made their way to the Hall of Fame, so even on this list, James is in good company. And Head Coach Mike Brown said he’s not sitting around worrying and hoping the slump ends.
“With LeBron, I don’t need to be hopeful,” Brown said. “I believe in him. He’s going to get it done.”
The Cavs credit Boston’s defense for part of James’ struggles.
“They have three guys surrounding him and even the greatest players of all time, it’s tough to go when you got three guys defending you,” point guard Delonte West said.
Brown knows it’s a matter of time before James finds the range.
“I’ve seen him hit some of those shots time and time again,” Brown said. “We went through and watched the tape twice. He had a handful of looks that were not open, but wide open enough that I’ve seen him hit time after time after time. He’s going to have to keep shooting that thing. I believe in him. The team believes in him and when that shot goes in it’s going to loosen everything else up for him the rest of the way.”
And it’s not like James is the only Cavalier struggling against Boston, arguably the league’s top defensive team.
“No one’s had the game they wanted to have the first two games of the series,” West said.
The Cavs are shooting 33.1 percent as a team. Zydrunas Ilgauskas (17-of-30) and Sasha Pavlovic (4-of-7) are the only individuals shooting better than 36 percent from the floor.
“When we play bad, we don’t look at individual box scores,” said West, who is shooting 20 percent. “We played bad as a team. Everybody could have done something a little better that could have changed the outcome.”
Guard Daniel Gibson, who is just 2-for-8 shooting, thinks others have to step up around James.
“We just have to make plays for him, make the game easier for him since their defense is so locked in on what he wants to do,” Gibson said.
Gibson expects James to have his “same fire and passion” tonight. And Szczerbiak will not be surprised if James breaks out.
“I know he’s working his butt off,” Szczerbiak said, “and we’re going to anticipate him having a LeBron-type game.”
Reach Repository sports writer Chris Beaven at (330) 580-8345 or e-mail [email protected].
CELTICS VS. CAVALIERS, GAME 3
WHERE: Quicken Loans Arena
WHEN: Tonight, 8
TV: ABC
SERIES RECAP: The Celtics lead 2-0. Boston won Game 2, 89-73, as its bench outscored Cleveland’s, 34-17. The Celtics won Game 1, 76-72, as Kevin Garnett led the way with 28 points, including the go-ahead score with 21.4 seconds left.
STAT LEADERS: Zydrunas Ilgauskas is leading the Cavs at 20.5 points and 8.5 rebounds per game. LeBron James is averaging 16.5 points, 7.0 rebounds, 7.5 assists and 8.5 turnovers. Wally Szczerbiak (13.5) is the only other Cavalier averaging double-figures scoring. The Celtics are led by Kevin Garnett’s 20.5 points and 10.0 rebounds per game. Their other top scorers are Paul Pierce (11.5), Sam Cassell (11.0) and Rajon Rondo (11.0). Rondo also averages 6.0 assists, while Kendrick Perkins averages 8.0 rebounds.
WHAT TO WATCH:
- The Cavs need to get LeBron James going after he shot 8-for-42 in the first two games while committing 17 turnovers. Head Coach Mike Brown wants him to be decisive and aggressive when it comes to attacking Boston’s defense. The Celtics are crowding him, but not attacking him overly aggressively, which has left James caught in-between too often as he sizes up whether to pass, shoot a jumper or drive to the hoop.
- The Cavs as a team are shooting just 33.1 percent, a figure inflated by Zydrunas Ilgauskas making 17-of-30 shots (56.7 percent). They are just 6-for-31 from 3-point range after making 33 3-pointers in the final three games of the Washington series.
- Boston needs to prove it can play the same type of stingy defense away from home. The Celtics went 0-3 at Atlanta in the first round, giving up an average of 100.7 points in those losses.
- The Cavs need much more production from their bench after the Celtic subs got the better of them in the first two games. The Cavs depth will take a hit, too, if Ben Wallace is unable to go because of dizziness caused by allergies and a viral inner ear infection. If he can’t play, Anderson Varejao likely will start. Varejao is shooting 28.1 percent in the playoffs, averaging 2.9 points and 5.8 rebounds.
- Celtics guard Sam Cassell is averaging 11 points off the bench, while James Posey, P.J. Brown and Leon Powe also have been productive. Those three combined for another 15.5 points per game.
UP NEXT: The series remains in Cleveland for Game 4 Monday night at 8. | https://www.eveningtribune.com/story/news/2008/05/10/cavaliers-trust-james-to-bounce/46971291007/ |
In 1970, petitioner, who was then the Attorney General, authorized a warrantless wiretap for the purpose of gathering intelligence regarding the activities of a radical group that had made tentative plans to take actions threatening the Nation's security. During the time the wiretap was installed, the Government intercepted three conversations between a member of the group and respondent. Thereafter, this Court in United States v. United States District Court, 407 U. S. 297 (Keith), ruled that the Fourth Amendment does not permit warrantless wiretaps in cases involving domestic threats to the national security. Respondent then filed a damages action in Federal District Court against petitioner and others, alleging that the surveillance to which he had been subjected violated the Fourth Amendment and Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act. Ultimately, the District Court, granting respondent's motion for summary judgment on the issue of liability, held that petitioner was not entitled to either absolute or qualified immunity. The Court of Appeals agreed with the denial of absolute immunity, but held, with respect to the denial of qualified immunity, that the District Court's order was not appealable under the collateral order doctrine.
national security is sufficiently real to counsel against affording such officials an absolute immunity. Pp. 472 U. S. 520-524.
2. The District Court's denial of qualified immunity, to the extent it turned on a question of law, is an appealable "final decision" within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1291 notwithstanding the absence of a final judgment. Qualified immunity, similar to absolute immunity, is an entitlement not to stand trial under certain circumstances. Such entitlement is an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability; and like absolute immunity, it is effectively lot if a case is erroneously permitted to go to trial. Accordingly, the reasoning that underlies the immediate appealability of the denial of absolute immunity indicates that the denial of qualified immunity should be similarly appealable under the "collateral order" doctrine; in each case, the district court's decision is effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment. The denial of qualified immunity also meets the additional criteria for an appealable interlocutory order: it conclusively determines the disputed question, and it involves a claim of rights separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action. Pp. 472 U. S. 524-530.
3. Petitioner is entitled to qualified immunity from suit for his authorization of the wiretap in question notwithstanding his actions violated the Fourth Amendment. Under Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, petitioner is immune unless his actions violated clearly established law. In 1970, when the wiretap took place, well over a year before Keith, supra, was decided, it was not clearly established that such a wiretap was unconstitutional. Pp. 472 U. S. 530-535.
729 F.2d 267, affirmed in part and reversed in part.
WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BLACKMUN, J., joined; in Parts I, III, and IV of which BURGER, C.J., and O'CONNOR, J., joined; and in Parts I and II of which BRENNAN and MARSHALL, JJ., joined. BURGER, C.J., filed an opinion concurring in part, post, p. 472 U. S. 536. O'CONNOR, J., filed an opinion concurring in part, in which BURGER, C.J., joined, post, p. 472 U. S. 537. STEVENS, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post p. 472 U. S. 538. BRENNAN, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which MARSHALL, J., joined, post, p. 472 U. S. 543. POWELL, J., took no part in the decision of the case. REHNQUIST, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
This is a suit for damages stemming from a warrantless wiretap authorized by petitioner, a former Attorney General of the United States. The case presents three issues: whether the Attorney General is absolutely immune from suit for actions undertaken in the interest of national security; if not, whether the District Court's finding that petitioner is not immune from suit for his actions under the qualified immunity standard of Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800 (1982) is appealable; and, if so, whether the District Court's ruling on qualified immunity was correct.
In 1970, the Federal Bureau of Investigation learned that members of an anti-war group known as the East Coast Conspiracy to Save Lives (ECCSL) had made plans to blow up heating tunnels linking federal office buildings in Washington, D.C. and had also discussed the possibility of kidnaping then National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger. On November 6, 1970, acting on the basis of this information, the then Attorney General John Mitchell authorized a warrantless wiretap on the telephone of William Davidon, a Haverford College physics professor who was a member of the group. According to the Attorney General, the purpose of the wiretap was the gathering of intelligence in the interest of national security.
"did participate in conversations that are unrelated to this case and which were overheard by the Federal Government during the course of electronic surveillance expressly authorized by the President acting through the Attorney General."
in cases involving domestic threats to the national security. United States v. United States District Court, 407 U. S. 297 (1972) (Keith). In the wake of the Keith decision, Forsyth filed this lawsuit against John Mitchell and several other defendants in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Forsyth alleged that the surveillance to which he had been subjected violated both the Fourth Amendment and Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2520, which sets forth comprehensive standards governing the use of wiretaps and electronic surveillance by both governmental and private agents. He asserted that both the constitutional and statutory provisions provided him with a private right of action; he sought compensatory, statutory, and punitive damages.
Discovery and related preliminary proceedings dragged on for the next five-and-a-half years. By early 1978, both Forsyth and Mitchell had submitted motions for summary judgment on which the District Court was prepared to rule. Forsyth contended that the uncontested facts established that the wiretap was illegal and that Mitchell and the other defendants were not immune from liability; Mitchell contended that the decision in Keith should not be applied retroactively to the wiretap authorized in 1970 and that he was entitled either to absolute prosecutorial immunity from suit under the rule of Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U. S. 409 (1976), or to qualified or "good faith" immunity under the doctrine of Wood v. Strickland, 420 U. S. 308 (1975).
the court's view, was to be given retroactive effect. The court also rejected Mitchell's claim to absolute immunity from suit under Imbler v. Pachtman: Imbler, the court held, provided absolute immunity to a prosecutor only for his acts in "initiating and pursuing a criminal prosecution"; Mitchell's authorization of the wiretap constituted the performance of an investigative rather than prosecutorial function. Forsyth v. Kleindienst, 447 F.Supp.192, 201 (1978). Although rejecting Mitchell's claim of absolute immunity, the court found that Mitchell was entitled to assert a qualified immunity from suit and could prevail if he proved that he acted in good faith. Applying this standard, with its focus on Mitchell's state of mind at the time he authorized the wiretap, the court concluded that neither side had met its burden of establishing that there was no genuine issue of material fact as to Mitchell's good faith. Accordingly, the court denied both parties' motions for summary judgment. Id. at 203.
Mitchell appealed the District Court's denial of absolute immunity to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which remanded for further factfinding on the question whether the wiretap authorization was "necessary to [a] . . . decision to initiate a criminal prosecution" and thus within the scope of the absolute immunity recognized in Imbler v. Pachtman. Forsyth v. Kleindienst, 599 F.2d 1203, 1217 (1979). On remand, the District Court held a hearing on the question whether the wiretap served a prosecutorial purpose. On the basis of the hearing and the evidence in the record, the court concluded that Mitchell's authorization of the wiretap was not intended to facilitate any prosecutorial decision or further a criminal investigation. Mitchell himself had disavowed any such intention and insisted that the only reason for the wiretap was to gather intelligence needed for national security purposes. Taking Mitchell at his word in this regard, the court held to its conclusion that he was not entitled to absolute prosecutorial immunity.
"government officials performing discretionary functions, generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known."
Id. at 457 U. S. 818. The District Court rejected Mitchell's argument that under this standard he should be held immune from suit for warrantless national security wiretaps authorized before this Court's decision in Keith: That decision was merely a logical extension of general Fourth Amendment principles and in particular of the ruling in Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967), in which the Court held for the first time that electronic surveillance unaccompanied by physical trespass constituted a search subject to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. Mitchell and the Justice Department, the court suggested, had chosen to "gamble" on the possibility that this Court would create an exception to the warrant requirement if presented with a case involving national security. Having lost the gamble, Mitchell was not entitled to complain of the consequences. [Footnote 2] The court therefore denied Mitchell's motion for summary judgment, granted Forsyth's motion for summary judgment on the issue of liability, and scheduled further proceedings on the issue of damages. Forsyth v. Kleindienst, 551 F.Supp. 1247 (1982).
F.2d 267 (1984). The court therefore remanded the case to the District Court for further proceedings leading to the entry of final judgment, and Mitchell filed a timely petition for certiorari seeking review of the court's rulings on both absolute and qualified immunity.
469 U.S. 880 (1984). We granted certiorari to address these issues, 469 U.S. 929 (1984).
We first address Mitchell's claim that the Attorney General's actions in furtherance of the national security should be shielded from scrutiny in civil damages actions by an absolute immunity similar to that afforded the President, see Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 731 (1982), judges, prosecutors, witnesses, and officials performing "quasijudicial" functions, see Briscoe v. LaHue, 460 U. S. 325 (1983); Butz v. Economou, 438 U. S. 478, 438 U. S. 508-517 (1978); Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U. S. 349 (1978); Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U. S. 409 (1976), and legislators, see Dombrowski v. Eastland, 387 U. S. 82 (1967); Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U. S. 367 (1951). We conclude that the Attorney General is not absolutely immune from suit for damages arising out of his allegedly unconstitutional conduct in performing his national security functions.
"when urged on behalf of the President and the national security in its domestic implications, merit the most careful consideration."
Keith, 407 U.S. at 407 U. S. 319. Nonetheless, we do not believe that the considerations that have led us to recognize absolute immunities for other officials dictate the same result in this case.
Our decisions in this area leave no doubt that the Attorney General's status as a Cabinet officer is not in itself sufficient to invest him with absolute immunity: the considerations of separation of powers that call for absolute immunity for state and federal legislators and for the President of the United States do not demand a similar immunity for Cabinet officers or other high executive officials. See Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800 (1982); Butz v. Economou, supra. Mitchell's claim, then, must rest not on the Attorney General's position within the Executive Branch, but on the nature of the functions he was performing in this case. See Harlow v. Fitzgerald, supra, at 457 U. S. 810-811. Because Mitchell was not acting in a prosecutorial capacity in this case, the situations in which we have applied a functional approach to absolute immunity questions provide scant support for blanket immunization of his performance of the "national security function."
First, in deciding whether officials performing a particular function are entitled to absolute immunity, we have generally looked for a historical or common law basis for the immunity in question. The legislative immunity recognized in Tenney v. Brandhove, supra, for example, was rooted in the long struggle in both England and America for legislative independence, a presupposition of our scheme of representative government. The immunities for judges, prosecutors, and witnesses established by our cases have firm roots in the common law. See Briscoe v. LaHue, supra, at 460 U. S. 330-336. Mitchell points to no analogous historical or common law basis for an absolute immunity for officers carrying out tasks essential to national security.
that many of those who lose will pin the blame on judges, prosecutors, or witnesses and will bring suit against them in an effort to relitigate the underlying conflict. See Bradley v. Fisher, 13 Wall. 335, 80 U. S. 348 (1872). National security tasks, by contrast, are carried out in secret; open conflict and overt winners and losers are rare. Under such circumstances, it is far more likely that actual abuses will go uncovered than that fancied abuses will give rise to unfounded and burdensome litigation. [Footnote 6] Whereas the mere threat of litigation may significantly affect the fearless and independent performance of duty by actors in the judicial process, it is unlikely to have a similar effect on the Attorney General's performance of his national security tasks.
"National security cases . . . often reflect a convergence of First and Fourth Amendment values not present in cases of 'ordinary' crime. Though the investigative duty of the executive may be stronger in such cases, so also is there greater jeopardy to constitutionally protected speech. . . . History abundantly documents the tendency of Government -- however, benevolent and benign its motives -- to view with suspicion those who most fervently dispute its policies. . . . The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect 'domestic security.' Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent."
"Where an official could be expected to know that his conduct would violate statutory or constitutional rights, he should be made to hesitate. . . . "
Id. at 457 U. S. 819 (emphasis added). This is as true in matters of national security as in other fields of governmental action. We do not believe that the security of the Republic will be threatened if its Attorney General is given incentives to abide by clearly established law.
appellate consideration be deferred until the whole case is adjudicated."
Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. at 337 U. S. 546.
A major characteristic of the denial or granting of a claim appealable under Cohen's "collateral order" doctrine is that "unless it can be reviewed before [the proceedings terminate], it never can be reviewed at all." Stack v. Boyle, 342 U. S. 1, 342 U. S. 12 (1952) (opinion of Jackson, J.); see also United States v. Hollywood Motor Car Co., 458 U. S. 263, 458 U. S. 266 (1982). When a district court has denied a defendant's claim of right not to stand trial, on double jeopardy grounds, for example, we have consistently held the court's decision appealable, for such a right cannot be effectively vindicated after the trial has occurred. Abney v. United States, 431 U. S. 651 (1977). [Footnote 8] Thus, the denial of a substantial claim of absolute immunity is an order appealable before final judgment, for the essence of absolute immunity is its possessor's entitlement not to have to answer for his conduct in a civil damages action. See Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 731 (1982); cf. Helstoski v. Meanor, 442 U. S. 500 (1979).
"where an official's duties legitimately require action in which clearly established rights are not implicated, the public interest may be better served by action taken 'with independence and without fear of consequences.'"
"the general costs of subjecting officials to the risks of trial -- distraction of officials from their governmental duties, inhibition of discretionary action, and deterrence of able people from public service."
Harlow, 457 U.S. at 457 U. S. 816. Indeed, Harlow emphasizes that even such pretrial matters as discovery are to be avoided if possible, as "[i]nquiries of this kind can be peculiarly disruptive of effective government." Id. at 457 U. S. 817.
to us that the denial of qualified immunity should be similarly appealable: in each case, the district court's decision is effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.
"[t]here are simply no further steps that can be taken in the District Court to avoid the trial the defendant maintains is barred,"
it is apparent that "Cohen's threshold requirement of a fully consummated decision is satisfied" in such a case. Abney v. United States, 431 U.S. at 431 U. S. 659.
Accordingly, we hold that a district court's denial of a claim of qualified immunity, to the extent that it turns on an issue of law, is an appealable "final decision" within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1291 notwithstanding the absence of a final judgment.
The Court of Appeals thus had jurisdiction over Mitchell's claim of qualified immunity, and that question was one of the questions presented in the petition for certiorari which we granted without limitation. Moreover, the purely legal question on which Mitchell's claim of immunity turns is "appropriate for our immediate resolution" notwithstanding that it was not addressed by the Court of Appeals. Nixon v. Fitzgerald, supra, at 457 U. S. 743, n. 23. We therefore turn our attention to the merits of Mitchell's claim of immunity.
Under Harlow v. Fitzgerald, Mitchell is immune unless his actions violated clearly established law. See 457 U.S. at 457 U. S. 818-819; see also Davis v. Scherer, 468 U. S. 183, 468 U. S. 197 (1984). Forsyth complains that in November 1970, Mitchell authorized a warrantless wiretap aimed at gathering intelligence regarding a domestic threat to national security -- the kind of wiretap that the Court subsequently declared to be illegal. Keith, 407 U. S. 297 (1972). The question of Mitchell's immunity turns on whether it was clearly established in November 1970, well over a year before Keith was decided, that such wiretaps were unconstitutional. We conclude that it was not.
activities. In 1946, President Truman's approval of Attorney General Tom Clark's request for expanded wiretapping authority made it clear that the Executive Branch perceived its authority to extend to cases involving "domestic security." See Report of the National Commission for the Review of Federal and State Laws Relating to Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance 36 (1976). Attorneys General serving Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon continued the practice of employing warrantless electronic surveillance in their efforts to combat perceived threats to the national security, both foreign and domestic. See Keith, supra, at 407 U. S. 310-311, n. 10.
"[w]hether safeguards other than prior authorization by a magistrate would satisfy the Fourth Amendment in a situation involving the national security is a question not presented by this case."
BRENNAN, J., concurring), with id. at 389 U. S. 362-364 (WHITE, J., concurring).
"meet the constitutional requirements for electronic surveillance enunciated by this Court in Berger v. New York, 388 U. S. 41 (1967), and Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967)."
"to limit the constitutional power of the President to take such measures as he deems necessary to protect the United States against the overthrow of the Government by force or other unlawful means, or against any other clear and present danger to the structure or existence of the Government."
Uncertainty regarding the legitimacy of warrantless national security wiretapping during the period between Katz and Keith is also reflected in the decisions of the lower federal courts. In a widely cited decision handed down in July 1969, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas held that the President, acting through the Attorney General, could legally authorize warrantless wiretaps to gather foreign intelligence in the interest of national security. United States v. Clay, CR. No. 67-H-94 (SD Tex., July 14, 1969), aff'd, 430 F.2d 165, 171 (CA5 1970), rev'd on other grounds, 403 U. S. 698 (1971). Clay, of course, did not speak to the legality of surveillance directed against domestic threats to the national security, but it was soon applied by two Federal District Courts to uphold the constitutionality of warrantless wiretapping directed against the Black Panthers, a domestic group believed by the Attorney General to constitute a threat to the national security. United States v. Dellinger, No. 69 CR 180 (ND Ill., Feb. 20, 1970) (App. 30), rev'd, 472 F.2d 340 (CA7 1972); United States v. O'Neal, No. KC-CR-1204 (Kan., Sept. 1, 1970) (App. 38), appeal dism'd, 453 F.2d 344 (CA10 1972).
So matters stood when Mitchell authorized the Davidon wiretap at issue in this case. Only days after the termination of the Davidon wiretap, however, two District Courts explicitly rejected the Justice Department's contention that the Attorney General had the authority to order warrantless wiretaps in domestic national security cases. United States v. Smith, 321 F.Supp. 424 (CD Cal., Jan. 8, 1971); United States v. Sinclair, 321 F.Supp. 1074 (ED Mich., Jan. 26, 1971). The Sixth Circuit affirmed the Sinclair decision in United States v. United States District Court for Eastern Dist. of Mich., 444 F.2d 651 (1971), and our own affirmance followed in 1972. Keith, supra.
"The issue before us is an important one for the people of our country and their Government. It involves the delicate question of the President's power, acting through the Attorney General, to authorize electronic surveillance in internal security matters without prior judicial approval. Successive Presidents for more than one-quarter of a century have authorized such surveillance in varying degrees, without guidance from the Congress or a definitive decision of this Court. This case brings the issue here for the first time. Its resolution is a matter of national concern, requiring sensitivity both to the Government's right to protect itself from unlawful subversion and attack and to the citizen's right to be secure in his privacy against unreasonable Government intrusion."
407 U.S. at 407 U. S. 299.
We affirm the Court of Appeals' denial of Mitchell's claim to absolute immunity. The court erred, however, in declining to accept jurisdiction over the question of qualified immunity; and to the extent that the effect of the judgment of the Court of Appeals is to leave standing the District Court's erroneous decision that Mitchell is not entitled to summary judgment on the ground of qualified immunity, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
JUSTICE REHNQUIST took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
"Nothing contained in this chapter or in section 605 of the Communications Act of 1934 (48 Stat. 1143; 47 U.S.C. 605) shall limit the constitutional power of the President to take such measures as he deems necessary to protect the Nation against actual or potential attack or other hostile acts of a foreign power, to obtain foreign intelligence information deemed essential to the security of the United States, or to protect national security information against foreign intelligence activities. Nor shall anything contained in this chapter be deemed to limit the constitutional power of the President to take such measures as he deems necessary to protect the United States against the overthrow of the Government by force or other unlawful means, or against any other clear and present danger to the structure or existence of the Government. The contents of any wire or oral communication intercepted by authority of the President in the exercise of the foregoing powers may be received in evidence in any trial hearing, or other proceeding only where such interception was reasonable, and shall not be otherwise used or disclosed except as is necessary to implement that power."
(footnote omitted) The provision, enacted as part of Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, was repealed in 1978 by § 201(c) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Pub.L. 95-511, 92 Stat. 1797.
The court also suggested that Mitchell should have been put on notice that his act was unlawful by Title III, which, in its view, clearly proscribed such warrantless wiretaps.
Forsyth had moved for dismissal of the appeal on the ground that it was interlocutory and therefore not within the Court of Appeals' jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. A motions panel of the Third Circuit held that the denial of absolute immunity was an appealable order under Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 731 (1982), and that the issue of the appealability of a denial of qualified immunity was debatable enough to justify referring it to the merits panel. Forsyth v. Kleindienst, 700 F.2d 104 (1983). Judge Sloviter dissented, arguing that Mitchell's arguments regarding absolute immunity were frivolous in light of the Third Circuit's earlier consideration of the same issue. In addition, Judge Sloviter argued that a denial of qualified immunity -- unlike a denial of absolute immunity -- was not immediately appealable under the collateral order doctrine of Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541 (1949), because the issue of objective good faith was neither separate from the merits of the underlying action nor effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.
Judge Weis, dissenting, argued that the point of the immunity doctrine was protecting officials not only from ultimate liability but also from the trial itself, and that the vindication of this goal required immediate appeal. On the merits, Judge Weis would have reversed the District Court's immunity ruling on the ground that until Keith was decided it was not clearly established that the warrantless wiretapping in which Mitchell had engaged was illegal.
The First, Eighth, and District of Columbia Circuits have held such orders appealable, see Krotan v. United States, 742 F.2d 24 (CA11984); Evans v. Dillahunty, 711 F.2d 828 (CA8 1983); McSurely v. McClellan, 225 U.S.App.D.C. 67, 697 F.2d 309 (1982), while the Fifth and Seventh Circuits have joined the Third Circuit in holding that the courts of appeals lack jurisdiction over interlocutory appeals of qualified immunity rulings, see Kenyatta v. Moore, 744 F.2d 1179 (CA5 1984); Lightner v. Jones, 752 F.2d 1251 (CA7 1985). The Fourth Circuit has held that a district court's denial of qualified immunity is not appealable when the plaintiff's action involves claims for injunctive relief that will have to be adjudicated regardless of the resolution of any damages claims. England v. Rockefeller, 739 F.2d 140 (1984); Bever v. Gilbertson, 724 F.2d 1083, cert. denied, 469 U. S. 948 (1984). Because this case does not involve a claim for injunctive relief, the propriety of the Fourth Circuit's approach is not before us, and we express no opinion on the question.
We recognize that Mitchell himself has faced a significant number of lawsuits stemming from his authorization of warrantless national security wiretaps. See Zweibon v. Mitchell, 231 U.S.App.D.C. 398, 720 F.2d 162 (1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 880 (1984); Sinclair v. Kleindienst, 207 U.S.App.D.C. 155, 645 F.2d 1080 (1981); Smith v. Nixon, 196 U.S.App.D.C. 276, 606 F.2d 1183 (1979); Halperin v. Kissinger, 196 U.S.App.D.C. 285, 606 F.2d 1192 (1979), aff'd, by an equally divided Court, 452 U. S. 713 (1981); Weinberg v. Mitchell, 588 F.2d 275 (CA9 1978); Burkhart v. Saxbe, 596 F.Supp. 96 (ED Pa.1984); McAlister v. Kleindienst, Civ. Action No. 72-1977 (filed Oct. 10, 1972, ED Pa.). This spate of litigation does not, however, seriously undermine our belief that the Attorney General's national security duties will not tend to subject him to large numbers of frivolous lawsuits. All of these cases involved warrantless wiretapping authorized by the Attorney General and were generated by our decision in Keith. They do not suggest that absolute immunity, rather than qualified immunity, is necessary for the proper performance of the Attorney General's role in protecting national security.
It is true that damages actions are not the only conceivable deterrents to constitutional violations by the Attorney General. Mitchell suggests, for example, the possibility of declaratory or injunctive relief and the use of the exclusionary rule to prevent the admission of illegally seized evidence in criminal proceedings. However, as Justice Harlan pointed out in his concurring opinion in Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388, 403 U. S. 398-411 (1971), such remedies are useless where a citizen not accused of any crime has been subjected to a completed constitutional violation: In such cases, "it is damages or nothing." Id. at 403 U. S. 410. Other possibilities mentioned by Mitchell -- including criminal prosecution and impeachment of the Attorney General -- would be of dubious value for deterring all but the most flagrant constitutional violations.
Similarly, we have held that state court decisions rejecting a party's federal law claim that he is not subject to suit before a particular tribunal are "final" for purposes of our certiorari jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1257. Mercantile National Bank v. Langdeau, 371 U. S. 555 (1963); Construction Laborers v. Curr, 371 U. S. 542 (1963).
We emphasize at this point that the appealable issue is a purely legal one: Whether the facts alleged (by the plaintiff, or, in some cases, the defendant) support a claim of violation of clearly established law.
In advancing its view of the "separate from the merits" aspect of the Cohen test, JUSTICE BRENNAN's dissent fails to account for our rulings on appealability of denials of claims of double jeopardy and absolute immunity. If, as the dissent seems to suggest, any factual overlap between a collateral issue and the merits of the plaintiff's claim is fatal to a claim of immediate appealability, none of these matters could be appealed, for all of them require an inquiry into whether the plaintiff's (or, in the double jeopardy situation, the Government's) factual allegations state a claim that falls outside the scope of the defendant's immunity. There is no distinction in principle between the inquiry in such cases and the inquiry where the issue is qualified immunity. Moreover, the dissent's characterization of the double jeopardy and absolute immunity cases as involving issues that are not "necessarily . . . conclusive or even relevant to the question whether the defendant is ultimately liable on the merits," post at 472 U. S. 547, is of course inaccurate: Meritorious double jeopardy and absolute immunity claims are necessarily directly controlling of the question whether the defendant will ultimately be liable. Indeed, if our holdings on the appealability of double jeopardy and absolute immunity rulings make anything clear it is that the fact that an issue is outcome determinative does not mean that it is not "collateral" for purposes of the Cohen test. The dissent's explanation that the absolute immunity and double jeopardy cases do not involve a determination of the defendant's liability "on the merits" similarly fails to distinguish those cases from this one. The reason is that the legal determination that a given proposition of law was not clearly established at the time the defendant committed the alleged acts does not entail a determination of the "merits" of the plaintiff's claim that the defendant's actions were in fact unlawful.
Nor do we see any inconsistency between our ruling here and the handling of the "completely separate from the merits" requirement in Richardson-Merrell Inc. v. Koller, ante p. 472 U. S. 424. Contrary to JUSTICE BRENNAN's suggestion, the Richardson-Merrell Court's alternative holding that the issue of disqualification of counsel in a civil case is not separate from the merits is not based only on the fact that the issue involves some factual overlap with the merits of the underlying litigation. Rather, the Court in Richardson-Merrell observes that the question whether a district court's disqualification order should be reversed may depend on the effect of disqualification (or non-disqualification) on the success of the parties in litigating the other legal and factual issues that form their underlying dispute. Accordingly, the propriety of a disqualification order -- unlike a qualified immunity ruling -- is not a legal issue that can be decided with reference only to undisputed facts and in isolation from the remaining issues of the case.
The District Court's suggestion that Mitchell's actions violated clearly established law because they were in conflict with Title III, see n 2, supra, is therefore expressly contradicted by Keith, in which the Court held that Title III "simply did not legislate with respect to national security surveillances." 407 U.S. at 407 U. S. 306. Given Congress' express disclaimer of any intention to limit the President's national security wiretapping powers, it cannot be said that Mitchell's actions were unlawful under Title III, let alone that they were clearly unlawful. Keith similarly requires rejection of Forsyth's submission that the legality of the wiretap under Title III is open on remand because it has never been shown that the tap was justified by a "clear and present danger" to the national security. See 18 U.S.C. § 2511(3) (1976 ed.). The Keith majority's handling of the statutory question makes clear that the statutory exemption for national security wiretaps did not depend on a showing of an actual clear and present danger.
We do not intend to suggest that an official is always immune from liability or suit for a warrantless search merely because the warrant requirement has never explicitly been held to apply to a search conducted in identical circumstances. But in cases where there is a legitimate question whether an exception to the warrant requirement exists, it cannot be said that a warrantless search violates clearly established law.
Forsyth insists that even if the District Court was incorrect in concluding that warrantless national security wiretaps conducted in 1970-1971 violated clearly established law, Mitchell is not entitled to summary judgment because it has never been found that his actions were in fact motivated by a concern for national security. This submission is untenable. The District Court held a hearing on the purpose of the wiretap and took Mitchell at his word that the wiretap was a national security interception, not a prosecutorial function for which absolute immunity was recognized. The court then concluded that the tap violated the Fourth Amendment and that Mitchell was not immune from liability for this violation under the Harlow standard. Had the court not concluded that the wiretap was indeed a national security wiretap, the qualified immunity question would never have been reached, for the tap would clearly have been illegal under Title III, and qualified immunity hence unavailable. In this light, the District Court's handling of the case precludes any suggestion that the wiretap was either (1) authorized for criminal investigatory purposes, or (2) authorized for some purpose unrelated to national security.
CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER, concurring in part.
With JUSTICE O'CONNOR, I join Parts I, III, and IV of the Court's opinion and the judgment of the Court. I also agree that the Court's discussion of the absolute immunity issue is unnecessary for the resolution of this case. I write separately to emphasize my agreement with JUSTICE STEVENS that the Court's extended discussion of this issue reaches the wrong conclusion.
the execution of the President's constitutional duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." It is an astonishing paradox that the aides of the 100 Senators and 435 Representatives share the absolute immunity of the Member, but the President's chief aide in protecting internal national security does not. I agree that the petitioner was entitled to absolute immunity for actions undertaken in his exercise of the discretionary power of the President in the area of national security.
JUSTICE O'CONNOR, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE joins, concurring in part.
I join Parts I, III, and IV of the majority opinion and the judgment of the Court. Our previous cases concerning the qualified immunity doctrine indicate that a defendant official whose conduct did not violate clearly established legal norms is entitled to avoid trial. Davis v. Scherer, 468 U. S. 183 (1984); Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, 457 U. S. 815-819 (1982). This entitlement is analogous to the right to avoid trial protected by absolute immunity or by the Double Jeopardy Clause. Where the district court rejects claims that official immunity or double jeopardy preclude trial, the special nature of the asserted right justifies immediate review. The very purpose of such immunities is to protect the defendant from the burdens of trial, and the right will be irretrievably lost if its denial is not immediately appealable. See Helstoski v. Meanor, 442 U. S. 500, 442 U. S. 506-508 (1979); Abney v. United States, 431 U. S. 651, 431 U. S. 660-662 (1977). I agree that the District Court's denial of qualified immunity comes within the small class of interlocutory orders appealable under Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541 (1949).
petitioner is entitled to qualified immunity is sufficient to resolve this case, and therefore I would not reach the issue whether the Attorney General may claim absolute immunity when he acts to prevent a threat to national security. Accordingly, I decline to join Parts II and V of the Court's opinion.
Some public officials are "shielded by absolute immunity from civil damages liability." Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 731, 457 U. S. 748 (1982). For Members of Congress that shield is expressly provided by the Constitution. [Footnote 2/1] For various state officials the shield is actually a conclusion that the Congress that enacted the 1871 Civil Rights Act did not intend to subject them to damages liability. [Footnote 2/2] Federal officials have also been accorded immunity by cases holding that Congress did not intend to subject them to individual liability even for constitutional violations. Bush v. Lucas, 462 U. S. 367 (1983). The absolute immunity of the President of the United States rests, in part, on the absence of any indication that the authors of either the constitutional text or any relevant statutory text intended to subject him to damages liability predicated on his official acts.
silent, the Court makes an effort to ascertain its probable intent. In my opinion, when Congress has legislated in a disputed area, that legislation is just as relevant to any assertion of official immunity as to the analysis of the question whether an implied cause of action should be recognized.
November 6, 1970, by then Attorney General Mitchell. The affidavit later submitted to the District Court justifying the wiretap on national security grounds is a virtual carbon copy of the justification the Attorney General offered for the electronic surveillance involved in Keith. App. 23. For that reason, on the authority of Keith, the Court holds that this case involves a national security wiretap undertaken under the "authority of the President" which is exempted from Title III by § 2511(3). See ante at 472 U. S. 532-533, n. 11, and 472 U. S. 535-536, n. 13.
"aides entrusted with discretionary authority in such sensitive areas as national security or foreign policy . . . to protect the unhesitating performance of functions vital to the national interest."
"such 'central' Presidential domains as foreign policy and national security' the President cannot 'discharge his singularly vital mandate without delegating functions nearly as sensitive as his own."
Id. at 457 U. S. 812, n.19.
in this case was essential to gather information about a conspiracy that might be plotting to kidnap a Presidential adviser and sabotage essential facilities in Government buildings. That the Attorney General was too vigorous in guaranteeing the personal security of a Presidential aide and the physical integrity of important Government facilities does not justify holding him personally accountable for damages in a civil action that has not been authorized by Congress.
with functions in that area make them "easily identifiable target[s] for suits for civil damages." Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. at 457 U. S. 753. Persons of wisdom and honor will hesitate to answer the President's call to serve in these vital positions if they fear that vexatious and politically motivated litigation associated with their public decisions will squander their time and reputation, and sap their personal financial resources when they leave office. The multitude of lawsuits filed against high officials in recent years only confirms the rationality of this anxiety. [Footnote 2/9] The availability of qualified immunity is hardly comforting when it took 13 years for the federal courts to determine that the plaintiff's claim in this case was without merit.
If the Attorney General had violated the provisions of Title III, as JUSTICE WHITE argued in Keith, he would have no immunity. Congress, however, had expressly refused to enact a civil remedy against Cabinet officials exercising the President's powers described in § 2511(3). In that circumstance, I believe the Cabinet official is entitled to the same absolute immunity as the President of the United States. Indeed, it is highly doubtful whether the rationale of Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 (1971), even supports an implied cause of action for damages after Congress has enacted legislation comprehensively regulating the field of electronic surveillance but has specifically declined to impose a remedy for the national security wiretaps described in § 2511(3). See id. at 403 U. S. 396-397; Bush v. Lucas, 462 U. S. 367, 462 U. S. 378 (1983). Congress' failure to act after careful consideration of the matter is a factor counselling some hesitation.
Accordingly, I concur in the judgment to the extent that it requires an entry of summary judgment in favor of former Attorney General Mitchell.
"The Senators and Representatives . . . shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place."
U.S.Const., Art. I, § 6, Cl. 1.
See, e.g., Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U. S. 367 (1951); Pierson v. Ray, 386 U. S. 547 (1967); Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U. S. 409 (1976).
"Nothing contained in this chapter or in section 605 of the Communications Act of 1934 . . . shall limit the constitutional power of the President to take such measures as he deems necessary to protect the Nation against actual or potential attack or other hostile acts of a foreign power, to obtain foreign intelligence information deemed essential to the security of the United States, or to protect national security information against foreign intelligence activities. Nor shall anything contained in this chapter be deemed to limit the constitutional power of the President to take such measures as he deems necessary to protect the United States against the overthrow of the Government by force or other unlawful means, or against any other clear and present danger to the structure or existence of the Government. The contents of any wire or oral communication intercepted by authority of the President in the exercise of the foregoing powers may be received in evidence in any trial hearing, or other proceeding only where such interception was reasonable, and shall not be otherwise used or disclosed except as is necessary to implement that power."
(emphasis added). As the Court points out, ante at 472 U. S. 514, n. 1, this section has been repealed.
Attorney General Mitchell's affidavit justifying the warrantless electronic surveillance in Keith is quoted in the Court's opinion. 407 U.S. at 407 U. S. 300-301, n. 2. In his separate opinion disagreeing with the Court's construction of § 2511(3), JUSTICE WHITE pointed out that the language of that section by no means compelled the conclusion that the Court reached. See id. at 407 U. S. 336-343. The Court's construction of § 2511(3) is nevertheless controlling in this case.
See Memorandum for Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies (June 30, 1965), reprinted in United States v. United States District Court for Eastern Dist. of Mich., Southern Div., 444 F.2d 651, 670-671 (CA6 1971), aff'd, 407 U. S. 297 (1972).
Cf. Pierson v. Ray, 386 U. S. 547, 386 U. S. 554 (1967) ("[A judge's] errors may be corrected on appeal, but he should not have to fear that unsatisfied litigants may hound him with litigation charging malice and corruption. Imposing such a burden on judges would contribute not to principled and fearless decisionmaking but to intimidation"); Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. at 424 U. S. 424-425 ("The public trust of the prosecutor's office would suffer if he were constrained in making every decision by the consequences in terms of his own potential liability in a suit for damages").
Cf. Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 554 ("It is a judge's duty to decide all cases within his jurisdiction that are brought before him, including controversial cases that arouse the most intense feelings in the litigants").
The many lawsuits filed against Attorney General Mitchell for his authorization of pre-Keith wiretaps is only one example of such litigation. See ante at 472 U. S. 522, n. 6.
JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom JUSTICE MARSHALL joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I join Parts I and II of the Court's opinion, for I agree that qualified immunity sufficiently protects the legitimate needs of public officials, while retaining a remedy for those whose rights have been violated. Because denial of absolute immunity is immediately appealable, Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 731, 457 U. S. 743 (1982), the issue is squarely before us and, in my view, rightly decided.
I disagree, however, with the Court's holding that the qualified immunity issue is properly before us. For the purpose of applying the final judgment rule embodied in 28 U.S.C. § 1291, I see no justification for distinguishing between the denial of Mitchell's claim of qualified immunity and numerous other pretrial motions that may be reviewed only on appeal of the final judgment in the case. I therefore dissent from its holding that denials of qualified immunity, at least where they rest on undisputed facts, are generally appealable.
The Court acknowledges that the trial court's refusal to grant Mitchell qualified immunity was not technically the final order possible in the trial court. If the refusal is to be immediately appealable, therefore, it must come within the narrow confines of the collateral order doctrine of Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541, 337 U. S. 546 (1949), and its progeny. Although the Court has, over the years, varied its statement of the Cohen test slightly, the underlying inquiry has remained relatively constant.
"[T]he order must conclusively determine the disputed question, resolve an important issue completely separate from the merits of the action, and be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment."
Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U. S. 463, 437 U. S. 468 (1978).
"avoid[s] the obstruction to just claims that would come from permitting the harassment and cost of a succession of separate appeals from the various rulings to which a litigation may give rise, from its initiation to entry of judgment. To be effective, judicial administration must not be leaden footed. Its momentum would be arrested by permitting separate reviews of the component elements in a unified cause."
is neither "completely separate from the merits" nor "effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment."
Although the qualified immunity question in this suit is not identical to the ultimate question on the merits, the two are quite closely related. The question on the merits is whether Mitchell violated the law when he authorized the wiretap of Davidon's phone without a warrant. The immunity question is whether Mitchell violated clearly established law when he authorized the wiretap of Davidon's phone without a warrant. Assuming with the Court that all relevant factual disputes in this case have been resolved, a necessary implication of a holding that Mitchell was not entitled to qualified immunity would be a holding that he is indeed liable. Moreover, a trial court seeking to answer either question would refer to the same or similar cases and statutes, would consult the same treatises and secondary materials, and would undertake a rather similar course of reasoning. At least in the circumstances presented here, the two questions are simply not completely separate.
issues would necessarily be conclusive or even relevant to the question whether the defendant is ultimately liable on the merits. [Footnote 3/4] Nor will a decision on any of these questions be likely to require an analysis, research, or decision that is at all related to the merits of the case.
collateral to the cause of action asserted." Id. at 431 U. S. 658 (emphasis added).
Although the precise outlines of the "conceptual distinction" test are not made clear, the only support the Court has for its conclusion is the argument that "[a]ll [an appellate court] need determine is a question of law." Ante at 472 U. S. 528. [Footnote 3/5] The underlying assumption of the Court's "conceptual distinction" test thus seems to be that questions of law are more likely to be separate from the merits of a case than are questions of fact. This seems to me to be entirely wrong; the legal, rather than factual, nature of a given question simply has nothing to do with whether it is separate from the merits. Although an appellate court could provide interlocutory review of legal issues, the final judgment rule embodies Congress' conclusion that appellate review of interlocutory legal and factual determinations should await final judgment. By focusing on the legal nature of the challenged trial court order, the Court's test effectively substitutes for the traditional test of completely separate from the merits a vastly less stringent analysis of whether the allegedly appealable issue is not identical to the merits.
purposes underlying the separability requirement. [Footnote 3/6] First, where a pretrial issue is entirely separate from the merits, interlocutory review may cause delay and be unjustified on various grounds, but it at least is unlikely to require repeated appellate review of the same or similar questions. In contrast, where a pretrial issue is closely related to the merits of a case and interlocutory review is permitted, post-judgment appellate review is likely to require the appellate court to reexamine the same or similar legal issues. The Court's holding today has the effect of requiring precisely this kind of repetitious appellate review. In an interlocutory appeal on the qualified immunity issue, an appellate court must inquire into the legality of the defendant's underlying conduct. As the Court has recently noted, "[m]ost pretrial orders of district judges are ultimately affirmed by appellate courts." Richardson-Merrell Inc. v. Koller, ante at 472 U. S. 434. Thus, if the trial court is, as usual, affirmed, the appellate court must repeat the process on final judgment. Although I agree with the Court that the legal question in each review would be "conceptually" different, the connection between the research, analysis, and decision of each of the issues is apparent; much of the work in reviewing the final judgment would be duplicative.
set of facts. If appeal is put off until final judgment, the fuller development of the facts at that stage will assist the appellate court in its disposition of the case. Simply put, an appellate court is best able to decide whether given conduct was prohibited by established law if the record in the case contains a full description of that conduct. See Kenyatta v. Moore, 744 F.2d 1179, 1185-1186 (CA5 1984).
In short, the Court's "conceptual distinction" test for separability finds no support in our cases and fails to serve the underlying purposes of the final judgment rule. To the extent it requires that only trial court orders concerning matters of law be appealable, it requires only what I had thought was a condition of any appellate review, interlocutory or otherwise. The additional thrust of the test seems to be that an appealable order must not be identical to the merits of the case. If the test for separability is to be this weak, I see little profit in maintaining the fiction that it remains a prerequisite to interlocutory appeal.
The Court states that "[a]t the heart of the issue before us," ante at 472 U. S. 525, is the third prong of the Cohen test: whether the order is effectively unreviewable upon ultimate termination of the proceedings. The Court holds that, because the right to qualified immunity includes a right not to stand trial unless the plaintiff can make a material issue of fact on the question of whether the defendant violated clearly established law, it cannot be effectively vindicated after trial. Cf. Abney v. United States, 431 U. S. 651 (1977).
party has failed to create a genuine issue of material fact, denials of summary judgment motions would be immediately appealable, at least under the third prong of the Cohen test. Similarly, if the statute of limitations gave defendants a right not to be tried out of time, denial of a statute of limitations defense would be immediately appealable insofar as the third Cohen test is concerned. Similar results would follow with a host of constitutional (e.g., right to jury trial, right to due process), statutory (e.g., venue, necessary parties), or other rights; if the right be characterized as a right not to stand trial except in certain circumstances, it follows ineluctably that the right cannot be vindicated on final judgment.
The point, of course, is that the characterization of the right at issue determines the legal result. In each case, therefore, a careful inquiry must be undertaken to determine whether it is necessary to characterize the right at issue as a right not to stand trial. The final judgment rule presupposes that each party must abide by the trial court's judgments until the end of the proceedings before gaining the opportunity for appellate review. To hold that a given legal claim is in fact an immunity from trial is to except a privileged class from undergoing the regrettable cost of a trial. We should not do so lightly.
in Harlow, need we in addition take the extraordinary step of excepting such officials from the operation of the final judgment rule?
such claims are necessarily unreviewable at the termination of proceedings.
In my view, a sober assessment of the interests protected by the qualified immunity defense counsels against departing from normal procedural rules when the defense is asserted. The Court claims that subjecting officials to trial may lead to "distraction of officials from their governmental duties, inhibition of discretionary action, and deterrence of able people from public service.'" Ante at 472 U. S. 526, quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, supra, at 457 U. S. 816. Even if I agreed with the Court that in the post-Harlow environment these evils were all real, I could not possibly agree that they justify the Court's conclusion. These same ill results would flow from an adverse decision on any dispositive preliminary issue in a lawsuit against an official defendant -- whether based on a statute of limitations, collateral estoppel, lack of jurisdiction, or the like. A trial court is often able to resolve these issues with considerable finality, and the trial court's decision on such questions may often be far more separable from the merits than is a qualified immunity ruling. Yet I hardly think the Court is prepared to hold that a government official suffering an adverse ruling on any of these issues would be entitled to an immediate appeal.
or insubstantial lawsuits. The question is whether anything is to be gained by permitting interlocutory appeal in the remaining cases that would otherwise proceed to trial.
Such cases will predictably be of two types. Some will be cases in which the official did violate a clearly established legal norm. In these cases, nothing is to be gained by permitting interlocutory appeal because they should proceed as expeditiously as possible to trial. The rest will be cases in which the official did not violate a clearly established legal norm. Given the nature of the qualified immunity determination, I would expect that these will tend to be quite close cases, in which the defendant violated a legal norm but in which it is questionable whether that norm was clearly established. Many of these cases may well be appealable as certified interlocutory appeals under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b) or, less likely, on writ of mandamus. Cf. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Risjord, 449 U.S. at 449 U. S. 378, n. 13; Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. at 437 U. S. 474-475. It is only in the remaining cases that the Court's decision today offers the hope of an otherwise unavailable pretrial reversal. Out of this class of cases, interlocutory appeal is beneficial only in that still smaller subclass in which the trial court's judgment is reversed.
restored by the possibility that mistaken trial court qualified immunity rulings in some small class of cases that might be brought against them will be overturned on appeal before trial.
official who is sued in his personal capacity, [Footnote 3/10] regardless of the merits of his claim to qualified immunity or the strength of the claim against him. As a result, I fear that today's decision will give government officials a potent weapon to use against plaintiffs, delaying litigation endlessly with interlocutory appeals. [Footnote 3/11] The Court's decision today will result in denial of full and speedy justice to those plaintiffs with strong claims on the merits and a relentless and unnecessary increase in the caseload of the appellate courts.
Even if I agreed with the Court's conclusion that denials of qualified immunity that rest on undisputed facts were immediately appealable, and further agreed with its conclusion that Mitchell was entitled to qualified immunity, [Footnote 3/12] I could not agree with the Court's mischaracterization of the proceedings in this case to find that Mitchell was entitled to summary judgment on the qualified immunity issue. From the outset, Forsyth alleged that the Davidon wiretap was not a national security wiretap, but was instead a simple attempt to spy on political opponents. This created an issue of fact as to the nature of the wiretap in question, an issue that the trial court never resolved. To hold on this record that Mitchell was entitled to summary judgment is either to engage in de novo factfinding -- an exercise that this Court has neither the authority nor the resources to do -- or intentionally to disregard the record below to achieve a particular result in this case.
"The District Court held a hearing on the purpose of the wiretap and took Mitchell at his word that the wiretap was a national security interception, not a prosecutorial function for which absolute immunity was recognized."
"[R]egardless of whether the Davidon wiretap was motivated by a legitimate national security concern or a good faith belief that there existed a legitimate national security concern, as the defendants contend, or was an invasion of the privacy of political dissidents conducted under the guise of national security, as the plaintiff contends, there is no doubt that defendant Mitchell has consistently taken the position that the Davidon tap 'arose in the context of a purely investigative or administrative function' on his part."
Id. at 59a (emphasis added).
The trial court quite properly took Mitchell "at his word" for purposes of ruling against him on his prosecutorial immunity claim. It would have been quite improper for the court to take Mitchell "at his word" for any other purpose, and the court never made its own finding of fact on the disputed issue.
qualified immunity question would never have been reached, for the tap would clearly have been illegal under Title III, and qualified immunity hence unavailable."
Ante at 472 U. S. 535, n. 13. The Court's argument seems to be that the trial court should have decided the legality of the wiretap under Title III before going on to the qualified immunity question, since that question arises only when considering the legality of the wiretap under the Constitution. Perhaps the trial court should have proceeded as the Court wants, although the question is not nearly so simple as the Court suggests, and I would have thought that a trial court in a complicated case must be accorded great discretion in determining its order of decision. At any rate, speculations as to what the trial court ought to have decided and in what order are irrelevant; Forsyth surely should not forfeit his legal claim because (arguably) the trial court went about its task inartfully. There is not a word in this record to suggest that the trial court actually made any determination on the disputed issue. I am thus at a loss to understand on what legal principle, aside from sympathy for the defendant or hostility to the plaintiff, the Court bases its decision that Mitchell was entitled to summary judgment.
As I point out in 472 U. S. infra, the Court's view seriously misrepresents the dispute between the parties.
I thus do not believe that mere "factual overlap," ante at 472 U. S. 529, n. 10, is sufficient to show lack of separability. Rather, it is the legal overlap between the qualified immunity question and the merits of the case that renders the two questions inseparable. As the text makes clear, when a trial court renders a qualified immunity decision on a summary judgment motion, it must make a legal determination very similar to the legal determination it must make on a summary judgment motion on the merits. Similarly, there may be cases in which, after all of the evidence has been introduced, the defendant official moves for a directed verdict on the ground that the evidence actually produced at trial has failed to make a factual issue of the question whether the defendant violated clearly established law. The trial court's decision on the defendant's directed verdict motion would involve legal questions quite similar to a motion by the defendant for a directed verdict on the merits of the case. The point is that, regardless of when the defendant raises the qualified immunity issue, it is similar to the question on the merits at the same stage of the trial. In contrast, the trial court's decision on absolute immunity or double jeopardy -- at whatever stage it arises -- will ordinarily not raise a legal question that is the same, or even similar, to the question on the merits of the case.
See also Helstoski v. Meanor, 442 U. S. 500 (1979) (claim of immunity under Speech and Debate Clause); Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U. S. 156 (1974) (order allocating costs of notice in class action); Swift & Co. Packers v. Compania Colombiana Del Caribe, 339 U. S. 684 (1950) (order vacating attachment of ship in maritime case); Roberts v. United States District Court, 339 U. S. 844 (1950) (order denying in forma pauperis status).
I do not suggest, as the Court seems to think, that double jeopardy or absolute immunity rulings are not "controlling" of the question whether the defendant will ultimately be liable. See ante at 472 U. S. 528, n. 9. Rather, these rulings are not generally conclusive or relevant to the question whether the defendant is liable on the merits. Of course double jeopardy or absolute immunity rulings can be outcome determinative, as could a ruling on qualified immunity -- or on the application of a statute of limitations, a claim of improper venue, lack of subject matter jurisdiction, failure to join an indispensable party, or the like. The question to be answered is not whether a given issue is outcome determinative, but whether its resolution is closely related to the resolution of the merits of the case.
"[a]n appellate court reviewing the denial of the defendant's claim of immunity need not consider the correctness of the plaintiff's version of the facts, nor even determine whether the plaintiff's allegations actually state a claim."
Ante at 472 U. S. 528. The first part of this statement is correct, and would equally be true of any motion for judgment on the pleadings. Yet I have never seen a plausible argument that a motion for judgment on the pleadings is immediately appealable, in part because such a motion is plainly not separable from the merits of the case. The second part of the statement is also correct, and does indeed explain the difference between a qualified immunity determination and an ordinary motion for judgment on the pleadings or summary judgment motion. Yet the fact that a qualified immunity determination is different in some respect from a judgment on the pleadings is hardly ground for a finding that it is sufficiently separate to be immediately appealable.
"a question of immunity is separate from the merits of the underlying action for purposes of the Cohen test even though a reviewing court must consider the plaintiff's factual allegations in resolving the immunity issue."
Ante at 472 U. S. 528-529. Yet the Richardson-Merrell Court evidently believes that the attorney disqualification issue is not separable from the merits because the court of appeals must evaluate, inter alia, "respondent's claim on the merits, [and] the relevance of the alleged instances of misconduct to the attorney's zealous pursuit of that claim." Ante at 472 U. S. 440.
"The judgment sought [in a summary judgment motion] shall be rendered forthwith if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 56(c).
The numerous legal rights traditionally recognized as immunities include everything from the now-dormant charitable immunity in tort law, W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Law of Torts § 133 (5th ed.1984), to the state action immunity in antitrust law, see Parker v. Brown, 317 U. S. 341 (1943), and the doctrine of sovereign immunity. Federal statutes also contain numerous provisions granting immunities. See, e.g., 15 U.S.C. § 78iii(b) (good faith immunity for self-regulatory organizations from liability for disclosures relating to financial difficulties of certain securities dealers); 33 U.S.C. § 1483 (immunity for foreign government vessels from pollution control remedies); 46 U.S.C. § 1304 (immunities of carrier of goods by sea); 46 U.S.C.App. § 1706 (1982 ed., Supp. III) (immunity from antitrust laws for certain agreements among carriers of goods by sea).
It also imposes costs on the defendant officials and the public. Those who pursue interlocutory appeals can be expected ordinarily to lose. See Richardson-Merrell Inc. v. Koller, ante p. 472 U. S. 424. Permitting an interlocutory appeal will thus in most cases merely divert officials from their duties for an even longer time than if no such appeals were available.
Of course, an official sued in his official capacity may not take advantage of a qualified immunity defense. See Brandon v. Holt, 469 U. S. 464 (1985).
The instant case is an apt illustration. The proceedings in the trial court would likely have concluded in 1979 were it not for the two interlocutory appeals filed by the Government.
Given my conclusion that the Court of Appeals had no jurisdiction over Mitchell's interlocutory appeal, I need not reach the issue of whether he was entitled to qualified immunity. | https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/472/511/ |
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In the wake of the Second World War, political theory took an increasingly critical and sceptical turn, beginning to question those traits associated with philosophical modernism. The products of the enlightenment had for over a century and a half been associated with the progressive move to a liberal and rational mindset. Science, both social and natural, was supposed to deliver us from mass suffering, and yet many perceived the rationalism at the foundation of science to be the very origins of the totalitarian collapse defining the second fifth of the century. The National Socialist abyss had been closed, and yet across the globe alternative projects of a totalitarian nature still reigned supreme. How could rationality and science have birthed the welfare state, modern economics, or individual freedom, and yet also the moral and ethical cataclysm of book burnings, eugenics and extermination camps?
Amongst others, the British philosopher Michael Oakeshott was a commentator on this very question.1 An often-overlooked thinker, after his service during the war Oakeshott returned to academia, pursuing the line of inquiry he began with the publication in 1933 of arguably his greatest single work ‘Experience and Its Modes’. A work of British Idealism in its final moments, Oakeshott here defends and elucidates a perception of philosophy conceptualised by experience. Experience is always a world in itself, and thus implies some form of thought or judgment because, through experience, the world is always and everywhere a world of ideas; to mediate it is to experience it, and to mediate and judge is to add to the ideas that form it. “Thus, truth and experience are given together, and it is impossible to separate them. Truth is what is given in experience, because what is given is given as a coherent world of ideas; without truth there can be no experience”.2
Nonetheless, the experience of the totalitarian nightmare adapted many a thinker’s grasp of how we experience the political realm, and equally the place of such concepts as ‘truth’ and ‘knowledge’ in that realm. In 1947, Oakeshott published an essay entitled ‘Rationalism in Politics’, where he chose to explore precisely what it says on the tin – the nature and experience of Rationalism in the modern political sphere.3 At the crux of the essay, Oakeshott takes a critical stance against what he pens as ‘modern rationalism’, judiciously investigating the connection between modern utopian thinking, ‘reason’, ‘knowledge’ and political action. Consequently, this essay has become a seminal text in the fields of political theory and political philosophy, hence, warranting an exhaustive reading.
The purpose of this paper is to interpret Oakeshott’s essay, explaining his critique for those who are unfamiliar with Oakeshott’s system of thought. I have chosen to undertake a textualist approach for two reasons. Firstly, as much as I would like to embellish and thrust upon the reader my own understanding of Oakeshott’s text, the scope of this piece is to simply explicate the ideas in the essay in the same manner and order in which they appear. Secondly, a textualist approach permits the structure of this piece to follow that of Oakeshott’s seminal essay. I have structured this paper so it’s sections delve into and explain each part of the essay in turn – mirroring its configuration. In this manner, the novice to Oakeshott’s system of thought may read this piece in one hand, and study the original essay with the other. Alongside this, I have chosen to focus on what I consider the most significant concept Oakeshott elucidates in the essay: ‘the sovereignty of technique (technical knowledge)’ as a defining feature of modern Rationalism. Consequently, this interpretation of ‘Rationalism in Politics’ reads and runs the essay through such a concept, utilising it as a key or legend to Oakeshott’s overarching critical evaluation of the political thinking which governs our time.4 From here, we turn to Oakeshott.
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Michael Oakeshott’s ‘Rationalism in Politics’5
I.
Rationalism as a Disposition of Perfectionism
The first section of Oakeshott’s essay is perhaps the most revealing of the entire work, declaring openly the purpose of his investigation. “The object of this essay is to consider the character and pedigree of the most remarkable intellectual fashion of post-renaissance Europe. The Rationalism with which I am concerned is modern rationalism”. From the beginning, Oakeshott clearly discloses the intention of his enquiry – to examine the wider tradition of modern rationalism and its connection to modern political theory.
It is broadly understood that we reside in the ‘modern’ era. In simple terms, ‘modernism’ is often associated with the philosophical traits that erupted out of the enlightenment, where empiricism, ‘reason’, secularisation and individual liberty became primary values. In this sense, the political discourses we engage with in the contemporary world are themselves mechanised within a rationalist framework. All argumentation in the political arena must be of a reasoned form, connected to some scientific logic one way or another – without such an affinity the very validity of one’s political knowledge is thrown into question. If we take this into account, all modern politics has become some incarnation of the wider Rationalist philosophical project. Asking how this has come to be requires the attitude of Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, or even Scooby Doo – one devoted to deduce the origins and qualities of such an all-encompassing predicate, one that validates the limits of acceptable political action, and it is Oakeshott who here brandishes the magnifying glass to interpret the history and character of modern rationalism.
Oakeshott begins by associating Rationalism not to central idioms or principles, but to a specific disposition concerning the political sphere. Disposition or attitude to the experiences of the world can often reveal and connect with increasing depth, as opposed to merely categorising principles. Thus, the question becomes: what characterises the rationalist disposition? This is the underlying question Oakeshott is keen to answer, aspiring to unearth the dispositional fundamentals of modern rationalism as a whole entity.
Oakeshott ties rationalism to a singular epistemological foundation, one characterised by the constant appeal to ‘reason’. He identifies the underpinning of rationalism rests initially with its un-anchoring of thought from restriction; here affirming that freedom of thought stems from only the “obligation to any authority save the authority of ‘reason’”. Through such an appeal, the Rationalist disposition is coloured by an argumentative and somewhat paradoxical attitude. It is weary of authority and tradition, and as such, can sit in direct contradiction to ‘reason’ in certain circumstances where consensus and authority are necessary; “at once sceptical and optimistic”, critically assessing all but the power of reason itself.
Subsequent to the constant appeal to ‘reason’, the kind of categorical argumentation that lends itself to experiential knowledge falls into question, reassessing all experiences but one’s own as dubious. Reason demands that the experiences of others, of ancestors, of those in another spatial temporality are subject to the kind of scrutiny and doubt that the rationalist will not afford their own experiences. The appeal to reason lulls the rationalist to rest safe in the empirical knowledge that their own experience is the singular truth of such a phenomenon. Because of this: “he has no sense of the culmination of experience, only of the readiness of experience when it has been turned into a formula: the past is significant to him only as an encumbrance”. What Oakeshott affirms is that all life must be compounded into some formula in order to be rationalised. All experience must be derivable through the reason that anchors their episteme. The mysteries of life, the simple admiration of the sublime, myths, fables, the ‘uncertainties of experience’ – all lost to the abyss.
In order to rationalise all life under the banner of reason, the rationalist recalibrates the meaning of intellectual inquiry not to the education of their mind, but, rather, its fine-tuning to reasoning; to demonstrate their own mental capacity and draw conclusions as opposed to drawing on collective and shared experiential knowledge. “If he [the rationalist] were more self-critical he might begin to wonder how the race ever succeeded in surviving”. From this moment onwards, Oakeshott structures his inquiry by reviewing the very epistemological grounds that Rationalism rests upon, attacking the Rationalist scepticism of common experience. Oakeshott claims that consequent to their episteme of reason, the rationalist holds: “a deep distrust of time, an impatient hunger for eternity and an irritable nervousness in the face of everything topical and transitory”. Subsequently, as the present is always anchored in history, a loss of the past is always a loss of the present, a loss of something of ourselves in the here and now.
The greatest of victory for the Rationalist has been in the political sphere, where the philosophy of reason as a framework for mediating the world has been carried into the realm of public affairs. “He [the rationalist] believes that the unhindered human ‘reason’…is an infallible guide in political activity”. In simple terms, the mark of the Rationalist is the disposition to utilise reason as a legend or manual for conducting political activity. This is what has characterised the epoch defining shift to a bureaucratisation of life, the Kafkan transformation to the ‘rational’ administration of life itself, with its unlimited jurisdiction over the circumstances of experience.
Reason as the logic steering political activity: “makes both destruction and creation easier for him to understand and engage in, than acceptance or reform”. A prudent acceptance of that which cannot be rationalised in either the public or private spheres is a trait of traditionalist conservatism. The rationalist wishes to collapse and recreate in a cycle that undermines the extent to which collective past experience can inform our faculties of judgement in the present. “He does not recognise change unless it is self-consciously induced change, and consequently he falls easily into the error of identifying the customary and traditional with the changeless”. One only has to think of the revolutions littering modern history, in which factions have seized power, reduced the powers and institutions of the status-quo to ashes, and then attempted to recast the community anew.
Such a logic of and reliance on ‘reason’ alone traps ‘the political’ in a framework of a Rationalist making, where one can only be a political agent if they speak from a coherent, reasoned, body of logic aimed at recasting civil association in some way. This Oakeshott refers to as ‘ideology’, or as he explains it: “the formalised abridgment of the supposed substratum of rational truth contained in the tradition”.
‘Ideology’, as the primary means to interpret and act in the political arena, defines the Rationalist disposition to politics as one characterised by the “assimilation of politics to engineering”. Through the prism of rationalism, modern politics became a myth about engineering a social world, as opposed to working with the world of confusion within which we already reside. Politics, by way of ideology, is about dealing with abstractions, utopias, ideal types, and all by implementing quick fix engineering of policy to immanentise a world without contradiction or mystery. Sensitivity to that which we cannot know or explain is lost to the rational – all must fall to reason.
As a result of such a loss, Oakeshott contends that the politics rationalism inspires is a ‘politics of the felt need’, whereby the needs and feelings of the moment are paramount to all other modes of experience. The best explanation of this is, of course, in Oakeshott’s own words:
“His [The Rationalist’s] politics are, in fact, the rational solution of those practical conundrums which the recognition of the sovereignty of the felt need perpetually creates in the life of the society. Thus, political life is resolved into a succession of crises, each surmounted by the application of ‘reason’”.
The task of the rationalist is governed by the ‘sovereignty of the felt need’, where the issues of the day are of paramount importance, more significant than grander principles or questions that stretch across time. In this sense, the sovereignty of the felt need dictates that political practice be an exercise of rewriting experiential knowledge with every juncture.
At this point, Oakeshott makes clear what he defines to be the two most central qualities of Rationalism, indicating that rationalist politics are a combination of (a) perfectionism and (b) uniformity. Rationalism, therefore, operates in the space between these characteristic traits. Here, there is no political issue that cannot be rationalised, and this applies to even the most ambiguous and mystic of questions. In this sense: “the ‘rational’ solution of any problem is, in its nature, the perfect solution”. Perfection comes through reason, and reason dictates that such perfection can be universal, and in this vein, eradicates a certain notion of plurality in favour of reasoned uniformity. For the rationalist, there is no place for epistemological variety. “There may not be one universal remedy for all political ills, but the remedy for any particular ill is as universal in its application as it is rational in its conception…Political activity is recognised as the imposition of a uniform condition of perfection upon human conduct”.
Rationalist politics, because of its emphasis on perfectionism and uniformity of reasoned application, is ‘projectional’. All modern history is littered with examples of grandiose projects intended to alleviate the ills of current experience by the application of a rational ideological framework of theory and praxis upon the realm of human conduct. Power becomes the capacity to enforce one’s framework of reason and application of a solution over a certain territory As such, modern sovereignty is understood by the rationalist as the ultimate decision making power of such an ends. Be it by the Declaration of the Rights of Man, by the cosmopolitan notions of a world state, by the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, or by the supposed natural predicates of racialist science, the founding of society, for the Rationalist, sits on a grounds of eradicating the old and instituting the new by the logic of some supposed self-contained unified truth of reason. Such a logic is posited in the theory and praxis of projects that can be universalised with but the click of one’s fingers.
II
The Two Modes of Knowledge and The Sovereignty of Technique
In order to dissect and analyse the episteme of Rationalism, Oakeshott devotes the second section of the essay to addressing the Rationalist grasp of knowledge. He begins this discourse by reasserting the connection between epistemology and practical conduct, stating that: “Every science, every art, every practical activity requiring skill of any sort, indeed every human activity whatsoever, involves knowledge”. Here, he reminds us that all human activity involves some form of knowledge in order to engage in a course of action, bisecting knowledge into two kinds: (a) Technical Knowledge, and (b) Practical Knowledge. Oakeshott discusses each in turn.
Technical knowledge is the kind of knowledge that can be learnt and is without a doubt involved in every practical activity, as in almost every practical activity there is a technique. An essential aspect of technical knowledge is its formulation into a series of rules, which can be meticulously learnt in order to put a specific technique into practice effectively. Oakeshott gives a good example of the ‘Highway Code’ in which part of the technique of driving a car on British roads is disclosed, or how the techniques of cooking can be located in cookery books. All one has to do is rigorously learn the technique in order to practice it perfectly, reaping results.
The second mode of knowledge is Practical knowledge. Unlike technical knowledge, practical knowledge exists in its use and cannot be codified or formulated into rules which can be learnt. Essentially, Oakeshott confirms that practical knowledge is the kind which may be shared and over time become common knowledge. In every activity there is always also this sort of knowledge at play. In fact, the pursuit of any concrete activity, the mastery of some practice so that it may become a ‘skill’ is impossible without the interplay of practical knowledge and technical knowledge, both distinct and symbiotic simultaneously.
“These two sorts of knowledge, then, distinguishable but inseparable, are the twin components of the knowledge involved in every concrete human activity…technique and what I have called practical knowledge combine to make skill”.
Even in scientific activity, the very methods of modernist empiricism exist within the confines of the interplay between the two modes of knowledge. Simply put, there is no activity which exists outside of the orbit of this dualism, technique may create guidelines of practice, but only common knowledge may reveal how to follow such guidelines, and in this sense there is no such thing as ‘know-how’. Both modes of knowledge are simply inseparable.
It is at this moment that Oakeshott begins to assess his two modes of knowledge through a political lens. He claims that in the same manner as all other conduct, political activity is both technical and practical. One must be able to engage common knowledge and technique in order to develop political skill. In a somewhat existential manner, Oakeshott maintains that being a political agent requires both practical knowledge and mastery of technique in order to achieve the goals of political activity, whatever they may be. After addressing their inseparability in application, Oakeshott seeks to then differentiate them.
The first difference is that technical knowledge may be codified, and as such, receives a sense of validity in the Rationalist episteme that is not afforded to practical knowledge. “Technical knowledge, in short, can be both taught and learned in the simplest meanings of these words. On the other hand, practical knowledge can be neither taught nor learned, but only imparted and acquired”. Precisely because technique can be learnt, it has acquired a sense of validity, or even elevated to the status of truth, whereas this gives practical knowledge: “the appearance of imprecision and consequently of uncertainty, of being a matter of opinion, of probability rather than truth”. Practical knowledge can only be acquired by observing its application in practice, as opposed to merely learning it from a set of codified rules. For example, the statement that there are ‘seven days in the week’ is common knowledge. However as it is ultimately not objective fact written within the fabric of reality itself, but rather a human artificial framework of ‘time’ placed over reality, its very validity may be questioned as a truth all together.
Another example may be that of ‘style’. Whether it is the style of the Cricketing batsman, the pianist, the dancer, the writer, the painter, and so on, style cannot be taught but is acquired through practice over time. As it cannot be learnt, however, its validity as valuable knowledge falls into question. Bach’s style of playing is often deemed subordinate to his outstanding technical ability, Michelangelo’s style of sculpture, or even Dostoyevsky’s writing similarly so. In the modern world, technicality is increasingly validated, with style and practical knowledge de-valued.
For Oakeshott, revealing his overarching critique, Rationalism asserts that practical knowledge is no knowledge at all, and that there is no knowledge which cannot be reduced to technicality – e.g. if it cannot be taught or codified into rules, it is not knowledge. Equally, knowledge is only that which can be taught. Such a position Oakeshott charges as the ‘sovereignty of technique’, and constitutes the grounds of the epistemological foundations of Rationalism. The grievance here, in Oakeshott’s typically conservative fashion, is that the sovereignty of technique erases the validity of practical and traditional knowledge altogether; that knowledge which cannot be written or taught is lost, and as such the capacity to engage with all forms activity with it. With the loss of one is the loss of the necessary interplay to act politically. Common experience becomes inadequate to confirm the existence of a mode of knowledge itself. The sovereignty of reason is hence connected to the sovereignty of technique.
In this manner, ‘knowledge’ transmutates into a rough teleological frame. One begins at a point of distinguishable sheer ignorance (prior to teaching) and the process of acquiring knowledge ends at an identifiable terminus, where teaching is complete and one has successfully ‘learnt’ what there is to know, like learning the rules of a sport, or how to use a mechanical device. In fact, under the epistemological boot of Rationalism, knowledge itself is seen to be applied mechanically.
At the initial point of ignorance, the teacher must administer a purge in order to mechanically rebuild the student’s knowledge of the topic at hand, where all prejudices and preconceptions are removed, reinstating it with a sense of learned certainty. This Oakeshott exclaims is the work of ideology over traditions of thought, purging the student of prejudices and preconceptions so to give the appearance of self-containment and reasoned validity.
The self-contained validity of mechanising all knowledge as technical knowledge presents the illusion of certainty. The error of the rationalist, Oakeshott contends, is the illusion of the sovereignty of technique, convincing the individual of its superiority as it appearance springs by washing away ignorance, both beginning and ending in the certainty of such a relation in the first instance. “As with every other sort of knowledge, learning a technique does not consist of getting rid of pure ignorance, but reforming knowledge which is already there”.
A self-contained technique cannot be imparted to an ‘empty mind’. Rather, technical knowledge builds from practical knowledge, the kind of knowledge that we begin all endeavours with. By neglecting practical knowledge, by the sovereignty of technique, the rationalist hacks away at the very grounds of technical knowledge. Through such a self-contained certainty of technical knowledge, the rationalist unhooks themselves from their own grounds, ignoring the relational symbiosis of both forms of knowledge. To privilege one is not just to devalue the other, but by this process of devaluation, corrupt the very grounds that are prioritised, precisely as the two are but parts of the same whole.
Before continuing to the third section, Oakeshott makes note that his object is not to refute rationalism, per se, but merely to highlight its errors so to reveal something of its character. Thus, with its epistemological illusions in mind, he goes on to assess its character, with the priority of the sovereignty of technique and the confidence in human reason by such sovereignty in the third section.
III
Certainty and Method Concerning the Infallible Rules of Discovery
In the third section of the essay, Oakeshott directs his efforts to examining the emergence of Rationalism as connected to the early modern philosophy of science. In this sense, Oakeshott utilises the third section of his investigation in order to sketch out the connection between the scientific notions of ‘truth’, ‘method’ and ‘reason’, and the political principles of Rationalism in practice. Ultimately, this began with the insights of Sir Francis Bacon, and his discourse on the scientific method in the seventeenth century.
Bacon identified a lacuna in the methodological habits of inquiry. What lacked in the seventeenth century was a: “consciously formulated technique of research, an art of interpretation, a method whose rules had been written down”. In order to make understanding and ‘truth’ manifest, Bacon highlighted that inquiry lacked a procedure of honing ones knowledge through the practice of a technique itself. The assumption that Bacon made was that a ‘sure plan’ was necessary in order to access ‘truth’. What was deemed requisite for accessing truth was “a ‘way’ of understanding, an ‘art’ or ‘method’ of inquiry, an ‘instrument’ which…shall supplement the weakness of natural reason: in short, what is required is a formulated technique of inquiry”. Once again, Oakeshott draws the reader’s attention to his single greatest critique of Rationalism: the sovereignty of technique.
The sovereignty of technique begins with Bacon precisely as he identifies that ‘truth’ is not manifest, it does not merely make itself accessibly immanent to the individual, but rather through a technique, a ‘method’, truth is uncovered. Such technique would only become manifest if it can be accordingly codified, and subsequently made objective in its certainty of success. ‘The art of research’ that Bacon recommends has a three-fold character. Firstly, it appears as a set of rules. A technique of inquiry can be formulated as a detailed set of guidelines, which can be learned by heart. Thus the priority of technical knowledge, as something that can be learned, is at the heart of Bacon’s scientific method. Secondly, this set of rules may be applied mechanically. This technique of inquiry is truly a technique because it is replicable by any who seek ‘truth’, and can be practiced time and again, simply, by following the same steps of procedure to achieve success repeatedly. It is the interplay between these first and second characters which make Bacon’s technique of enquiry a ‘method’ in and of itself. Lastly, Bacon’s ‘method’ is universal in character. Bacon’s method is grasped as a ‘true’ technique because it is applicable in all scenarios, in all forms of inquiry, irrespective of the subject matter. At least supposedly.
What Oakeshott identifies as being critically significant is that such a form of technique is itself plausible in the first instance. What Bacon proposes is a universal key to accessing any and all forms of truth, irrespective of subjectivity. Such a proposition is what Oakeshott is deeply critical of. “For what is proposed – infallible rules of discovery – is something very remarkable, a sort of philosopher’s stone, a key to open all doors, a ‘master science’”. In this the primacy of method comes to bear and its universality apparent in certainty.
Certainty of knowledge became the aim of the early Rationalists, the telos of their endeavours. Like Bacon, Descartes pursued a precisely formulated technique of enquiry, one that could unlock the certainty of truth universally. At the core of Descartes technique of inquiry was, like Bacon, a purge of the mind precisely as certainty would only surrender itself to the emptied mind, the erased canvass. One must find a manner of jettisoning preconceptions and prejudices for certainty and truth to become manifest in the wake of truly objective enquiry. Such an intellectual purge is the first pillar of Descartes tripartite. The second is, in keeping with the sovereignty of technique, a codified set of rules that compose an infallible, mechanical and universal method to unlock the truth and certainty of knowledge. Lastly, Descartes affirms that there are no grades of knowledge, what is not certain is simply as good as unknown, what is not certain is as good as ignorance or nescience. Nonetheless, although Bacon and Descartes share these qualities in their perspective concerning a technique of inquiry, Descartes’ framework permits critical enquiry when applied, affording a sense of scepticism through his affinity to the significance of doubt upon the mental categories. Thus, through his own critical capacity, even Descartes comes to recognise that supposing method is the sole means of inquiry is to err, as behind all method is the reality of an existing human, bound up with their own inconsistencies and passions. Nonetheless, the intellectual successors of Descartes, to this very day, believed to have learnt from him “the sovereignty of technique and not his doubtfulness about the possibility of an infallible method”. From here, the rationalist character “may be seen springing from the exaggeration of bacon’s hopes and the neglect of the scepticism of Descartes”.
. The focal charge Oakeshott presents is that as time has passed, the epistemological foundation of Rationalism has become rougher, ignorant of practical knowledge so entirely, that the sovereignty of technique has left the modern Rationalist unable to conceptualise even its barest and simplest of qualities. Therefore, the very fact of life and our approach to is reduced from an art to, unsurprisingly, a mere technique. “It is important only to observe that, with every step it has taken away from the true sources of its inspiration, the Rationalist character has become cruder and more vulgar…What was the Art of Living has become the Technique of Success”. At the heart of this turn away from simple humanity to a promethean monism of truth was the decline in the belief of providence, displaying how modernist secularism was not simply a turning away from religion in its entirety, but merely a mutation of theological epistemology: “a beneficent and infallible technique replaced a beneficent and infallible God”.
This being said, Rationalism did not establish itself without resistance or opposition. The first of such critics, it can be said, was Pascal – in response to the empiricism of Descartes. Firstly, Pascal perceived that the Cartesian technique for acquiring knowledge was grounded “upon a false criterion of certainty”. Simply, this implies that Descartes begins with an indubitable foundation upon which to build his notion of certainty anchoring his technique of inquiry. This led him, according to Pascal, to believe that all knowledge must be technical. Secondly, Pascal affirmed that the influence of method endangers the success or outcome of inquiry. This is so, precisely as the importance of method may undergo exaggeration of some form. Thus, the method is the key to unlocking knowledge, not the understanding and interpretation of reality itself. Art is, once again, substituted for technique. The best explanation of this, I believe, comes from Oakeshott himself, who at the end of the third section claims that:
“The significance of Rationalism is not its recognition of technical knowledge, but its failure to recognise any other: its philosophical error lies in the certainty it attributes to technique and in its doctrine of the sovereignty of technique; its practical error lies in its belief that nothing but benefit can come from making conduct self-conscious”.
It is what Rationalism deems as facile, limited or insignificant that Oakeshott laments as being lost with its tide. What has been lost is the very existence of common knowledge, the practical knowledge that one can only acquire, in favour of sovereignty of technique, where all ills and issues are solvable, all is knowable, simply by the application of method, by applying the correct technique of inquiry. Just as Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle testifies, with emphasis of understanding and inquiry upon a single entity, understanding of another independent unit is lost. Just as Rationalism emphasises method to achieve knowledge, that which cannot be achieved by technique alone is itself disregarded as certain knowledge – something becomes lost unintentionally and this is what Oakeshott wishes to guard against.
IV
Rationalism as an Ideology of Technique for the Inexperienced
Leading on from the third section, Oakeshott states that he is still yet to discuss the circumstances under which rationalism became the predominant ideational force in modern Europe. In fact, he goes so far as to pen rationalism by the term ‘infection’ reducing his considerations for it to that of a disease. Although this has a certain unsavoury basis, as with all pathologisation, reducing an entity to that of an illness requiring antidote or eradication (a rationalist predicate in itself), the thrust of Oakeshott’s argument is to contend that Rationalism has become the defining feature of the totality of our epistemological, and as such normative, political experience. “Not only are our political vices rationalistic, but so are our political virtues…Rationalism has ceased to be merely one style in politics and has become the stylistic criterion of all respectable politics”. The question thus becomes how has such a condition come to be.
The answer to this is, at least for Oakeshott, a rather succinct one. As Rationalism widely took hold of modern epistemological categories, the traditional resources of resistance to the tyranny of Rationalism were converted into ideological doctrines – plans to resist planning, as in the case of Hayek’s ‘The Road to Serfdom’ for example. Thus, even the traditional modes of resistance against Rationalism had become paradoxically rationalist themselves; Rationalism became like a black hole, absorbing and adding to its own mass the masses of objects which stood in its path. The essential feature here is the conversion of all political discussion onto the sublimated plane of doctrinal or ideological projects, fiercely in dialogue with one another. “It seems that now, in order to participate in politics and expect a hearing, it is necessary to have, in the strict sense, a doctrine; not to have a doctrine appears frivolous, even disreputable”. Here we find one of Oakeshott’s most enlightening conservative critiques of the modern age – to be considered political one must now have a doctrine or face disrepute Acting as a lone thinking agent or from a loose tradition of discourse is no longer acceptable, and as such, limits the boundaries of what and who may be considered ‘political’; an anti-political decision in itself.
Rationalism appears as the politics of ‘the felt need’. This perspective is qualified not by ‘concrete knowledge of permanent interests’ by a ‘reason’ and “satisfied according to the technique of an ideology: they are the politics of the book”. Rationalism has itself a theological hermeneutics of reason, where normative issues (‘the felt need’) and the deliverance of a response to such issues are defined by appealing to and interpreting a single series of doctrinal texts, or merely going to the trouble of constituting one themselves. This is the triumph of technical knowledge par excellence, where the boundaries of the political are itself defined by which rules of technique, to appeal to ‘the felt need’, are deemed acceptable. Thus, we have witnessed in response to the dominance of such a condition the abandonment of the ‘the self’ and the long process of truly subjective critical inquiry, sold in exchange for simply grasped and ‘reasoned’ doctrines. Practical and perennial knowledge of experience traded for mechanical technical knowledge which “does not extend beyond the written word”. Such a theological hermeneutics appeals to abstraction – and as such modern politics has become a single practical discourse of supposedly antagonistic pelagian and projectual technical knowledge.
Through its dependence on such a mode of knowledge, Rationalism and the doctrines under its broad conceptual umbrella can never present more than abstract technique. What we have gained is the pharmaceutical syndrome – ‘take this x times a day and the problem will be solved’. All issues become ludicrously solvable, no matter how ingrained into human experience and existence they are, and as such, the partnership between the present and past knowledge of this fact becomes lost. Nevertheless, the intent to solve all ills leads to techniques of control, and politics becomes an exercise not in civic association, as it is by definition, but an exercise in administration – simply which technique should be employed to address the ‘felt need’. In this sense, one does not need an understanding of experience to engage in the political, but only an understanding of technique – “the politics of Rationalism are the politics of the politically inexperienced”. We must always be aware that, as Oakeshott contends, we have forgotten Rationalism is not a magic technique which will remove the handicap of inexperience and lack of political understanding – “to offer such a technique will seem to him [the rationalist] the offer of salvation itself”. We must never forget that we are not Gods; the promise of a mechanically applied technique of immanentising salvation is precisely that – an empty promise that is always too good to be true.
Although in the previous chapters Oakeshott had traced where Rationalism as a tradition of thought stems from (the modernism of Descartes and Bacon), what Oakeshott now seeks to do is triangulate the location of the Rationalist approach in the field of political studies, and, as either the first political modern or final medieval, he locates it in the work of Niccolo Machiavelli. In his famed work ‘The Prince’ , Machiavelli aims at forging a pamphlet for princes and rulers alike so they may learn to be the best rulers they can, what has often been called a ‘Mirror for Princes’. Despite a widespread misunderstanding of Machiavellism, essentially converting his name into a slur, at the heart of his project was to forge a ‘science’ of politics, a technique by which an individual can study and mechanically enact – like a recipe book for good and virtuous statecraft. In this sense, according to Oakeshott, Machiavelli is the initial domino of political Rationalism, forging a work similar to a ‘correspondence course in technique’, or rather as Oakeshott pens it rather well: “The project of Machiavelli was, then, to provide a crib to politics, a political training in default of a political education, a technique for the ruler who had no tradition”. It is this last clause which makes all the difference for Oakeshott – in lieu of the capacity to judge for oneself, off the back of one’s own experience and understanding of the world, the ruler in this position (without tradition) could make manifest a technique to incur a desired outcome, once again neglecting the symbiosis of both technical and practical knowledge.
The issue however does not rest with Machiavelli. Machiavelli understood the limitations of his technical manual for statecraft. Machiavelli clearly grasps and sceptically questions the limits of technical knowledge as a replacement for tradition and philosophical inquiry. The normative and epistemological political tyranny of Rationalism does not begin with Machiavelli, but with his successors, those followers of Machiavelli who: “believed in the sovereignty of technique, who believed that government was nothing more than ‘public administration’”. This is the beginning of the road to Rationalism’s totalising influence over ‘the political’.
Oakeshott goes on to discuss Rationalism at what he considers its most concentrate – the thought of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Although the nineteenth century Marxians engaged with genuine philosophical inquiry at seminal moments (for example, in Marx’s magnum opus ‘Capital: A Critique of Political Economy’), their most influential text was of course ‘The Communist Manifesto’ of 1848. Here, Oakeshott interprets The Manifesto as an instructional pamphlet composed for the least politically educated faction of society who has ever brandished the capacity to hold power (assuming this faction being ‘the proletariat’). Every facet of the manifesto deals in the rationalism associated with the sovereignty of the technique. Oakeshott charges the mechanisation of technique by the masses as requiring being a ‘Midas-like’ operation, where all that Marxians touch must be transformed into a philosophy of abstraction in order to be applied, a paradox in and of itself. In these abstractions, the world appears as concrete, vested in the Historical Materialist Dialectic that Marx and Engels disclose, and as such, such a form of knowledge imposes on the world itself.
Essentially, the onset of political modernism, as typified by the Liberal Democratic American political system, is defined by the conflict between lived experiential tradition and abstract principles – principles that were advanced to the status of natural entities. Two such examples of abstract principles would be (a) Lockean inalienable rights, that ‘by nature’ every individual possess rights which cannot be subtracted away (such as ‘life’, ‘liberty’ and ‘property’), or (b) the Marxist materialist conception of history, that ‘by nature’ production divides society by the roles we play in the process of producing articles of existence (objects). In the Rationalist understanding, modern political society is limited in its potential trajectory with the hampering of tradition and ‘the chains of custom’. Tradition therefore is something to be emancipated from, as opposed to being stood on the shoulders of. It is this very fact that Oakeshott takes issue with; perfection is the aim and reconstruction of the political realm the mechanism to deliver salvation. In this manner, the past is always further from perfection itself.
The important point that Oakeshott makes however is that we cannot expect an impending shift from Rationalism as a whole. Ultimately, to plan for such a social shift is to slip into the vestiges of Rationalism itself. Oakeshott contends that:
“The view I am maintaining is that the ordinary practical politics of European nations have become fixed in vice of Rationalism, that much of their failure (which is often attributed to other and more immediate causes) springs in fact from the defects of the Rationalist character when it is in control of affairs, and that (since the rationalist disposition of mind is not a fashion which sprang up only yesterday) we must not expect a speedy release from our predicament”.
Rationalism posits itself between politics and perfection, and it is because of this that the citizen of the modern civil association, the political agent, can be bewitched by the offer of fusing the apple back to the tree of knowledge. Attempts to do this, Oakeshott argues, always result in not only failure but the adaptation of the social and political world for the worse – like Icarus, falling from the skies and his certainty of knowledge.
V
Conclusion
In the final section of the essay, Oakeshott summates his overall argument. This most important summative notion he focuses attention to is the dual manner in which Rationalism is a danger to political society. The first charge that Oakeshott puts to the Rationalist mindset is the misconception of knowledge as the sovereignty of technique. By applying mechanically the techniques disclosed in a single text, one loses a sense of holistic critical inquiry: “living by precept in the end generates intellectual dishonesty”. Such dishonesty can be untangled, but only by reasserting the importance of practical, historical and tradition knowledge. The paradox of course arises as the Rationalist themself sees such a form of knowledge as ‘the great enemy of mankind’. This invariably will lead to governance by one rationalist project after another, with the wake of one failed project becoming the launch pad for another.
Secondly, rationalism breeds rationalism. A rationalist society that privileges the sovereignty of technique over practical knowledge will educate future generations in the idioms which themselves suppress an appreciation of past, traditional, and contemplative knowledge. Thus, training in technical knowledge has become the only training worthwhile. This, for example, we can see in the academic study of political theory, as many prone to the Rationalist conjecture simply wish to be delivered the thought of individuals such as Nietzsche or Heidegger through a simple technique, ignoring the fact that an understanding of their systems of thought can only be met by being honed, through a long hermeneutic relationship that is constantly in a state of flux – not ‘knowledge’ administered as a pill in the form of a simple all-encompassing explanation at most three minutes in length. The best example of Rationalism’s epistemological domination of the times comes in the form of ‘The Dummies guide to…’ or ‘an idiots guide to…’ books, where dense subjects are reduced to mere technique to be mechanistically employed by the in-experienced, who then may consider themselves a master.
In the final moments of Oakeshott’s essay, he leaves the reader with an interesting thought. As Rationalism distrusts all practical knowledge by ‘reason’, we in the contemporary world experience the suspension of moral and ethical foundations. Simply put, Oakeshott reaches out through the page and asks the reader: How are we to act if we must distrust all that we in the past have judged to be true? 6
________
1 For more works discussing this very same topic, see: Hannah Arendt (1998) The Human Condition, 2nd Edition, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press; Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer (1997) Dialectic of Enlightenment, London: Verso; E.H. Carr (2001) The Twenty Years’ Crisis 1919-1939: An Introduction To The Study of International Relations, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; Hans J. Morgenthau (1946) Scientific Man vs Power Politics, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press; Hedley Bull (1966) ‘International Theory: The Case for a Classical Approach’, World Politics, 18(3), pp. 361-377.
2 Michael Oakeshott (1985) Experience and Its Modes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 323.
3 Michael Oakeshott (1962) Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, London: Methuen & Co Ltd, pp. 1-36.
4 This I have chosen to do in order to streamline my interpretation of this essay into a single, unified, critique, easily accessible to the novice. Nonetheless, this being said, nothing can replace one’s own multi-faceted interpretation of an essay. I strongly advise the reader to make their own interpretations of this work of philosophical art.
5 Quotations from here on out are from: Michael Oakeshott (1962) Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, London: Methuen & Co Ltd, pp. 1-36
6 For more information concerning Oakeshott’s political theory, see: David Boucher (2008) ‘Oakeshott, Freedom and Republicanism’, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 7(1), pp. 81-96; J. R. Archer (1979) ‘Oakeshott on Politics’, The Journal of Politics, 41(1), pp. 150-168; David Orsi (2015) ‘Oakeshott on Practice, Normative Thought and Political Philosophy’, British Journal for The History of Philosophy, 23(3), pp. 545-568; Bhikhu Parekh (1979) ‘The Political Philosophy of Michael Oakeshott’, British Journal of Political Science, 9(4), pp. 481-506; Paul Franco (2004) Michael Oakeshott: An Introduction, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press; Terry Nardin (2015) Michael Oakeshott’s Cold War Liberalism, New York: Palgrave Macmillan; Kenneth Minogue (2012) “The Fate of Rationalism in Oakeshott’s Thought”, in Paul Franco and Leslie Marsh (Eds.), A Companion To Michael Oakeshott, University Park, PA: The Pennsylvanian State University Press, pp. 232-247. | http://www.thinkpolit.com/2021/07/on-oakeshotts-rationalism-in-politics.html |
Senior Research Scientist
Our most important software, called Tobii Pro Lab, used by universities, researchers and commercial actors around the globe is constantly developed and enhanced. The product is used to design, conduct, and analyze experiments centred around eye tracking. Our customers bet their academic careers or next marketing campaign on insights gained from our software, so we need to offer high-quality product handling on a high volume of data with microsecond timing resolution and precision.
We are glad that we can now strengthen our team with a Senior Research Scientist who can contribute to the continued success of our product evolution. You will be working side by side with other researchers, Product owners, Engineers, QAs, and Developers and enjoy collaborating, learning, improving, and most of all innovative solutions that help our customers to reach their goals.
We have a passion to serve our customers, and we have fun while doing it! With our customers spread out all over the world, the development team is split in several scrum teams and located in both Stockholm and Kyiv. We are a truly agile company without hierarchy and bureaucracy, and we work in small autonomous and cross-functional teams.
You as Senior Research Scientist will play a key role in the acceleration of the product’s growth agenda to expand the product offering to the worldwide market.
Responsibilities:
- You work closely with Product owners, Developers and QA’s to offer opinions and suggestions on how to guide the solution forward, as well as handle detailed questions from the team.
- As a Senior Research Scientist, you will test workflows in the software from an end-to-end perspective to ensure that all parts work logically and understandably for our precious customers.
- You will conduct independent investigations into experiment types and create proposals for recommended solutions to support the investigated experiment types.
- You will make in-depth investigations of the concepts within eye-tracking research, so that we build the software on stable concepts that do not need to be changed in the near future.
Requirements:
- You have a PhD and relevant research experience.
- You have a solid background as a researcher and experience in eye-tracking as part of your research.
- You have worked empirically with eye tracking and managed to produce several peer-reviewed publications as the first author.
- You have a grasp on methodological concerns when designing a given study and can communicate this pedagogically to help elevate the team.
- You have a well-rounded understanding of our customers with a broad scientific network and can put Product owners and Developers in contact with other researchers who are willing to give their thoughts and opinions about concepts and functionality that are relevant to the software. Also, to reach out for input on ongoing and future functionalities for supporting various types of studies.
- You have strong analytical skills and an interest in acquiring new knowledge and applying it at work.
- You are creative, detail orientated and work independently within a highly collaborative and fast-paced environment.
- You have good communication skills in written and spoken English and can formulate complex problems for the team.
Are you our next Tobiian?
Working at Tobii is like being in the heart of innovation as we revolutionize the way humans interact with technology. We are a dynamic and growing company, and we want you to be a part of creating our journey. If you are looking for passionate colleagues with different nationalities and backgrounds, you´ll feel right at home.
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Do you want to be part of defining our future products? Apply today! Please address your questions to Linnéa Larsson ([email protected]) and submit your LinkedIn Profile or resume through our website as soon as possible.
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Tobii is an international company that nurtures a welcoming, friendly atmosphere and non-hierarchical mindset. In Europe, North America and Asia, we cultivate a culture where we all can be ourselves and anyone can talk to anyone, share thoughts and discuss new ideas. This creates an atmosphere where we are more work buddies than colleagues. And the same way that we care for each other on a personal level, the company cares for us as employees; offering work-life balance and great benefits. All this combined spurs career opportunities, innovative ideas and – equally important – fun at work.
About Tobii
Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Stockholm, Tobii is a Swedish tech company listed on the Nasdaq Stockholm (TOBII) since 2015. Tobii is the world leader in eye tracking, employing about 600 people with a vision of a world where all technology works in harmony with natural human behavior.
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Coloring Football GIFs Cliparts
In graph theory, an edge coloring of a graph is an assignment of 'colors' to the edges of the graph so that no two incident edges have the same color. For example, the figure to the right shows an edge coloring of a graph by the colors red, blue, and green. Edge colorings are one of several different types of graph coloring. The edge-coloring problem asks whether it is possible to color the edges of a given graph using at most k different colors, for a given value of k, or with the fewest possible colors. The minimum required number of colors for the edges of a given graph is called the chromatic index of the graph. For example, the edges of the graph in the illustration can be colored by three colors but cannot be colored by two colors, so the graph shown has chromatic index three. By Vizing's theorem, the number of colors needed to edge color a simple graph is either its maximum degree or +1. For some graphs, such as bipartite graphs and high-degree planar graphs, the number of colors is always , and for multigraphs, the number of colors may be as large as 3/2. There are polynomial time algorithms that construct optimal colorings of bipartite graphs, and colorings of non-bipartite simple graphs that use at most +1 colors, however, the general problem of finding an optimal edge coloring is NP-hard and the fastest known algorithms for it take exponential time. Many variations of the edge-coloring problem, in which an assignments of colors to edges must satisfy other conditions than non-adjacency, have been studied.
Download Coloring Football Animated GIF Images. Coloring Football belongs in Coloring Folder. There are a total of 40 Images. Click on any of Coloring Football Image to open and download it. | https://freegifimg.com/coloring/coloring-football |
Introduction: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disorder, impacting 55 million people worldwide. With rates on the rise, research is continually being conducted to find potential causes, that are leading to its growing prevalence. There is growing evidence showing a bidirectional relationship between sleep and AD, where poor sleep contributes to the development of AD, and conversely, AD pathology impairs patients’ sleep quality and quantity.
Methods: A narrative review was conducted in a systematic fashion using the databases PubMed, Embase and the Cochrane Library. After performing a literature search, high-quality relevant sources are selected, and important data is extracted and analyzed to explore the relationship between AD and lack of sleep.
Results: A bi-directional relationship was suggested based off evidence which was gathered from longitudinal studies and cross-sectional studies. As well as experimental studies which was focused on the mechanisms of AD, including Tau protein aggregation and beta-amyloid accumulation.
Discussion: Results showed that there could be a potential bi-directional relationship when discussing AD and sleep. In AD, metabolic waste known as beta-amyloid creates neurotoxic plaques which form in the spaces between the neurons. Studies suggest that Aβ has an important role to play in sleep as increased sleep disturbances are present with Aβ accumulation. Conversely, after losing one night of sleep there is an increase in beta-amyloid, highlighting the role of sleep in metabolite clearance. Another AD protein associated with sleep is Tau. Poor sleep is associated with clumping of Tau, forming toxic tangles inside neurons which injure tissues nearby and contributes to cognitive impairment. However, it still difficult to conclude the directionality of sleep and AD due to limitations on the current technologies used to detect amyloid-beta and Tau.
Conclusion: This narrative review concludes that a bi-directional relationship may be present between sleep abnormalities and AD. Management of poor sleep quality should be further considered as a potential prophylactic intervention against AD.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. | https://www.urncst.com/index.php/urncst/article/view/334 |
A growing patchwork of domestic and international data privacy bills are being rapidly bolstered and enacted Recent data privacy scandals have sharply focused the attention and regulators and lawmakers on big data, ad tech and direct marketing. In response, a …..
The post Recent data privacy legislation and the operational impact on digital marketers appeared first on Smart Insights. | https://seoland.in/recent-data-privacy-legislation-and-the-operational-impact-on-digital-marketers/ |
In our data-driven society, personal data are increasingly being collected and processed by sizeable and international companies. While data protection laws and privacy technologies attempt to limit the impact of data breaches and privacy scandals, they rely on individuals having a detailed understanding of the available recourse, resulting in the responsibilisation of data protection. To better protect individual autonomy over personal data, we posit that a data protection-focused data commons framework can be developed to encourage co-creating data protection solutions, rebalancing power between data subjects and controllers. Conducting interviews with commons experts, we aim to better understand how data protection were considered in existing commons and how privacy principles can be better applied. Incorporating trust, multidisciplinary knowledge, and public participation, a data protection-focused data commons can represent a community network of norms and values, enabling the protection of personal data by considering data protection for the common good. | https://zenodo.org/record/3965670 |
Accreditation is a process under which the services and operations of an educational institution or program are evaluated by an external body (accrediting agency) to determine if applicable standards (set by the accrediting agency) are being met. If the standards are met, accredited status is granted by the accrediting agency. In the United States, this process is independent of the government and is performed by private organizations.
Accredited public schools must adhere to the criteria set by the state in which they operate, however, accreditation is still granted by private accrediting agencies.
Is accreditation required? Should I seek accreditation?
Accreditation is not required in order to complete a home study program. Additionally, accreditation is not required for admission into colleges, universities, and technical schools. Accreditation is also not required for eligibility for Georgia’s HOPE/Zell Miller Scholarships or HOPE/Zell Miller Grants.
Individuals in favor of accreditation say it simplifies the transcript and college admissions process for the homeschool parent. Individuals not in favor of accreditation say it is more costly and limits you to whatever is offered or approved by the program. Accreditation is a personal choice for each homeschool family.
What are the accredited options for homeschoolers?
Most accredited options for homeschoolers are offered at the high school level by independent organizations. Enrollment requirements, policies, and costs vary depending on the program.
Who accredits homeschool programs in Georgia?
Here are some common accreditation agencies. This list is intended as a guideline and may not be exhaustive.
State-Level Accreditation (may or may not be recognized outside of Georgia):
GAC - Georgia Accrediting Commission
Regional Accreditation: | https://ghea.org/accreditation/ |
Mixed concrete and symbolic execution is an important technique for finding and understanding software bugs, including security-relevant ones. However, existing symbolic execution techniques are limited to examining one execution path at a time, in which symbolic variables reflect only direct data dependencies. We introduce loop-extended symbolic execution, a generalization that broadens the coverage of symbolic results in programs with loops. It introduces symbolic variables for the number of times each loop executes, and links these with features of a known input grammar such as variable-length or repeating fields. This allows the symbolic constraints to cover a class of paths that includes different numbers of loop iterations, expressing loop-dependent program values in terms of properties of the input.
By performing more reasoning symbolically, instead of by undirected exploration, applications of loop-extended symbolic execution can achieve better results and/or require fewer program executions. To demonstrate our technique, we apply it to the problem of discovering and diagnosing buffer-overflow vulnerabilities in software given only in binary form. Our tool finds vulnerabilities in both a standard benchmark suite and 3 real-world applications, after generating only a handful of candidate inputs, and also diagnoses general vulnerability conditions.
Our Modified Benchmarks: We separated the input generation code in each benchmark. All benchmarks now take inputs through files. We compiled and tested the benchmarks on an emulated system running Redhat 7.3.
Loop-Extended Symbolic Execution on Binary Programs. | http://bitblaze.cs.berkeley.edu/lese.html |
Welcome to a series of articles focused on Informatics in Clinical Trial execution; each article contains 500 words or fewer on the topic of choice (not including the précis and the rambling footnotes).
Précis
When a clinical trial is underway, patients are given drugs or placebos by doctors (we call them “investigators” in a trial) for a period of time. The patients visit the investigator’s office (a site) periodically where they are examined to measure their general health, to ensure that they are not having any adverse reactions to the drug, and to see if the drug is effective. The investigator enters this information into a clinical trial management system. In order to support the investigators and ensure that they are getting the data entered in a timely and accurate fashion, “monitors” are sent out to visit the sites. These monitors (frequently called CRAs) will periodically visit each site to ensure that the team are performing their duties correctly.
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Risk Based Monitoring Fundamentals
In a trial that is not using RBM, the monitor will visit every site at the same fixed interval (e.g. every 10 weeks) and will effectively perform the same tasks at each site, including verifying the accuracy of 100% of the data entered (this is a called "100% Source Data Verification" or SDV). In this conventional model, the best performing site in a trial gets the same level of attention as every other site, including the worst.
RBM assesses the potential risk areas at the start of the trial and then uses ongoing risk assessments to monitor the performance of individual sites. This means that during the execution of a trial we know which sites are performing well against the specific risk indications. We can then target the monitors’ attention not just on those sites but on specific areas of concern within each site.
Specifically, the key changes that you see in a RBM trial are:
All of these steps are shown to improve trial outcomes; specifically the industry reports reductions in critical findings, lower management spending, and significant reductions in missing data.
Notes:
In order to illustrate how this might look in real life, the screenshot below is from Covance’s RBM solution showing data from a real trial. In the first column all sites have a standard intervention level. Over time some sites move to higher levels of intervention and others move to lower levels. The key takeaway is that by the end of the trial we have been able to identify those sites that require very little care and feeding so the monitors can focus their efforts on those few that are still not performing at the right level.
A note on the name RBM. In a highly regulated and risk-averse world like the clinical trials business, the word “risk” invokes a visceral response. Using it without being clear that we are negating, avoiding, obliterating, or otherwise dealing with the negative effects of risk seems foolish. I am thinking that names like Common-sense-based Monitoring, Don’t-waste-time-over-there-based Monitoring, Vulcan Monitoring, may have actually improved the uptake of this excellent application of technology and process. | https://www.memorableurl.com/2016/08/risk-based-monitoring.html |
In this op-ed, Hilary Pennington discusses the promise of higher education, and the role of scholarships in combating inequality.
Education has long been called the "great equalizer" in helping families and individuals attain the American dream. But it's become increasingly harder to ignore deepening inequality within our higher education system.
Due to a variety of factors—the rising cost of college, cuts to government funding and limited or subpar early education opportunities for many, especially children of color—the makeup of colleges and universities today is becoming richer, whiter and more privileged. This trend reinforces and perpetuates widening inequality in our society, our economy, and our politics as university graduates increasingly earn more and have more opportunities than their non-degree counterparts.
Simply put, higher education is both a reflection of and contributor to the growing chasm between the rich and poor, whites and blacks, English-speakers and non-English speakers, and so on. | https://www.fordfoundation.org/the-latest/in-the-headlines/scholarships-are-important-tools-for-combating-inequality/ |
If your vehicle is stolenIf your vehicle is stolen, you should change the codes of any non-rolling code device that has been programmed into HomeLink®. Consult the Owner’s Manual of each device or call the manufacturer ...
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Diagnosis Procedure 1. PERFORM INITIALIZATION PROCEDURE Perform initialization procedure. Refer to PWC-190, "ADDITIONAL SERVICE WHEN REPLACING CONTROL UNIT : Special Repair Requirement". Is the inspection result normal? YES >> GO TO 2 NO >> Repair or replace the ma ... | http://www.nialtima.com/pre_driving_checks_and_adjustments-105.html |
On July 27 2021, CTDO Next members co-designed the structure and process of their first hybrid meeting, CTDO Next at ATD 2021.
On June 29 2021, Sae Schatz, Director of the ADL Initiative, discussed how the Department of Defense is building a future learning ecosystem to transform talent development with personalized and point-of-need education and training.
On April 23, 2019, CTDO Next members learned about the LEADx tool Amanda, a virtual coach that combines behavioral science, AI, and expert content to democratize access to coaching resources in organizations.
On March 25 2021, Lou Tedrick, VP of Global Learning and Development at Verizon, and Derek Belch, CEO of immersive learning solution provider Strivr, shared how the use of virtual reality has helped to drive Verizons learning strategy.
During the February 2019 virtual meeting, CTDO Next members discussed the role and responsibility of talent development in an organizations adoption of technology.
In the past few years, ATD has explored the role of learning management systems, e-learning authoring and delivery platforms, social learning tools, and virtual classroom platforms in separate research studies. A learning technology ecosystem was defined as the tools and platforms an organization uses to create, deliver, manage, and analyze its learning content.
Virtual Classrooms: Leveraging Technology for Impact highlights how organizations design, develop, deliver, and support virtual classroom training. Based on a survey of talent development professionals, the report provides data-driven insights for helping talent development leaders optimize their approach for driving learning transfer before, during, and after virtual classroom training.
Help employees achieve digital fluency by understanding their working styles related to tech. Digital fluency is not about understanding how to use technologyit is all about understanding the latest digital tools what value they add to the way individuals work and interpreting, creating, and strategically using digital information.
On June 15, 2020, during a CTDO Next working session, members consulted one of their own about how to create a framework to maximize virtual learning.
For talent development, this is no different.The fields of artificial intelligence and talent development have been on a collision course for decades, and their convergence has already occurred. On the horizon, AI-powered innovations are transforming the workplace and the role of the talent development professional, affecting recruiting to training to compensation.
Your Groundbreaking Framework for Measurement and Reporting Most people find measurement, analytics, and reporting dauntingand LD professionals are no different. Measurement Demystified: Creating Your LD Measurement, Analytics, and Reporting Strategy is a much-needed and welcomed resource that breaks new ground with a framework to simplify the discussion of measurement, analytics, and reporting as it relates to LD and talent development practitioners.
Video for Learning: Engaging, Reaching, and Influencing examines organizations use of video in talent development programs, comparing the practices of high performing organizations to other organizations. It explores how organizations use videos in their learning programs, how they make videos accessible to learners, how they develop videos, and whether they incorporate animation and interactivity into their learning videos.
Corporate universities and in-person training are taking the backseat to digital learning options. According to Corporate University Xchange, the value proposition of the corporate university rests both in what it helps a company avoid (prevent a gap) and in what it addresses due to subpar performance (fill a gap), as well as in building on that which currently is in place (building on strength).
As companies integrate more digital technologies, theyre also expanding the ways employees learn. According to data from McKinsey, even before the pandemic, 92 percent of companies thought their business models would need to change to respond to digitization.
Effective technology decision making must be a top priority for TD executives. Along with commonly used HR information systems, human capital management systems, and learning management systems, there are many areas where innovation is enhancing HR and talent developments value to the enterprise.
Or, were so certain that a learning technology is needed that we take the If we build it, they will come approach. In those scenarios, while we may implement the learning technology, that effort can be hit or miss in terms of the long-term value to the business and our learners.
Track short sims to better understand your learners. Those that use short simsquick, engaging, learning to do online learning contentget better metrics than those that use traditional content alone or full games.
Know the challenges before you blindly conduct virtual and augmented reality training programs. Many times, when these and other technologies emerge as popular terms, we, as talent development professionals, are quick to react, whether out of excitement of something new or out of fear of being left behind.
Evolving Technology for Human PerformanceATDs 2020 Trends in Learning Technology collects insights about the latest emerging tech and trends that are transforming the talent development profession from top experts. No matter your role in talent development or the makeup of your organization, it is critical to regularly review new technologies and trends and evaluate if and how they fit into your organization.
Talent development should champion fairness, transparency, and accountability in AIs use. AI is helping us to personalize and enhance everything in our lives, from the clothing we buy to the tools we use to learn. | https://ctdo360.td.org/ctdo-360/search?topic=Technology%20Application |
Decline of Empire: Parallels Between the U.S. and Rome, Part IV
Now to gratify the Druids among you.
Soil exhaustion, deforestation, and pollution—which abetted plagues—were problems for Rome. As was lead poisoning, in that the metal was widely used for eating and drinking utensils and for cookware. None of these things could bring down the house, but neither did they improve the situation. They might be equated today with fast food, antibiotics in the food chain, and industrial pollutants. Is the U.S. agricultural base unstable because it relies on gigantic monocultures of bioengineered grains that in turn rely on heavy inputs of chemicals, pesticides, and mined fertilizers? It’s true that production per acre has gone up steeply because of these things, but that’s despite the general decrease in depth of topsoil, destruction of native worms and bacteria, and growing pesticide resistance of weeds.
Perhaps even more important, the aquifers needed for irrigation are being depleted. But these things have all been necessary to maintain the U.S. balance of trade, keep food prices down, and feed the expanding world population. It may turn out, however, to have been a bad trade-off.
I’m a technophile, but there are some reasons to believe we may have serious problems ahead. Global warming, incidentally, isn’t one of them. One of the reasons for the rise of Rome—and the contemporaneous Han in China—may be that the climate cyclically warmed considerably up to the 3rd century, then got much cooler. Which also correlates with the invasions by northern barbarians.
Economy
Economic issues were a major factor in the collapse of Rome, one that Gibbon hardly considered. It’s certainly a factor greatly underrated by historians generally, who usually have no understanding of economics at all. Inflation, taxation, and regulation made production increasingly difficult as the empire grew, just as in the U.S. Romans wanted to leave the country, much as many Americans do today.
I earlier gave you a quote from Priscus. Next is Salvian, circa 440:
But what else can these wretched people wish for, they who suffer the incessant and continuous destruction of public tax levies. To them there is always imminent a heavy and relentless proscription. They desert their homes, lest they be tortured in their very homes. They seek exile, lest they suffer torture. The enemy is more lenient to them than the tax collectors. This is proved by this very fact, that they flee to the enemy in order to avoid the full force of the heavy tax levy.
Therefore, in the districts taken over by the barbarians, there is one desire among all the Romans, that they should never again find it necessary to pass under Roman jurisdiction. In those regions, it is the one and general prayer of the Roman people that they be allowed to carry on the life they lead with the barbarians.
One of the most disturbing things about this statement is that it shows the tax collectors were most rapacious at a time when the Empire had almost ceased to exist. My belief is that economic factors were paramount in the decline of Rome, just as they are with the U.S. The state made production harder and more expensive, it limited economic mobility, and the state-engineered inflation made saving pointless.
This brings us to another obvious parallel: the currency. The similarities between the inflation in Rome versus the U.S. are striking and well known. In the U.S., the currency was basically quite stable from the country’s founding until 1913, with the creation of the Federal Reserve. Since then, the currency has lost over 95% of its value, and the trend is accelerating. In the case of Rome, the denarius was stable until the Principate. Thereafter it lost value at an accelerating rate until reaching essentially zero by the middle of the 3rd century, coincidental with the Empire’s near collapse.
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What’s actually more interesting is to compare the images on the coinage of Rome and the U.S. Until the victory of Julius Caesar in 46 BCE (a turning point in Rome’s history), the likeness of a politician never appeared on the coinage. All earlier coins were graced with a representation of an honored concept, a god, an athletic image, or the like. After Caesar, a coin’s obverse always showed the head of the emperor.
It’s been the same in the U.S. The first coin with the image of a president was the Lincoln penny in 1909, which replaced the Indian Head penny; the Jefferson nickel replaced the Buffalo nickel in 1938; the Roosevelt dime replaced the Mercury dime in 1946; the Washington quarter replaced the Liberty quarter in 1932; and the Franklin half-dollar replaced the Liberty half in 1948, which was in turn replaced by the Kennedy half in 1964. The deification of political figures is a disturbing trend the Romans would have recognized.
When Constantine installed Christianity as the state religion, conditions worsened for the economy, and not just because a class of priests now had to be supported from taxes. With its attitude of waiting for heaven and belief that this world is just a test, it encouraged Romans to hold material things in low regard and essentially despise money.
Today’s Christianity no longer does that, of course. But it’s being replaced by new secular religions that do.
Editor's Note: Most people have no idea what really happens when a government goes out of control, let alone how to prepare…
We think everyone should own some physical gold. Gold is the ultimate form of wealth insurance. It’s preserved wealth through every kind of crisis imaginable. It will preserve wealth during the next crisis, too.
But if you want to be truly “crisis-proof” there's more to do…
How will you protect yourself in the event of a crisis? Doug Casey and his team just-released PDF guide Surviving and Thriving During an Economic Collapse will show you exactly how. Click here to download the PDF now.
Editor’s Note: After 40 years, Doug Casey is doing something for the first time ever…
He’s decided to step forward… and share the Gold Method he’s used to personally make millions of dollars.
For example, Doug made an 86,900% gain on Paladin, a 5,000% gain on Bre-X, and a 6,000% gain on Diamond Fields, among other rare gains.
“I’ve made so much money with this method, I can’t even remember the exact numbers anymore,” he says in this urgent new briefing.
Normally, Doug hates publicity.
Over the years, Regis Philbin… Maury Povich… and Merv Griffin have all tried and failed to get Doug to talk about his method.
Even Time magazine… Forbes… and The Washington Post have tried to get Doug to talk about his unique way of choosing small-cap gold stocks.
But right now – because of the ongoing gold mania – Doug has finally agreed to open up in public and walk you through the full method, here.
In fact, he’s sharing a first-ever BUY LIST, showing you exactly which gold stocks you should buy right now… beginning with a 60-cent stock we urge you to consider before the share price takes off.
Keep in mind: Doug takes his method very seriously.
This year alone – he’s invested over $1 million of his money into gold stocks using the method he’s sharing today.
All the details are in Doug's new video, which you can watch by clicking here.
Tags: economic collapse, rome, | https://internationalman.com/articles/decline-of-empire-parallels-between-the-us-and-rome-part-iv/ |
In this complimentary 2020 Audit and Assurance Year-End Update. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn and take part in discussions on various topics, including assessing and improving your financial function, FASB 2020 update, the CARES Act and PPP, and occupational and financial reporting fraud.
At the end of this session, you will be able to:
- Identify key symptoms of a faltering finance function
- Identify ways you might approach assessing your organization’s finance function
- Recognize how a finance department assessment approach has helped other organizations increase efficiency and effectiveness
- Identify new accounting standards effective for 2020/2021 financial reporting and future periods
- Recognize the accounting standard updates applicable to your organization and evaluate the impact of the changes and comparability with other businesses
- CARES Act and Human Resources Impact — Discuss the most recent Treasury and IRS updates and discuss how these impact the HR department of the business
- PPP — Identify where we are today and the impact to our financial statements
- Identify the three areas of the fraud triangle and how to apply them to your internal control environment
- Identify various types of fraud schemes
- Recognize how to develop action items to create or enhance fraud prevention in your organization
Who should attend
This session is designed for controllers, CFOs, accountants, and executive and finance leaders of small and mid-sized organizations, including those who are going through periods of growth or change, adapting to COVID-19 created circumstances, or looking for ways to enhance their finance and accounting functions for the future.
Speakers:
- Deanna Conte, BizOps Chief Financial Officer
- Dustin Wehman, Manager
- Kelsey Vatsaas, Principal
- Jocie Dye, Manager
- Scott Hess, Principal
Schedule
CARES Act and PPP
CARES Act—Human Resources Impact
This session will focus on Treasury and IRS updates as the updates relate to human resources and payroll issues within The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) and The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. We will also touch upon the IRS Forms 941, 941-SS and 941-X.
PPP – Where are we today and the impact to our financial statements?
This session will focus on what we know in regards to forgiveness and what we may still not know. There will be emphasis on the latest authoritative PPP guidance for loan forgiveness as well as guidance from the AICPA on the accounting for forgivable PPP loans.
FASB 2020 Update
The FASB issues a number of new accounting standards every year with varying timeframes for implementation and effectiveness, covering a variety of topics. In this session, we will cover accounting standards issued in recent years which are effective for 2019 and 2020 financial reporting, learn which standards apply to different types of organizations, and discuss how to implement the changes, including any new applicable disclosure requirements.
Strengthening the Core: Assessing and Improving your Financial Function
Having a strong and healthy finance function is important to every effective organization or businesses. But there are many challenges that can weaken our finance function at its core — turnover in key positions, too few internal controls, doubtful data, too many time-consuming manual processes, having your best thinking depend on complicated Excel schedules, and finding it impossible to get financial statements done on time. Do any of these sound familiar? These pain points are often symptoms of deeper challenges within an organization’s finance function. In this case study-based session, learn about a holistic approach you can take to assess the processes, controls, systems, and structure that your finance function uses to operate, and how to develop a road map to get you from today’s challenges to the high-performing finance function of your future.
Occupational and Financial Reporting Fraud
The fraud triangle and its history will be reviewed to help participant’s enhance their internal controls through application of the fraud triangle. Participants will learn many of the types of fraud schemes that exists as well as actions that can be taken to mitigate these risks. The session will cover the latest statistics from the ACFE’s Report to the Nations, which will provide participants with perspective on fraud and its results. Recent developments and new fraud schemes in the COVID-19 environment will also be explored. | https://www.claconnect.com/events/2020/pittsburgh-2020-audit-and-assurance-year-end-update |
The Department of Agriculture has expanded markets and distribution channels for pork imported under the Minimum Access Volume (MAV) Plus scheme to plug the considerable pork supply shortage all over the country.
Memorandum Circular No. 23, issued on Oct. 25 and signed by Agriculture Secretary William Dar, allows distribution of pork MAV Plus “outside of the National Capital Region (NCR) Plus (Metro Manila, Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna, and Cavite) to areas with relatively high prices of pork meat.”
In addition, it expands the distribution channels, allowing the sale of pork to processors and institutional buyers.
The circular said pork MAV Plus has had “very low utilization” as a result of “very strict market restrictions and distribution, thereby defeating the objectives of Executive Order (EO) No. 133, series of 2021 which are to address the supply gap in pork meat, provide consumers with adequate and affordable meat, and to lower inflation.”
EO 133 signed by President Rodrigo Duterte in May increased the MAV allocation for pork imports in 2021 to 254,210 MT from the previous 54,210 MT to address low pork inventories and rising prices due to the outbreak of the African Swine Fever. MAV refers to the volume of quantity of a specific agricultural commodity that may be imported with a lower tariff.
National Meat Inspection Service Memorandum Order No. 07-2021-286, which implemented the MAV Plus scheme under EO 133, restricted the sale of imported pork in wet markets, KADIWA centers and supermarkets to NCR Plus.
“Global problems of transport and movement of imported goods due to the pandemic” have “affected arrival of 70% or 140,000 metric tons of pork for July to October, from the usual 30-40 days after-shipment transit time, it has extended to 120 days. Hence, the arrival of the remaining 30% or 60,000 MT on January 2022 or the end of MAV year 2021 has to be fast-tracked,” MC 23 said.
Despite the expanded pork imports, inflation rate in many areas was still higher than the national inflation rate of 4.2% from January to August 2021, the circular noted.
The circular was slammed by the Philippine Association of Meat Processors, Inc. (PAMPI). In a statement, it said the circular “is an exercise in futility and will not address the unabated high prices of pork.”
While government jacked up volume of pork imports and cut tariffs, it did not address constraints on selling imported pork, which enters the country in frozen form: the lack of freezers in wet markets, PAMPI said.
“Stall owners in wet markets do not have freezers. They barely have enough capital to pay for daily deliveries of fresh pork. So how can they sell imported pork even if they are priced cheaper?” the association pointed out.
“On the other hand, importers and traders who fell for the reduced tariff incentive cannot move their imported pork to the wet markets. As a result, imported pork products are tied up in cold storage,” it added.
This dovetails with an earlier statement from the Cold Chain Association of the Philippines, which said its members’ facilities have high occupancy rates due to meat imports stuck at its cold stores.
READ: Meat imports, holiday season lift cold storage sector
A newspaper report also quoted Pork Producers Federation of the Philippines Inc. president Rolando Tambago as saying the DA circular is both anti-local producers and anti consumers since it will in the end translate to low local supply and the subsequent higher retail prices.
He questioned the expanded market and distribution channels ordered by the circular, saying there is no shortage of pork in those areas. He said Visayas and Mindanao are even experiencing a pork surplus, with their pork producers even sending a supply to Luzon. | https://www.portcalls.com/da-expands-market-distribution-pork-imports/ |
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